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The problem is GW support their product lines differently but treat them the same.

40k is a choose your own faction system, so the games don't distinguish between the armies.

GW is a promote marines and sell them as much as possible company.

These two perspectives are at odds with one another.

No where does GW distinguish their product lines from one another to the consumer, everything is sold as if they are all equivalent.

If I were selling 3 similar cars at similar prices but only one had after sales service, parts etc, which one looks more attractive?


If GW wanted to align their business strategy with their product strategy they have a few options:

They can refocus the business strategy to align it with their product and market/invest in all their lines equally

They can rebrand their product line to match their current business strategy - basically treat 40k like space Hulk where the game is sold as "you are marines - take turns to see how much better you are at killing the baddies than your mates!"

And thus sell marines as your actual army and all the non marines as mook forces you get to vs your friends so they can use their marines.

In this scenario all non loyalist marines become cheaper, worse and simpler because they are the npcs you take turns killing.


GWs current business strategy is aligned to the latter but their product is still sold and marketed like the former.
.

Hellebore wrote:
The problem is GW support their product lines differently but treat them the same.

40k is a choose your own faction system, so the games don't distinguish between the armies.

GW is a promote marines and sell them as much as possible company.

These two perspectives are at odds with one another.

No where does GW distinguish their product lines from one another to the consumer, everything is sold as if they are all equivalent.

If I were selling 3 similar cars at similar prices but only one had after sales service, parts etc, which one looks more attractive?


If GW wanted to align their business strategy with their product strategy they have a few options:

They can refocus the business strategy to align it with their product and market/invest in all their lines equally

They can rebrand their product line to match their current business strategy - basically treat 40k like space Hulk where the game is sold as "you are marines - take turns to see how much better you are at killing the baddies than your mates!"

And thus sell marines as your actual army and all the non marines as mook forces you get to vs your friends so they can use their marines.

In this scenario all non loyalist marines become cheaper, worse and simpler because they are the npcs you take turns killing.


GWs current business strategy is aligned to the latter but their product is still sold and marketed like the former.
.

Well written and accurate. Agreed on all accounts.

I'd not be happy with the space Hulk strategy, but I would at least know where I stood in terms of product support.

Currently it feels a bit like playing any xenos army is masochistic..

One thing that I don't think gets acknowledged enough, is that playing xenos is good for marine players.

They get a wider variety of enemies to fight than a mirror image of themselves.

Yet they are neglected. The game NEEDS xenos armies, but treats them with contempt.

It doesn't create a healthy gaming ecosystem

well, that is because of people do play xenos it is in general an army you have to face with a tournament list, and sometimes your stuff can beat a xeno armies tournament stuff.

I'm loving it. All I care about are Astartes, loyalist and heretic. Sucks for xenos, I suggest voting with your dollar and attention.

The amount of salt in this thread is insane. I personally think the new supplements for marines are great. I love playing my new RG.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
The amount of salt in this thread is insane. I personally think the new supplements for marines are great. I love playing my new RG.

Yeah of course is great if you only collect Marines

- I collect Marines AND other armies so reading about/having models for other armies is of interest and not merely being drowned in one sub factions and its many sub-sub factions would be great

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
The amount of salt in this thread is insane. I personally think the new supplements for marines are great. I love playing my new RG.

Yeah of course is great if you only collect Marines

- I collect Marines AND other armies so reading about/having models for other armies is of interest and not merely being drowned in one sub factions and its many sub-sub factions would be great

I started collecting years ago with Tau. I own so many Tau I had to create a spreadsheet inventory of them to even know what all I had. I would love if GW released Tau supplements but if they don't it is not the end of the world. I mean I went a whole edition (5th) without a new codex for my Tau. I still had a loads of fun playing them.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
The amount of salt in this thread is insane. I personally think the new supplements for marines are great. I love playing my new RG.

Yeah of course is great if you only collect Marines

- I collect Marines AND other armies so reading about/having models for other armies is of interest and not merely being drowned in one sub factions and its many sub-sub factions would be great

I started collecting years ago with Tau. I own so many Tau I had to create a spreadsheet inventory of them. I would love if GW released Tau supplements but if they don't it is not the end of the world. I mean I went a whole edition (5th) without a new codex with Tau. I still had a loads of fun playing them.

Sadly seems to be zero chance of Tau supplements that examine all the non battlesuit cool stuff in the lore, or the Imperials Knights auxilary forces in Andy Clark's novels, or the myriad of Guard Regiments or Exodites or Corsairs....or so so many other things

but they keep those Marines churning out, week after week.....month after month.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
The amount of salt in this thread is insane. I personally think the new supplements for marines are great. I love playing my new RG.

Yeah of course is great if you only collect Marines

- I collect Marines AND other armies so reading about/having models for other armies is of interest and not merely being drowned in one sub factions and its many sub-sub factions would be great

I started collecting years ago with Tau. I own so many Tau I had to create a spreadsheet inventory of them. I would love if GW released Tau supplements but if they don't it is not the end of the world. I mean I went a whole edition (5th) without a new codex with Tau. I still had a loads of fun playing them.

Sadly seems to be zero chance of Tau supplements that examine all the non battlesuit cool stuff in the lore, or the Imperials Knights auxilary forces in Andy Clark's novels, or the myriad of Guard Regiments or Exodites or Corsairs....or so so many other things

but they keep those Marines churning out, week after week.....month after month.

That is because marines out sell all those factions. GW is just giving the market what it wants.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
That is because marines out sell all those factions. GW is just giving the market what it wants.

It's been discussed to death already in this thread, but to summarize: You cannot separate the sales success of Marines from the fact that they receive overwhelmingly more support in both regular releases and boxed sets, and are marketed to newcomers as the default.

as for knight auxillery forces, just use guard.

 catbarf wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
That is because marines out sell all those factions. GW is just giving the market what it wants.

It's been discussed to death already in this thread, but to summarize: You cannot separate the sales success of Marines from the fact that they receive overwhelmingly more support in both regular releases and boxed sets, and are marketed to newcomers as the default.

Of course not. You also can't in good faith claim that A) Marines don't outsell every other faction or B) Marketing is the sole reason products are successful.

You can make the self fulling prophecy argument with Marines and GW marketing if you want. I just don't think it is a good argument and you could never prove it anyway.

Frankly, it's too early to say "nObOdY eLsE iS gOiNg tO gEt ThEsE!1!1!".

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
That is because marines out sell all those factions. GW is just giving the market what it wants.

It's been discussed to death already in this thread, but to summarize: You cannot separate the sales success of Marines from the fact that they receive overwhelmingly more support in both regular releases and boxed sets, and are marketed to newcomers as the default.

Of course not. You also can't in good faith claim that A) Marines don't outsell every other faction or B) Marketing is the sole reason products are successful.

You can make the self fulling prophecy argument with Marines and GW marketing if you want. I just don't think it is a good argument and you could never prove it anyway.

You also can't prove the inverse either.

The only things that are true are:

GW markets marines a lot
GW does not market Xenos (of any kind) as much
GW sells marines a lot
GW does not sell Xenos (of any kind) as much


not being able to prove one thing doesn't make the opposite true - or any other theory true.


As a slight tangent - the game requires a healthy mix of armies for it to maintain interest in the community. Whether marines are 'innately' more popular or not, a dying community will impact marines sales as well.

Ergo, it behooves GW to ensure all its products are popular and supported, as they support an ecosystem that keeps marine players buying.

Any other company would see the less popular but necessary products as loss leaders, or sacrificial products. They would sell them at a lower price to try and generate more purchases, knowing that marine players are still buying tonnes of marines regardless.

If GW dropped all Xenos army prices by 10% or more, you would quickly see how much marine popularity is innate...

Hellebore wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
That is because marines out sell all those factions. GW is just giving the market what it wants.

It's been discussed to death already in this thread, but to summarize: You cannot separate the sales success of Marines from the fact that they receive overwhelmingly more support in both regular releases and boxed sets, and are marketed to newcomers as the default.

Of course not. You also can't in good faith claim that A) Marines don't outsell every other faction or B) Marketing is the sole reason products are successful.

You can make the self fulling prophecy argument with Marines and GW marketing if you want. I just don't think it is a good argument and you could never prove it anyway.

You also can't prove the inverse either.

The only things that are true are:

GW markets marines a lot
GW does not market Xenos (of any kind) as much
GW sells marines a lot
GW does not sell Xenos (of any kind) as much


not being able to prove one thing doesn't make the opposite true - or any other theory true.

We can't prove it, that is true. GW's internal sales data would help quite a bit here but we don't have that. We can however observe GW's behavior as a company. GW has been promoting marines more than other factions for years. They even created 30k, a game that is almost exclusively marines vs. marines. Hell when they released AOS they added a marine style faction with the Stormcast. What is the more logical explanation here: Marines outsell other factions because GW markets them more or GW as a company looked at its own sales data over the years and realized marines are more popular and decided to promote them more because of that. GW assigned its limited resources in manpower and money to producing more content for the faction that outsold the others. That its actions over the years are in response to consumer preferences. Companies making content in response to consumer preferences is very common in the entertainment world.

They have said that it surprises them how well marines sell. I forget which interview that was.

 Insectum7 wrote:
They have said that it surprises them how well marines sell. I forget which interview that was.

That wouldn't surprise me. There is a good amount of trial and error with gaming and entertainment in general.

as for the horus heresy game that only was developed after the HH book series became a massive best seller.

If we can make then imperium everything but marines, and squash marines (squat then worse than squats were) the 40k tabletop game as a whole would thrive. Mostly off the salt of marine players, but still. Would thrive my friends. Glorious armies of various shapes and sizes, model distribution, etc. chaos marines can stay. Everyone would be happy honestly, sales would rise exponentially. And you would never see white ultra-salamander iron guard wolves. You know, the armies we smash up when we see em. With fists of course.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Frankly, it's too early to say "nObOdY eLsE iS gOiNg tO gEt ThEsE!1!1!".

I'm willing to bet we won't see anything like the supplement treatment for other factions. I feel so capable of such bold action based on the staggering level of releases others have gotten so far since 8th edition dropped. Adding to that the fact even chaos which got second most attention didn't even get a proper new codex and instead got their goodies in vigilis ablaze and even then wasn't to the same level and extent of just the most recent marine release. I think you're just setting yourself up for sadness and let down if you think you'll get lots of goodies from this PA release cycle.

I'd say this, keep expectations reasonable and just try and over look all the marine love bloat. I honestly feel like aside from the random blip here and there this is the norm. Small release for something not marine, with marines released every 2 to 3 weeks.

Removed

AngryAngel80 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Frankly, it's too early to say "nObOdY eLsE iS gOiNg tO gEt ThEsE!1!1!".

I'm willing to bet we won't see anything like the supplement treatment for other factions. I feel so capable of such bold action based on the staggering level of releases others have gotten so far since 8th edition dropped. Adding to that the fact even chaos which got second most attention didn't even get a proper new codex and instead got their goodies in vigilis ablaze and even then wasn't to the same level and extent of just the most recent marine release. I think you're just setting yourself up for sadness and let down if you think you'll get lots of goodies from this PA release cycle.

I'd say this, keep expectations reasonable and just try and over look all the marine love bloat. I honestly feel like aside from the random blip here and there this is the norm. Small release for something not marine, with marines released every 2 to 3 weeks.

I counterbet, i bet csm will see them shortly before 9th and aswell in conjunction with a updated dex called 3.0 which really is just a propper 2.0 dex.
Because gw loves to nickle and dime

Not Online!!! wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Frankly, it's too early to say "nObOdY eLsE iS gOiNg tO gEt ThEsE!1!1!".

I'm willing to bet we won't see anything like the supplement treatment for other factions. I feel so capable of such bold action based on the staggering level of releases others have gotten so far since 8th edition dropped. Adding to that the fact even chaos which got second most attention didn't even get a proper new codex and instead got their goodies in vigilis ablaze and even then wasn't to the same level and extent of just the most recent marine release. I think you're just setting yourself up for sadness and let down if you think you'll get lots of goodies from this PA release cycle.

I'd say this, keep expectations reasonable and just try and over look all the marine love bloat. I honestly feel like aside from the random blip here and there this is the norm. Small release for something not marine, with marines released every 2 to 3 weeks.

I counterbet, i bet csm will see them shortly before 9th and aswell in conjunction with a updated dex called 3.0 which really is just a propper 2.0 dex.
Because gw loves to nickle and dime

You play chaos and really dare to dream ? I mean I bet they'll put out a chaos 3.0 book, but if so I'd say it'll just be enough to make the players happy. For in a couple weeks to a month drop the 3.0 Marine codex and supplements galore again to raise the bar even higher once more. Though I believe they'll keep spoon feeding chaos usable things in many of these PA books just to try and give as many as possible a reason to buy them and keep the slow money churn going.

my gut feeling is they'll slowly dole out chaos stuff via Pyskic awakening, we're already hearing rumors of it. Black Legion already has rules content roughly on par with what the new Marines supplements give, missing only the super doctrine. thats proably the shape we can expect chaos legions to take. if we're REALLY lucky they'll FAQ some new legion rules. Some are IMHO pretty obvious, Iron Warriors should be a 6 up FNP combined with the imperial fists ignore cover

AngryAngel80 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Frankly, it's too early to say "nObOdY eLsE iS gOiNg tO gEt ThEsE!1!1!".

I'm willing to bet we won't see anything like the supplement treatment for other factions. I feel so capable of such bold action based on the staggering level of releases others have gotten so far since 8th edition dropped. Adding to that the fact even chaos which got second most attention didn't even get a proper new codex and instead got their goodies in vigilis ablaze and even then wasn't to the same level and extent of just the most recent marine release. I think you're just setting yourself up for sadness and let down if you think you'll get lots of goodies from this PA release cycle.

I'd say this, keep expectations reasonable and just try and over look all the marine love bloat. I honestly feel like aside from the random blip here and there this is the norm. Small release for something not marine, with marines released every 2 to 3 weeks.

I counterbet, i bet csm will see them shortly before 9th and aswell in conjunction with a updated dex called 3.0 which really is just a propper 2.0 dex.
Because gw loves to nickle and dime

You play chaos and really dare to dream ? I mean I bet they'll put out a chaos 3.0 book, but if so I'd say it'll just be enough to make the players happy. For in a couple weeks to a month drop the 3.0 Marine codex and supplements galore again to raise the bar even higher once more. Though I believe they'll keep spoon feeding chaos usable things in many of these PA books just to try and give as many as possible a reason to buy them and keep the slow money churn going.

I don't dare dream, i am just cynically. F.E. GW has a somewhat common trend for Chaos as a faction as a whole to update shortly before the new edition invalidates or not update propperly at all.

Also i am cynic.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
my gut feeling is they'll slowly dole out chaos stuff via Pyskic awakening, we're already hearing rumors of it. Black Legion already has rules content roughly on par with what the new Marines supplements give, missing only the super doctrine. thats proably the shape we can expect chaos legions to take. if we're REALLY lucky they'll FAQ some new legion rules. Some are IMHO pretty obvious, Iron Warriors should be a 6 up FNP combined with the imperial fists ignore cover

How is the BL supplement in any way similar with the marine supplements?

How is the BL supplement in any way similar with the marine supplements?

It isn't. it lacks legion specific psykic powers, only has 8 new strats instead of 16, it does have the same number of warlord traits and the same number of relics (it just lacks special issue war egar) my guess is the BL vigilius supplement is about what chaos can expect instead. it's clsoeeneugh that GW'll be happy and think it's equivilant

BrianDavion wrote:

How is the BL supplement in any way similar with the marine supplements?

It isn't. it lacks legion specific psykic powers, only has 8 new strats instead of 16, it does have the same number of warlord traits and the same number of relics (it just lacks special issue war egar) my guess is the BL vigilius supplement is about what chaos can expect instead. it's clsoeeneugh that GW'll be happy and think it's equivilant

Yeah that sounds about right. Sadly.

Not Online!!! wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

How is the BL supplement in any way similar with the marine supplements?

It isn't. it lacks legion specific psykic powers, only has 8 new strats instead of 16, it does have the same number of warlord traits and the same number of relics (it just lacks special issue war egar) my guess is the BL vigilius supplement is about what chaos can expect instead. it's clsoeeneugh that GW'll be happy and think it's equivilant

Yeah that sounds about right. Sadly.

honestly, if it the stuff provided is good it'll be eneugh, the black legion stuff isn't bad. and allows you to play hero hammer. speaking as someone who has both a space marine and black legion army, I'd like to see some sort of doctrine system added onto CSMs (call them dark blessings?) but I'd actually beyond that be willing to surrender super doctrines as I'm more inclined to be cool with running chaos soup.

It's not just Marines, it's specifically vanilla marines.

DA, BA, Grey Knights, and SW are all stuck in the same fail camp right now.

They even refused to extend the new Chaplain litanies, even post-FAQ, for no apparent reason at all.