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I've seen SO many threads, articles, videos, etc about how GW does things WRONG... I'd like to see a compiled list of things that people think GW is doing wrong, just to see what kind of problems are causing the most amounts of rage and displeasure for its player basis.

So if you've got ideas about what GW is doing wrong and what it should do instead... please share! And please be considerate and don't put down a page of rage about how that one wargear for that one faction is overpowered. How about.... comment on how GW doesn't really seem to care about in-game balancing with examples?

So many good ideas have been recommended many times on these pages, but as long as the current management is in place, these recommendations will fall on deaf ears, because it is clearly our fault and not GW, we are the ones that do not buy (not enough) product.

They are at least making steps in the right direction, even if they don't execute them well or seem to understand why they work.

The first step they need to do is hire some gamers, or even trying to play their own games. Everyone involved in design/management should at least understand how the game works and interact with gamers (I'll let the admin, IT and cleaning staff off though).

If I was a CxO at Games Widgets, I'd darn tootin' make sure I understood everything about the Widgets they sell.

The short form:

1) They treat the rules like the silly games you find on the back of cereal boxes instead of something they're asking $50+ for. And then they declare that it's a "beer and pretzels" game (it isn't even close to being one), and act like anyone who cares about the rules is a WAAC TFG who isn't forging enough narratives. They need to fire everyone involved in writing their rules, replace them with competent game designers, and accept that playtesting is part of making a high-quality game, not a few people screwing around on their lunch breaks.

2) They're stuck in a business model from 1990 in the UK and don't understand basic concepts like "it's 2015, use social media" or "nobody in the US cares about your retail chain". And they seem completely oblivious to the fact that their business model isn't working, with idiocy like the proud claim in their financial report that "pokemon is just a long-forgotten fad" (the most recent game at the time made more money in 24 hours than GW made in the entire year). They need to sell the IP to WOTC or some other company that knows how to run a game business in 2015, or at least fire all of their upper management and replace them with people who aren't incompetent morons.

3) They keep milking the cash cow with unimaginative models and countless rulebooks that nobody really wanted. They've managed to transform their line of plastic kits from the envy of the industry to a sad joke with horrible ideas like the Taurox and Wolfy Clause's sleigh that never should have made it out of the concept art stage. They need to slow down the release schedule, spend more time and effort on designing better models, and accept that it's ok to say "this doesn't meet our standards" and scrap a design even if it means spending more money on a new one.

Herzlos wrote:
They are at least making steps in the right direction, even if they don't execute them well or seem to understand why they work.

I'm not sure they are. Because the current direction appears to be to move more and more towards treating their product range as high class collectibles rather than as components for a game.

1. Understand who they're customers are and how to give them what they want.
- Do market research, strategize according to results. Where's the bulk of the revenue coming from? Vets or noobs? Gamers or collectors? Based on their actions they seem to have absolutely no idea.

2. Develop a decent marketing strategy.
- MWG's youtube channel has 160k subscribers and are keeping customers interested and invested in GW's product, why isn't GW itself doing something like this? Facebook is kind of a big deal. So is Twitter. And whatever else the kids are doing nowadays. Also, their website is a joke. It holds no value to vets due to prices, and no value to new/potential customers as it has no content past the shopping basket. Imagine if little Timmy could go there and learn and get excited about the game. Good or bad for business? Also, they should beg Blizzard to make a FB/40k game. You know, like what Blizzard wanted to do before GW turned them down so they made some obscure games called Warcraft and Starcraft instead. Or Rockstar. GTA40k? Yes please.

3. Adapt their retail strategy to fit better with their different sales regions.
- Their North American, Australian, and European retail strategies are dumb. Flat out dumb. Impressively dumb, in fact.

4. Realize, and put into practice, the idea that the best way to sell a product is to make sure that product is as good as possible.
- What the hell is the point of making their rulesets worse? Do they think their products are not susceptible to the network effect? How do they think new customers hear about them in the first place? By accidentally typing www.games-workshop.com in their browsers? Or by stumbling across one of their brilliantly located shops, conveniently situated in some run-down strip mall off a highway, 20 minutes out of town?

5. Stop actively dissuading people from starting the game.
- Why aren't there starter sets for every faction? Seriously. Why? Why aren't there quick-start rules available cheaply? Why are there no tie-in games? It would be easier to recruit a potential customer to Necromunda than to 40k, and it would be easier to convert a Necromunda player into a 40k player than going straight in to the deep end.

Spell check their stuff. No one is perfect but still. English mother er. Do you speak it?!

Better translations.

M.

Better pricing. I am a local government manager, married to a retail manager, we have no kids and we rent an apartment, we have a reasonable amount of disposable income. I cannot afford their toys any more. I can no longer justify to myself how much this stuff costs. The company seems to view raising it's pricing to this level as some form of 'hunger games' of weeding out the unfaithful who won't go without food and other sundries to buy the new plastic. It doesn't gel with the pricing on many other kits. I looked into buying a new marine army at the beginning of the year and totally gave up on the idea.


Better rules. The current situation in 40k is a total mess. I cannot even see which way is up any more. Every damned (highly expensive) codex then requires another codex to make it playable and then you need all the downloads (more money) for all the bells and whistles. There's so much going on in 40k it's entirely prohibitive to new players or players seeking to return. I remember how streamlined it was at the end of 5th, where the only real issue was balance between codices, and just cannot believe how we got to this spaghetti junction of 'everything on the table with hyperdetailed rules'. Wife and I picked up Star Trek Attack Wing the other day, learned the rules within an hour, each game takes another hour or sometimes two, it's so low maintenance in comparison. Whilst I don't think I'd want 40k to mirror that, there must be a happy medium somewhere that can think this lumbering behemoth back down? A 'tournament edition' or something...

Better communication. Seriously, they closed off all avenues of communication via social media, drew themselves further and further behind the 'moat and wall' and only tell us something when they are pushing it as a sale... They have destroyed the sense of community around their 'hobby' and wonder why people walk away from it. GW, you want us to buy whole warhammer armies yet there are rumors circulating that the entire game is to be scrapped for a small scale skirmish replacement... Don't you see an issue in taking over a grand in cash from someone and then pulling the rug from under them a few weeks later?


Honestly it's really odd for me to look at the whole situation with GW, I used to be so into the whole thing, lived and breathed it, then so angry with their decisions and then, I think around the time the new and frankly terrible ork codex came out, something in me changed and I stopped caring much. I can still see a miniature and say 'wow', but then I look at the pricetag and say 'WOW' and put any ideas of returning to the fray out of my mind.

Cannot tell you enough how much I'm loving Attack Wing and how great it is to spend 20 mins picking cards, 10 mins setting up and playing for about an hour then packing the whole thing away in another 10 mins and using the table to eat dinner off.

I'm not going to list all the things or I'll be here all day but the top of the list imo is to simply try to reverse the adversarial relationship they have with their customers. Don't keep them in the dark, don't laugh at them behind closed doors and don't expect them to buy whatever they make just because it says GW on the box.

The prices are bad, the rules are bad and the models are going that way at an alarming rate too but all of that would be so much easier to stomach if GW where the kind of company you liked. I can read No Quarter and watch the PP guys at cons and get the clear impression they make their games for us, because they want them to be something we enjoy and that makes their fans spend money.

Infinity is the same. As is Kings of War and Dystopian Wars. In fact I think GW is the only one on the market that acts like their customers are a burden rather than friends.

You'd think given GW's time and experience in the industry, with the cash flow they have to (theoretically) hire (and retain) the best talent, that at this point in time we'd have one of the best rulesets on the market with damn near perfect codices. The fact that people are still justifying paying for these expensive codices by claiming they're getting better balanced is kind of sad. Even this so called 'better' balance is lacking, and given the price, is well below what any other company offers.

Seven editions later and the game is still flawed. Some codices have gone through 5+ iterations and they still can't figure out the basics like how make Rough Riders not a joke. I can't justify $120+ for a codex and rules that are still inferior to free alternatives, despite having almost two decades of experience and an exponentially greater cash flow to afford top notch talent.

For all the talk about the merits of the new codices, I still feel that given the cost, these codices should be damn near perfect by now. Internally and externally balanced, clear and concise rules that match and drive the fluff, new and exciting artwork, and an excellent layout are what I expect from a book that costs that much.

One thing they do well: HIPS.

The number 1 thing that GW can do better?

Listen.

Listen to playtesters - and make sure that they have plenty of those playtesters.

Listen to their market - do market research, analyze why sales are dropping. If it is the cost of the models, then do something about it!

Listen to their fans - there are people that really like the settings. Listen to what they are saying about those settings - don't tell them to get rid of their fansites.

Listen to their managers - you know who has the most and best information about what is selling at a given B&M store? The managers.

Listen to the gamers - people wanted a new version of Space Hulk; that was good! People didn't want Dread Fleet, not even a little. People would love a new version of BFG... who knows when or if that will ever happen....

Just... Listen, dammit!

The Auld Grump

I'd say it would help if could keep from suing every last party they thought were infringing on their very tenuous claims at copyrighted material (seriously, GW, you don't own Space Marines, they existed at *least* 20 years before you came up with your version), but the CHS case hopefully put such a financial ding into them that they're loathe to get that sort of thing anymore. Unfortunately, GW is now in their paranoid damage control mode from their previous abhorrent actions, and have decided that renaming their factions and cutting out units they've never gotten around to making was the best way to resolve this.

GW need to go look at all of the "Hall of Fame" models they produced over the last 30 years and not only realize but also embrace that their ideas are pulled from a lot of different sources-...no, Mark Wells, your designers don't create everything just "out of their imaginations" as you said in the CHS court case.

Really, what GW can do better is to kill the Yes-Man culture that has been sitting at the top of the company for the last twenty-ish years. This corporate mindset nearly bankrupted Lego and is shown to be rampant in the declining Mattel, and GW is no exception even in its niche. Getting rid of this enormous problem would probably make way for curing all the other maladies that the company is suffering from.

Pick a thing, anything. GW could probably stand to do it better. Unless that this is being terrible. They have a lock on being terrible.

IMHO the main thing they can do better is treat the game as a priority and miniatures as what empowers the game. Pretty figures are one thing, but having a solid and well-supported game is going to get them more success than having a lackluster game with good looking figures.

They should be operating like PP does on a larger scale (because they're a larger company). Instead they're either trying to be a special unique snowflake or just thinking that they don't need to follow normal standards, and it's not working.

The fact that GW alone has this idea that online stores are detrimental and should be stopped from selling their products (or at least make customers jump through hoops) is telling when nobody else has that mindset. PP doesn't restrict third parties from selling their products, neither does Corvus Belli or Mantic or Warlord or anybody other than GW.

They operate in a complete 180 from how they should. Not even admittedly cool looking figures stops the fact the game is really poor.

The ideal GW would interact on social media, have the designers on Twitter, have previews of upcoming models, and engage in the community. Even if they don't officially support tournaments and competitive play, they should be embracing the notion and offering help not basically snubbing tournament players.

If they are trying to set themselves out for some sort of buy-out from a larger company or private equity firm/assset strippers then they are doing everything just fine.

 Blacksails wrote:
You'd think given GW's time and experience in the industry, with the cash flow they have to (theoretically) hire (and retain) the best talent, that at this point in time we'd have one of the best rulesets on the market with damn near perfect codices.

Well, they could do that, or they could just give the game a shake like a tatty old snowglobe every so often, and brainwash their customers into believing that this is how a 'live' game is 'supported', in order to sell it to them all over again.

 Vermis wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
You'd think given GW's time and experience in the industry, with the cash flow they have to (theoretically) hire (and retain) the best talent, that at this point in time we'd have one of the best rulesets on the market with damn near perfect codices.

Well, they could do that, or they could just give the game a shake like a tatty old snowglobe every so often, and brainwash their customers into believing that this is how a 'live' game is 'supported', in order to sell it to them all over again.

Yeah, that works too, I suppose.

I need to check back in to my local GW for my monthly 'adjustment'. I'm thinking too much again.

Through both the company's best times and worst times, GW prices have always been high and their rulesets have always been quirky. And they've always been a bit of an ivory tower. People complained about all that stuff back in 1995 on rec.games.miniatures.warhammer. They're popular and undying gripes, but I don't think they're truly critical issues for GW.

Something GW used to do a lot better and doesn't do much of any more is community support. They don't support FLGSs like they used to, they don't support tournaments like they used to, and they don't even support the gaming communities around their own stores like they used to. Games Days are mostly gone, although those had become more of a sales exercise than a marketing exercise anyway. Outriders are long gone.

Many of their competitors see a value in encouraging people to play and get excited about their games. For whatever reason, GW just doesn't anymore.

Hell, I've said for a while that 6th edition 40K would have been better received by players had there been more of an effort out in front of and during its release to introduce the game and do a little hand-holding regarding HOW to use it. I LIKED 6th and like 7th edition even more, but what GW did was hand its customers a big toolkit without any instructions. Ideally people should figure it out on their own, but it's not an ideal world, and some gamers prefer structure to open-ended, creative rulesets. From what I saw, plenty of customers turned up their noses without even giving the new editions a chance...even though you can easily play a more restrictive game of 6th or 7th if that's what strikes your fancy.

IMO, their old level of community support could have made a difference in easing the transition from 5th to 6th/7th. More support for FLGSs would have meant more people actually giving the game a try. GW stores that you can actually game in would have done the same. Outriders could have provided hand-holding. Tournament support and guidance would have given competitive types some of the structure and direction that they crave. And old-school Games Days might have helped create some excitement about the new edition and future.

It's pretty basic stuff, right? When you introduce a radically different product, you have to really get out there and *support* that release. I think WFB could use a shakeup, but if GW does that and takes the same approach -- namely, putting it up for sale and considering their work done -- I'm not sure that's it's going to move the needle for them.

TL;DR -- GW needs to get back to supporting communities...something they used to do well.

Die off faster so a competent company can get the IP, thus making better video games, gaming products, accessories, and fixing a lot of ill will.

I suppose I would take a complete gutting of any of the "old school" rules staff, stop the merry-go-'round of codex releases and get with the modern era of game design that doesn't relate to selling $50 "fluff" books that happen to have rules.

Appropriately scale the game to size and model count. If I want a bajillion pieces, then make it 14mm. If I want awesome, show piece minis, make it a skirmish game with a 70+ dude army being an innumerable swarm versus "the standard".

Specifically gut the vehicle rules and make it entirely toughness based system or just get rid of d6 mechanics and shift it to what all the other companies use which is stat + roll = meet or beat target which greatly simplifies the math and understanding of game mechanics and would make things like Weapon Skill actually matter.

As a long-time fan for me the biggest thing they can do is leverage their back catalogue better.

OK I accept that the days when they kept (almost) every model and bit in prodcution and available to order are gone for good. But the current system of ignoring their past is not the only way to go. Some things they could do:

1 - A CD-ROM or subscription site with EVERY WD ever, and then similar products with EVERY FANTASY RULEBOOK, EVERY 40K RULE BOOK, EVERY BL ART BOOK, EVERY OOP BL NOVEL... you get the idea. I still flip though old WDs for fun and pick them up when I see them in shops. I love, love, love my realms of chaos books and would love a quality digital version.

(yes I know there illicit options, but let's not go there)

2 - Bring back OOP lines for a limited run. My thought was bring them back as a package deal (less inventory) for a month. So this month they let you order ALL OF THE ESHER minis for oh $150. Then they go back in vault and next month you can get ALL THE RT ADVENTURERS or whatever.

You'd need a good manager to figure what would bring in customers and generate excitement of course or risk falling flat on your face. And you'd need to keep prices, well, sane. But oh boy there are some lines I would gladly thrown down a few hundred bucks for to get them all at once, new and unpainted.

3 - Make EVERY SPRUE available ala cart. Again it would need sane prices but it would do a lot to bring people to the GW site and encourage conversions and kit bashes.

4 - Limited releases of older games ala Space Hulk. A new all-plastic done in one Epic type game (oh let's say SM vs Orks on Armageddon) would sell out in minutes. It could then get sequels (IG ve Chaos for Armageddon 1, Eldar vs Nids on Iyanden etc) and all backwards compatible. Hell do a Horus Heresy one... And of course sprues would be available online to expand your armies.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


3 - Make EVERY SPRUE available ala cart. Again it would need sane prices but it would do a lot to bring people to the GW site and encourage conversions and kit bashes.

Affordable bits would be fantastic. Even though they killed the front facing bits barns, there's still plenty on eBay and I use them for many conversions. They're wasting a golden opportunity to cut out the middle man and make some good money. Just make resin models for certain items (and not Failcast resin) and make batches to order.

I hear ya, though, Blacksails. Other games or rule sets achieve brilliant balance - or at least balance that is a revelation when you come to them from 40K/FB - within a couple of editions. Maybe even on the first try.
When you get used to that it becomes painfully obvious that GW is not in the least bit interested in achieving balance 'cos that has the potential to demolish their 'update' sales. Far better to play 'keep away' with their customers - dangling some killer models, fixes of problems from the last edition/army list, and the possibility of balance as enticements - but introducing a slew of other problems that ensure gamers will soon be clamouring for the fresh false promise of fixes in the next round.

Well, that and the depressing phenomenon of 'keeping up with the Joneses'. From what I read here on Dakka, a lot of GW gamers agree that they'd prefer to stick with one edition when a new one looms large, but they cant seem to agree it with eachother: have to buy the new edition to keep up with the guy next to me! Never mind that the guy next to you could be thinking the same thing.

Then there's guys that can't stick with one edition 'cos they can only get pick up games in a GW store, which will obviously only use the most current set of rules. It's a more sympathetic situation, but if I'm honest sometimes 'if there's no GW store I can't game' sounds like 'if there's no Tesco I'll starve to death'.

So. For things that I think GW can do better, I guess 'lower prices' and 'don't be tools' are a bit too obvious. So I'll say 'write better games'. Balanced, yes. Not shook up for the sake of repositioning flaws and reselling, yes. And also 'more appropriate'...
If you want a mass battle game, make a mass battle game focused on units and their footprints, on combined arms, on tactics, and maybe some more focus on command and control, too. (I bleedin' love C&C in mass battle games. Without it, IMO, it's like a fantasy novel without a map: so much more dull.) Don't make a mass battle game by swelling the model count of your original skirmish/warband game about individual models with individual attacks and individual saves, and so ridiculously dependent on how many individual models you have in the back rank of each unit, and on individual big flashy killy characters.
If you want to focus on the *deep breath* cinematic value of individual flashy powerful characters, make a skirmish game and don't force gamers to buy 100-200+ grunts and wound markers before they can experience it 'properly'. (Properly. Ha.)

If you can't do that, can't sell a game like that, can't support a game like that without relying on constant rewrites that make a Boggle tray look like a work of great literature carved in stone... then, g'bye.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

TheKbob wrote:
I suppose I would take a complete gutting of any of the "old school" rules staff, stop the merry-go-'round of codex releases and get with the modern era of game design that doesn't relate to selling $50 "fluff" books that happen to have rules.

Appropriately scale the game to size and model count. If I want a bajillion pieces, then make it 14mm. If I want awesome, show piece minis, make it a skirmish game with a 70+ dude army being an innumerable swarm versus "the standard".

Aye, that! Beat me to it.

GW is like a bunch of Orks flying a plane. They don't understand how their business is even flying or even how to steer it properly. They don't understand aerodynamic s so the company is so slow that they have yet to release a new Dex for SoB since 2ed. They just keep adding rockets to a huge pile of metal (all the new rules n codec n models) and hope it doesn't explode. Then if they believe hard enough then they can make a profit because they are all latent ork psychers. It's our fault if they crash and burn when we stop giving them our money for books that should have been written on toilet paper so I can tear out a page and wipe my *** with it with the fast release date pushing new editions. The price of the models are unreasonable to justify to people with common sense yet totally agreeable for die-hard fanboys. Because a box of toys should not cost $30. There are other toy models you can build and paint for a fraction of what ever gw charges.

I would not change a thing that gw is doing because I want them to stay on a collision course so I can watch this company go out of business.

 Zaki66 wrote:
I've seen SO many threads, articles, videos, etc about how GW does things WRONG... I'd like to see a compiled list of things that people think GW is doing wrong, just to see what kind of problems are causing the most amounts of rage and displeasure for its player basis.

So if you've got ideas about what GW is doing wrong and what it should do instead... please share! And please be considerate and don't put down a page of rage about how that one wargear for that one faction is overpowered. How about.... comment on how GW doesn't really seem to care about in-game balancing with examples?

Since GW doesn't listen to its player base, I guess you are not working for GW or make a research for GW.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
One thing they do well: HIPS.

But then they often go and ruin that by charging more for a single mono-pose plastic figure than other companies charge for a metal model.

 Peregrine wrote:


And they seem completely oblivious to the fact that their business model isn't working, with idiocy like the proud claim in their financial report that "pokemon is just a long-forgotten fad" (the most recent game at the time made more money in 24 hours than GW made in the entire year).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eknfelhN31E
Oh GW...

Miniatures per box. Why do we only get 10 models for $30 when they're for a Horde army? Bring back 20 guardsmen/Orkz/Gaunts per box while leaving the price be.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Miniatures per box. Why do we only get 10 models for $30 when they're for a Horde army? Bring back 20 guardsmen/Orkz/Gaunts per box while leaving the price be.

Also give all options. If I buy a Tactical Squad, I should get one each of Missile Launcher/Heavy Bolter/Lascannon/etc. so I can build them the way I want. I should get two of each special weapon, because that's the maximum the options allow.

The way they offer some bits, they should change the rules to only allow the options provided in the box. Only offer 5 models in a box? The squad can only be 5 models then. One box = one complete unit should be what they strive for, not one box gives you something but not everything you need to "encourage" you to buy extra.