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My 5yo nephew loves the Warhammer store and his little brother is almost there(in terms of wanting to go there).

Backfire wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

You'd be surprised how fast a company can go from "debtless and cash reserves" to "gone". See the history of TSR for a very relevant example.

Naturally with terrible leadership you can take anything under. But GW was not doing any of the things which took TSR under in the '90s. TSR was selling tons of stuff, but they were investing so much to make new products that their profits were never really great, as far as I can tell.

The leader at that time also ensured that there was no playtesting, used TSR to print Buck Rogers stuff because they inherited the license and thus gained a personal share of the money for it, tried to cash in on MTG... Honestly, it was a lot of things that was did that caused TSR to fail, and a number of it was greed and inability to lead, and it generally goes to the leadership at that time.

Games Workshop, like any business, is not immune to anything.

Right now they're riding a high, and enjoying life while it's good. They're alienating plenty of customers, but generating more new ones - so it's a net positive. Plenty of money is coming in, and they're pushing the boundaries of pricing, allowing huge financial gains.

What they've never faced (though they did shortly) was another company going after the same product design as them. Privateer Press came closest of all the others, but even that paled in comparison. They later changed focus, gaming materials, etc. Mantic is another large company but they've stuck to their "cheap gaming" mantra and it continues to show.

Games Workshop can fail, just as any company. I doubt they'd have anything that could cause them to tank immediately and close up shop, but they could easily slide back down the scale quite a bit with a few bad choices. They're operating in, more or less, a vacuum the likes of which any other business in the world would envy. They have a strong IP, zero real competition, and a dedicated fan base which allows them to price things according to "whatever someone will pay". It's the best position a brand can be in really; literally printing money.

 flandarz wrote:
I didn't include the FAQs/Erratas, because they're free.

I don't know if I'd consider little Timmy's babysitting session as "getting into the hobby", and more than I'd consider successfully making yourself a bowl of cereal "getting into cooking".

Like I said, I'm not saying 40k is prohibitively expensive. I just feel like it'd be far less daunting to the average consumer if GW just offered their rules for free (in PDF form).

I bet GW consider a dozen kids sat with £300 of newly bought models in front of them “getting into the hobby.” I know I certainly do. In fact, I can’t really see how it’s not. What exactly is the bench mark for “getting into the hobby”?

Considering you made the example, you might want to read it again. But, here it is, in a nutshell: "parents buy a $25 squad and leave their kid at the game shop so they can go shopping hassle-free." If you consider that "getting into the hobby", then perhaps I'm getting into hiking because I walk from my front door to the car every morning.

But, the example you JUST said is fine. Because it shows actual interest in 40k. That's my "bar" for getting into the hobby: being interested in it. Because, in your original example, that kid seems like he'd have been just as happy with popsicle sticks, glue, and crayons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, since you guys apparently misunderstood, let me spell it out for you: I'm no hobby elitist. But saying "Little Timmy splashing paint, squirting glue, and bothering the manager" isn't an indicator of interest in the hobby. It's an indicator of a normal kid who just had any sort of craft put in front of them. If the kid has actual interest in 40k, then sure. They're getting into the hobby. But if I get my kids to clean up their room, I ain't going around saying "my kids LOVE to clean."

phillv85 wrote:

 flandarz wrote:
I didn't include the FAQs/Erratas, because they're free.

I don't know if I'd consider little Timmy's babysitting session as "getting into the hobby", and more than I'd consider successfully making yourself a bowl of cereal "getting into cooking".

Like I said, I'm not saying 40k is prohibitively expensive. I just feel like it'd be far less daunting to the average consumer if GW just offered their rules for free (in PDF form).

I bet GW consider a dozen kids sat with £300 of newly bought models in front of them “getting into the hobby.” I know I certainly do. In fact, I can’t really see how it’s not. What exactly is the bench mark for “getting into the hobby”?

A box of troops? Or the paint set that comes with models if they still do these?
Which is what GW staff would sell to a kid who comes in with their parents for the first time...

Me? They will try to sell me the Eldar battleforce and a bundle of paintbrushes plus their mothers...

I think people see GW in different light depending on where they are based. In the UK GW store has had the stalwart presence for decades and this is responsible for fuelling a lot of the UK business.

Also, there are kids rolling around my (working class low income)neighbourhood with Iphones worth twice what my Samsung S5 is worth...
Yes any kids from a poor family that's on the breadline will be priced out of getting involved. But they will be priced out of life in general so its not something GW needs to worry about as its not their market.
I don't understand why people insist GW is expensive.. Its a luxury product. Its not essential and therefore cannot be expensive as you can simply.. not buy it.

Those upper middle class families who drop their kids off every week for them to play with their toy solidiers? The professionals with decent amount of disposable income?
They can afford £30 (that's like one meal out at the pub...) for a new box of stuff every other week no problem. Then take into account big ones like birthday and Christmas where families drop couple 100s of ££/$$ on their kids.

To put it into a perspective my local showcase charges about £15 for a ticket and then you are looking to spend say another £12 for foodstuffs - popcorn drink etc. and that's with being pretty tight and not taking into account the option of work around (I.E. bringing in supplies from a supermarket). So as a parent you are looking at something like £40-50 for you and your child to go see a movie for 2 hours.

How can GW products be considered expensive in comparison??

The pricing aspect being responsible for GW to fail overnight because people move away from the hobby whole sale just doesn't really add up. They'd have to start charging £500 for a single space marine..
The only thing I can imagine making it tank, is a sudden rise in competition on the highstreets ripping out a crippling chunk of their market. Which I just don't see happening.

 flandarz wrote:
Considering you made the example, you might want to read it again. But, here it is, in a nutshell: "parents buy a $25 squad and leave their kid at the game shop so they can go shopping hassle-free." If you consider that "getting into the hobby", then perhaps I'm getting into hiking because I walk from my front door to the car every morning.

But, the example you JUST said is fine. Because it shows actual interest in 40k. That's my "bar" for getting into the hobby: being interested in it. Because, in your original example, that kid seems like he'd have been just as happy with popsicle sticks, glue, and crayons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, since you guys apparently misunderstood, let me spell it out for you: I'm no hobby elitist. But saying "Little Timmy splashing paint, squirting glue, and bothering the manager" isn't an indicator of interest in the hobby. It's an indicator of a normal kid who just had any sort of craft put in front of them. If the kid has actual interest in 40k, then sure. They're getting into the hobby. But if I get my kids to clean up their room, I ain't going around saying "my kids LOVE to clean."

I think you're picking at semantics. Also you're overlooking that not everyone gets into a hobby the same way. Sometimes you get into a hobby with a burning passion for part of or all of the hobby and what it entails. Other times it might be babysteps and it might not even be your own idea.

Timmy being left at the store with a box of minis and splashing some paint on might not be "into the hobby" in that moment; he's just into the art and craft and such. But lets say that happens every few weeks and he enjoys it. The store manager and other gamers encourage him and help him along; he turns from putting together a few minis and slapping paint on into playing a game (probably using the store codex and the opponents rulebook as the opponent helps teach them how to play - see they don't even need to buy any rules to get started). Before they know it they ARE into the hobby.

Everyone has different ways they got into it - friends, family, other gamers, school teachers (hobby clubs), TV, books etc... I think as we become older we become more aware of how those things can influence us whilst when we were kids many of those things (often not in isolation) might have influenced us without us really being aware (or if we were we've forgotten it now).



In the end this is all mostly boiling down to "what counts as a gamer" and in that there's a huge myriad of things.

Sumilidon wrote:
So GW has had a few bumper years of success recently with higher sales, popularity and new and interesting products which they have certainly been pushing hard - eg contrast.

At the same time, they have also made the "main" hobby much more expensive, with price rises, re-do of codexes and the general bloat of rules and books they like so much. So much so, that to me it seems they will inevitably crash as the game starts to further enter the realm of "prohibitively expensive".

My best example of this is for children. You want a game to continue as long as GW has - you need to get kids playing it. They then get others, turn into adults and have more disposable income. Realistically however, which kid can afford it these days?

3 Zoanthropes for example - £40. Barely even a squad
Repulser = £50
Primaris Librarian = £22.55

It's little wonder profit went through the roof, but have they made it too expensive for kids (or notably the parents of kids who don't play the game themselves).

If so, how long does it take to crash? Either through a generation problem or 1 major upset down the line that turns people away or has them revisit what they liked about the hobby

We've seen an uptake in youth leagues in my area. A lot of this has come from local stores pushing Warcry, KT, and the idea that 40K can be played at lower points levels below 1500 points.

So I'm not so sure that the cost is going to cause any collapse anytime soon.

And that's fine. My bar for "getting into the hobby" is actually very low. I don't even think you need your own books, or models, or anything. Having interest IN the hobby is sufficient to me. Doesn't seem too elitist to me.

Like I said, my argument was entirely based on the assertion that leaving your kid with no other option for entertainment than to build and paint minis and calling it "getting into the hobby" isn't... well, good. In a lot of ways.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

You'd be surprised how fast a company can go from "debtless and cash reserves" to "gone". See the history of TSR for a very relevant example.

Naturally with terrible leadership you can take anything under. But GW was not doing any of the things which took TSR under in the '90s. TSR was selling tons of stuff, but they were investing so much to make new products that their profits were never really great, as far as I can tell.

The leader at that time also ensured that there was no playtesting, used TSR to print Buck Rogers stuff because they inherited the license and thus gained a personal share of the money for it, tried to cash in on MTG... Honestly, it was a lot of things that was did that caused TSR to fail, and a number of it was greed and inability to lead, and it generally goes to the leadership at that time.

Seriously? You're holding that against them? EVEYBODY tried to cash in on MTG. Some succeeded to varying degrees. Many failed. Some, like TSR, just failed more spectacularly.

Most of TSR's problem was leadership, but they were also producing a lot of product that _didn't_ sell. They had warehouses full of increasing obscure and terrible gak that they churned out, paid writers for, paid storage for and...it sat there.

They also pretty much ignored the RPG genre and market shifting around them, thinking that as the 'leader,' they defined it.


While I don't care for a lot of current GW products, they're definitely trying to stay relevant to shifting tastes, and even changes in game design and formats. [Shadespire,etc as quick self contained games and model ranges is kind of mindblowing coming from GW]

 Togusa wrote:


We've seen an uptake in youth leagues in my area. A lot of this has come from local stores pushing Warcry, KT, and the idea that 40K can be played at lower points levels below 1500 points.

So I'm not so sure that the cost is going to cause any collapse anytime soon.

I'm not on the Schools League mailing list any more but for the years that I was they ran the gamut of ~500 to ~700 points until they switched entirely to Kill Team. It was always achievable money for kids from middle income families, still is.

That is where I got most of my impressions of how kids really get into the hobby rather than how someone on Dakka imagines they do. Nice to see a bit of reality creeping into this discussion at last.

 Desubot wrote:
Honestly dont see kids at my flg

its mostly 30 odd year olds that come back after getting a job and dont mind the prices.

though they arent willy nilly buying everything.

This is the same here.
No kids but older guys, mainly 20 to 45, pushing around toy soldiers, mostly 40K, sometimes AoS.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 Togusa wrote:


We've seen an uptake in youth leagues in my area. A lot of this has come from local stores pushing Warcry, KT, and the idea that 40K can be played at lower points levels below 1500 points.

So I'm not so sure that the cost is going to cause any collapse anytime soon.

I'm not on the Schools League mailing list any more but for the years that I was they ran the gamut of ~500 to ~700 points until they switched entirely to Kill Team. It was always achievable money for kids from middle income families, still is.

That is where I got most of my impressions of how kids really get into the hobby rather than how someone on Dakka imagines they do. Nice to see a bit of reality creeping into this discussion at last.

I think kill team is great for this I think honestly the price if you want to get into the hobby is still within boundary that is feasible. Its the rules i think that really push it up here, $100 for a box of primaris is expencive, but can be sold as a experience for the child to there parents as well. Good hobby that gets them doing creative stuff, Its when you also try and sell that $70 book on top, and that is not all they need.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Honestly dont see kids at my flg

its mostly 30 odd year olds that come back after getting a job and dont mind the prices.

though they arent willy nilly buying everything.

This is the same here.
No kids but older guys, mainly 20 to 45, pushing around toy soldiers, mostly 40K, sometimes AoS.

I guess we're lucky (?). At my local shop we do have kids (high school students, the 15-18 range) playing things. More in the summer months for obvious reasons.

Mostly PF or various RPGs - because of the fairly low entry costs to RPGs. Some Magic/other card games, & a few are picking up board games.

There's one boy (about 17?) who clearly plays Skaven somewhere, but not at the shop. He does know a great deal about them.

And over the years we've had several kids join us "old guys" in playing Flames of War (WWII).
We'd also get younger players for Heroclix. But then about 3 years ago that game just evaporated in my area.

But most of the minis gaming is done by the 20something - 50 range.

MAN I forgot about Heroclix. That theoretically had a lot going for it and it suddenly disappeared about 2015-2016 in my area.

 Desubot wrote:
Honestly dont see kids at my flg

its mostly 30 odd year olds that come back after getting a job and dont mind the prices.

though they arent willy nilly buying everything.

whats up with this strange sentiment of wanting GW to fail financially. what good does a mind set like this have?

I think there are a ton of kids who get their first box of Warhammer, play with it, and then leave the hobby only to return a decade or more later when they have the disposable income to enjoy the hobby.

Regarding that strange sentiment people have about GW failing I think it has something to do with people being entitled in a way. If GW doesn't do what they(those individuals) want to perfection then GW should die horribly. That's at least what I get from those sentiments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
MAN I forgot about Heroclix. That theoretically had a lot going for it and it suddenly disappeared about 2015-2016 in my area.

Kids tend to be more fickle when it comes to hobbies. Doesn't help that WizKids are the people managing Heroclix and that is a company I will never understand. I tried getting into Star Trek Attack Wing and the only place I could somewhat reliable buy the newest models was off ebay whereas with X-Wing I could just jump into my FLGS and get started.

I see a bunch of people are confusing "how I choose to play 40K" with "the only way to play 40K" again. The barrier to entry is lower than arguably ever before – get one of the smaller starter sets, or just a box of models each for you and your mate, and the free battle primer, and you're good to go with the basic game. Everything else – codices, detachments, datacards, etc etc – is stuff that can *optionally* be stacked up on top of that basic ruleset, no matter how "essential" you or I may feel like it is.

phillv85 wrote:

I bet GW consider a dozen kids sat with £300 of newly bought models in front of them “getting into the hobby.” I know I certainly do. In fact, I can’t really see how it’s not. What exactly is the bench mark for “getting into the hobby”?

I recall a story recalled by someone here how at gaming store a kid was interested in picking up WHFB, until the grognards told him that he would need to buy, paint and base full 2500 point army before anyone would play with him. He decided to pick up something else.

ccs wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

You'd be surprised how fast a company can go from "debtless and cash reserves" to "gone". See the history of TSR for a very relevant example.

Naturally with terrible leadership you can take anything under. But GW was not doing any of the things which took TSR under in the '90s. TSR was selling tons of stuff, but they were investing so much to make new products that their profits were never really great, as far as I can tell.

The leader at that time also ensured that there was no playtesting, used TSR to print Buck Rogers stuff because they inherited the license and thus gained a personal share of the money for it, tried to cash in on MTG... Honestly, it was a lot of things that was did that caused TSR to fail, and a number of it was greed and inability to lead, and it generally goes to the leadership at that time.

Seriously? You're holding that against them? EVEYBODY tried to cash in on MTG. Some succeeded to varying degrees. Many failed. Some, like TSR, just failed more spectacularly.

I'm holding it against them because it was one of the issues they failed spectacularly at. Mostly because of that whole "Not allowing playtesting thing", and being an RPG company first and foremost that tried jumping into a new field that had no experience in it at all.

 Elbows wrote:
Games Workshop, like any business, is not immune to anything.

Right now they're riding a high, and enjoying life while it's good. They're alienating plenty of customers, but generating more new ones - so it's a net positive. Plenty of money is coming in, and they're pushing the boundaries of pricing, allowing huge financial gains.

What they've never faced (though they did shortly) was another company going after the same product design as them. Privateer Press came closest of all the others, but even that paled in comparison. They later changed focus, gaming materials, etc. Mantic is another large company but they've stuck to their "cheap gaming" mantra and it continues to show.

GW has lots of fans who are interested primarily in Warhammer, not necessarily miniature wargames in general. This does not make them immune to competition but does provide sort of safe space.
Some people have said that Star Wars miniature game would put GW out of business, but I don't think it would happen. I don't think Star Wars is a setting that well suited for tabletop wargames, though X-Wing is popular and does somewhat compete from same customers.

I don't think GW is going to crash spectacularly. If and when they die off, it will be 'with a whimper', a slow decade-long struggle with the fanbase aging and customer tastes changing, with maybe some poor or unlucky management decisions thrown in to get the ball rolling faster.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 flandarz wrote:
I still think they could do their rulebooks for free (especially CA, I mean come on. I gotta spend MORE money for your balance patch?!) and then the 50 dollar pricetag for a "start collection" box won't seem so bad when you ain't gotta spend another 60 bucks or more for books too.

It becomes even more expensive these days if you want to play say UM or WS.
You need two codices and two sets of cards, which are in toto 100 bucks.

Does a kid starting out in the hobby need all that? I'm scratching my head why I would need any sets of cards (much less two sets) and I could easily afford them if I wanted to.

I think there is a huge disconnect between what I saw from youngsters entering the hobby (while i was helping a group towards the Schools League) and what people think kids need to be doing on this thread.

yeah people seem to think that "need" means "all thr toys bells and whistles you'll idealy have to start playing 40k in a compeitive scene"

I garntee you there are people out there whom have not purchased a supplement and have no intention of doing so


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Backfire wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Games Workshop, like any business, is not immune to anything.

Right now they're riding a high, and enjoying life while it's good. They're alienating plenty of customers, but generating more new ones - so it's a net positive. Plenty of money is coming in, and they're pushing the boundaries of pricing, allowing huge financial gains.

What they've never faced (though they did shortly) was another company going after the same product design as them. Privateer Press came closest of all the others, but even that paled in comparison. They later changed focus, gaming materials, etc. Mantic is another large company but they've stuck to their "cheap gaming" mantra and it continues to show.

GW has lots of fans who are interested primarily in Warhammer, not necessarily miniature wargames in general. This does not make them immune to competition but does provide sort of safe space.
Some people have said that Star Wars miniature game would put GW out of business, but I don't think it would happen. I don't think Star Wars is a setting that well suited for tabletop wargames, though X-Wing is popular and does somewhat compete from same customers.

I don't think GW is going to crash spectacularly. If and when they die off, it will be 'with a whimper', a slow decade-long struggle with the fanbase aging and customer tastes changing, with maybe some poor or unlucky management decisions thrown in to get the ball rolling faster.

multiple star wars mini games exist and they're not putting GW out of busniess at all. anyone who says that is siily.

that said I tend to agree that GW if it dies will die VERY slowly. In fact it's entirely possiable that 40k and AOS could both die and GW continues to live. it'd be much smaller but GW could proably turn a small profit simply acting as a "lisence holding company" for 40k and AOS video games etc

Starwars is a powerful franchise with some big stake holders in control of it and with the licence. It's one of the few where if the parent companies decided "yes we want to make a wargame and take a significant percentage of the market" they could. They'd have the capital (in the core franchise at least) to invest in machinery, production and a multinational distribution chain very fast. They could even undercut GW price wise and rely on the strength of the SW brand to push it forward.

However I think the miniatures market just isn't interesting to big business in that way. It likely doesn't scale up well enough to a mass market product to make them want to invade in such a way. The niche nature of the hobby actually acts to protect GW and also many of the small "one man band" type operations. KS has opened things up for those who want to try getting bigger ,but it can fail as much as it succeeds.

In general there's good money, just not enough for massive businesses to want to muscle in.


That said I really hope PP gets tehir act together. GW needs a little competition from a serious firm in the market.Hopefully once PP moves to their new factory and operations site they can get themselves together (got an email the other day and they are moving over the next month or so)

Backfire wrote:

phillv85 wrote:

I bet GW consider a dozen kids sat with £300 of newly bought models in front of them “getting into the hobby.” I know I certainly do. In fact, I can’t really see how it’s not. What exactly is the bench mark for “getting into the hobby”?

I recall a story recalled by someone here how at gaming store a kid was interested in picking up WHFB, until the grognards told him that he would need to buy, paint and base full 2500 point army before anyone would play with him. He decided to pick up something else.

This didn't happen to me quite like that. But a "friend of mine" (you know those school friends that you never actually see or hang out with outside of school) tried to sell me on playing WHFB with him and I went into a local games workshop to buy myself an elves army and my mother only bought me 2 blisters of metal elves. I don't even know if they were heroes or parts of a squad. She refused to buy me anything else and even as a kid I knew that wasn't enough to actually play a game. Wouldn't you know it? I never opened those blisters until like 15 years later when I needed some DnD minis. Got into 40k a couple of years later and now I have like 4000 points of Tau, and 2000 points of Gloomspite Gitz for AOs. With plans to buy Sisters of Battle when they come out.

I don't begrudge my parents for not buying me those models as a kid. They had no guarantee I would ever open the boxes. Let alone build and paint the stuff. Especially since as far as they were concerned. I had no friends to play the game with.

Though they did buy me most of heroscape. So I guess they started me down this path.

Backfire wrote:

phillv85 wrote:

I bet GW consider a dozen kids sat with £300 of newly bought models in front of them “getting into the hobby.” I know I certainly do. In fact, I can’t really see how it’s not. What exactly is the bench mark for “getting into the hobby”?

I recall a story recalled by someone here how at gaming store a kid was interested in picking up WHFB, until the grognards told him that he would need to buy, paint and base full 2500 point army before anyone would play with him. He decided to pick up something else.

yeah this is silly. and you see it all the time here among 40k players. 400 points with a patrol detachment is pretty doable (about the points cost of the Marines in Know no Fear I belive) and seems a good place to start, I'd happily play that kinda game with a newer player, heck I'd prefer a small quick game if I knew my opponent was new

Eldarsif wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Honestly dont see kids at my flg

its mostly 30 odd year olds that come back after getting a job and dont mind the prices.

though they arent willy nilly buying everything.

whats up with this strange sentiment of wanting GW to fail financially. what good does a mind set like this have?

I think there are a ton of kids who get their first box of Warhammer, play with it, and then leave the hobby only to return a decade or more later when they have the disposable income to enjoy the hobby.

Regarding that strange sentiment people have about GW failing I think it has something to do with people being entitled in a way. If GW doesn't do what they(those individuals) want to perfection then GW should die horribly. That's at least what I get from those sentiments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
MAN I forgot about Heroclix. That theoretically had a lot going for it and it suddenly disappeared about 2015-2016 in my area.

Kids tend to be more fickle when it comes to hobbies. Doesn't help that WizKids are the people managing Heroclix and that is a company I will never understand. I tried getting into Star Trek Attack Wing and the only place I could somewhat reliable buy the newest models was off ebay whereas with X-Wing I could just jump into my FLGS and get started.

The store by me is clearancing out their Attack Wing ships, it will no longer be carried there.

Backfire wrote:

phillv85 wrote:

I bet GW consider a dozen kids sat with £300 of newly bought models in front of them “getting into the hobby.” I know I certainly do. In fact, I can’t really see how it’s not. What exactly is the bench mark for “getting into the hobby”?

I recall a story recalled by someone here how at gaming store a kid was interested in picking up WHFB, until the grognards told him that he would need to buy, paint and base full 2500 point army before anyone would play with him. He decided to pick up something else.

So odd. Our stores all had youngling tables built especially for coaching low point games.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
MAN I forgot about Heroclix. That theoretically had a lot going for it and it suddenly disappeared about 2015-2016 in my area.

'
Proably just the market catching up with it. there was a time when CMGs where all the rage. then the economic crash of, I wanna say 2008? happened and almost overnight MWDA, the D&D CMG, the SW CMG, Mage Knight, and proably a bunch of others I've outright forgotten about, basicly vanished. Heroclix continued on for a time but seems to be more or less dead now.

Backfire wrote:

phillv85 wrote:

I bet GW consider a dozen kids sat with £300 of newly bought models in front of them “getting into the hobby.” I know I certainly do. In fact, I can’t really see how it’s not. What exactly is the bench mark for “getting into the hobby”?

I recall a story recalled by someone here how at gaming store a kid was interested in picking up WHFB, until the grognards told him that he would need to buy, paint and base full 2500 point army before anyone would play with him. He decided to pick up something else.

That guy isn't wrong, but he isn't right either.

Competitive players will rarely take the time to step aside and cater to someone getting into the hobby. As a kid its better to have friends or be in a club. Still, anyone who cares about growing their local scene will have people that take the time to bring kids under their wing. That's why escalation leagues are a thing.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Backfire wrote:

phillv85 wrote:

I bet GW consider a dozen kids sat with £300 of newly bought models in front of them “getting into the hobby.” I know I certainly do. In fact, I can’t really see how it’s not. What exactly is the bench mark for “getting into the hobby”?

I recall a story recalled by someone here how at gaming store a kid was interested in picking up WHFB, until the grognards told him that he would need to buy, paint and base full 2500 point army before anyone would play with him. He decided to pick up something else.

That guy isn't wrong, but he isn't right either.

Competitive players will rarely take the time to step aside and cater to someone getting into the hobby. As a kid its better to have friends or be in a club. Still, anyone who cares about growing their local scene will have people that take the time to bring kids under their wing. That's why escalation leagues are a thing.

I find it has little to do with a persons skill or experience or attitude (competitive vs casual) and more to do with if they are simply a good person at introducing others to a game. Some people have that skill, others lack it and some don't care to even bother trying. Thankfully the number who are actively against it is woefully small in general. They get remembered, but they are very few and far between. By and large most gamer groups are more than happy for new people. some are more experienced at it and will know how to best introduce someone - to guide them through getting started; play starting games with them; help them learn etc... Whilst some might be keen but lack the awareness and skills and might be off putting without intending to be so.

Plus along the way you always get those who try something out and find that it is just not for them and they move on. Or they just never get that great first day and never settle and just wander off - lost opportunities.

 Overread wrote:


Timmy being left at the store with a box of minis and splashing some paint on might not be "into the hobby" in that moment; he's just into the art and craft and such. But lets say that happens every few weeks and he enjoys it. The store manager and other gamers encourage him and help him along; he turns from putting together a few minis and slapping paint on into playing a game (probably using the store codex and the opponents rulebook as the opponent helps teach them how to play - see they don't even need to buy any rules to get started). Before they know it they ARE into the hobby.



In the end this is all mostly boiling down to "what counts as a gamer" and in that there's a huge myriad of things.

Why would the regulars want a kid to start the game in a different way, then they did. people have an inherent disliked of the other and different. A store has one culture, and what ever it is, and how ever it maybe different from cultures in other stores, people are not going to look pleased if someone does stuff the "wrong" way. If the new kid buys a 2500pts of army, never paints it, and only wants to play, and the store has a ton of people that work in paintstudios or do commissions, they are not going to look accepting at his grey tide. Same if someone tries to take it real slow, one painte squad at a time, and the store is 2000pts matched played continent X tournament pack, and everything WYSIWYG, then they are not going to be very open to someone asking for a 750pts game.

They get remembered, but they are very few and far between. By and large most gamer groups are more than happy for new people. some are more experienced at it and will know how to best introduce someone - to guide them through getting started; play starting games with them; help them learn etc...

yes, when they play the game the "proper" way. We had an ex pat guy from UK who tried to play with his FW army, and the store has a no FW rule. Came like 5 times, never got a game, never came back. Same would be true for a reverse situation, if someone in a FW place, would say they don't want to play vs FW stuff, they wouldn't be getting any rules real fast.