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Reinholt wrote: I will make this brief, as I've spilled enough virtual ink over the years about GW on Warseer:
No.
In fact, I will go so far as to say it's too late for GW now to ever recover to where they were (barring hostile takeover).
When you look at the gaming industry, the key thing to look at is the network effects for the games. The more people who play a game, the more people who will play a game.
So long as GW retained the crown of the game with the most interest and largest player community, GW could continue to stumble along and would have time to sober up, get things right, and move on with their lives.
I stopped saying much about GW in 2014 because I could see that shift was coming, at least in North America (in the UK, they are in a much stronger position). Now, the dominant game in most places is X-Wing. Fantasy Flight ate their lunch, and the re-release of the Star Wars franchise to smashing success has only caused that snowball to roll downhill faster, now with sharp metal bits sticking out of it as it demolishes other things.
GW lost the momentum and is now in reverse. Forum posting (especially ex-Dakka), google searches, inquiries at gaming shops, etc. are all in decline. I don't think this is recoverable for GW anymore, short of a truly explosive hostile takeover and sudden reversal of virtually all of their business practices around recruitment / retention. My entire group of friends still plays wargames, but none of us are the bitter guy posting on forums; we just stopped, there's no interest and engagement, and nothing GW can do would bring us back as customers unless we turn on the companies we are now buying from (Wyrd and FFG).
However, that won't happen within the year, probably not even five, and that's really what is needed. My prediction is that GW shrinks to a relatively minor player in the overall gaming market and, essentially, becomes a UK-only player again with a minor presence in NA and the EU.
That won't be sustainable given that they are public and become a very enticing takeover target with where the stock would trade. But it all comes down to this: they needed to re-start growth already, and they haven't done enough while one of their competitors actually got ahead of them in a region (the first time this has ever happened, I would add).
I'm not sure I agree with this. X-wing is a successful game, but why is it an successfulgame?
-It has a desirable price point that makes it easy to pick up and expand (that nice round £25-£30 for a starter and £10 per expansion).
-The rules are quite simple.
-Everything comes pre-painted, allowing you to play a good looking game for no effort (especially good for busy adults), and there is no need for supplementary paint/glue purchases.
-Being based in space, there is no necessary requirement for terrain to make the game work well, and it can be played on a minimum sized board.
-It ties in with an extremely successful name that's well known within the public eye and has a veritable mountain of background already written.
-The way that new boxes have new rules cards that can be applied to other ships than the one in the box incentivises a 'collector' like approach to purchases.
-The packaging is such that it can easily be rolled out in larger more general toyshops and stores.
All these together make it easy to sell, easy to collect, and easy to develop. But 40K? It ticks very little of the above, and never has done. Yet it has been (in the field of wargaming) a fairly resounding success commercially, trumping all of it's 80's rivals. Why was that?
-It can package itself as 'hobby' with a complete artistic side (lots of assembly, painting, and conversion).
-It provides play space directly to help integrate new players and spur them into further purchases.
-It can utilise high end manufacturing techniques and materials (HIPS) to produce technically complex and visually appealing models.
-It successfully established it's own appealing 'fluff' universe that extends beyond the model line.
-It appeals to the collector sense of wanting to own everything within an army, and then to collect further armies beyond it.
Those are, I would argue, GW's core traits/competencies that got them to where they are, and bar the last two, these are not fields in which X-Wing competes very well. Don't get me wrong, X-Wing is a good competitor for 40K, but only in a more general sense. It occupies the space in the market that was previously filled by Heroclix and the like. It's simply mastered it in the same way Magic has mastered the Trading Card section. Yes, it can compete in a general sense for GW's dollar/pound, but you will always have people interested in one but not the other. Not every Magic player likes assembling complex kits, and not every 40K player likes shuffling cardboard around a table.
The Games/Hobby pie has been expanding steadily for quite some time now. So long as GW retains roughly the same size slice, it doesn't matter to them if the pie is made bigger, and so someone else (X-wing) gets a larger slice. GW's financial slowdown seems to have...well, slowed down of late. Assuming Rountree can turn it around even slightly, I don't see GW having much trouble keeping their market share.
The real issue will be if one of the smaller hungrier direct competitor companies manages to scrape together the financial backing to target that same exact niche as GW and do it better whilst GW stagnates. Mantic's had a stab at it, and is doing alright at sucking up the old Warhammer playerbase, but has the issue that it's extremely derivative of GW and as such is extremely vulnerable to GW mounting any kind of fightback. All it takes is 'Warhammer: Alternative old-school universe' the ruleset being released with a streamlined rulebook and a tasty starter and they're straight on the backfoot. Shieldwolf has the ambition, but not the financial resources. Spiral Arm is just finishing digesting their KS, and is shaping up quite nicely, but will take time to get anywhere near the range GW offers if they plan on sticking solely to HIPS, not to mention will need to bear a heavy deficit for a few years (time will tell if they have the necessary resources).
All told, I think GW is safe for at least a few years more.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/03/26 12:24:16
Major Tom, good to see you back. I agree with a lot of things you mention trending to the positive.
However, ultimately, what good do any of those things do if no one can afford them?
Yes the start collecting boxes are 'relatively' less expensive ways to finally get started on a 40k army.
But $30 mono-pose characters? $165 dollars for Deathwatch which has less minis than BaC?
Yes I agree the new CEO is doing things people have wanted for years. But if they don't get their pricing under control then it's for naught anyways.
**PS.
Going off Reinholt's post, honestly I agree with him. There were two major Table Top groups in my city. One has completely abandoned GW. The are Warmahorde lovers all the way and don't look back. My FLGS mainly supports a very competitive tournament crowd. These guys are lawyers and have good careers. So they will probably keep on keeping on until the bitter end. But how is the community going to reverse this shrinking trend? It can't. Every release the game gets more expensive and more complicated. Pandering to salty veterans now isn't going to save them.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/26 14:31:13
JSF wrote:... this is really quite an audacious move by GW, throwing out any pretext that this is a game and that its customers exist to do anything other than buy their overpriced products for the sake of it. The naked arrogance, greed and contempt for their audience is shocking.
To be honest, there are plenty of rival rulebooks and figure ranges on the market.
If GW can make a profitable business out of selling £20 cavalry figures to well-heeled and undemanding (as regards rules quality) figure collectors, that is probably what they will do.
GW's main strength is their giant £100 plastic monster kits. If you really have to have a large plastic dragon for Dragon Rampant, you might have to hold you nose and buy the GW one.
Kilkrazy wrote: To be honest, there are plenty of rival rulebooks and figure ranges on the market.
If GW can make a profitable business out of selling £20 cavalry figures to well-heeled and undemanding (as regards rules quality) figure collectors, that is probably what they will do.
GW's main strength is their giant £100 plastic monster kits. If you really have to have a large plastic dragon for Dragon Rampant, you might have to hold you nose and buy the GW one.
Or you can go to Reaper, and look in their Bones line.
And buy two dragons instead of one.
Trust me, there is competition for large plastic monster kits.
Using myself as an example - I have sixteen large dragons from the Bones line, one big arse spider from the Bones line, I have freakin' Cthulhu from the Bones line, and I have a skeletal dragon of absurd size from the Bones line....
And none of the big plastic monsters from GW. (On the flip side - I do have a fair amount of the GW big plastic terrain kits - about four years old, now.)
*EDIT*
Dragon, terrain, and adventurers - $75... a lot less than a hundred quid.
The Auld Grump - it helps that I really don't like many of those big plastic GW monsters....
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/26 19:59:49
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
Kilkrazy wrote: To be honest, there are plenty of rival rulebooks and figure ranges on the market.
If GW can make a profitable business out of selling £20 cavalry figures to well-heeled and undemanding (as regards rules quality) figure collectors, that is probably what they will do.
GW's main strength is their giant £100 plastic monster kits. If you really have to have a large plastic dragon for Dragon Rampant, you might have to hold you nose and buy the GW one.
Or you can go to Reaper, and look in their Bones line.
And buy two dragons instead of one.
Trust me, there is competition for large plastic monster kits.
Using myself as an example - I have sixteen large dragons from the Bones line, one big arse spider from the Bones line, I have freakin' Cthulhu from the Bones line, and I have a skeletal dragon of absurd size from the Bones line....
And none of the big plastic monsters from GW. (On the flip side - I do have a fair amount of the GW big plastic terrain kits - about four years old, now.)
*EDIT*
Dragon, terrain, and adventurers - $75... a lot less than a hundred quid.
The Auld Grump - it helps that I really don't like many of those big plastic GW monsters....
Well, they offer free shipping on order >£60 in the Uk, I'm sure I could find a few paints to get me over that threshold if I were buying that dragon kit.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
GW isn't on the right track and not even close. Honestly when they killed fantasy and made Age of Sigmar, branded us as 'not wanted for the store' and made us into AoS haters it alienated me to such a large degree. Their big releases for AoS is just circle bases for all the crap they already had instead of squares. If you want to do warhammer fantasy you can't buy movement trays anymore and all the bases are getting replaced. If you want 8th edition rules that's gone too. I mean you can't even play warhammer fantasy in the store anymore (at least in the USA) and yet all their other games can be played in their store.
GW spit on their fantasy players and then laughed as they pooped in their hand. Not only that but 40k is an imbalanced pile of crap.
------
What they've done right however is make some nice looking models. That's seriously about it. I'm so ready to quit GW. Making fantasy players out to be the bad guy while 40k players has just as much tau and eldar OP armies carrying games for their players.
Fantasy needed good video games and such to broaden their fan-base. Instead they kill off our universe and for a while say nothing about doing it. Then the super BIG announcement that seems to be 9th edition is....your game is dead and here's something scrawled on toilet paper for rules and background as our new beer and pretzels game that costs hundreds of dollars and replaces a game with 28 years of lore and background to it. Not only that but it felt like if you didn't like their new game you weren't welcome so it was like a 'Thanks for the money suckers!' feeling for fantasy players. Fantasy needed to be revitalized but what they did was crap.
I am trying to move on to 40k with dark eldar but they just suck right now. Not only that but every time I go to a GW I have to put up with seeing Age of Sigmar everywhere as a way of saying 'Your game is dead. Deal with it!'. Then there's the 40k power gamers playing all the OP crap in their OP armies (usually tau and eldar).
I'm just fed up with GW. As a customer I've never felt more mistreated by a company.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/27 00:27:14
Yet, if you remain a "customer" (i.e. you're still spending money on their product) you've completely invalidated every other thing you've written in that post.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Azreal13 wrote: Yet, if you remain a "customer" (i.e. you're still spending money on their product) you've completely invalidated every other thing you've written in that post.
Which is why I'm heavily considering quitting and may very well quit. I'm just looking for an alternative. I really just don't know what game I'd move on to.
Besides often when I walk into the GW I've felt like a huge dollar sign and only well received if I buy so often. Sometimes the GW manager has shown it if I haven't bought in a while there.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2016/03/27 00:37:22
I used to be big into 40k and Fantasy. But the rules have gotten steadily worse, the games have become more and more about big centre piece models and less and less about actual armies.
I was already disconnected and mostly moved on to KoW when AoS hit, but I was actually pretty interested in it, because I love the Old World and a skirmish game with simplified rules seemed pretty cool to me.
But the implementation is very lacking as far as I'm concerned. Leaving points aside, I decided to look through the rules again and see what sort of force I could put together with my stuff. But I realised that every single unit has different rules for even basic stuff like musicians and standards - what appear at first to be simplified rules are actually full of pointless crunch. I was hoping for something elegant like Saga, but it's really not what it's sold as.
I was still willing to just let it go though, until the recent dumping of entire ranges with little warning or ceremony. I think it's very poor form on GW's part the way they're doing it. Their business model relies a lot on the fact that our armies are labours of love, projects that take us whole periods of our lives to finish. Without that emotional connection, the models themselves would not be worth the money we pay for them.
By dumping the setting, they did the first round of damage. But those of us who like the old setting can still access it through other ways - scans of old books, WFRP pdfs, so on.
Dumping ranges is more serious. I feel sorry for all the people who were slowly putting a force together and some unit that they were slowly saving for or planning for is now gone with practically no warning. That's poor form, and a crappy way to treat customers who you rely on for your profits.
I think we often look at these things as just a balance sheet, pure profit and loss. But honestly, at times GW is just a morally bad company, and in something as trivial as miniature wargaming that's...sad.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/27 00:42:37
Yeah man. Sad thing is I started back in '07. Dawn of war 1 got me into 40k and after 2 and a half years I started warhammer fantasy some time around the 7th edition skaven book (mostly because I played the 'mark of chaos' PC game). Over that time the power level of the book got lower and lower even though the complaints about it raged on even with elves, gun-lines, ogres and vampire counts on the field. We were leagues better than O&G and beastmen but our book was not meant for 8th. That reason alone meant we had 8 pages of FAQ. GW just shows less care about the game and even said they were a models company. All it is about is the big models and they did that more with 40k. Gargantuan creatures are becoming more of a thing and the bog standard troop has little importance anymore.
Anyway when fantasy died I had about 3k points of skaven that are just sitting collecting dust now with bits un-built or half finished. I even collected 'End Times' so killing Fantasy after a big buying period for fans was such a slap in the face.
You know what's sad is I want to play dark eldar for 40k but they also currently suck. I want to play them because I like dark eldar with hover bikes and hover boards as well as a similar mad scientist theme that skaven had. As I said though the tau just hard counter them.
I just can't stand it. I've never felt more disillusioned and alienated with GW. When AoS was introduced I saw Fantasy players hold a hand up to their face and drop their jaws in shock. For the most part I don't think I've seen any fantasy fans play the game and it's just for 40k players and painters.
What GW did to fantasy players was wrong and I feel like I should legitimately boycott GW with other fantasy players. I just don't know what other game I'd play and where else to go. I've only ever played GW games.
Flaming you might want to check out Kings of War - most of the old fantasy armies have a KoW equivalent and the game is gaining a lot of traction in WHFBs wake.
Otherwise best move would be to get a 1 or 2 close gaming buddies and look through the games section of a retailer, visit an FLGS or even look right here on Dakka for something you like the look of. Step into a non GW game can feel a bit strange the first time but really they are all the same in concept, and there are a hell of a lot better crafted ones out there than 40k or AoS.
I'm not sure I agree with this. X-wing is a successful game, but why is it an successfulgame?
-It has a desirable price point that makes it easy to pick up and expand (that nice round £25-£30 for a starter and £10 per expansion).
-The rules are quite simple.
-Everything comes pre-painted, allowing you to play a good looking game for no effort (especially good for busy adults), and there is no need for supplementary paint/glue purchases.
-Being based in space, there is no necessary requirement for terrain to make the game work well, and it can be played on a minimum sized board.
-It ties in with an extremely successful name that's well known within the public eye and has a veritable mountain of background already written.
-The way that new boxes have new rules cards that can be applied to other ships than the one in the box incentivises a 'collector' like approach to purchases.
-The packaging is such that it can easily be rolled out in larger more general toyshops and stores.
All these together make it easy to sell, easy to collect, and easy to develop. But 40K? It ticks very little of the above, and never has done. Yet it has been (in the field of wargaming) a fairly resounding success commercially, trumping all of it's 80's rivals. Why was that?
-It can package itself as 'hobby' with a complete artistic side (lots of assembly, painting, and conversion).
-It provides play space directly to help integrate new players and spur them into further purchases.
-It can utilise high end manufacturing techniques and materials (HIPS) to produce technically complex and visually appealing models.
-It successfully established it's own appealing 'fluff' universe that extends beyond the model line.
-It appeals to the collector sense of wanting to own everything within an army, and then to collect further armies beyond it.
Those are, I would argue, GW's core traits/competencies that got them to where they are, and bar the last two, these are not fields in which X-Wing competes very well. Don't get me wrong, X-Wing is a good competitor for 40K, but only in a more general sense. It occupies the space in the market that was previously filled by Heroclix and the like. It's simply mastered it in the same way Magic has mastered the Trading Card section. Yes, it can compete in a general sense for GW's dollar/pound, but you will always have people interested in one but not the other. Not every Magic player likes assembling complex kits, and not every 40K player likes shuffling cardboard around a table.
The Games/Hobby pie has been expanding steadily for quite some time now. So long as GW retains roughly the same size slice, it doesn't matter to them if the pie is made bigger, and so someone else (X-wing) gets a larger slice. GW's financial slowdown seems to have...well, slowed down of late. Assuming Rountree can turn it around even slightly, I don't see GW having much trouble keeping their market share.
The real issue will be if one of the smaller hungrier direct competitor companies manages to scrape together the financial backing to target that same exact niche as GW and do it better whilst GW stagnates. Mantic's had a stab at it, and is doing alright at sucking up the old Warhammer playerbase, but has the issue that it's extremely derivative of GW and as such is extremely vulnerable to GW mounting any kind of fightback. All it takes is 'Warhammer: Alternative old-school universe' the ruleset being released with a streamlined rulebook and a tasty starter and they're straight on the backfoot. Shieldwolf has the ambition, but not the financial resources. Spiral Arm is just finishing digesting their KS, and is shaping up quite nicely, but will take time to get anywhere near the range GW offers if they plan on sticking solely to HIPS, not to mention will need to bear a heavy deficit for a few years (time will tell if they have the necessary resources).
All told, I think GW is safe for at least a few years more.
Agreed about the relative safety of GW for the years to come. There will be no crash, I'm pretty sure of that. And even if there is a significant dip in revenue, they are probably in a good position to try and right the ship. If RIM can afford to do so with their Blackberry for years on end before the grave finally beckons, so can GW.
In the list of points you raise on GW, some I saw as a drawback, however. Namely:
-That play space is all but gone on our side of the pond. In the only shop left in my province, there are demo tables set up in permanence, but that is the only gaming that goes on there. Demo games, with the demo stuff. They'll have occasional special events, but no regular gaming or open gaming days. Especially since 4' x 4' tables can only ever accomodate so many points. Meanwhile an X-Wing, Malifaux or Infinity tourney can accomodate a lot more players per square foot.
-That fluff has a lot of dross in it. I'm not saying other games don't. But especially since I have insider info that GW wants to move away from an Imperium full of people to something more epic and removed from any trace of humanity, is bound to stop resonating with readers. Dan Abnett's fiction was too human, too gritty, to mundane for them to care much about it anymore. Again, this will come down to taste, so YMMV.
-The collector impulse is alive and well in other games, fear not. Malifaux is especially cunning with its cross-faction models. "just a taste of Neverborn can't be bad for you, can it?"
I'm trying to stay as much away from painting myself as an X-Wing enthusiast in this post as possible, but it's genuinely a good game. Like I said, my concerns are quibbles, not objections.
Edited to spoilerize the huge quote.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/28 01:45:15
GamesWorkshop wrote: And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
I was one of the first naysayers of GW back in the "things going to gak" period but even I gotta say their recent movements have been one in the right direction. Personally it all started with the AdMech Forces; the models were actually very awesome, not that badly priced, and for once weren't another xerox of another army (the same could not be said for the continuous amounts of Space Marines, which seemed solely to be aimed at stealing mechanics from non-loyalist space marine armies).
Granted, the AdMechs weren't without their own problems (split into two books, having hilariously bad balance, weird-ass effects that required a computer to remember what they all did, etc) but credit where credit is due. The Start Collecting Boxes are awesome value for what they are (mostly) and are a great throwback to the original Battleforces, which were decent value, a good add-on or the basis of a new army. In addition, you should check out the Battle for Vedros, which is a MUCH better way of trying to "AoS" 40k than AoS did for Fantasy.
Is it all perfect? Nope. Not by a long shot. But they are finally moving towards the right direction and, personally, I'm fully willing to support their newer changes with my dollars. But only the good ones (I am not dropping 120 dollars on three monstrous cavalry-sized models. I'm talking about the Varanguards)
Gwar! wrote:Huh, I had no idea Graham McNeillm Dav Torpe and Pete Haines posted on Dakka. Hi Graham McNeillm Dav Torpe and Pete Haines!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can I have an Autograph!
Kanluwen wrote:
Hell, I'm not that bothered by the Stormraven. Why? Because, as it stands right now, it's "limited use".When it's shoehorned in to the Codex: Space Marines, then yeah. I'll be irked.
When I'm editing alot, you know I have a gakload of homework to (not) do.
Okay, here's the thing: *if* GW is finally moving in the right direction again, it still doesn't matter to me. Because they moved so far off in wrong directions, I can't even really see them from my wargaming hobby anymore.
Dropping the metaphor, in the last 5 years, my wargaming budget has doubled or tripled compared to the 10 years prior, but the only thing GW I have bought in that time has been one paintbrush (that forked the first time I touched it to a model) and one bottle of Khorne Red (because a Foundation-thickness version of red gore is just too useful to me.)
Instead of GW, I dabbled in Warmachine/Hordes, but moved away from that fairly quickly into a series of different games that all do different things for me. FFG has a lock on space combat for me with X-Wing and Armada, with X-Wing being my current "big company supported" game. But I don't play X-Wing constantly, because there are so many fantastic other games produced by small companies these days.
Frostgrave is an elegant and enjoyable fantasy skirmish campaign game. If GW put out a new Mordheim in their all-new, we-listen-to-you-really Specialist Games, I wouldn't even look twice at it. It would likely be $150-$175 USD just for the core box set, whereas for $65 I could buy into Frostgrave from scratch with the rulebook, a wizard blister, and a box of more plastic soldiers than a single warband needs. And a new Mordheim would have needlessly complex rules, whereas Frostgrave does a great job balancing simplicity in play with having all the right crunchy calculation in the endgame phase.
And the list goes on. I'm working on This Is Not a Test to give me some Fallout-themed post-apoc campaign gaming, and my Kickstarter of the new Deadzone has just given me pdfs of the new rulebooks that seem to make a good game even better. So I have no need of Necromunda, now. Kings of War is rocking the regimental fantasy gaming for me right now, so I didn't even pay attention to Age of Sigmar other than to go, "Wow, that looks really dumb, and looks like a really dumb thing for GW to do. Glad it doesn't affect me." I've got Dungeon Saga to tinker with, and FFG is about to release an app that runs the Descent 2e Overlord for you, so honestly...I'm okay without Warhammer Quest, which has always been my "If GW rereleases this, I'll be in trouble," game. Oh, and the Warpath pledge manager just closed out, so in the next year, I should have a passable replacement for 40K.
Basically, anything GW does right now, I can get 3 to 4 games - that do it better - for the same or less money. So, is GW getting better? As a wargaming hobbyist, *I don't care.* GW's fortunes as a game company only interest me as a business curiosity. I only check business and trend threads on them to see how that company I used to buy a lot of overpriced crap from is doing in this new golden age of wargaming, not because I'm interested in any of their products.
Hey, that's cool news about that FFG app! I will definitely get my hands on that whenever it launches.
I'm in a similar place to you, but I am still picking some stuff up. I'm a serial Fantasy army collector - GW Dwarves, Orcs, Chaos, Mantic Undead, Historical Knights - all the tropes in the rainbow. The recent purges have pushed me to grab a small high elf, wood elf and Skaven force. I may round it all out with a couple of boxes of Dark Elves and some Beastmen as a sort of farewell to the Old World.
I've no real interest in AoS and no faith that it's going anywhere good.
I'll admit, Kings of War has me tempted to pick up a box each of GW Ghouls and Grave Guard - my current stash was built with WHFB 8e 30-man units in mind, and I'll like to kick the ghouls up to two 20-man KoW units or a 40-man horde as need takes me, and being free of assembling all 30 Grave Guard the same way means I'm tempted to do 20 each of sword & board and double-handed weapons.
...but then I look at the price. The Grave Guard are especially egregious. I've been living in a world where plastic minis almost never reach $2 per figure in a box! (And don't give me that "but they're so high quality" nonsense - look at the Perry bros, Gripping Beast, and Fireforge boxes. If they can sell those minis at that price, Grave Guard should be $20 *max*.)
So, yeah. Crap rules mean I don't give a crap about GW's games. Crap pricing means I hesitate to buy their miniatures, even when adding to my collection of their stuff I bought all of 7 years ago - which I'm tempted to do because someone else out there is making a much better game that could use this old(er) collection of minis.
Maybe GW is turning things around...but for me its likely too little too late.
Didn't the Ad Mech Skitarii book have a walker that was more than a dollar per point, even before you voncert it to CAD? If that's not egregious pricing, I don,t know what is. And don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying the right price for something that I will use. By use I do not mean "put on the table, get shot off the table promptly."
GamesWorkshop wrote: And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
Kilkrazy wrote: To be honest, there are plenty of rival rulebooks and figure ranges on the market.
If GW can make a profitable business out of selling £20 cavalry figures to well-heeled and undemanding (as regards rules quality) figure collectors, that is probably what they will do.
GW's main strength is their giant £100 plastic monster kits. If you really have to have a large plastic dragon for Dragon Rampant, you might have to hold you nose and buy the GW one.
Or you can go to Reaper, and look in their Bones line.
And buy two dragons instead of one.
Trust me, there is competition for large plastic monster kits.
Using myself as an example - I have sixteen large dragons from the Bones line, one big arse spider from the Bones line, I have freakin' Cthulhu from the Bones line, and I have a skeletal dragon of absurd size from the Bones line....
And none of the big plastic monsters from GW. (On the flip side - I do have a fair amount of the GW big plastic terrain kits - about four years old, now.)
*EDIT*
Dragon, terrain, and adventurers - $75... a lot less than a hundred quid.
The Auld Grump - it helps that I really don't like many of those big plastic GW monsters....
In the us, sure, but nowhere else.
A quick Google turned up three places in the UK alone - average price 60 GBP....
Nice try....
*EDIT* To be clear - those are online retailers that carry Reaper's Dragons Don't Share - the specific model that I used in my example....
The Auld Grump - last time I checked, 60 was still less than 100....
*EDIT 2* Sad thing - I actually think that GWis moving in the right direction - but one of the things that they still need to do is market research.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/03/28 21:45:57
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
Psychopomp wrote: I'll admit, Kings of War has me tempted to pick up a box each of GW Ghouls and Grave Guard - my current stash was built with WHFB 8e 30-man units in mind, and I'll like to kick the ghouls up to two 20-man KoW units or a 40-man horde as need takes me, and being free of assembling all 30 Grave Guard the same way means I'm tempted to do 20 each of sword & board and double-handed weapons.
...but then I look at the price. The Grave Guard are especially egregious. I've been living in a world where plastic minis almost never reach $2 per figure in a box! (And don't give me that "but they're so high quality" nonsense - look at the Perry bros, Gripping Beast, and Fireforge boxes. If they can sell those minis at that price, Grave Guard should be $20 *max*.)
So, yeah. Crap rules mean I don't give a crap about GW's games. Crap pricing means I hesitate to buy their miniatures, even when adding to my collection of their stuff I bought all of 7 years ago - which I'm tempted to do because someone else out there is making a much better game that could use this old(er) collection of minis.
Maybe GW is turning things around...but for me its likely too little too late.
Your comment is Valid.
Now why don't we take a look at Google trends and see how much interest there is on the interwebs... eh???
Now I have stated before and I'll state this again.
1. In retail it is a lot harder to get new customers and keep them than to retain your old customers who you know are going to come back. If you really want growth you need to keep as much of your old customer base while farming for new. Then you try to convert the new to become a reoccurring customer. This is usually done by good customer service and/or reasonable price on product.
2. When you lose a customer because of a negative reaction. Not only will you lose that customer, you will suffer the collateral damage from that negative customer as that customer will remove would be new potential customers via Word of Mouth, via their bad and negative experience when dealing with said company.
3. When you price yourselves to the point in the belief that a "plastic" toy is a collectors item when it is actually not, you are in trouble. Boy you see a lot of Luxury Toys being Dumped on Ebay now on the cheap because the overall health of the game in question is piss poor.
4. 2006 is the tipping point to the beginning of the end as "the leader" in the hobby and the years of posting on the "whys" in here still hold true. This is where I saw first hand the changes of the company's business model. December 2006 was the last "Horaah" of what was an actual Miniatures Game Company with the quality of support given to the games in question.
Turning around??? To what??? No. As stated before They are "NOW" a British company with some global influence. Before they were really a global company on the verge of being one of the big game companies. But no. Greed is and continues to be the reason why Games Workshop has flat lined itself to be non issue. And it will be a non issue until Kirby is completely gone. Otherwise flat line in everything as a company. No real growth. Sucking the majority of profits to the share holders. The Game company is their virtual Piggy Bank.
And that is one the reasons why you have heard recently with business analysts In England on their concerns with their financial forecasts of Games Workshop earlier this year.
It is too late for Games Workshop to reclaim what they have lost. All they are able to do is to be in this flat line position (because of their current business model) and as long as there are enough people in England supporting this game, Games Workshop will continue to survive. But if there is a serous erosion to the company's British player (and commonwealth countries) base. then Games Workshop is over.
Adam's Motto: Paint, Create, Play, but above all, have fun. -and for something silly below-
"We are the Ultramodrines, And We Shall Fear No Trolls. bear this USR with pride".
Also, how does one apply to be a member of the Ultramodrines? Are harsh trials involved, ones that would test my faith as a wargamer and resolve as a geek?
You must recite every rule of Dakka Dakka. BACKWARDS.
I think some of you are misinterpreting the meaning of my question a bit. That's ok, but, if you would, allow me to clarify here:
My question was/is, are they back or headed back to the right track. What I mean by that is are they starting to make good, positive decisions again.
I think some are taking that to be me asking 'Has GW now fixed everything and imminently about to be profitable?'
Lol that would be great but I don't think even the most optimistic fan would be thinking that, they dug a big hole. Some things will be nigh-on impossible to fix, I don't see how they can repeal what, in my opinion, is about 40-25% overpricing depending on the product. That's gonna be a tough one indeed.
The rules, not a great outlook either at the moment, but I do think that there is more interest on their part for that aspect of the business than there has been in a long while. What is to come of it remains to be seen, if anything.
There is little doubt rules and prices are still in a bad way.
So, taking away those macro problems, my question was really more towards the micro things that are starting to gain momentum. Frankly, I think if they see that these smaller, less impactful but still positive steps are having an impact and rubbing people the right way, they may realize that engaging with the audience again is a good thing for them if they can be agile with the information they get.
Given the policies of basically 2006 - 2014, these are big fixes symbolically if nothing else, at least for me.
The rules, not a great outlook either at the moment, but I do think that there is more interest on their part for that aspect of the business than there has been in a long while. What is to come of it remains to be seen, if anything.
You are a decent guy and respect your comments. I think in this case there is a age difference between us. I have been doing miniatures since 1970. I've been involved in the entertainment industry in one manner or another for 42 years. I've been a hard core capitalist pig since 1989. Yea I can laugh at myself as I am an old fart. My investments do involve retail development.
But as a business man I just do not see anything at this moment that tells me that GW is doing anything to turn it around in any significant manner. On the contrary I see that same old business practices. Roundtree is nothing much as a puppet to Kirby as Wells was before he stepped down. I see limited runs on new product (Lost Patrol). I see low level licensing on IP's in the video game market. We have also seen that the first time ever that Games Workshop lost its dominance in the US, All things pointing to a downward trend. Hell even their stock of late is in a downward trend. It is approaching its 52 week low.
But I see Absolutely see no marketing research and the continued use of the company as a piggy bank is what I do not like. You need R&D and marketing to have a continue presence globally.
They have serious changes to make in order to get the confidence of what is left of their player base because.... You can not make up ill will that has been done, in the past to the indies store and frustrated veterans that have gone to other games and/or left the game entirely.
So Major Tom if you see some sort of positive approach in some of the recent moves well I guess you do.
I just don't. I just see feeble attempts within with a small amount of money that they are given to create new and useful content. And the majority of the profits goes to the shareholders. And Kirby is the single most holder of shares in this company. You see the problem? And it won't change until Kirby leaves. So you will get a flat line company without any serious growth.
They need to invest less to the shareholders and more into the company as a whole. This means more marketing and R&D into new and different IP's. Until I see a significant change the answer is still a polite no and my previous comments still stands.
On a personal level I spent 35 grand on this game in 26 years. I loved the original premise of the game. I love playing the GT circuit. I loved holding tournaments. I love painting. I had 26 years gaming that I thought the investment of enjoyment was well spent But now they have lost 20 grand from me since I stopped playing and I have invested that amount on other games and/or helped individuals get back on their feet.
There is just no significant turn around of enjoyment and/or justification that I see that I would pay money into a luxury game that I can easily afford.
The enjoyment is just not there.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/30 09:17:32
Adam's Motto: Paint, Create, Play, but above all, have fun. -and for something silly below-
"We are the Ultramodrines, And We Shall Fear No Trolls. bear this USR with pride".
Also, how does one apply to be a member of the Ultramodrines? Are harsh trials involved, ones that would test my faith as a wargamer and resolve as a geek?
You must recite every rule of Dakka Dakka. BACKWARDS.
MajorTom11 wrote: Given the policies of basically 2006 - 2014, these are big fixes symbolically if nothing else, at least for me.
I am just picking on this specific part to point out how subjective the entire matter is - GW has so thoroughly rejected their playerbase that most of their actions so far prove very little compared with the downhill slide that was the aforementioned period, and culminated in the birth of AoS.
For me (and a few others) these are not big fixes. I'd wager they are not fixes at all, because the main issues (crap rules, rampant price hikes) are still there, and growing.
I will never regain my trust in GW after AoS but, as I said, this is all subjective.
"Let them that are happy talk of piety; we that would work our adversary must take no account of laws."http://back2basing.blogspot.pt/
MajorTom11 wrote: Given the policies of basically 2006 - 2014, these are big fixes symbolically if nothing else, at least for me.
I am just picking on this specific part to point out how subjective the entire matter is - GW has so thoroughly rejected their playerbase that most of their actions so far prove very little compared with the downhill slide that was the aforementioned period, and culminated in the birth of AoS.
For me (and a few others) these are not big fixes. I'd wager they are not fixes at all, because the main issues (crap rules, rampant price hikes) are still there, and growing.
Yep, At this point it's just re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
It could lead to more significant changes I guess, but at the moment, these minor improvements are basically meaningless
MajorTom11 wrote: Given the policies of basically 2006 - 2014, these are big fixes symbolically if nothing else, at least for me.
Adding to what others have said, look at your own word choice, here. symbolically. This is exactly right, as these are symbolic changes giving the appearance of meaning but no actual meaning in and of themselves.
Better rules? Nah! But here's an organized play so you can try to herd kittens and get people all playing our crap rules in your store for a certificate! It's focused around tanks, so he who spends the most money on big models and datafaxes wins!
Games Workshop can put as much lipstick on their pig as they want. Hell, they can give it an entire Mary Kay makeover, if they want. But it's not going to lure me away from the Golden Age of Wargaming, where I've got so many great games going at once, I get option lock at the painting table - much less the store!
Right track. It seems that GW focusses at supplementary or expansion rules atm.
This seems to be a different track.
The same holds for AoS where we see books with warscrolls and formations in there.
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