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I suspect the “it didn’t catch on” is largely a regional thing.

After all, it went through 3 and a bit editions before being dropped alongside all the other specialist games. A game doesn’t last that long without a decent player base.

The issue of course is sustaining that player base.

Epic was always a pretty economical game to play, thanks to the plastic infantry sets, and how comparatively restricted army design options were.

Even with the majority of vehicles being in metal, a Blister would net you a usable unit (either three tanks, or a single super heavy/very specialist vehicle) based on said more restricted army selection.

When it comes back (I am an optimist at heart) I’m fully expecting a different price structure, because every game GW makes has to pay its own bills. I’m ok with that myself, as I’d rather have a more expensive to play Epic than No Epic.

The thing is that there's already a bunch of small companies out there fulfilling demand for Epic products.

There were a bunch of smaller companies doing Blood Bowl and Necromunda too.

The brand is hefty, GW’s reach is longer.

The comments about Epic not selling enough were refuted when Jervis Johnson wrote about it some years ago. Believe he said that there were other 'core' products that were selling worse at the time and that hadn't figured into it. Instead I think it was a strategic change around that time where GW had decided to focus on its 'core range' of 40k, WHFB and LoTR, this is why you saw support drop off for not only Epic but also the other 'specialist' games itself (Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Warmaster etc.)

It's very easy to blame customers, which seems to be what a few above have laughably suggested implying that the product itself was less worthy of GW's attention, but after Epic 30k when the game was removed from store shelves, given a very low development priority and only available by mail order (with Specialist Games themselves only surviving reputedly because Jervis Johnson offered to take all of their administration, shop maintenance etc. under his own wing). Of course the miniatures aren't going to sell in that environment and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of the game not selling well enough to support.

I remember after I was a staffer in the early-mid 00's the policy changed in store to no specialist games - I remember this going down like a lead balloon, not least with the Blood Bowl playing group who had their very popular league stopped. I don't know whether this was a directive from up on high or just a manager getting big for his boots, but it was already starting to turn in that direction while I was there.

So: Epic not being a popular enough game to support = bollocks. The game was popular enough when it had effort put into it, and was allowed to wither on the vine.
If you were cynical you would say while people are prepared to pay £50+ for a single tank, and then buy 5 of them to use in Apocalypse games, having them pay less than that for an entire company of vehicles (and have that scale and rule system far better suited to company-level combat) wasn't in the company's best interests.
Thankfully senior management seems to have moved onto a more sensible course now and actually re-released loads of these popular games again, so I think these days its more of an issue of GW having too many SKUs with Epic (it was an awful lot) and the fact that it would absorb so much design team effort as the blocker, rather than it being something to do with the game being fundamentally unpopular or rubbish.

 Pacific wrote:
The comments about Epic not selling enough were refuted when Jervis Johnson wrote about it some years ago. Believe he said that there were other 'core' products that were selling worse at the time and that hadn't figured into it. Instead I think it was a strategic change around that time where GW had decided to focus on its 'core range' of 40k, WHFB and LoTR, this is why you saw support drop off for not only Epic but also the other 'specialist' games itself (Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Warmaster etc.)

It's very easy to blame customers, which seems to be what a few above have laughably suggested implying that the product itself was less worthy of GW's attention, but after Epic 30k when the game was removed from store shelves, given a very low development priority and only available by mail order (with Specialist Games themselves only surviving reputedly because Jervis Johnson offered to take all of their administration, shop maintenance etc. under his own wing). Of course the miniatures aren't going to sell in that environment and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of the game not selling well enough to support.

I remember after I was a staffer in the early-mid 00's the policy changed in store to no specialist games - I remember this going down like a lead balloon, not least with the Blood Bowl playing group who had their very popular league stopped. I don't know whether this was a directive from up on high or just a manager getting big for his boots, but it was already starting to turn in that direction while I was there.

So: Epic not being a popular enough game to support = bollocks. The game was popular enough when it had effort put into it, and was allowed to wither on the vine.
If you were cynical you would say while people are prepared to pay £50+ for a single tank, and then buy 5 of them to use in Apocalypse games, having them pay less than that for an entire company of vehicles (and have that scale and rule system far better suited to company-level combat) wasn't in the company's best interests.
Thankfully senior management seems to have moved onto a more sensible course now and actually re-released loads of these popular games again, so I think these days its more of an issue of GW having too many SKUs with Epic (it was an awful lot) and the fact that it would absorb so much design team effort as the blocker, rather than it being something to do with the game being fundamentally unpopular or rubbish.

Not sure if your comment above was aimed at me, but who has been blaming the players/customers for the failure of Epic 40K to catch on? I said that the reboot circa 97 salted the earth for the existing players - that is on the designers and not the players. Either you feel a game or you don't. In my area, what was a fairly active Space Marine scene died with Epic 40K. That is not the player's fault. I do not have access to sales numbers, but if it was lighting up the registers I doubt it would have been shelved.

I stayed with it through Epic Armageddon, buying the Inferno(?) magazines that came out along the way. I wanted Epic 40K to succeed - kept everything. Even my Squats.

 totalfailure wrote:
Epic was a sales dud.

Apart from when it wasn’t? 1st edition sold at times as well as fantasy, and more was spent on making models in plastic than fantasy or 40k (if you don’t include the box games - however part of this was manufacture was outsourced unlike the big name items) hence the big push for 2nd and that large release. It for a time became the second biggest seller before falling back rapidly. Then 3rd was a colossal failure when GW expected sales growth like they saw from 1st to 2nd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pacific wrote:
The comments about Epic not selling enough were refuted when Jervis Johnson wrote about it some years ago. Believe he said that there were other 'core' products that were selling worse at the time and that hadn't figured into it. Instead I think it was a strategic change around that time where GW had decided to focus on its 'core range' of 40k, WHFB and LoTR, this is why you saw support drop off for not only Epic but also the other 'specialist' games itself (Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Warmaster etc.)

The rationale was returns. In essence they made money selling those games, but the profit margin was smaller and they believe enough of those £ would move to the core games to keep up the profits with an overall lower overhead. This was fed by the experience of the soft relaunch of BFG in the states where overall sales were up, but sales of 40k fell during that period showing them they were cannibalising their own sales. Of course they ceded ground to competitors who sprung up to take advantage, and whilst tiny in comparison GW would rather they didn’t exist!

Apologies TangoTwoBravo - my comment wasn't aimed at yourself, just some of the discussion over previous pages.

From comments I have read from Jervis about the failure of 3rd edition Epic Space Marine, he firmly believed it was the best version of the game that had been written. But, they had misjudged how the existing community would react to a simpler, more abstract ruleset (there had been a similar reaction from 1st -> 2nd, as that was itself a simpler ruleset, although not as strong). Also the game didn't get the support it needed both in releases and in marketing it to existing Epic and 40k players.

I had also read that Epic did used to out-sell WHFB, certainly for the 2nd edition and Titan Legions, so the decision not to continue with it in some form and give it development time and money, was a strategic one rather than one based on just bottom line. Remember this was the start of GW flying in ever decreasing circles under the control of Kirby after the LoTR bubble burst, and they did a lot of weird/nonsensical stuff then that a lot of the time didn't have the interests of the gaming community at heart.

Both Epic and BFG failed to hit ambitious sales targets leading to massive surplus stock. They were one of the major items available in the last big (mostly lead) sale GW did (which by the end just involved staff practically giving stuff away as it would otherwise go in skips).

2nd ed beat WHFB sometimes lined to major releases but not on a sustained basis.

 Pacific wrote:


I had also read that Epic did used to out-sell WHFB, certainly for the 2nd edition and Titan Legions, so the decision not to continue with it in some form and give it development time and money, was a strategic one rather than one based on just bottom line. Remember this was the start of GW flying in ever decreasing circles under the control of Kirby after the LoTR bubble burst, and they did a lot of weird/nonsensical stuff then that a lot of the time didn't have the interests of the gaming community at heart.

Its hearsay, but I heard the same from a friend of mine. He was a senior sales manager for GW corporate through the 90s and the early 2000s (i.e. someone who would either know definitively or at least have a very good idea even if he might not have had all the data).