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 Hollowman wrote:

GW probably has a pretty good idea of how price effects sales, just like any business. They are supporting themselves on a small, specialized and shrinking audience, and they will probably have to keep pricing out the casual gamer; because the casual gamer is not and never again will be interested in Warhammer. In the 90's sure, but not now. You could charge $10 for 10 models and I honestly doubt you would see much of a sales jump; and you would see a massive profit drop. This is about a massive demographic shift in gaming; one that is not going to reverse no matter what GW does. Gamers play computer games, they don't model.

As to rules - GW has always had wonky rules. The other game companies have wonky rules. GW does need to work on these, but it's more because they are catering to a small, specialized audience. Back when it was a beer and pretzels game the wonky rules didn't matter so much. Now it is more of a fine wine and expensive cheeses game; and it needs to reflect that. It's audience is old men who grouse on message boards nowadays, not kids who think spikey models are awesome. They need to come to terms with this change. So do the players.

I dunno - I see plenty kids playing and enjoying 40k. It's not just old men grousing on message boards. Table top wargaming is certainly a niche hobby, but it's not one populated by 'old men' at all. Just like theatre continues to survive and thrive in an era of tv, cinema and dvd, and continues to pick up new fans, both old and young, table top wargaming will do the same. It simply scratches that creative arty itch that computer games don't do- thryre just too impersonal. Plenty parents would and do encourage their kids to be involved with quality and craft based hobbies - it might be old school, but it's certsinly not obselete.

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
No. GW is awesome.

How's the kool-aid?

 Blacksails wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
No. GW is awesome.

How's the kool-aid?

Well, he's 12. So clearly it isn't spiked Kool-Aid.

Yes, I want GW (in its current incarnation) to fail and die, and I want that death to happen quickly before the IP is irreparably tarnished by the company's toxic business practises.

GW may have to fail before it can change.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
No. GW is awesome.

How's the kool-aid?

Well, he's 12. So clearly it isn't spiked Kool-Aid.

Are we referencing Jonestown? Otherwise, I don't understand what "how's the kool-aid" is a reference to.

 Purifier wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
No. GW is awesome.

How's the kool-aid?

Well, he's 12. So clearly it isn't spiked Kool-Aid.

Are we referencing Jonestown? Otherwise, I don't understand what "how's the kool-aid" is a reference to.

Yes. In the current vernacular in the US it is used to denote someone who has unswerving loyalty and blind obedience to an organization, person or ideal.

I just want those that are currently in charge of GW to be sacrificed in an unholy ritual to Khorne.

They created such an awesome hobby but are robbing its players big time. I for one havent bought a single GW model from their store in over 2 years. I will only buy from ebay or such... The pricing is getting out of hand.. And next to that i HATE how they make their codexes now. Ooh yeah lets break the rules and lets see... eldar and Necrons are kicking ass... Lets make em even better! Ohhh orks and dark angels have it rough... lets make em even worse!

In a sence i want them to fail hard... But the hobby itself is awesome enough that i want them to stay

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
I just want those that are currently in charge of GW to be sacrificed in an unholy ritual to Khorne.

They created such an awesome hobby but are robbing its players big time. I for one havent bought a single GW model from their store in over 2 years. I will only buy from ebay or such... The pricing is getting out of hand.. And next to that i HATE how they make their codexes now. Ooh yeah lets break the rules and lets see... eldar and Necrons are kicking ass... Lets make em even better! Ohhh orks and dark angels have it rough... lets make em even worse!

In a sence i want them to fail hard... But the hobby itself is awesome enough that i want them to stay

It's the highlighted belief that allows them to persist. GW are neither the creators nor the perpetrators of any hobby, any more than Sony created music or Disney created movies.

The fact that there are still people who consciously or sub consciously think that GW are somehow the be all and end all of wargaming, rather than just the owners of a popular wargaming IP, and there's probably a goodly number of people who live entirely within the GW eco system and have little to no idea of the wider hobby that has arrested any potential decline thus far.

I don't want GW to fail, never have, never will, but I'd dearly love them to change.

Does the owner of GW have many kids? If he does then there is a good chance that he may want his firm to bring in cash after he goes on a pension.

Makumba wrote:
Does the owner of GW have many kids? If he does then there is a good chance that he may want his firm to bring in cash after he goes on a pension.

It's a publicly traded company so there is no "owner"; Tom Kirby (Board Chairman) does kind of treat the company like his own personal domain though...Since his wife, a former secretary, somehow got the contract to head the development of the 4million pound new website... Nepotism is a wonderful thing.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
I just want those that are currently in charge of GW to be sacrificed in an unholy ritual to Khorne.

They created such an awesome hobby but are robbing its players big time. I for one havent bought a single GW model from their store in over 2 years. I will only buy from ebay or such... The pricing is getting out of hand.. And next to that i HATE how they make their codexes now. Ooh yeah lets break the rules and lets see... eldar and Necrons are kicking ass... Lets make em even better! Ohhh orks and dark angels have it rough... lets make em even worse!

In a sence i want them to fail hard... But the hobby itself is awesome enough that i want them to stay

It's the highlighted belief that allows them to persist. GW are neither the creators nor the perpetrators of any hobby, any more than Sony created music or Disney created movies.

The fact that there are still people who consciously or sub consciously think that GW are somehow the be all and end all of wargaming, rather than just the owners of a popular wargaming IP, and there's probably a goodly number of people who live entirely within the GW eco system and have little to no idea of the wider hobby that has arrested any potential decline thus far.

Indeed, not only did GW not create any hobby, the people who run GW these days basically have nothing to do with any of the things that made/make 40k great. All of their ideas came from concepts created roughly twenty years ago. All the current GW does now is plunder the old concepts and re-hash them. Sure, a lot of their remakes are quite good, but there is not much in the way of novel concepts these days.

Realistically GW needs to lose enough buisness to trigger the investors to force out the current management and get some fresh blood. who hopefully have the slightest idea that they have a game company on their hands and that making rules for a game should be more important than just an afterthought or marketing tool for selling products. Balanced rules sell cool models while broken rules turn off a portion of your customer base from wanting to buy new products.

Except, as has been pointed out in many of these thread's previous incarnations, GW isn't big enough for the investors to care sufficiently to do that.

Outside of Kirby, all significant stakeholders are institutional investors. If GW stops offering them the returns they're looking for they won't 'force out the current management' they'll simply take their cash out and put it in another company that will. We even saw what appeared to be that exact thing when the share price tanked at the beginning of 2014.

 Vankraken wrote:
Realistically GW needs to lose enough buisness to trigger the investors to force out the current management and get some fresh blood. who hopefully have the slightest idea that they have a game company on their hands and that making rules for a game should be more important than just an afterthought or marketing tool for selling products. Balanced rules sell cool models while broken rules turn off a portion of your customer base from wanting to buy new products.

This is true. The difference is that there is a difference between losing enough business to force a change in policy and going completely out of business. Most here want them to go completely out of business while others, myself included only want a positive change.

Lets look at what will happen if they go under. Many think they will sell the IP. I honestly dont think they would. They would take it to their grave only to make $ sueing over it in the future. This means it would not be picked up by anyone else.
If they did sell the ip, it would be sucked dry in a get rich quick and then dumped after being ruined even worse and faster then the current slow decline. Either way is a lose lose situation and I think this is something we can all agree on. The only way to "win" is for them to fix it from within which would have to have a catalyst I feel.

Yes when you look at Alien you'd think it's a gold mine if you treat it right but Alien Isolation is a first great thing that happened for it in years. At least for GW 40k is the main thing, we dont know who might pick it up. Look at dust tactics, Im not following it closely but it seems to be in a halt and it really has potential imo, I love the mechs there and an alien race was supossed to be introduced afair, I gues under FFG it would be in a much better place right now. 40k can meet similar fate to one of those and why risk it? I hate what they do to local shops but it's their product, their right and they will suffer the consequences, similar with all the lawyer crusades, they bullied a few but in the end they lost and paid tons of money in the process. The game is bad and close to a breaking point now probably but again it's their game, their risks and at least it goes forward in some direction (or not heh), also the books while overpriced and being made obsolete much too fast are still good looking with lots of good art and rules that show some kind of effort (ussualy failed but still) to represent the fluff and make it work as a wargame. Ugh it's really exhausting to find words to defend GW, anyway in the end it's not like they poison the oceans, market junk food to kids or sponsor wars and all the crash and burn wishes do appear to me as some kind of nerdrage tbh.

 Toofast wrote:

 rustproof wrote:
These are real people with real mortgages and most moved to Nottingham for the job, so no, I would be gutted and feel a piece of my childhood to be missing.

...that have watched the money in their bank accounts pile up while screwing over their customer base. In the case of a buyout, they could afford to move wherever their job took them. Anyone high enough in the company to move to GW HQ from far away will do fairly well in the case of a large buyout.

So you're saying everyone that works for GW is rolling in riches?

 Azreal13 wrote:
Except, as has been pointed out in many of these thread's previous incarnations, GW isn't big enough for the investors to care sufficiently to do that.

Outside of Kirby, all significant stakeholders are institutional investors. If GW stops offering them the returns they're looking for they won't 'force out the current management' they'll simply take their cash out and put it in another company that will. We even saw what appeared to be that exact thing when the share price tanked at the beginning of 2014.

Exactly, the institutions will just dump their their shares when GW is no longer seen as a profitable investment. Now, it could be possible that someone who does care about GW might then swoop in, buy up the shares, and start taking action like some of those activist investors we hear about in the news. The sad truth is that the shares may simply be bought up by GW itself with the cash they have on hand or by the boardmembers so they can keep cutting themselves nice dividend checks until the well runs dry.

No, I don't. GW has provided me with products that I have enjoyed for a very long time. Starting with the release of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay all those years ago, then branching off into tabletop battles. Prices are a bit steep, and balance often gets out of whack with new releases, but the fact remains that (at least for me) WHFB and 40K are my favorite settings to play in. The setting is very important to me in a game, even more so than rules or balance to some extent because these things I can just correct with the people I play against. As long as they continue to provide me with good models and an interesting backstory I hope they prosper. If I couldn't afford the miniatures or if I were a diehard tournament player perhaps I could understand the frustration of some on these boards, but I just don't have the same perspective.

I desperately want positive change - at least on the rules front and business ethics if nothing else. I can ignore questionable model releases, high prices to a point, but when the rules become such a mess that I no longer want to play the game in spite of a rather respectable collection and love for the setting, and when gak like the Dire Avenger reboxing and 1-click bundles exist purely to scam the customer base? 40k is no longer a good game and a fun hobby with a few irritating aspects, it's a massive source of frustration with a few points in its favour.

And I have absolutely zero confidence in GW changing direction. They've said themselves their interest is in continued revenue (i.e. dividend) generation for as long as possible, and view their customers with such contempt, as stated under oath and through several PR guffaws, they simple don't have the capacity nor interest in actually changing things for the better, even on purely corporate/revenue stream grounds. They're happy with their current level of stagnation and decline, as it works well enough.

Kind of like the Imperium of Man.

To continue this analogy, they are beset on all sides by threats which are individually miniscule, but combined profit from GW's continued stagnation and incompetence, they are stuck in completely outmoded ways of thinking and dogma of a bygone age of design and business practices, and are headed by a clique of individuals so out of touch with proper management they might as well be corpses atop a throne.

So, burn it to the ground.

Besides, as has been seen elsewhere, wargaming is, surprisingly by most metrics, a growing market and increasingly socially acceptable (FFG has done a lot on that front in particular with X-Wing) - companies are increasingly expanding their IP's impact on the video game world and other licensing and there is plenty of money to be had. GW going under or showing enough weakness will tempt no small number of companies, from Hasbro who has already invested heavily into Magic and generated a superb revenue stream and might seek to expand in a similar direction, to smaller actors, such as the recent FFG merger, building upon their own experience with the IP and recognition of its profitability should the price drop low enough.

Smaller brands whither and die, as we're seeing with Dust, but GW is like the city of Rome in 450 CE: its importance and dominance is a shadow of what it once was, but controlling it, in theory, grants dominance to whomever can control it, and its decline inspires many to seek to revitalize it or out-do its accomplishments. There is, however too much rot in the structure itself to be saved as it is, and Rome at least had Flavius Aetius - some people within the dying Empire actually tried to save it rather than ride the sinking ship to the bottom of the ocean while pillaging it down to the rivets.

 Doctadeth wrote:
Long answer short. No. I do not want GW to fail. My opinion is that currently, if GW fell under, it would drag over months, years perhaps, destroying GW's reputation for mini gaming, and perhaps wrecking the game to a point where the IP is irreparable.

Whilst I agree that GW must improve their rules, you do need to remember what GW and White Dwarf passed on. They don't get paid for rules. They get paid for minis. It makes sense to make books and formations that sell minis. But again, its at the expense of the average gamer, and we need to reinforce that to them.

They don't get paid for rules?! I just spent $58 on the eldar codex that cost probably $5 to produce. This time last year, I spent $85 on a rulebook. Oh don't forget the space marine codex ($58) along with the space wolves codex and supplement ($100) and the 6E eldar codex and supplement ($100). I've spent over $400 on rulebooks in less than 18 months for 2 armies. Not to mention the fact that good rules DO sell models. Otherwise privateer press wouldn't be in business. Especially in the early days, nobody was buying those mediocre PP models because they were such fantastic sculpts and so much fun to build/paint. They were buying them because PP makes good rules and they wanted to play the game.

Relapse wrote:

 Toofast wrote:

 rustproof wrote:
These are real people with real mortgages and most moved to Nottingham for the job, so no, I would be gutted and feel a piece of my childhood to be missing.

...that have watched the money in their bank accounts pile up while screwing over their customer base. In the case of a buyout, they could afford to move wherever their job took them. Anyone high enough in the company to move to GW HQ from far away will do fairly well in the case of a large buyout.

So you're saying everyone that works for GW is rolling in riches?

Did you miss the yellow part? Obviously not everyone in the company makes 6 figures. Anyone who moved to Nottingham to take the job is doing pretty well for them self or they wouldn't have been able to afford the move and a mortgage.

Die? No, they're too entertaining. I'm hoping the next financial report preamble from Kirby will go full-on Charlie Sheen.

 Peregrine wrote:
I want them to fail, and the sooner the better. The IP is too valuable to be abandoned completely, and there's really nowhere to go but up from here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Stravo wrote:
What purpose or end for the hobby in general would be positively served by losing GW?

The desired end is GW's IP improving once it is free of GW's poor management. Virtually all of the problems right now are the direct result of GW being hilariously incompetent. The IP itself is still strong, and in the right hands could be a much better game. Since GW and its shareholders show no interest in firing the people responsible for this poor management the only remaining hope is that GW dies and their current management has the IP taken away from them by force.

Perfect first post. Thread didn't even need to be expanded on from here. Well said, GW is literally writing the book on how to ruin a game with almost every update change and decision they make concerning 40k over the last few years. They've done a couple things right in there too, but a million things wrong. At this stage, ANYTHING is an improvement. I'd even rather let a couple of posters from here write the books.

At this point yes, but not out of spite. I want them to fail so they realize that higher prices than everybody else, basically zero community support and the idea that they're selling figures and not a game is the reason for the failure, and then whomever takes it over can take steps to fix that.

The "dream" GW writes and tests good rules, supports the community, prices things reasonably without it feeling like everything from the books to the figures to the paints to the hobby tools are trying to cheat you by offering not as good quality for a high price. The current GW has always been the opposite, just in recent years it's been more pronounced since they decided to essentially drop the illusion of pretending it was anything else.

 SHUPPET wrote:
I'd even rather let a couple of posters from here write the books.

Well, why don't you guys do it, then? Seriously. Nine tenths of the complaints on here are about the rules - would be great if people used the same energy invested in that, and devoted it to setting up new rules and, perhaps, points/codex adjustments.


I don't want GW to fail; better the devil you know.

Want them to fail? Of course not. I 100% support and enjoy their trolling of their fanbase and long may it continue!

Nope. I just want competent FAQs, really.

And my DE SCs back.

When GW fails - they will sell the company to smart people. Said smart people will make good rules. At this point the game has the potential to be fun again.

Fail? No.

Have a 'Road to Damascus' moment, Yes.

 Xenomancers wrote:
When GW fails - they will sell the company to smart people. Said smart people will make good rules. At this point the game has the potential to be fun again.

GW is a publicly owned company, they have absolutely no say in who buys them, it is just a question of funds and desire, and neither of those things is a guarantee of the right kind of smart that 40K needs.