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pismakron wrote:
Year 1: A new algorithm is implemented that automatically buffs poorly selling models and nerfs models that has been sold out in a while. GWs legal team is expanded and I marry a young trophy wife.

Year 2: A new kind of space marine called the Superior Marine is introduced. It is slightly bigger better and cooler than the Primaris Marines.

Year 3: Pokémon is made into a playable faction. Pikachu spam dominates the meta for almost a year, until the models are nerfed into kingdom come. For the first time in GWs history lawsuits generate more revenue than miniature sales.

Year 4: Warp boxes are introduced. They contain a random miniature from a known faction. Most of them are quite ordinary, but rare and super rare models are also present, and quickly begins to dominate the meta.

Year 5: I marry an even younger trophy wife with even bigger tits. A small country is evacuated to make room for my new palace. GW lawyers now number more than 10000 and is organized into battalions.

Year 10: GW takes over the government in the UK, and the new Ordo Legalitius runs the treasury. GW royalties amounts to more than 10% of the GDP and is for the first time referred to as tithes.

Year 100: I am enshrined in a Golden Throne in GWs headquarters in Buckingham Palace. I am artificially kept alive by a steady stream of botox-infused trophy-wives. The cycle is complete.

Best idea in the thread so far.

What I would do? Well, apart from cutting myself a big fat paycheck, I would create a cool new game set in the Warhammer world. It is an amazing setting and a big shame that they dropped it for the silly, over-the-top drivel of AoS. I like my fantasy dark and gritty.

Nothing. They're gonna whine no matter what you do. Leave'em hanging and laugh.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:
This forum itself is a free tool GW could utilize to develop rules for each faction.

That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

haha, I spent years as an analyst, its fairly easy to data mine and pull the gems from the trash. Also, I have seen a number of really good ideas in here that went over board due to fanboyism. Taking those and tweaking and adjusting would be a lot easier then doing it yourself, or hiring a development team to do it all.

Let me put it this way, when HQMC was fielding ideas for new gear they would send out teams to AD units in the states and even deployed who would give them design ideas, requirements and needs. The teams would come back, analyze the data and then either build or buy the required gear. GW could do the very same thing for low cost compared to developing a new rule/unit and having it fail spectacularly. (Looking at you Stompa/Nauts).

This is apples to oranges. The process you applied is parsing data of people who are all working to accomplish the same or highly similar tasks as efficiently as possible.

How would you apply the same process when every single individual had wildly different goals and specifications from every other person, even within the same faction. Or better yet, when they lie to you to try and get something extra for themselves or take something away from who they don't like.

The process you described is taking a rough bellcurve of responses and evaluating them for implementability.

What it would be in 40k is a million cometely unrelated (and/or falsified) data-points screaming past your head into the finest example of 'true random' that you could ever hope for.

I am behind Peregrine on this one.
Maybe I am getting old, and expect more.
But, GW just seems to never miss a chance to disappoint.
The new Chapter Approved, for example.

Six months after release, and now basic rules cost 80USD PLUS codex and/or index... 110-150bux, more or less.
That is before buying a single HQ blister for 30bux.
Eek.

And the rules are garbage.
I would be ashamed, if I were a GW executive,
but then again, I was not a bizniz major, so maybe I am missing something important...

This guy also has some good ideas, I think:

Wayniac wrote:
Basically:

* Hire better designers who actually use math/formulas to determine what works.
* Complete an app like War Room for Warmachine/Hordes that allows army building and has unit datasheets for a fee (either flat fee or subscription)
* Go to AOS model for units (i.e. datasheets are freely available), charge for additional things and focus on supplements to enhance the game, not "required" purchases to play.
* Rework the paint range to use dropper bottles, maybe partner with Vallejo.
* Move from the GW brick and mortar style to more of a franchise; give managers more freedom and flexibility to have more room, and support stores to have more like the hobby centers of old and less like an Apple store. Continue to open communication with independent retailers to stock and support the game.

But, frankly, I would get to work on 9th edition, make sure it works, and sell it as a complete rulebook in soft and hardcover (maybe 30 and 50bux, respectively, sure... with a coupon for a model or a discount with the hardback maybe?), that employs the codices that will have been released by then, with updates to points and abilities and so on freely available until a new codex is ready, each of which for less than 20bux.
Then, I would update that complete rulebook once a year, but post changes to the original online for free download.
People buy the new book for convenience, and cuz if they do then they get a voucher for a special model and/or discount from GW Direct or something to that effect.

Then, I would talk to the CAD workers about scale and detail, consider doing more modeling-enthusiast targeted releases (multi-pose kits, upgrade bits kits) and so on.
And, I would fire the guy who made their new into battle board thing 3'3" x 5'4" or whatever the it is. Why not 4x4? Something standard? Just, silliness.

I would Change little at first, other than hiring a playtest team, proof readers.

I'd hire a team of technical writers and every rule book would have to go through them. They'd be in charge of checking new rule books against existing ones and coordinating the writing to give the rules a singular voice, as opposed to each writer writing in a vacuum.

I'd also stop trying to squeeze every possible dollar out of rulebooks. I'd have the philosophy that if you make great rules, and make them readily available, people will buy far more miniatures.

Example, the abortion that is the necromunda gang war book. Missing key weapon stats, obviously meant to be part of the core rule book, wasn't even proof read, and makes no sense why it exists. Was obviously a rushed cash grab. 2nd example, chapter approved. Why is GW charging to patch their game?

But I work with mostly MBAs at a giant evil mega corp, and I can safely say that I've never once in my life seen an MBA have a decent idea because that's the degree people who don't have any talents or intelligence, but want to make money anyway, get. So none of this is shocking.

First of all stop take a deep breath and realise that we actually have competitors now. Look at what they offer and how they've got started. First thing to do because of this bring back Specalist Games more in house options to provide the variety that these competitors. Next realise we need to be competitive on price point with people like Osprey and Reaper. Reaper we can charge more than by being hard plastic and multi-part o.k. do that but make sure the price isn't so different that Reaper starts looking a better option. Also look at whether board game plastic is a better option than finecast and pass the saving on. If I can sell 2 boxes of the same product at £30 or 4 at £25 or 10 at £10 I want the 4 at £25. Looking at providing pocket money options like the old blister packs at less than £10 as well. Also accept that if I'm marketing for kids I need kids prices and production values (simple models/rules/painting) if I'm marketing for Adults I can charge Adult prices but I need Adult production values.

I really like the idea of segregating people who create thematic rules from people who do technical writing from people who determine unit value by math-hammer. Those strike me as three distinct disciplines. Those teams would surely work closely together under a product leader of some sort, but I think making the roles distinct allows each person to focus-on and really nail their specialty.

Simplify the product line - drop whatever the lowest-played army is right now, shore up existing armies by dropping whatever sells least within them.

Future production should be very simple - those easy-build kits should become the norm. Makes the hobby more accessible to people who don't model / don't have an interest in modeling. Makes rules writing easier, as if we don't cast it in the kits, you can't use it.

Simplify the rules - a 10 year old should be able to pick up the BRB and be ready to play inside of an hour.

M.

 Infantryman wrote:
Simplify the product line - drop whatever the lowest-played army is right now, shore up existing armies by dropping whatever sells least within them.

Future production should be very simple - those easy-build kits should become the norm. Makes the hobby more accessible to people who don't model / don't have an interest in modeling. Makes rules writing easier, as if we don't cast it in the kits, you can't use it.

Simplify the rules - a 10 year old should be able to pick up the BRB and be ready to play inside of an hour.

M.

So.... SOB, admech and GSC?

Please don't put Infantryman at charge

Sorcererbob wrote:
(This is a director speaking now)
Are you suggesting:
a) Delay the other-army release (and hence, delay the next Space Marine release - this has serious dollars implicated)
b) Replace the other-army release with sisters (hence turning an existing army effectively into legacy)
c) something else?

a).
Or c) if you like c) better. I think c) is quite nice actually. Like, say, release both stuff at the same time or something? Who knows? That's what I love about c), it's the whole uncertainty of it!

Sorcererbob wrote:
And why do you think that sisters will be more popular than the lowest-tier? They haven't had a release for years, surely there is no one actually collecting them now.

If noone is collecting them already it means every one will have to buy a full army rather than just a handful of new models. Nice! More moneys for the moneys god, more pounds for the throne of GW!

I was applying real-world, adult, and practical analysis to the proposal of plastic sisters. The response indicates to me that we’re not going to have a constructive conversation on this topic.

Thanks for your contribution.

Subscription to rules, and an army building app that would be used in tournaments. There is no earthly reason why people run deep into major events with illegal lists.

I would also commit to a yearly content update to each army, individually. There is no reason for years to go by between codex updates. This would be in the form of errata and would be free. Maybe it's a new psychic power. Maybe it's a new stratagem. Point is, everybody gets something once a year.

Were I a director I'd look at pushing the following initiatives:

Expanding the customer base
Nerd stuff is big right now. I'd look at how WotC has expanded the D&D brand. Look at the many "watch people play D&D" streams out there and how popular they are. So I'd look at ways to incentivize that. In particular, I'd note how D&D now is seen as much more friendly to women than it used to be, and emulate some of those techniques. So I'd definitely put some marketing pound sterling into supporting some female faces in the hobby in various ways.

I'd also look at shifting or expanding the model range to include more female minis, both characters and troop types. I'd aim to have roughly a 50-50 split for characters and maybe 30-70 for rank-and-file-troops (but with several options for players to go all female if they so desire).

Similarly, I'd push to highlight ethnic diversity in the player base, and reflect that in the marketing material and official minis too.

GW's products still have an image of being mostly about and for white guys. There's money to be made in going beyond that. GW is already taking steps in that direction, but I'd push to accelerate it from how it's going now.

I'd also want to not get in the way of fanart and fanfic as that generates more value for the IP in my opinion.

Tournaments, Events, and Rules
I'm pretty content with what GW is doing now, from a director's point of view. The rules need to continue to shift slightly on a continual basis to encourage competitive players to keep buying new models. The trick, of course, is to make sure the churn isn't so rapid that we lose too many players along the way. Free updates might be a good way to go, but ultimately whichever way is most cost effective gets my support (and is up to the executive team, not a director). As a player I know that the rule update propagation effort has more pain points than necessary, but as a director I don't see a significant impact on operations - though I could be persuaded otherwise.

I would consider providing good support for competitive tournaments as well, and I'd tend to encourage a few competing variations of tournament modifications in the vein of ITC, as that encourages greater purchases as well.

I'd also look at ways to incentivize small local tournaments on a large scale, especially if I could make them attractive to the demographics I'm looking to expand into.

However, I'd also look at providing support to other types of public events that are less head-to-head competition - more narrative focused ones for example to broaden the kind of experiences 40K provides and break down some of the competitive-or-GTFO air that surrounds the IP. Competition is good, but we want all kinds of players to buy our product.

... though all this incentivizing would have to be to be cost effective.

RPG/ Narrative Skirmish
I think the current overall strategy of moving up (apocalypse) and down (small starter sets) the game scale is sound. As a piece of that I'd look into creating a minis driven narrative type game - a table top rpg could be the ticket but it doesn't have to be - that would encourage people to enter the hobby from the rpg space and buy a few minis from across our range to support their games... and then try to attract them into the core minis game once they have purchased miniatures already.

I'd repackage some of our existing products to support that strategy as well.

Stuff
I'd probably suggest pushing 40K branded tat more as well.

Digital
An army builder app would be great, but I'd recommend including a strong "connect with local players" component as well, to help people get together. Ultimately, being part of a community improves both recruitment of new players and retention and - I expect - drives the purchase of terrain items (people never playing will still buy minis for netlists, but people tend to buy terrain mostly when they actively play I expect).

Terrain
I'd make sure that the use of terrain is well integrated into the rules and supported with product. There's potential to sell more there and provide better game experiences as well.

... that's what I'd do if I were a GW director. This is not exactly the same as what I'd prefer as a player, though there is some overlap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Infantryman wrote:
Simplify the product line - drop whatever the lowest-played army is right now, shore up existing armies by dropping whatever sells least within them.

Future production should be very simple - those easy-build kits should become the norm. Makes the hobby more accessible to people who don't model / don't have an interest in modeling. Makes rules writing easier, as if we don't cast it in the kits, you can't use it.

Simplify the rules - a 10 year old should be able to pick up the BRB and be ready to play inside of an hour.

M.

I'd actually argue against that.

I mean, I'm not against the idea that a 10 year old should be able to pick up the game and get into it. We definitely should have such a product, but I'd prefer to position it as a gateway to the larger more complex game. I reckon that the depth of the commitment (and I mean that in a cash sense) to our IP is partially derived from the complexity. Tinkering with lists, considering and arguing builds, and all that stuff is one of the foundations of customer loyalty. Also, a more complex system (both in terms of rules and model options) allow us to keep balance churn going at a slow but constant rate, which drives sales among our already committed customers.

Simplification sounds great, but there's a significant risk that going too hard there will backfire significantly. I think it's better in support of our main line rather than as the centre piece of our strategy. We want to avoid scenarios where our customers are "done" and have everything figured out and complexity helps keep things engaging over a longer period of time.

Light AOS on fire

Bring back Fantasy

In addition to many of the comments about better editing/proofreading and modern rules distribution systems, I'd like to see a lot more transparency behind the rules design.

Updates like chapter approved should provide a great opportunity to sit down and actually discuss the thought process behind various changes and rebalances. Explain the logic behind why something was improved or nerfed, discuss what has failed, what has succeeded, why to both of those, and the general direction intended to move the game in to learn from those failures and capitalize on those successes. Let me, as a player and consumer, know that these changes are coming from a good place.
Of course, that requires a level of openness that even the New GW (TM) doesn't seem to be too comfortable with.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Light AOS on fire

Bring back Fantasy

oh yeah, and this^^

almost forgot about that fully painted orc and goblin army in the box, on the shelf...

 jeff white wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Light AOS on fire

Bring back Fantasy

oh yeah, and this^^

almost forgot about that fully painted orc and goblin army in the box, on the shelf...

* quietly looks over to the display cabinet with 4000 points of painted Bretonnians... sigh

Not only did we never receive our turn in the sun with a shiny army book, we got retconned out of existence. AOS can feth off

Please GW, bring back Fantasy.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Remember the "your dudes" factor. People will buy and trade for bitz to convert stuff; move away from stuff like "A Primaris Captain can only take a Power Sword, a Deathwatch Captain cannot take a Bike," etc.

I think it's worth mentioning that making conversions and hunting down bits functionally required to play your army increases the barrier of entry (and therefore reduces new players) while the majority of the benefit goes to 3rd party bits sellers.

Rule book and codexes should be a loss leader, something they give away for free or through a pay wall to entice you to try out new units or different armies or games.

If you don't have to pay £25 for a codex, that's another £25 you get to spend on models, and other physical products. If you're already planning to purchase their products, then those £25 are better spent on an item which occupies shelf space. The books don't need to exist as physical copies, but the models do, and producing, transporting and storing them is a bigger expense than the cost of the books.

Add to that the advantage of a "living rule book", which is something you can only really do with a digital document, and would allow for armies to be continuously balanced and updated.

You could even tie a worldwide campaign to this digital division and publish lists for the participating factions, which would be adjusted as the campaign progressed to adapt to changing conditions, such as the Imperial side gaining an oil field or losing an important spaceport. Events such as this has marketing potential and it would let the community feel involved in the game.

 Aesthete wrote:
Were I a director I'd look at pushing the following initiatives:

{ content snipped }
.

Great post. I especially like the idea to connect local players. How many missed connection must there be? Brad thought players would be there at 11am. Steve thought they'd be there at 3pm. Neither of them get a game. Suggested name for the function/app: Battle Comms Uplink

On a separate note, some people have suggested more openness. I wonder if laying cards on the table would ultimately help or hinder. "Ok guys, we're releasing female head swaps for imperial guard because we want to attract more ladies to the game." I guess its all in the messaging. How would an announcement that goes "We're cutting GSC because they're not selling" vs. silently not renewing them?

Scott-S6 wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.

That's not a problem.

Say you've got six writers.

You hire six new, good writers.

You then decide that you only need six and six are getting made redundant. You create criteria to score each of the twelve employees (making sure that the criteria will score the six you want to keep the highest).

You make redundant the six lowest scoring writers which just happens to be the six you wanted to get rid of.

You get sued and lose. Deservedly. You might reckon you've come up with a solid plan, but I'm afraid every tribunal under the sun will see straight through it.


Like many above, subscription rulesets and army lists would be top of my list.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.

That's not a problem.

Say you've got six writers.

You hire six new, good writers.

You then decide that you only need six and six are getting made redundant. You create criteria to score each of the twelve employees (making sure that the criteria will score the six you want to keep the highest).

You make redundant the six lowest scoring writers which just happens to be the six you wanted to get rid of.

You mean like this?

You can't do that sort of thing in real life, not in Europe anyway.

What you could do is hire a new head writer to direct rule development, and expect the other writers to adapt to his directions, after all that's what you're paying them for.

A problem with trying to poach talent from other studios is the gamble. These new people might not integrate well with your current company structure and culture, they are aware of the risk they are taking and bargain accordingly for better protection in case they get fired quickly.

Honestly a lot of the stuf the "new" CEO is already doing.
Improve PR, increase community presence actively work to better the balance ( They may not be succeeding, but they are trying, I'll give them that).

In general tough I'd be carefull about big quality changes, these can backfire spectacularly if you are not carefull. A big part of quality management is mmaking sure that your theoritical improvement is also turns into a practical one.
I read an interview with Laurie golding where he described the mess that happened when black library and the rule studio were rolled into one deprtment. After 2 years of decreased output in every way the thing got rolled back.

One thing i would do is turrets and sponson weapons and weapons for dreadnoughts. The rhino is the base chassis for every SM tank. Its possible to build pretty much every tank variant there is from the rhino. I recently bought a lot of twin assault cannons, twin lascannons, turrets, whirlwind rocket launchers from kromlech because GW doesnt make them.

Probably not much else. They're cashing in HUGE amounts of money and the community at large is happy with what's going on.

Zingraff wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.

That's not a problem.

Say you've got six writers.

You hire six new, good writers.

You then decide that you only need six and six are getting made redundant. You create criteria to score each of the twelve employees (making sure that the criteria will score the six you want to keep the highest).

You make redundant the six lowest scoring writers which just happens to be the six you wanted to get rid of.

You mean like this?

You can't do that sort of thing in real life, not in Europe anyway.

What you could do is hire a new head writer to direct rule development, and expect the other writers to adapt to his directions, after all that's what you're paying them for.

Move the company to Maryland, where you don't need a reason to fire someone.

M.

Really, in the UK you can't fire someone for not performing adequately to the role hired for? I guess that's veering off topic but as an American, I find it weird since, while our laws are basically "fire anyone for any reason" you would think "Not good enough at their job" would be a valid reason to dismiss an employee?

"Adequately" and "Well" are two very different things, unfortunately.

Half of all people perform below average. The unemployment rate for any semi-healthy profession is, necessarily, well above 50%.

Then there's also how do you prove why you fire someone. Not as trivial as it sounds. And, to get hurt for it, you don't need to actually be wrong. You don't even need them to be able to win a court case. They just need to have enough to sound like they might possibly be able to convince some people, some of the time.

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:
This forum itself is a free tool GW could utilize to develop rules for each faction.

That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

Does your country have a law that prevents you from firing people for being terrible at their job?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zingraff wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.

That's not a problem.

Say you've got six writers.

You hire six new, good writers.

You then decide that you only need six and six are getting made redundant. You create criteria to score each of the twelve employees (making sure that the criteria will score the six you want to keep the highest).

You make redundant the six lowest scoring writers which just happens to be the six you wanted to get rid of.

You mean like this?

You can't do that sort of thing in real life, not in Europe anyway.

What you could do is hire a new head writer to direct rule development, and expect the other writers to adapt to his directions, after all that's what you're paying them for.

This is exactly what I was thinking if UK has some sort of law that prevent firing people for sucking at their job. You can always bring in Alec Baldwin and give them the brass balls speech.