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The best and most obvious solution is for GW to switch to Digital Codex across the board. Easy to patch, FAQ, Errata etc. Overhead goes down by such a ridiculous amount that in a vacuum it doesn't make sense not to. Problems with switching to the digital only option is that 1: as mentioned GW has a pretty huge income from selling books and taking that away would annoy them greatly. And 2: one of the best ways to get new people into the game is to see the codex and flip through it, I can't tell you the # of times i've watched a bright starry eyed kid come in and flip through a codex and get addicted

I think the best solution is the combined arms option. Print a new codex every edition, continue to charge extortion level fees for it ($60). Have inside that codex a code to a digital Codex on GWs now FREE app (screw you and your subscriptions) where you can have access to a digital copy that is updated frequently with FAQ's points etc.

Because here is the situation as it stands. Printing is stupid for a game which has/needs frequent rule changes/updates. Subscription based Apps which can be EASILY circumvented by a specific Russian Based website which hosts all the rules for Free and flips GW the bird while doing so means you are shooting yourself in the foot profit wise. Take the L on subscription fees, tie the PHYSICAL codex to a digital platform and move on.

Only reason I can think they haven't done this is greed. GW's board thinks they can keep milking the nerds for more money Wait until the recession really kicks off and see what happens.

SemperMortis wrote:
I think the best solution is the combined arms option. Print a new codex every edition, continue to charge extortion level fees for it ($60). Have inside that codex a code to a digital Codex on GWs now FREE app (screw you and your subscriptions) where you can have access to a digital copy that is updated frequently with FAQ's points etc.

Personally, I'd happily buy a 'codex' that's just a massive collection of art, fiction, and hobby content centered on that faction, with the rules then available free online. Total newbies walking into a store are going to see the same 'hooks' (nobody is getting excited over statlines when they don't know the game), while existing players can pore over the stats and start wishlisting army lists online.

Plus, GW's really sleeping on the possibilities of digital formatting for both ease of play and ease of updates. I played both 40K and OnePageRules with some wargaming newbies the past two days. We played strictly-out-of-the-book 9th, and even then the guys needed some help flipping through the codices to find stats for relevant units, or to the back to find their wargear. It was a breath of fresh air to use OPR's online listbuilding app, build a list, hit 'print', and watch my printer spit out the full profiles, wargear, and special rules of just units I picked for an army. Then yesterday evening, we decided to mix up the armies, so I printed out the current unit rosters (which come densely formatted so that they don't take up more than two pages- you could probably fit most 40K armies into 4-5) and we made lists on paper. No pages of errata stuffed into a codex, no needing our phones to build lists or play the game, and no flipping back and forth through a 120+ page book of which maybe 10 pages are relevant to the current game.

Obviously GW likes 'mandatory' book purchases, but anecdotally I'm seeing enough people turning to Battlescribe and Wahapedia (instead of buying books) that I have to wonder whether a digital model that's easier to play, easier to keep up with, and makes it easy to window-shop new armies might drive model sales enough to make up for a loss of book revenue.

 Dysartes wrote:

A, Something will always slip through the net - if expensive academic textbooks can feature mistakes, I'm not surprised that a Codex can. The two keyword examples from the Nid book being an example here.

These examples are more prevalent than what you see in academic textbooks. So it's a matter of degree.

 Dysartes wrote:
B, Just because something is right in the eyes of the Studio, doesn't mean people aren't going to ask questions, which is why there's a need for FAQs.

A lot of it could be solved by writing it more coherently.

 Dysartes wrote:
C, In the case of points, as everything isn't currently written and balanced together at the same time, there is often a need to adjust things after the fact.

Sounds like a failure of process.

 Dysartes wrote:
D, While "get it right first time" is a nice ideal, it's unlikely to actually be delivered - by any studio.

GW is exponentially worse than any other major studio at it. Even CB, and they aren't writing in English.

Nowadays they have practically no value, they're far too expensive, become amended almost immediately, become obsolete far too quickly, too heavy to carry alongside everything else you might need for a game.
And to be fair the main reason is the various other ways to get your rules are simply better. A combination of Wahapedia and battlescribe with perhaps a couple of printed sheets with your rules summary is much easier to use.

Until very recently it was important to me to always have the codex. However, this year, with everything that's going on, I cannot justify the cost for a book which I know will be obsolete far too quickly. I'd much rather put food on my kids' table until things get better. Consequently, I've now zero intention of buying anymore books this edition. That also goes for CA.

Hecaton wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

A, Something will always slip through the net - if expensive academic textbooks can feature mistakes, I'm not surprised that a Codex can. The two keyword examples from the Nid book being an example here.

These examples are more prevalent than what you see in academic textbooks. So it's a matter of degree.

This. Also, GW's mistakes are often way more egregious.

If the GW rules team was tasked with producing an Intro to Physics textbook they would get Newton's Second Law wrong.


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 Dysartes wrote:

D, While "get it right first time" is a nice ideal, it's unlikely to actually be delivered - by any studio.

The rulebooks you are selling to customers should not be the first attempt.

@A Town called Malus, especially not by a company that is how long in the buisness for selling us that specific ruleset?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
If the GW rules team was tasked with producing an Intro to Physics textbook they would get Newton's Second Law wrong.

Reminds me of an old quote surrounding the GW "Rulez Boys", as they were once known:

"Ask a Rulez Boy a question, and he will give you three answers, each one different and wrong."

Been out of 40k for over a decade but my son and I recently started playing Grimdark Future. However, I really like having the physical codex for it's fluff, art and inspirational pictures. I've bought quite a few Codices from 1 or 2 editions ago, even some for Armies I don't have. No way I'll buy one at current prices but I'll happily plunk down 10 bucks for a nice hardbound book that I'm going to enjoy reading and will increase my enjoyment of my chosen game.

So, in answer to the thread topic, having a physical Codex is important to me, even if I don't play actual 40k

The sort of balance in print materials I'm seeking is perhaps best exemplified by Kings of War. You get the big shiny rulebook to pour over on the couch, but you only need one other supplement to have the background and rules for ALL factions. Once a year updates are published in a collected book, but that's largely optional.

 catbarf wrote:
Personally, I'd happily buy a 'codex' that's just a massive collection of art, fiction, and hobby content centered on that faction, with the rules then available free online.

Me, too. I can't ever see myself playing full-scale 40K or Age of Sigmar. I prefer skirmish-scale games, and even if I did play full armies I'd prefer a different ruleset. But I'd buy codexes for my favorite 40K and AoS factions if they were just art, lore, fiction, and pictures of cool models, conversions, and terrain.