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 cincydooley wrote:
And all of those things you listed, combined, don't scratch the balls of the $$ that GW brings in with it's primary two product lines.

It costs money for them to maintain those lines. More money, apparently, they they made from the lines.

Pretty simple cost-benefit situation.

I'm not sure I believe that it would cost more money to maintain those games than they would make. It might make less money than you want it to or would be significant compared to your other projects, but I doubt it'd be less than it costs to actually maintain it.

The cost of maintaining a game is small compared to the cost of maintaining the infrastructure to support and distribute that game at the level GW do is what costs a lot of money, and adding an extra game isn't going to change that much.

 cincydooley wrote:
It's really simple: GW decided the resources they were spending on FTE were better spent allocated to 40k/WHFB. That's almost assuredly driven by a cost-benefit analysis. If Blood Bowl/Mordheim/Etc carried their weight in $$, they'd still be making them. The fact that they're not should tell you everything you need to know.

This argument relies on the assumption that GW made the correct decision, which is far from guaranteed. They probably did a cost/benefit analysis, but did they do a good job with it and come to the correct conclusion? For example, did they consider the benefits of the niche-market games in their current (at the time) state after years of neglect, or did they consider the full potential that those games could reach if GW bothered to try? Did they have a pessimistic opinion of their future potential because the games had an inherent lack of room to grow out of their niche, or because the incompetent morons writing GW's rules had no hope of accomplishing anything more difficult than milking the cash cows of WHFB and 40k?

 cincydooley wrote:
And all of those things you listed, combined, don't scratch the balls of the $$ that GW brings in with it's primary two product lines.

It costs money for them to maintain those lines. More money, apparently, they they made from the lines.

Pretty simple cost-benefit situation.

I find it interesting that the period where GW grew ever more focused on its 'core' games (even though Epic was once a core game) is also the period where its fortunes declined. Correlation doesn't equal causation of course but I wouldn't be surprised if the 2 are not connected.

A more narrow focus will inevitably stifle creativity which is, for me at least, one of the real symptoms of the malaise currently gripping GW.

There is evidently a market for small scale skirmish games, a market where GW was once dominant I might add, but GW has turned it back on this entirely after a long period of allowing is own skirmish games to stagnate due to a complete lack of support. That market is now absolutely thriving, as can be seen from the sheer variety of successful games that in some areas now completely eclipse GW's own games entirely. GW is not seeing a single penny of this growth.

In fact all of the former 'Specialist games' now have successful analogues that are produced by other companies.

The same is also true for Warhammer Historicals. The neglect and final closure of WH has seen the creation of Warlord games and the Battlegroup series (and undoubtedly others).

Yes specialist games made a lot less money than 40K, not unsurprising given the disdain that GW apparently held for them and ridiculous prices, no one with any sense is going to be spending £12 for 12 6mm infantry. The type of game that GW found so problematic quite obviously make a lot of money for other companies, money that GW sorely needs.

Gw was in a commanding position of near complete dominiance over much of the wargaming market, even with historicals. It has allowed that position to slip away voluntarily, mostly because they were so intent on chasing apparently easy money they simply couldn't see where their path was leading them.

 cincydooley wrote:
Really well articulated post, Yodhrin. I'm just not entirely sure where the Specialist games fit into that for GW, if they do at all.

Specialist Games with their low buy-ins generated a lot of Mooks, many of whom eventually became today's Vets and Whales. Current buy-in costs for 40K and Fantasy are not generating much in the way of Mooks, which leads to less Vets and Whales in the future.

T

I'd like to know GW wouldn't be making any money on a game like Epic 40k for instance, when games exactly along those lines are the sole source of profit of existing companies like Hawk and Spartan, and GW has already spent the money decades ago that those companies had to do to even start up, let alone thrive. GW would simply be coasting on previous successes that have already been as big and profitable as Dropzone Commander and Dystopian Wars.

For example: all the money Spartan is spending on the Firestorm revamp, when GW could simply put out yet more castings of the molds/designs that already exist for Battlefleet Gothic. Their expensiture would be purely on materials going into the castings. Though I'd hate to see GW's obvious screwup when they would try to make BFG ships from Finecast.

I noticed GW's putting out some necromunda fiction on BL. and they had blood bowl stuff up earlier. I wonder if these are intended to be trial ballons. if people want those games I'd advise em to buy the books. if only to register intreast

 cincydooley wrote:
Really well articulated post, Yodhrin. I'm just not entirely sure where the Specialist games fit into that for GW, if they do at all.

I mean, I'd say GW has a pretty well established "Vets" player base, many of whom are also "Whales." I think the "Mooks" base is exactly who they're targeting with all the shovelware; if they can get 1 out of every 10 that tries a piece of shovelware to purchase something from their "actual" product lines, I'd argue that the license was worth it. Again, I think the "shovelware" is merely another entry point into their brand, and as such doesn't really need to be much more than that. And for them, it's a far easier entry point than maintaining a specialist line.

Specialist Games, I'd argue, play into the "maximise entries, minimise exits" part of the "whole system" approach.

I can only speak for my own anecdotal experiences and make inferences from the wider market, of course, but doing so leads me to believe they were very useful to GW in that regard. For myself, at one point I tired of Fantasy completely which was the only GW product I bought at the time, but I was drawn into the GorkaMorka release and fell in love with both the system and Orks, which led me into collecting a small Ork army for 40K, which in turn occupied me long enough for GW to release Mordheim, which drew me back into the Fantasy IP, etc etc. When the Specialist Games were all active and supported, or at least extant and available to buy, once GW had you hooked in on the actual IP there was never any reason to leave again, since no matter how tired you became of one specific game system there was always another one there to allow you to interact with the IP in a different way, and in enough different ways that the odds were you would become re-interested in a previously played system again long before you ran out of options. I'd argue that the Specialist Games were perhaps the main reason GW maintained such a substantial and stable core of Vets for so long despite all the other problems which arose over time.

While shovelware can bring in Mooks, it won't result in a high enough ratio of Mook-to-Vet conversion over the medium to long term to keep the Vet population stable, which in turn leads to a decline in both Mook recruitment and Whale retention. SG's can't fix all of GW's problems, but their creation and support are indicative of the mindset GW should really be adopting across the board if they want to be viable in the long term, rather than running desperately from kneejerk release to cost-cutting measure to kneejerk release in hopes of momentarily halting their declining revenue.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I'd like to know GW wouldn't be making any money on a game like Epic 40k for instance, when games exactly along those lines are the sole source of profit of existing companies like Hawk and Spartan, and GW has already spent the money decades ago that those companies had to do to even start up, let alone thrive. GW would simply be coasting on previous successes that have already been as big and profitable as Dropzone Commander and Dystopian Wars.

For example: all the money Spartan is spending on the Firestorm revamp, when GW could simply put out yet more castings of the molds/designs that already exist for Battlefleet Gothic. Their expensiture would be purely on materials going into the castings. Though I'd hate to see GW's obvious screwup when they would try to make BFG ships from Finecast.

It's not that they don't make money, it's that they don't make enough money to make it worth their wild. Like I explained in my post before, they make millions in profits. Sure they can do a specialist game and bring in lets say 50,000 more profit in a year but how much work do they need to do to make that 50k? That is time they can spend on a golf course instead. However, two guys in a garage 50K is a lot so they will put that time and money in.

GW's biggest issue is that they could be making more money than they do, not that they don't make money as it is. Either they don't see the big picture and realize they could be bigger than they are or they don't give a flip because they are happy with the money they are already making.

We wrote:
However, two guys in a garage 50K is a lot so they will put that time and money in.

Privateer Press is making slightly more than £50k, even new comers like Hawk seem to be doing very well.

Its an old and pretty inaccurate argument that Specialist games didn't make enough money for them to be viable. As I have said the explosion in the popularity of competitors 'Specialist games' is excellent evidence that not only did GW squander the position that they had but also that they simply didn't understand what they did have.

Keeping BFG, Necromunda and all the rest alive would not and will not cost a lot of money. They could easily have been outsourced to Forgeworld, or the living rulebook format that was trialed before the whole thing was sunk could have been retained alongside occasional physical releases.

The more level headed denziens of GW towers must surely look at the current wargaming market and wonder what could have been.

We wrote:
It's not that they don't make money, it's that they don't make enough money to make it worth their wild. Like I explained in my post before, they make millions in profits. Sure they can do a specialist game and bring in lets say 50,000 more profit in a year but how much work do they need to do to make that 50k? That is time they can spend on a golf course instead. However, two guys in a garage 50K is a lot so they will put that time and money in.

They could hire a junior for 25,000 to run them, or outsource/license them out to someone else.

The main point is not how much money GW could have made, it's more how much market share they could have controlled. Since GW dropped the SG, competitors have popped up and are positively booming in each of those niche-within-niches. If BloodBowl still existed, Dreadball likely wouldn't. If Epic still existed, DZC likely wouldn't, and so on. It'd also reduce the cost of entry and bring more more in either directly or indirectly.

Unfortunately GW has shown themselves to be incapable of looking at indirect benefits - if it doesn't put maximum money in the register right now, they don't care. Good will, customer retention, competition and the network effects are alien to them.

 cincydooley wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
[

Also, there has been shovelware for Star Wars? Where? Genuine question since all that I'm aware for Star Wars are games from pretty big name companies.

The shovelware clash of clans clone was the first to come to mind.

Second was the 'card game'.

Also, Tiny Death Star.

From a hobby viewpoint the Specialist games helped round-out their IP.

Battlefleet gothic for space/system combat, possible invasion force level.
Epic 40k covered large scale combat of huge land battleships and low atmosphere aircraft.
Apocolypse covers the more pivot-point large battles.
40k for generic larger squad based combat.
Inquisitor / Necromunda more gang / single squad combat.

You could play a series of games from invasion to the pivotal final battle.
I do wonder if GW decided to go the route of Kickstarters if it would help them decide what "off-shoot" game is most wanted.

Oh, they definitely can go further into their IP.
"Final Liberation" gave me a taste for the big story of 40k, it was terribly fun at the time (LONG time ago):

Also the turn based "Chaos Gate"

Dawn of war took it to that next level with all the add-ons.

Good stories with a long sweeping game help get customers into the IP just as well as all that gaming reading material.

 Talizvar wrote:

"Final Liberation" gave me a taste for the big story of 40k, it was terribly fun at the time (LONG time ago)

I disagree, Final Liberation is still excellent fun even today

Of course it helped having surprisingly not bad FMV cut scenes.

Aren't you glad GW dropped their SG. now you have all these other great games to play. I would never want to go back 10-15 years ago when GW dominated the market in TT games

I still wonder that if/when the LOTR stuff runs it's course, you won't see a return of some of the specialist games. Also if Dreadfleet hadn't flopped like a Magikarp on fire, they may of reupped BFG at least.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
I still wonder that if/when the LOTR stuff runs it's course, you won't see a return of some of the specialist games. Also if Dreadfleet hadn't flopped like a Magikarp on fire, they may of reupped BFG at least.

Highly unlikely in their old form - since all mention is gone.

Limited and splash releases are probably the order of the order of the day. BloodBowl has been rumored over the last few years but probably sits behind Plastic Thunderhawk and SoB in the wish list category.

I Sometimes look at the gw removing specialist games and sort of agreeing albeit my reasons are probably different.

At some point in the last decade console and pc gaming became massively mainstream. To the point where you don't have to think twice about mentioning that you play video games. Some how for some reason tt games haven't managed to make that leap yet
I remember how impressive dawn of war was when released and looking back it made me realise something.

The big bucks may not be in video games, but that's where a lot of the customers are. Especially the you gems. Back in the day video games where not nearly as accessible as today and tt games were. Gw may have realised this and decided to narrow down to just 40k whfb and lotr and license of the rest to video game developers.

The brain melted childeren of today may not have the imagination to play tt games (extreme generalising) but when a video game does all the visual imagining for you with a small one off cost (compared to 40k for example) that's what seems to draw them all in. I don't know how much gw make from licensed games but I bet its a butt load. The only reason they don't port the remaining tt stuff over is because its still a constant stream of revenue. You have to spend at least £100 to have anything worth playing with. With constant rule updates and model updates you have to spend these ludicrous.sums again. Although the same can be applied to a video game it would be a tiny fraction of the money. £50 for a game where U have access to all armies. You can change lists at the click of a button instead of spending more money and time assembling new stuff.

CUrrently its still profitable for them to make models but will there come a time where our hobby phases out in favour of the video game? I only bring this up after playing the upcoming mordheim game which is shaping up well. I don't know if my point comes across well as im on my phone but someone might get what im saying and elaborate.

Imagine if instead of re releasing bfg. They made a video game? Homeworld has a remastered version out and I think how amazing it would be if there was a similar bfg version.

Johnson & The Juice Crew wrote:
Back in the day video games where not nearly as accessible as today and tt games were.

That's just not true. I played my very first GW computer game on an Amstrad CPC in the late 80s which was sufficiently easy for a 9 year old to get it working and if my parents could afford it it wasn't expensive. In fact I played my first GW computer game before my first tabletop game and that was 27 or so years ago.

Tabletop games and computer games have always attracted the same kinds of people and to a large degree they will remain distinct as they provide different things. licensing computer games is a sensible move given that it is essentially free money, even if there is a real risk of weakening their IP, but there is still a lot of scope for making physical games.

There is a BFG game in development.

I think it comes back to the (lack of) marketing department. Back in the day when there were no specialist games, gw released epic 40k and gorkamorka, which from memory weren't the most popular and didn't do so well. Especially epic 40k, i had loved the previous versions and played 2 games with the new one before i sold my armies. Having released products that weren't what the customers wanted, they decided that customers were no longer interested in those lines at all, and relegated them to the 'specialist' lines.

The thing is, if they did proper marketing, they might have released games that were wanted by the customers, which might have avoided the whole situation in the first place.

Add in to that,their fear of 'cannibalization of sales' from their 'main' lines, and what happened was kind of inevitable. The theory being that if they removed their surplus lines, the customers of those lines would have to move to the main lines (instead of, you know, just dropping out as customers entirely). Now we're at the point where fantasy is 'cannibalizing' sales from 40k, and i think we can see where that is going to go.

Having a marketing department might have helped with these things.

Ehh, the Specialists Games were just a fad, like DnD and Pokemon. I mean, who remembers them?

 Accolade wrote:
Ehh, the Specialists Games were just a fad, like DnD and Pokemon. I mean, who remembers them?

And that Interwebs thing?

Totally overblown.

The Auld Grump

And noone will ever want to do the work to keep such games alive without official support.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
And noone will ever want to do the work to keep such games alive without official support.

If by 'no-one' you mean 'no GW fanboys', you could be right.

I hear the North Down Wargames Club is having an Epic revival. Must go and see how much official support they receive.

 Vermis wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
And noone will ever want to do the work to keep such games alive without official support.

If by 'no-one' you mean 'no GW fanboys', you could be right.

I hear the North Down Wargames Club is having an Epic revival. Must go and see how much official support they receive.

Ah yes, and of course by "GW fanboys" you mean "anyone who doesn't agree with Vermis about how to play games and happens to be discussing GW at the time".

I'd love to play Epic, do you know where I can get a Space Marine army and some Titans without taking out a second mortgage to pick one up on ebay? It doesn't have to be GW models, but it does have to look like Space Marines with Titans. I know, I know, I'm an antiquated GW-mindslave and I should attend the Great People's Leader Vermis Wargaming Reeducation Facility so I can learn that I should just shut up and play everything from WW2 to sci-fantasy with a mixture of Army Men, paper tokens, thirty year old Ral Partha lead Orcs, and any random models in the right scale, but dagnabbit I just seem to have this crazy preference for using models that fit the aesthetic of the IP I'm playing

Calm down, have some dip.

Yodhrin: if you're waiting for GW to deliver Epic nirvana then you're gak out of luck. Enjoy standing in a corner and sulking.

Epic gaming might not need GW but Epic gaming also doesn't need you. (or, strange as it may seem, me) Not if you're just gonna sit there, constantly moan about how it can't be done, and not play it. It can get by without that.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I'd like to know GW wouldn't be making any money on a game like Epic 40k for instance, when games exactly along those lines are the sole source of profit of existing companies like Hawk and Spartan, and GW has already spent the money decades ago that those companies had to do to even start up, let alone thrive. GW would simply be coasting on previous successes that have already been as big and profitable as Dropzone Commander and Dystopian Wars.

For example: all the money Spartan is spending on the Firestorm revamp, when GW could simply put out yet more castings of the molds/designs that already exist for Battlefleet Gothic. Their expensiture would be purely on materials going into the castings. Though I'd hate to see GW's obvious screwup when they would try to make BFG ships from Finecast.

I think people mistake "not making as much money as 40k" as "not making money", forgetting that the reason GW's profits are in decline isn't because the *games* are expensive it's because the massive infrastructure of running an international company with hundreds of stores, in house manufacturing, a huge distribution system and all that jazz is expensive.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I'd like to know GW wouldn't be making any money on a game like Epic 40k for instance, when games exactly along those lines are the sole source of profit of existing companies like Hawk and Spartan, and GW has already spent the money decades ago that those companies had to do to even start up, let alone thrive. GW would simply be coasting on previous successes that have already been as big and profitable as Dropzone Commander and Dystopian Wars.

For example: all the money Spartan is spending on the Firestorm revamp, when GW could simply put out yet more castings of the molds/designs that already exist for Battlefleet Gothic. Their expensiture would be purely on materials going into the castings. Though I'd hate to see GW's obvious screwup when they would try to make BFG ships from Finecast.

I think people mistake "not making as much money as 40k" as "not making money", forgetting that the reason GW's profits are in decline isn't because the *games* are expensive it's because the massive infrastructure of running an international company with hundreds of stores, in house manufacturing, a huge distribution system and all that jazz is expensive.

Actually, those are the reasons why GW has such a low final profit margin on a product that has 72% profitability.

GW's profits are in decline because their games suck and their business practices are atrocious, causing them to loose customers by the bucket load.

 Vermis wrote:
Yodhrin: if you're waiting for GW to deliver Epic nirvana then you're gak out of luck. Enjoy standing in a corner and sulking.

Epic gaming might not need GW but Epic gaming also doesn't need you. (or, strange as it may seem, me) Not if you're just gonna sit there, constantly moan about how it can't be done, and not play it. It can get by without that.

What you don't seem to be capable of reaching down and grasping from up on your high horse is that I know that and so does everyone else, I'm just sick and tired of seeing you in every single thread like this posting exactly the same things, implying anyone who has any kind of standards is "sulking" or is a "GWombie". I don't play Epic because I can't get the army I want for the system, that's my choice, but it's a choice people wouldn't have to make if GW would have continued to support the system - and since third parties have yet to produce what I'm interested in, oh look, contrary to your constant narrative, you can in fact have a reason for wanting a product to continue to be supported by the company that is entirely rational.

 Yodhrin wrote:

I'd love to play Epic, do you know where I can get a Space Marine army and some Titans without taking out a second mortgage to pick one up on ebay?

The Titans are one thing but I got most a Chapter for about £40 on ebay, most of the tacticals were the old Space Marines Space Marines (heh) but I also got a load of Termies, Assault marines, Dreadnaughts and other odds and ends as well. Tyranids or Squats are another matter entirely.

There are even some Epic tournaments still around (there is one in May at the UK Games Expo for example).

I agree with you in general but I think that the appeal of 'Specialist Games' is well demonstrated by how they have survived, to an extent at least, despite being officially dead for nearly a decade.

This morning I found a group that actively plays Epic and they are only about 300 meters from my new house