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 oldzoggy wrote:

 vipoid wrote:


I mean, despite numerous cost-cutting methods and significant price-hikes across the board, their revenue has been declining for years. That really doesn't sound like the mark of a company that's in touch with what its customers want.

It isn't about what makes you happy, you might not even be their primary target group. It is about what makes the biggest sales and profits, not what makes games happy. I have no data for it ( and I would love to get my hads on it if I could) but it might just be that impulse sales or sales of models that will never be used on the table are actually a major part if not the largest part of their sales in contrast to what the majority of the vocal on-line community seems to believe.

That's exactly why you need narket research. To find out WHY people buy your products. Raw numbers are only half the story and a half truth can be worse than a lie.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
How many new games did GW publish between 2001 and 2010?

Several? I know their Lord of the Rings game came out during that period, and BFG was released around the same time. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.

Assassins and killteam(?)

 koooaei wrote:
Assassins and killteam(?)

Neither of which came out between 2001 and 2010, as KK asked.

Dreadfleet?

Okay, of the games mentioned, the publication dates are:

1999: BFG
2001: LoTR
2007: Space Hulk 3rd edition
2011: Dread Fleet
2015: Assassinorum

So basically GW produced one new game between 2001 and 2010.

How much new 40K stuff (rules) did they produce in the same time period? New editions don't count.

I can't help but think that a couple of people in this thread are caught up on the idea that market research only means looking at what people buy and what they would buy. That's only a small part of it.

For example I'm sitting here in Australia where GW is dying a quick death. Now GW knows our sales data and can see we are buying less and less, but what they can't see is if we are buying less models in general or if we are in a golden age of model wargaming, spending more than ever before and just not buying GW.

GW don't know how many potential customers they have here, they don't know what prices we can bear before we stop buying, they don't know what kinds of products we are wanting.


Honestly, look at Age of Sigma.
Look at the reaction that received from the fans and how poorly it is selling.
Now tell me GW do sufficient market research when they invested heavily in a product no one wanted.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Okay, of the games mentioned, the publication dates are:

1999: BFG
2001: LoTR
2007: Space Hulk 3rd edition
2011: Dread Fleet
2015: Assassinorum

So basically GW produced one new game between 2001 and 2010.

How much new 40K stuff (rules) did they produce in the same time period? New editions don't count.

From the top of my head I think they had Tau, Necrons (They had stuff before but their first codex was 2002), Eye of Terror (for sure), some new Sisters stuff (and yes this counts considering how rare it is), Grey Knights came out around that time... I'm sure I'm missing a ton too D:

GW does not care about you. So stop giving them money.

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Okay, of the games mentioned, the publication dates are:

1999: BFG
2001: LoTR
2007: Space Hulk 3rd edition
2011: Dread Fleet
2015: Assassinorum

So basically GW produced one new game between 2001 and 2010.

How much new 40K stuff (rules) did they produce in the same time period? New editions don't count.

From the top of my head I think they had Tau, Necrons (They had stuff before but their first codex was 2002), Eye of Terror (for sure), some new Sisters stuff (and yes this counts considering how rare it is), Grey Knights came out around that time... I'm sure I'm missing a ton too D:

I mean actual new games or rules expansions like Apocalypse, Cities of Death, and Planetstrike, not new units. It's so easy to make a new unit that it doesn't count as 'real work'. A new codex is just a collection of unchanged, updated, and a few new, units, unless it's a brand new faction like Tau in 2001 -- there! I found one!!

1999: BFG
2001: LoTR, Tau.
2007: Space Hulk 3rd edition
2011: Dread Fleet
2015: Assassinorum


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Filch wrote:
GW does not care about you. So stop giving them money.

That's what I did. I was not alone, according to the annual sales result.

Adding a faction is nothing like a new game..

 Kilkrazy wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Bartali wrote:
He’s been very competent in pushing his vision of 40K out to the world.

And his "vision" is one of almost unbelievable incompetence. You could write an entire book on the way that Jervis fails to grasp incredibly basic concepts of game design and, through either stupidity and/or sheer narcissism, proudly declares that he has found the One True Way To Play Games. He's a small child smearing the contents of his diaper all over the walls and saying "look mommy, I made a picture".

Come on now, I don't really believe this. JJ is oldschool, his roots are likely in the old historical wargaming societies of yore. In those circles, even today, you don't really have points or organization charts, you talk with your opponent to set up a "narrative" if you aren't refighting a particular battle from history, and you have a good time and discuss the finer points of history while doing so. It's clear that's the "vision" that JJ has for 40k. To be perfectly honest... it sounds like a good concept. I play(ed) Warmachine, which is much more balanced and competitive, yet games feel very mechanical and lackluster, and the fluff almost never comes into it. Part of why I wanted to dabble in 40k again is because the background is very rich (silly in some cases such as with Wulf McWolf the Wolf Lord riding a Thunderwolf with the Wolf Talisman et all) but the background is intriguing. The problem is that 40k sucks eggs when it comes to pick-up games, and not everyone has a gaming club/good friends that they can "fix" rules issues with and decide amongst themselves that we won't bring FW titans to play except in really big points and even then only when it fits, etc.

JJ's vision isn't necessarily wrong, per se, because that's how most historical gaming works. The thing is that 40k is trying to be more commercialized than that, and fails because of those design points.

I disagree with this. As an old-timer historicals player, my experience is that narrative scenarios are part of the fun but certainly not the majority. Straight up competitive battles using points, campaigns, and recreation of historical scenarios are equally popular.

There is no one right way to play wargames. There is room for all these approaches with the right set of rules. What is certain is that you can play narrative games using tight competition rules, but you can't play tight competition games using 'narrative' rules.

GW ought to appeal to the widest spectrum of players to maximise sales of the one game.

It perhaps should be mentioned that Rick Priestley and Alessio Calvatore are involved in another Nottingham company (Warlord) which is doing historicals with rulesets that works for both tournament and narrative play, and appear to be doing quite well.
Personally, I'm on the verge of going all in on Bolt Action as it appears to capture that mix of competitive/narrative that 40K used to do

 jonolikespie wrote:
Adding a faction is nothing like a new game..

Well that kind of a depends what the faction gets. If the faction gets a new codex that just stright up ignores most of the basic rules, then we get a new game.
Every new eldar codex does something like that. Wood elfs could do it for sometime in WFB, where everyone was playing WFB, but they played w40k.

Makumba wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Adding a faction is nothing like a new game..

Well that kind of a depends what the faction gets. If the faction gets a new codex that just stright up ignores most of the basic rules, then we get a new game.
Every new eldar codex does something like that. Wood elfs could do it for sometime in WFB, where everyone was playing WFB, but they played w40k.

Adding a faction is nothing like creating an entirely new game. Even factions like Tau, who play very differently from the other factions in many ways, is a somewhat small subset of rules when compared to another game's primary rulebook, providing the fluff is cut out.
Perhaps the faction in question is playing a slightly different game, but they are still using the same to hit chart, to wound chart, leadership, movement rules, etc etc. Exceptions or bonuses are just grafted onto the rules, somewhat akin to how orks treat a looted tank.

Wood elves played a different game, but they still used the fantasy rules and no one who played was completely thrown by how they operated. They just had an army made up mostly of skirmishers and archers, with only a few units being blocks of models (glade guard and cavarly I think?). They still used the standard FoC, standard point cost model, standard lores (in addition to their own, which wasn't very good in most editions), used d6's, had armor values or invul saves, same USRs and unit types with few exceptions (some archers had a +1 to AP or str if they were close...can't remember which).
Skaven also played a different game, since the cowards could become the toughest to move troops in the game. So did dwarves, since they had no magic unless an artifact is taken and use different rules to dispel and create weapons. So did VC, since they were fearless and crumbled if the leader died, and lost models from leadership instead of fleeing. So did Daemons (daemons were probably the most different, tbh). High elves, with their ASF, did as well. Ogres were all multi wound models all the time.
The point is, most of the armies were very different from each other. A few, empire, lizzies, dark elves, were less different or exotic but still had many unique models that made them different.

Eldar still make sense to other players, even if they appear to be broken in many ways. When I read 36" str 6 ap 6 heavy 4 on a jetbike, as a Tau player or marine player I understand how they work. I don't need to learn a new system.
Compare this to necromunda, where many of the rules are dramatically different despite the game seeming similar. Armor, to hit in regards to cover, targeting, and other rules are very different.


Compare Fantasy to 40k and we see larger differences than exist in any one codex. They have static combat bonuses in fantasy which 40k does not, many weapons roll a d6 for wounds caused, magic used to be different (not as much anymore), movement rules and how to build a unit used to be different, charges work very differently, they have different USRs, the models have different unit types with different rules...the games are incredibly different. Maybe some edition changes have been similar in scope (2nd to 3rd?) but most have not. Certainly no codex or faction has been equal to that in size and scope.
Keep in mind this is 8th edition and earlier. AoS is very different from 40k, but it's so unpopular I don't want to bring it into the discussion.

If we compare WMH and 40k or Fantasy it gets even worse. They share very little in common rules wise. The 2d6 model alone, having defense values, focus/fury, and the stats being on a 1-20 scale instead of 1-10 means a 40k player can't pick up a WMH game easily. If anything they have a harder time, since they have to unlearn many habits that work in 40k but don't translate well.

Adding a faction is nothing like creating an entirely new game.

I don't know, maybe I am missing something but 7th pre decurion style armies and post decurion style armies seems like 2 games. Before necron, people claimed that 7th is going to be streamlined with weaker codex being the norm, with lower power curve armies. Then necron came and 7th was suddenly about how many hundreds of points in free rules can you get for your army.

Wood elves played a different game, but they still used the fantasy rules and no one who played was completely thrown by how they operated.

Maybe I remember a different version of Wood elfs, but they were not using fantasy rules at all. Everyone else had blocks of troops, but they played with skirmish units only with characters and eagls , deployed a ton of extra wood durning deployment and later added extra ones. It was impossible to get a charge off against them, and some armies couldn't even get them in to their charge arc. And if somehow one did they would flee and charging unit would either fail charge or end up in a wood, sometimes both things. Compering to that skaven just have extra and different rules, all armies have those or at least should, as sometimes GW does make a marines without the cool stuff codex like BA or DA in the past.

Makumba wrote:

Adding a faction is nothing like creating an entirely new game.

I don't know, maybe I am missing something but 7th pre decurion style armies and post decurion style armies seems like 2 games. Before necron, people claimed that 7th is going to be streamlined with weaker codex being the norm, with lower power curve armies. Then necron came and 7th was suddenly about how many hundreds of points in free rules can you get for your army.

But the game was still the same in terms of rules.
Decurion grants +1 RP. Nobody who has played against necrons doesn't understand what this does or how it works, and very few are going to be confused on why it is so powerful. It's powerful and changes the meta, but it's not something completely alien that requires research to understand.

If I said something in fantasy gave you +2 CR, a 40k player would not understand what that meant. What is Cr? Is it good? Is +2 powerful, how many points is it worth? Is it army dependent or is it always going to be worth its points?
Or if something always grants heavy cover. 40k, that would be a 4+ or 3+ cover save, but in fantasy, it would be (arguably) better and confer a strong penalty to hit.
In WMH, if I said something causes blind, you would think you know what it meant, since 40k has blind, but in WMH blind is dramatically different and you'd severely underestimate how powerful it is.
Because they are different games, with different rulesets.

Makumba wrote:

Maybe I remember a different version of Wood elfs, but they were not using fantasy rules at all. Everyone else had blocks of troops, but they played with skirmish units only with characters and eagls , deployed a ton of extra wood durning deployment and later added extra ones. It was impossible to get a charge off against them, and some armies couldn't even get them in to their charge arc. And if somehow one did they would flee and charging unit would either fail charge or end up in a wood, sometimes both things. Compering to that skaven just have extra and different rules, all armies have those or at least should, as sometimes GW does make a marines without the cool stuff codex like BA or DA in the past.

You said it yourself, they used skirmisher rules with flying monster backup. They referred to rules in the game to play. How is their playstyle so different from undeads or demons, or ogres?
VC had army wide undead, wood elf have army wide skirmish.
Ogres had army wide multi-wound models, daemons had army wide invuls.
Dark elves had army wide hatred, high elves had army wide ASF.

Wood elves also had blocks of troops, and you really had to take at least 1 if you ever wanted to win any combat ever. It wasn't a ton of extra wood unless you took their lore, which was bad and easy to stop. Wood elves weren't a power caster force. Empire could cast better than them, an army like lizzies would just destroy them magically.

Most armies had 1 army wide special rule, this was not unique to wood elves. Someone playing against wood elves was not confused about how the skirmisher rules worked...most armies had at least 1 unit that had the rule after all.
Wood elves weren't even a strong army for most of their life time. They lacked killing power and could be shoot at with heavy weapons that ignored to hit rolls, and many armies had fast moving units that could catch them. Guns would eventually do the job since they were so weak defensively.

Skaven, meanwhile, would easily field 200 troops that were leadership 9 and had other special rules on top of it. They could FIRE INTO THEIR OWN TROOPS and have heroes lead from the back. Skaven were a dramatically different force from the rest of the game, and were also a much stronger army than wood elves.

A skink heavy lizard man force actually acted very similar to a wood elf army, outside of terrain placement. Skinks could skirmish and had 2 shot blow darts, and would flee. One of the campigian books that came out created an all skink force that was better at being wood elves than the wood elves were, since poison was so good and they were a lot cheaper.


Regardless, an army having the skirmisher special rule army wide is not as different as an entirely new rule set. Case in point, the skirmisher USR doesn't exist in 40k or WMH, and is considered the standard model of play. The block movement and hero placement would completely throw 40k and WMH players, while even a wood elf player would understand it.

New games or fundamentally new rules sets in the period:

Battlefleet Gothic - 1999
Mordheim - 1999
Inquisitor - 2001
Lord Of The Rings - 2001
Epic: Armageddon - 2003
Aeronautica Imperialis - 2007
War Of The Ring - 2009
Space Hulk - 2009

versus for 40k:

Warhammer 40,000 Battle For Macragge - 2004
Warhammer 40,000 Cities Of Death - 2006
Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse - 2007
Warhammer 40,000 Assault On Black Reach - 2008
Warhammer 40,000 Planetstrike - 2009

(plus faction codices)

(also note there's a couple of editions of WHFB in there - Skull Pass definitely falls inside the 1999-2009 bracket)

Since 2010, the only new games have been dreadfleet and execution force - the 'new edition' of space hulk is essentially a reprint - and The Hobbit - which has a large enough new model range and enough 'tweaks' to the rules to justify calling it at least a new edition, even if I'd question calling it a 'new game'.

Think of forums like wow forums. Everyone enjoying playing is busy modeling and playing. Every butt hurt cry baby is on the forum announcing their quiting

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
Think of forums like wow forums. Everyone enjoying playing is busy modeling and playing. Every butt hurt cry baby is on the forum announcing their quiting

As a WoW player, I disagree to a small extent. There's a lot more complaining/criticism at 40k (relatively speaking, in size I imagine WoW would have more) from players. In WoW you have people cry that they got beaten in PVP by X class (usually Rogue or Mage) but it's more or less a "heat of the moment" type of anger, especially in regards to the common complaints of PVP, not getting a piece of loot or not being able to down a boss.

GW/40k gets a lot more frequent, more common and longer-lasting hatred over what they do. It's not uncommon, for example, to have people who used to play 40k years ago repeatedly say how they want to play but GW is ruining the game (I am/was one of them!), you usually don't see someone who quit WoW in Wrath come around frequently to say that Blizzard is garbage and WoW is terrible (the occasional troll, maybe, but not often) while you frequently see veterans who used to play 40k during 3rd-5th edition keep tabs on the game/company and chime in to say how terrible 7th edition has become.

This is far beyond "butt hurt cry baby" and I feel it's a little dismissive and insulting to refer to people who dislike GW in that tone.

WayneTheGame wrote:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
Think of forums like wow forums. Everyone enjoying playing is busy modeling and playing. Every butt hurt cry baby is on the forum announcing their quiting

As a WoW player, I disagree to a small extent. There's a lot more complaining/criticism at 40k (relatively speaking, in size I imagine WoW would have more) from players. In WoW you have people cry that they got beaten in PVP by X class (usually Rogue or Mage) but it's more or less a "heat of the moment" type of anger, especially in regards to the common complaints of PVP, not getting a piece of loot or not being able to down a boss.

GW/40k gets a lot more frequent, more common and longer-lasting hatred over what they do. It's not uncommon, for example, to have people who used to play 40k years ago repeatedly say how they want to play but GW is ruining the game (I am/was one of them!), you usually don't see someone who quit WoW in Wrath come around frequently to say that Blizzard is garbage and WoW is terrible (the occasional troll, maybe, but not often) while you frequently see veterans who used to play 40k during 3rd-5th edition keep tabs on the game/company and chime in to say how terrible 7th edition has become.

This is far beyond "butt hurt cry baby" and I feel it's a little dismissive and insulting to refer to people who dislike GW in that tone.

If anything it shows that there's a whole bunch of people circling, waiting for GW to sort out 40K so they can dive back in again. I know i'm one of them.

Bartali wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
Think of forums like wow forums. Everyone enjoying playing is busy modeling and playing. Every butt hurt cry baby is on the forum announcing their quiting

As a WoW player, I disagree to a small extent. There's a lot more complaining/criticism at 40k (relatively speaking, in size I imagine WoW would have more) from players. In WoW you have people cry that they got beaten in PVP by X class (usually Rogue or Mage) but it's more or less a "heat of the moment" type of anger, especially in regards to the common complaints of PVP, not getting a piece of loot or not being able to down a boss.

GW/40k gets a lot more frequent, more common and longer-lasting hatred over what they do. It's not uncommon, for example, to have people who used to play 40k years ago repeatedly say how they want to play but GW is ruining the game (I am/was one of them!), you usually don't see someone who quit WoW in Wrath come around frequently to say that Blizzard is garbage and WoW is terrible (the occasional troll, maybe, but not often) while you frequently see veterans who used to play 40k during 3rd-5th edition keep tabs on the game/company and chime in to say how terrible 7th edition has become.

This is far beyond "butt hurt cry baby" and I feel it's a little dismissive and insulting to refer to people who dislike GW in that tone.

If anything it shows that there's a whole bunch of people circling, waiting for GW to sort out 40K so they can dive back in again. I know i'm one of them.

So am I, although I still am torn between really wanting to play and not. I don't know. I don't get the right feeling out of Warmachine, but I'm not sure if 40k can scratch that itch due to not wanting to drop hundreds just to get started again.

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
Think of forums like wow forums. Everyone enjoying playing is busy modeling and playing. Every butt hurt cry baby is on the forum announcing their quiting

Or people only play a wargame once or twice a week maybe? If you're playing a computer game, you're using a computer for something other than posting on a forum, war gamers have plenty of time between games, or even between coats, to post online without impinging on their gaming time at all.

But sure, every person who ever posted anything critical online is just a butt hurt crybaby.

feths sake.

Now that you mention it, I can play around 20 Starcraft matches in the time of a single 40K game where I will likely be trashed due to no fault of my own.

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
Think of forums like wow forums. Everyone enjoying playing is busy modeling and playing. Every butt hurt cry baby is on the forum announcing their quiting

Do you feel better now?

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
Think of forums like wow forums. Everyone enjoying playing is busy modeling and playing. Every butt hurt cry baby is on the forum announcing their quiting

Rather a leap of logic there.
Forums are typically for talking about the shared experience.
Unfortunately the shared experience lately is 40k is not working all that well.
So like others who chimed-in, I wait, I paint, I look on occasion to see if GW will get around to being serious about the rules.
No drama required.
Now when you call some forum users "butt hurt cry babies", well I guess that feels like a safe statement with under 30 posts.
BTW "butt hurt":

Talizvar, you've clearly never sat down on one of these before


(Not mine, just found it in the dakka gallery)

 Xca|iber wrote:
Talizvar, you've clearly never sat down on one of these before


(Not mine, just found it in the dakka gallery)

It may be Khorne, but the image you described....

Um, yeah, I do play CSM among other armies but I like some spikes with my Landraider and not the other way around.
How do you move that thing around without getting punctured?

40k is a shadow of what it once was.
It is still an awfully big IP: tons of books, a few good console/pc games, a long history of games in that universe and a massive catalogue of models.
I will probably be playing a version of Necromunda with many of the various faction models like how Inquisitor was intended.
FFG is slowly getting quite large on the Star Wars IP with Armada and X-wing as are other competitive product.
To put a positive spin on things, I hope against hope that they will get serious about improving the rules, that is why parts of the collection are not getting sold off.

Is dismissing criticism as "you're all haterz" on dakka bingo?

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
Is dismissing criticism as "you're al haterz" on dakka bingo?

If it was it'd be the center free square, it's that common.