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 Scott-S6 wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

Chamberlain thinks the competitive scene works, but if only a subset of army list options see play is it really working?

Is there any tournament game where very unit/model/card is equally playable?

None that I have seen, nobody is 100% perfect with balance on everything. It is impossible to account for everything that multiple thousands/millions of people will do with the system and rules put out by a company as big as GW, or even Privateer Press.

 Chamberlain wrote:
We have GW's published results from the last couple years and they have improved.

As long as you are arguing this, we're not going to have a discussion and can just agree to disagree.

If you approach this with "learning their lesson" is all about GW's annual numbers, then they never needed to learn much of a lesson because they have been profitable even through the many declining years before this year's improvement. The company was not in a terrible position, but it did need adjustments.

This is important because I'd argue that usually aside from a company's continued existence, a customer doesn't care about how much money it's making but rather if they sell a product of acceptable quality at an acceptable price. The fact that they have massively improved numbers this year is irrelevant. That's good for them but doesn't help the individual customer.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Geifer wrote:

A more fitting line of thinking for a disgruntled old git like me would be:

GW is out to make money by cultivating its IP to preserve classic ideals and tries to please its core audience

versus

GW is out to make money by revising its IP to meet modern sentiments and tries to appeal to a wider audience at the expense of its core audience

GW's goal isn't in doubt. There is no question as to the goals of a publicly traded company. It's about their methods and how they affect you. And that is entirely down to the individual. No matter how well GW is doing, no matter how many people buy more than they did before, no matter how many people are satisfied with GW, that's a question that only the individual can answer.

To bring a completely different take on this issue, I want to use a very apples/oranges comparison. . . Chevrolet. See, here in the US, we're bombarded with advertisements touting their JD Power "best in initial quality" awards. . . Which people have found out is a total farce of an award. Basically, it is a metric that apparently Chevy themselves lobbied to have created, measuring faults/breakdowns/defective vehicles, within the first 90 days of ownership. .. . So, basically, if you buy a brand new Chevy, you're probably "good" for the first 90 days, but a number of other tests show that really, the metric should be the first year, in which the total brand performs about as well, or just slightly below other auto manufacturers.

Why do I use this example?? Because essentially, Chevrolet is using a rather deceptive marketing scheme to draw in customers (for further reference to this deception, there's a ton of "everything wrong with" videos for their truck bed demonstration commercials). Yes, GW is trying to make money. . . but they aren't exactly deceiving anyone. We all know that releases are coming hot, fast, and in a hurry, we all know generally to expect models to be around a certain price point (whether we agree with that or not, is another issue). And, if you have issues with a product purchased through GW, they are still doing largely the same replacement/return policy as they've had for a long time.

I added the red part because I was tired when I wrote that. That's how it should have come out. Just adding this here.

Now, I don't think your example is off (or apples to oranges comparison). It's pretty apt. GW uses marketing to gloss over problems, rally a fanbase to defend the company in its stead and spread a more positive image through increased word of mouth propaganda. Or, as the news and rumors thread about GW'S AGM put it, they are putting effort into controlling the narrative.

Is it expected? Sure. We accept that companies use marketing to make themselves look better. Nobody expects that GW says "sure, we still have balancing problems, but bear with us as we fix them to the best of our ability". Instead we get the usual "best balanced edition ever", regardless of any balancing flaws that may still be there. Why? Because there's enough truth in it that they can get away with omitting of any negatives.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

Chamberlain thinks the competitive scene works, but if only a subset of army list options see play is it really working?

Is there any tournament game where very unit/model/card is equally playable?

None that I have seen, nobody is 100% perfect with balance on everything. It is impossible to account for everything that multiple thousands/millions of people will do with the system and rules put out by a company as big as GW, or even Privateer Press.

While this is the case, GW is an example of something far further from the mark than something like, say, Infinity or Malifaux. While those 'dud' options still exist, they are few and far between (most factions have only 3-4 choices that are bad, and even then they can usually be used to success in the right scenario or with good support). The Warhammers are to this day an example of a new release rolling around, and there are options that are super competitive to the point where they're overpowered, or they're hot garbage. This isn't to say there is a middle ground, but the results are far more skewed in the GW games than in most of their other competitors, where overpowered or horribly weak units are the outliers.

On your other example, Privateer Press, their initial release of Warmachine/Hordes Mk3 was unbalanced as all get out, and quite frankly unplayable because of it. However, they took on a new form of community integrated playtesting (which a fair few companies do nowadays, and in far bigger forms than GW), and the game is rapidly gaining back an uninspired playerbase because of it. While yes, there is a big return back to 40k with 8th edition, it isn't from the people who want tight, balanced rulesets, it's largely people who want something they can play in their garage of a Sunday afternoon for a laugh (where balance isn't as much of an issue). Having seen a few 8th ed tournaments as an outsider (I looked at 8th ed when it launched, saw how AoSed it was and decided it wasn't for me) it appears to be the same kinds of builds as in 6th and 7th in a general sense. Minimal troops to sit on objectives, and then spam whatever strong units the army has to have the strongest firepower possible, which doesn't seem like fun for any party.

I will say though that this is from the perspective of someone who has almost entirely gotten out of Warhammer, and GW as a whole. What I play now is in my sig if anyone is interested, but I will echo the views above regarding the 'smoke and mirrors' line. Anyone who is actively buying and participating in 'The GW Hobby' will say that nu-GW is the most bestest thing ever and they've changed so much, and everyone who's disillusioned and jaded will say that the other party have the wool over their eyes. No one is going to find middle ground easily, and it'll always be a source of conflict so from my point of view there's little point trying to argue business practices that we quite frankly don't know. If GW succeed I'll be happy, because it means there is more potential for people to see other games and expand, although GW themselves actively try and discourage this.

 Geifer wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
TO me it's fairly clear that they are not doing much stuff better, just putting on appearances. Whether or not that's "good enough" is subjective, but I think the "new" GW is largely just smoke and mirrors, with minor improvements that are lauded as being amazing.

These things ARE amazing to me:

- changing rules, creating FAQs and revamping games on the basis of community feedback, and doing it quickly
- binning the disaster that was 40k 7th and creating a great rule set in 8th
- having a social media presence and interacting with their fans via their community site, Facebook, and Warhammer TV, putting out interviews and creating faces for the community
- the painting tutorials, actually an incredibly important tool for newer gamers and intermediate painters alike
- Digging into their back catalogue and doing great release after great release (AdMech, Genestealer Cults, 30k, Warhammer Quest, Necromunda, the list goes on)
- making an effort to seriously support competitive play in AoS, 40k and now with a whole game (Shadespire)

You know what WOULDN'T have been an amazing improvement to me? Simply lowering prices and doing none of the above. That wouldn't have gotten me more excited about the game.

And apparently, most of their customers agree with me.

So you don't get to decide what is "smoke and mirrors" and what is not... because getting customers back and creating excitement around the game is what is important for GW as a company, and what they are doing is exactly that. And that is the problem with this thread. There is an assumption that prices are the only thing that matters, and everything else is "smoke and mirrors". While that may be true for them... the numbers show otherwise.

One could argue that happy customers don't get to decide if the magic is magic or smoke and mirrors, because if it is smoke and mirrors, they fell for it.

Worth keeping in mind before you go and decide who is eligible to determine for themselves what GW is and is not.

Since we are talking about a company/customer relationship, it's very subjective anyway. Take your points. I could put a negative spin on most of them quite easily:

- Willingness to change rules at a whim allows them to release sloppy rules and patch them later, so they do
- They bin the disaster that was 7th ed just to release the disaster that is 8th ed
- They've created a working propaganda machine
- They spend so much time and effort on new things nobody asked for instead of releasing needed overhauls of core models
- While they try to cater to competitive play, bleed over from narrative parts means that they don't achieve any significant measure of balance

The only one I'm struggling with is good, free and easily available painting tutorials. Hard to find any fault with that.

Not that I necessarily hold these opinions (like I care about competitive play... GW can support that all day long an earn only a yawn from me), but they're plausible. This stuff is happening right now. And it's not even incompatible with your opinion, because it just takes the same thing and values it differently.

This is not negativity, but rather skewed and missing several points:

1) You're saying that as if they weren't releasing sloppy rules to begin with. 7th ed for 40k and 8th ed for WHFB was back under the previous period, and it was beyond sloppy.
2) In your opinion. Plenty more people are enjoying the gam.
3) It's a line of tutorials. Don't overthink it.
4) So I guess no one asked for plastic plague marines or thousand sons? No one asked for the return of specialist games or GSC? Yeah, suuuuereeee.
5) [Citation needed]

It's not just plastic Deathguard and Thousand Sons - it's for Cult chaos armies to feature at all.

Lord Kragan wrote:
3) It's a line of tutorials. Don't overthink it.

It's Warhammer TV openly admitting to having trolled (sorry, purposefully misled very dedicated and very neglected fanbase into raising their hopes for month for a new release that they knew wasn't actually coming as a joke) Sisters of Battle players.

There is a huge amount of bias in this thread. It's clear that some people will not admit GW has improved no matter what. Others overlook crappy things GW does (or deem them acceptable).

I would like to add a distinction the a lot of people seem to miss. If you don't like something; that does not equate to it being bad. It might be, but it could just not be for you.

For example: I don't hold the Warhammers is high regard, I prefer games to be more about what I do [/b]during the game. That does not make them bad games, it just makes them not my preference, or (if you will) not good on the metric I employ to judge games. The current Warhammers actually do well if judged by what GW appears to have been going for; namely an epic battle where crazy things go down (starring your amazing models).
Recall that AoS was released without points, GW set up competitive play because people insist on playing Warhammer competitively, despite the games being poorly suited for that.

The best change in GW for me is that they have stopped trying to pander to everyone and started making products that not everyone has to like, but a few (at least) love (e.g. Khadron Overlords).
I know a few people (myself included) who have stepped away form Warhammer (either), but that's fine (we have other games we prefer) because the people who love 40k are happier than ever. and the target market (which did change drastically) for fantasy are enjoying AoS (there's KoW for the rest of us).

Finally, GW is a company. Making money is their actual objective, always has been and there is nothing wrong with that. Doing things in a way that makes business sense is what they should be doing. whether or not it's what you want for your particular army[b].

Lord Kragan wrote:

Spoiler:

 Geifer wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
TO me it's fairly clear that they are not doing much stuff better, just putting on appearances. Whether or not that's "good enough" is subjective, but I think the "new" GW is largely just smoke and mirrors, with minor improvements that are lauded as being amazing.

These things ARE amazing to me:

- changing rules, creating FAQs and revamping games on the basis of community feedback, and doing it quickly
- binning the disaster that was 40k 7th and creating a great rule set in 8th
- having a social media presence and interacting with their fans via their community site, Facebook, and Warhammer TV, putting out interviews and creating faces for the community
- the painting tutorials, actually an incredibly important tool for newer gamers and intermediate painters alike
- Digging into their back catalogue and doing great release after great release (AdMech, Genestealer Cults, 30k, Warhammer Quest, Necromunda, the list goes on)
- making an effort to seriously support competitive play in AoS, 40k and now with a whole game (Shadespire)

You know what WOULDN'T have been an amazing improvement to me? Simply lowering prices and doing none of the above. That wouldn't have gotten me more excited about the game.

And apparently, most of their customers agree with me.

So you don't get to decide what is "smoke and mirrors" and what is not... because getting customers back and creating excitement around the game is what is important for GW as a company, and what they are doing is exactly that. And that is the problem with this thread. There is an assumption that prices are the only thing that matters, and everything else is "smoke and mirrors". While that may be true for them... the numbers show otherwise.

One could argue that happy customers don't get to decide if the magic is magic or smoke and mirrors, because if it is smoke and mirrors, they fell for it.

Worth keeping in mind before you go and decide who is eligible to determine for themselves what GW is and is not.

Since we are talking about a company/customer relationship, it's very subjective anyway. Take your points. I could put a negative spin on most of them quite easily:

- Willingness to change rules at a whim allows them to release sloppy rules and patch them later, so they do
- They bin the disaster that was 7th ed just to release the disaster that is 8th ed
- They've created a working propaganda machine
- They spend so much time and effort on new things nobody asked for instead of releasing needed overhauls of core models
- While they try to cater to competitive play, bleed over from narrative parts means that they don't achieve any significant measure of balance

The only one I'm struggling with is good, free and easily available painting tutorials. Hard to find any fault with that.

Not that I necessarily hold these opinions (like I care about competitive play... GW can support that all day long an earn only a yawn from me), but they're plausible. This stuff is happening right now. And it's not even incompatible with your opinion, because it just takes the same thing and values it differently.

This is not negativity, but rather skewed and missing several points:

1) You're saying that as if they weren't releasing sloppy rules to begin with. 7th ed for 40k and 8th ed for WHFB was back under the previous period, and it was beyond sloppy.
2) In your opinion. Plenty more people are enjoying the gam.
3) It's a line of tutorials. Don't overthink it.
4) So I guess no one asked for plastic plague marines or thousand sons? No one asked for the return of specialist games or GSC? Yeah, suuuuereeee.
5) [Citation needed]

You're missing the point.

On the subject of competitive play....

We are seeing what purports to be a game designed around competition - Shadespire.

That's the one to judge GW's ability to write watertight rules ala X-Wing.

All the other rules sets are a mix of rules, suggested ways to play, and narrative opportunity.

Shadespire claims not to be that. Let's see how that pans out? It's clearly them going after the X-Wing-a-like market. Low model count, fast play, customisable, 'its-what-you-do-with-it-that-counts' gaming

It may fall wide of the mark, it may prove to be a smash hit, it's probably likely to land somewhere in the middle, either as a slowburn popularity, or 'big splash at first, then simply held it's position', or anything in between.

I'd say it seems a good approach for GW to satisfying the tournament crowd. When games can be repeatedly and reliably wrapped up in half an hour, it means more rounds. It also suggests an unpleasant opponent can't necessarily slow play, and nobody is discouraged from taking a horde army for fear of running out of time.

 Geifer wrote:

 Chamberlain wrote:
We have GW's published results from the last couple years and they have improved.

As long as you are arguing this, we're not going to have a discussion and can just agree to disagree.

The only thing I'm arguing for is variable isolation. We have GW's improved financial results. How did they get there?

I was talking whether or not GW's customers can be thought of as suckers, rubes, victims, deceived, fooled, fell for it, got taken in, or whatever. That requires an intent to do so by GW.

If you approach this with "learning their lesson" is all about GW's annual numbers, then they never needed to learn much of a lesson because they have been profitable even through the many declining years before this year's improvement. The company was not in a terrible position, but it did need adjustments.

Things changed in their financials right after they started to change what they are doing. So did they get that change because they "learned their lesson" or learned how to fool people?

This is important because I'd argue that usually aside from a company's continued existence, a customer doesn't care about how much money it's making but rather if they sell a product of acceptable quality at an acceptable price. The fact that they have massively improved numbers this year is irrelevant. That's good for them but doesn't help the individual customer.

The improved numbers are an indication that more people are buying. That more people are taking a look at what GW is offering and giving them money for it.

I happen to think that both sides of those transactions are operating in good faith. That Rountree was paying attention to the years of declining volume and learned his lesson from it and has reversed several key Kirby era approaches. Just because an individual's pet issue hasn't been addressed doesn't mean it's the same old GW, but now with a shiny veneer hiding their old ways.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rygnan wrote:

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

Chamberlain thinks the competitive scene works, but if only a subset of army list options see play is it really working?

Is there any tournament game where very unit/model/card is equally playable?

None that I have seen, nobody is 100% perfect with balance on everything. It is impossible to account for everything that multiple thousands/millions of people will do with the system and rules put out by a company as big as GW, or even Privateer Press.

While this is the case, GW is an example of something far further from the mark than something like, say, Infinity or Malifaux. While those 'dud' options still exist, they are few and far between (most factions have only 3-4 choices that are bad, and even then they can usually be used to success in the right scenario or with good support). The Warhammers are to this day an example of a new release rolling around, and there are options that are super competitive to the point where they're overpowered, or they're hot garbage. This isn't to say there is a middle ground, but the results are far more skewed in the GW games than in most of their other competitors, where overpowered or horribly weak units are the outliers.

I don't know anything about the Malifaux or Infinity tournament meta, but we could do this comparison in both percentage terms and in number of viable units. For each faction key word or grand alliance, how many different armies are there that are tournament viable? Now how many tournament armies are viable for Pan O? Neverborn? Do the warhammer players have as much variety in their experience avaialble when crafting their lists as the Infinity and Malifaux tournament goers? Not because GW's percentage success rate is at all good, but because their range is so large?

It's like Magic the Gathering. Infinity and Malifaux are like the Standard format where you have a card pool of 1500-2000 choices but only 200 or so are actually tournament viable (if that) while GW is like the Modern format where you have a card pool of 11000+ choices but only 200 or so are truly tournament viable. Terrible percentage for one, same actual amount of variety at the top level?

 Chamberlain wrote:

 Geifer wrote:

 Chamberlain wrote:
We have GW's published results from the last couple years and they have improved.

As long as you are arguing this, we're not going to have a discussion and can just agree to disagree.

The only thing I'm arguing for is variable isolation. We have GW's improved financial results. How did they get there?

I was talking whether or not GW's customers can be thought of as suckers, rubes, victims, deceived, fooled, fell for it, got taken in, or whatever. That requires an intent to do so by GW.

Yeah. So? They went from putting out a product and simply assuming people would buy it to actively inflating the perceive value of said product through community work. You know, marketing. The art of making people buy things they don't want. Unless you have a very innocent outlook on companies and marketing, yeah, there's intent on GW's part to make people believe they buy more than they actually get.

 Chamberlain wrote:

If you approach this with "learning their lesson" is all about GW's annual numbers, then they never needed to learn much of a lesson because they have been profitable even through the many declining years before this year's improvement. The company was not in a terrible position, but it did need adjustments.

Things changed in their financials right after they started to change what they are doing. So did they get that change because they "learned their lesson" or learned how to fool people?

Let's step back a bit for a moment and go back to the OP, which said:

"So do you think GW is going back to old way to milk and fleece 40K?"

GW has realized that discount bundles and cheaper starter options get people to buy in and hopefully keep buying other products that are not discounted and in many cases more expensive than an equivalent product released shortly before, like Magnus and Mortarion. We get massively expensive boutique items as well, like limited codices and the Plague Brethren, to get as much money as possible out of the collector's section of their customer base.

Does that sound enough like fleecing to you? Because if it does, they did not "learn their lesson", that is to consider their customers' desire first and foremost, and instead look for ways to serve their bottom line best.

 Chamberlain wrote:

This is important because I'd argue that usually aside from a company's continued existence, a customer doesn't care about how much money it's making but rather if they sell a product of acceptable quality at an acceptable price. The fact that they have massively improved numbers this year is irrelevant. That's good for them but doesn't help the individual customer.

The improved numbers are an indication that more people are buying. That more people are taking a look at what GW is offering and giving them money for it.

I happen to think that both sides of those transactions are operating in good faith. That Rountree was paying attention to the years of declining volume and learned his lesson from it and has reversed several key Kirby era approaches. Just because an individual's pet issue hasn't been addressed doesn't mean it's the same old GW, but now with a shiny veneer hiding their old ways.

You are of course free to think that. I don't.

GW is doing something that they did not with Kirby in the last few years: sell packaged product at a discount.
When they first came up with Armageddon (yr 2000) they had these 3-pack model kits which were vastly cheaper than buying them individually.
I still laugh over the "one click purchases" that on occasion cost more than the models bought individually only a couple years ago.
The getting started packs have been good and the mini-games with a bunch of models were a great thing to see.
Shadow War Armageddon was a fantastic deal for the money, it was a shame they underestimated the demand.

We still see some insane pricing, the Primaris HQ models I am thinking of in particular.

Remains to be seen but seems to be going ok so-far.

 Mymearan wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
TO me it's fairly clear that they are not doing much stuff better, just putting on appearances. Whether or not that's "good enough" is subjective, but I think the "new" GW is largely just smoke and mirrors, with minor improvements that are lauded as being amazing.

These things ARE amazing to me:

- changing rules, creating FAQs and revamping games on the basis of community feedback, and doing it quickly
- binning the disaster that was 40k 7th and creating a great rule set in 8th
- having a social media presence and interacting with their fans via their community site, Facebook, and Warhammer TV, putting out interviews and creating faces for the community
- the painting tutorials, actually an incredibly important tool for newer gamers and intermediate painters alike
- Digging into their back catalogue and doing great release after great release (AdMech, Genestealer Cults, 30k, Warhammer Quest, Necromunda, the list goes on)
- making an effort to seriously support competitive play in AoS, 40k and now with a whole game (Shadespire)

You know what WOULDN'T have been an amazing improvement to me? Simply lowering prices and doing none of the above. That wouldn't have gotten me more excited about the game.

And apparently, most of their customers agree with me.

So you don't get to decide what is "smoke and mirrors" and what is not... because getting customers back and creating excitement around the game is what is important for GW as a company, and what they are doing is exactly that. And that is the problem with this thread. There is an assumption that prices are the only thing that matters, and everything else is "smoke and mirrors". While that may be true for them... the numbers show otherwise.

Well freaking said!! Couldn't agree more. This is the exact camp I'm in.

 Geifer wrote:
They went from putting out a product and simply assuming people would buy it to actively inflating the perceive value of said product through community work. You know, marketing. The art of making people buy things they don't want. Unless you have a very innocent outlook on companies and marketing, yeah, there's intent on GW's part to make people believe they buy more than they actually get.

So who gets to decide if the product is actually better or if it's perceived value is just inflated with marketing? What critera do you use to determine that people have been made to believe they are getting more than they actually are?

What if they actually are getting more? There are more miniatures for the same price in a variety of GW's current offerings. If you are interested in dark eldar you actually get more miniatures for your money with Gangs of Commoragh. Start Collecting sets actually have you getting more for the same pricing.

The GHB totally changed what people were doing with AoS. It's actually a different product than the pre-GHB AoS. They also cut the cost of many AoS kits from their price at launch.

Then there's the rules side of things. People who play AoS and 8th seem to really enjoy it. My local group is very indy and is championed by a guy who is like "use the best rules, not just the ones the manufacturer sells you" and 8th edition 40k and AoS skirmish is holding up. We keep putting it on the table because it is fun. We know about 100 other games (probably more when you consider how there's endless rules for each historical era), some of which are free or very low cost and we keep coming back to 8th edition 40k and AoS Skirmish each club meeting.

is our fun illusory? Purely the result of us falling for GW's marketing? Or are we have an authentic, enjoyable hobby experience? When we pull out the Open War cards and have a game, did we buy those because of "the art of making people buy things they don't want"? Or did we see their utility and actually want them, buy them, and now use them?

Let's step back a bit for a moment and go back to the OP, which said:

"So do you think GW is going back to old way to milk and fleece 40K?"

GW has realized that discount bundles and cheaper starter options get people to buy in and hopefully keep buying other products that are not discounted and in many cases more expensive than an equivalent product released shortly before, like Magnus and Mortarion. We get massively expensive boutique items as well, like limited codices and the Plague Brethren, to get as much money as possible out of the collector's section of their customer base.

Does that sound enough like fleecing to you? Because if it does, they did not "learn their lesson", that is to consider their customers' desire first and foremost, and instead look for ways to serve their bottom line best.

No part of that sounds like fleecing.

tr.v. fleeced, fleec·ing, fleec·es
1. To defraud of money or property; swindle.

Can you find me one statement about the Plague Brethren product that is fraudulent? Without the intent to defraud, there is no fraud. Here is the text for the Plague Brethern:



Isn't that an accurate description of the product? Isn't the price right on their web page what you will actually pay if you buy it? Will it suddenly fall apart or fail to perform the promised function? From John Blanche's statements, I can even say that describing his process of making the art as "rendered lovingly" is accurate as well. The man loves doing 40k art projects.

There's no lie here. No fraud. No swindle. No fleecing. It's as straight up as it gets. If you buy the product you will get exactly what is on offer. They haven't created an artificial situation where if you don't buy it, your experience with the rest of their products is diminished (like a pay-to-win product at a very high price). I can't really think of anything negative to say about the product at all other than it's aimed at a subset of the customer base that I am simply not part of.

@Geif

I think you're really reaching to paint Games Workshop in a bad light. Releasing discounted starter army boxes is fleecing? What? Almost every miniature company I know does this. Warlord Games, Privateer Press, Corvus Belli and Wryd to name a few. Yes, Games Workshop's products are more expensive than the discounted boxes. That's why they call them "discounted".

And the Plague Bretheren are entirely optional and aren't actually that expensive for a collector's item.

I actually never noticed just how far a reach that really is. Now GW discounting their product and lowering the barrier to entry is part of some plan to fleece people?



Well spotted.

GW in a way has not learned anything.
They are just dusting off stuff they used to do.
The cost and deals are a focus because this is their income you know.

What is wonderful is that they had preceded social media and used to maintain their own culture and forums.
Now in the land of social media, they are engaging their customers again.

GW had created a "culture" of their own with their fans way back when and it looks like they have dusted off the old playbook and willing to give it another shot.
I foresee their bottom line looking very good if they attend to the details and listen to their customers the way they have been lately (or is that, in the past?).

Here, a little trip down memory lane on how they used to do things:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070227065121/http://us.games-workshop.com:80/games/40K/default.htm

The prices are a bit odd at the moment.

I can't praise the Start Collecting sets and similar bundles enough. They're not simply filled with waff, and off a tangible discount. Hell, the Seraphon one is basically the price of the Carnosaur, with free stuff bunged in.

Then they do Deathguard Plaguemarines. £30 for 7. That's.....that's a bit rich for me, especially when unit upgrades are churned out at £15 a pop.

Compare to my Rubricae? £30 for 10. Includes all possible weapon, upgrade and command options.

They're the same price, but I'd say the Rubricae are just objectively better value.

And just the other month, the Primaris stuff came out with a reasonable price point. £35 for a full squad of 10, again with all options included.

Normally I'm not one to fuss about the price - if I want it, I'll buy it. But the Plague Marines specifically still give me pause. On a personal level, I don't mind paying a price premium for elite units, the sort I might only want or need two boxes of. But when it's the bread and butter, not so much.

It's also one of the reasons my Mechanicus force has few Dragoons. The individual models are just too much for me to overly worry about - especially given their cheap points value. And that is of course about the perceived value.

I don't mind coughing up £42.50 for Kastellan Robots. Points wise and 'ardness, I definitely feel that I'm getting my monies worth. But £29.50 for a Sydonian Dragoon? Perhaps when I get my bonus pay, but not before. Just doesn't offer me the right value.

Do a boxed set of 3 for say, £60, and I'll be on it like nobody's beeswax.



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Another unit that needs a price incentive would be Electropriests. Oh man they're ace. I love the models, and they're pretty tasty in the game. But at £25 for 5, I fear I won't ever included as many as I'd like, unless I can get a discount set of some description.

I think GW should take more advantage of the "Put more models in a big box and slash the combined price" model. It's made collecting Stormcast Eternals actually affordable!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The prices are a bit odd at the moment.

I can't praise the Start Collecting sets and similar bundles enough. They're not simply filled with waff, and off a tangible discount. Hell, the Seraphon one is basically the price of the Carnosaur, with free stuff bunged in.

Then they do Deathguard Plaguemarines. £30 for 7. That's.....that's a bit rich for me, especially when unit upgrades are churned out at £15 a pop.
.

Just a small note... the unit upgrades are included in the box, the ones you can buy separately are alternate sculpts.

I was guardedly pleased with 'nuGW' but I am becoming more disillusioned with it.

As I buy all my GW stuff of Ebay, its ridiculous pricing doesn't directly effect me although it is still an annoyance.

What has been bothering me though is their new rules, basically the lack of customisation and opportunities for conversions. A Death Guard lord has precisely 2 equipment options and both of them are scythes. This goes entirely against the ethos of 40k and I can see no valid reason for it (no model=no rules is not a valid reason).

The new fluff is pretty poor as well, it is certainly inconsistent. This has been an issue for years though.

Upping the base size of marines certainly hasn't endeared them to me either.

Basically GW seem to have made some obvious decisions but they don't seem to fully understand their own games so I would suggest that they still have lessons to learn.

 Chamberlain wrote:
So who gets to decide if the product is actually better or if it's perceived value is just inflated with marketing

Each individual for themselves.

This whole discussion, on my part anyway, started with me taking exception to the idea that a happy majority can invalidate the opinion of a displeased minority.

You can go on about who gets to decide what GW is or is not, but at the end of the day I can reject your opinion as much as you can reject mine.

 Chamberlain wrote:
No part of that sounds like fleecing.

tr.v. fleeced, fleec·ing, fleec·es
1. To defraud of money or property; swindle.

Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary:

fleece... informal:
to deceive and take money from (someone)

See? I can quote a dictionary, too.

Just because you choose the meaning that require criminal intent doesn't mean it's the only meaning of the word.

There is no reason to even discuss if GW is a legitimate business. They are. I'm talking about what they do within the boundaries of the law.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
@Geif

I think you're really reaching to paint Games Workshop in a bad light. Releasing discounted starter army boxes is fleecing? What? Almost every miniature company I know does this. Warlord Games, Privateer Press, Corvus Belli and Wryd to name a few. Yes, Games Workshop's products are more expensive than the discounted boxes. That's why they call them "discounted".

And the Plague Bretheren are entirely optional and aren't actually that expensive for a collector's item.

The funny thing is that I'm not even trying to present GW in a bad light. Would it surprise you to learn that I am reasonably happy with their business conduct?

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 Rygnan wrote:

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

Chamberlain thinks the competitive scene works, but if only a subset of army list options see play is it really working?

Is there any tournament game where very unit/model/card is equally playable?

None that I have seen, nobody is 100% perfect with balance on everything. It is impossible to account for everything that multiple thousands/millions of people will do with the system and rules put out by a company as big as GW, or even Privateer Press.

While this is the case, GW is an example of something far further from the mark than something like, say, Infinity or Malifaux. While those 'dud' options still exist, they are few and far between (most factions have only 3-4 choices that are bad, and even then they can usually be used to success in the right scenario or with good support). The Warhammers are to this day an example of a new release rolling around, and there are options that are super competitive to the point where they're overpowered, or they're hot garbage. This isn't to say there is a middle ground, but the results are far more skewed in the GW games than in most of their other competitors, where overpowered or horribly weak units are the outliers.

I don't know anything about the Malifaux or Infinity tournament meta, but we could do this comparison in both percentage terms and in number of viable units. For each faction key word or grand alliance, how many different armies are there that are tournament viable? Now how many tournament armies are viable for Pan O? Neverborn? Do the warhammer players have as much variety in their experience avaialble when crafting their lists as the Infinity and Malifaux tournament goers? Not because GW's percentage success rate is at all good, but because their range is so large?

It's like Magic the Gathering. Infinity and Malifaux are like the Standard format where you have a card pool of 1500-2000 choices but only 200 or so are actually tournament viable (if that) while GW is like the Modern format where you have a card pool of 11000+ choices but only 200 or so are truly tournament viable. Terrible percentage for one, same actual amount of variety at the top level?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But at £25 for 5, I fear I won't ever included as many as I'd like, unless I can get a discount set of some description.

They're priced that way because you can make two different unit types.

"But you can't do both at the same ti-"

TWO UNIT TYPES!!!

The boxes that build two units are inflated for that reason. Just look at the Firewarrior box.

There are other things that people have glossed over as well, like the Primaris release that as the opposite of the Sigmarine release. Sigmarines were released in very expensive 5-man boxes, and a lot of people did not like that. Eventually GW released 10-man Sigmarine boxes that were cheaper than 2 5-man boxes.

With the Primaris Marines they started with 10-man boxes, and then released 5-man boxes that are more than 50% of the cost of a 10-man box. I'd even wager that they always intended to release them as 5-man boxes first (the sprues has just 5 troops on it, not 10, as the 10-man boxes have a double load of sprues) but changed it to releasing 10-man boxes first after the negative reaction to the 5-man Sigmarine boxes. And let's not forget the mono-pose Primaris characters and their astronomical price.

And now they're about to release a US$80/AUD$140 box of cardboard squares.


Their prices are nuts, and they're still going up.

Just baffles me that the Mechanicus line, ever before unification, was so schizophrenically priced.

Skitarii, Servitors and Kastelan? All perfectly reasonably priced in my opinion.

Sicarians? Eh. £28 for 5 spindly models isn't great.

Everything else? Erm.....yeah I'll seek out a discount on that (thankfully, I can get to Darksphere with minimum fuss after work)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Just baffles me that the Mechanicus line, ever before unification, was so schizophrenically priced.

Skitarii, Servitors and Kastelan? All perfectly reasonably priced in my opinion.

Sicarians? Eh. £28 for 5 spindly models isn't great.

Everything else? Erm.....yeah I'll seek out a discount on that (thankfully, I can get to Darksphere with minimum fuss after work)

Tell me about it. Isn't it funny how my army is made up of Skitarii, Kataphrons, Kastelans, Onagers and the odd character? I wonder why...

And even then, well, I'm not saying anything about Kastelans. They are two Dreadnought sized models and a character for a price less than two Dreadnoughts. But even the Kataphrons are pretty bad in my opinion, considering they are a Troops choice. I bit the bullet to get two to fill out the mandatory Troops (and they are lovely models, so there's that), but the only reason I could justify doubling their number was the Elimination Maniple box couple with a small store discount.

The idea of fielding a lone chicken walker, let alone a full squad, is just disheartening. I could get two Bolt Action armies for the money I'd spend on five of them.

Another example of bad pricing is Witch Elves. Ten slim elf ladies for almost twice the price of other Core choices in the Dark Elf army. Why? Because the alternate build is a Rare choice, so we get to pay the elite bonus GW likes to put on so many models.

Witch Elves are alongside Greatswords the most insanely priced product of all of the Fantasy range. Truly a jewel of the Kirby era. A shame because both of them are very nice models, but when I can have 40 Perry Brothers foot knights for less price than 10 Greatswords....

Yeah there's a reason why we took to calling Greatswords 'Goldswords'.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Sicarians? Eh. £28 for 5 spindly models isn't great.

But they make two different kits!!!

And again it becomes mostly frustrating because good value can be found with GW.

But let's dial this back for a mo. We're focussing on recent stuff.

Primaris - well, OK. Lots of ways to buy stuff, I can get with that. Reasonable variety of price points mixed in.

Death Guard - WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED???

To be honest with Death Guard I have less problems with the prices (They have at least 20€ HQ's, not 30€), but with the limitation of the sprues. But I can understand that making Nurgle is more difficult in a proper good looking multipart kit, with all those tentacles, mutations, etc...