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What the topic says.

It seems to me that more and more people are learning about the 40k universe and are becoming more interested in the game.
Whether it is by their video games, upcoming movie, novels, or even 40k itself.

For example my friend from Russia had never heard of 40k, even though he was a pro Starcraft player for 5 years and is now basically an FPS god.
Just last week though he told me that he had bought, assembled, and wanted to battle my Salamanders. I asked how he found out about 40k... and
apparantly he found it from a recent new article about the new movie, which then he got curious and you know the rest.

Even in my local GW store, 10 people who had played the old editions of 40k returned in a 2 week period! With old models and or new armies.
(We now have 5 space wolves players..... and 1 Dark Eldar player waiting for the new codex... he gets 50$ if it comes out in 2010)

Is this sudden influx of new and returning players causing GW to release more and if so does that mean the updates will come more frequently?
'
Have you had any recent experiences with more and more people finding out or playing 40k that didn't or used to before?

Emperor help us all....

Not as yet, but with the movie (depending on how good/bad it is) more Computer games like Space Marine and the MMO on the way, I could see the game becoming more popular in time.

Can't see it being a bad thing tbh, always after new gamers to play against.

As an IP yes, I think it's spreading. I left before the "Red Period" and the amount of attention on the internet drew me back a couple of years ago. Anyone working google from those 'video games' (i think that's what you youngsters call them) will find this site and a fair few others.
I don't know whether that means the 'hobby' will continue however. Gamewise it has always seemed to me that the WFB model is better suited to computers than the table. With the tabletop rules becoming evermore disputed and complaints growing over balance GW, and everyone else, seem to have a big problem.
Strangely, I think that historical games are probably safer. No single computer game can cover all the specialist interests that are generated. It's relatively cheap to produce a ruleset and/or figure for this audience.
Any company that relies on a IP to distinguish itself has a lot more to worry about. There is no 'realism' to take into account, only appearance and the odd mechanic. Computer games can do this. Could GW survive as an IP? Possibly. Could it survive as a miniature producer? Possibly. Can those continue as being inextricably linked? I'm not so sure.

A roommate of mine had already played the Dawn of War games, since he liked RTS games. It's spreading, slowly but surely.

I think that the bigger push on GW are the other companies in the industry. Within a year, most of the factions for Warmachine/Hordes will be Mk II rules compliant. They're releasing the rules before the books are purchasable. The outreach is nice, but I don't think it's making GW work any harder.