Where's the goodwill? [Archive] - BoLS Lounge : Wargames, Warhammer & Miniatures Forum

YorkNecromancer

01-29-2014, 02:37 PM

So I love 40K. If you're here, on this site, you do too.

I love the models. I love the fluff. I love everything about them, from the excessively horrible Grimdarkery, to the stupid obsession with VALOUROUS HEROISM, to the fact that men in giant suits of space armour use this power to fight with swords as though this would in any way be a valid tactic in any war with fully automatic weaponry... almost everything about 40K fills me with happiness.

I hate Games Workshop and always have.

I am not alone in this. I know, because I've had a conversation with other fans of 40K, been on the internets and read what they had to say and seriously: we seem to REALLY ****ing hate GW. Like, the fans of Half-Life LOVE Valve. They love them more than anything. They want them to prosper and succeed. I don't know anyone who wishes a stronger emotion on GW than utter indifference.

What the hell is going on here?

Now, in my case, there's a number of factors, but I was wondering: what is it about GW, a small, niche company who have been successful against all the odds (selling model plastic soldiers? When there are Xboxes? How do they make any money at all?) They should be a beloved plucky underdog, and instead, I genuinely can't remember I time I haven't hated GW. I've always loved their products but hated them.

What's going on? Are we, as all fans of niche hobbies tend to be, unnecessarily critical? Are there things GW genuinely deserves our ire over? Is it just the extortionately, revoltingly high prices (now so high that our school games club can no longer get new starters to the hobby - the costs are literally too much for them)? Is it something about the character of the company? (The excessively litiginous nature? The active rejection of fan communities?)

What is it about GW that constantly and consistently makes them a company people just don't like?

lattd

01-29-2014, 02:43 PM

They are the activision or EA of the model industry they have got too big and instead of making the fun interesting games they use to, they just rinse and repeat.

Cap'nSmurfs

01-29-2014, 02:47 PM

I don't hate GW any more than I hate any big company. And compared to a whole bunch of companies out there, they're saints.

evanger

01-29-2014, 02:52 PM

I'm sure this thread will open the floodgates!

I think, for me, there seem to be a couple of reasons:

1. The prices. It really is too much. Enough already. Most things, including the now defunct monthly magazine, are just outside the comfortable "impulse buy" range. Some things are well outside the "buy ever" range!

2. The vibe. I have White Dwarf magazines from the late '80s and the early '90s that had a ton of "character" to them. They were packed with articles, written by the game's creators. The games had an undeniable element of fun loving humor to them, tongue-in-cheek references, etc. It seemed very loose and casual. Now they seem distant, cold, and deliberately cut off from the fans.

3. The long periods between updates and/or the structure of a constantly evolving game. For most of the previous years (with the exception being this massive release rate in the last two years) it was easy to consider your favorite army unloved. With this many armies, split between the two systems, and a much slower release schedule, it was very hard to like. Many armies missed being updated for one (or MORE!) entire versions of the rules system! I wish we could land on a stable rules system and stay there awhile. A LONG while! Not likely for a publisher to want to do, but desirable in some ways. This one seems to have come to an end...we'll see if WHFB and 40k can both complete the cycle of Army Book/Codex updates before they make new editions of the game rules.

Defenestratus

01-29-2014, 03:23 PM

Roma89q

01-29-2014, 03:44 PM

I hear ya.

I love 40k. Love pretty much everything about it except the existence of Tau. I love the game, the rules, the models.

I *used* to love GW. I used to be a huge fan of theirs since they supplied me my fix. However after seeing them treat the owners (who happened to be my friends) of three separate LGStores as garbage, I had to finally see things for what they were. GW doesn't care about the hobby - they only care about the bottom line. Its hard for me to *hate* them because I realize that GW is a corporation beholden to shareholders and I can understand how some of their decisions look great on short term bi-annual statements - However I believe that GW as a corporation has lost sight of what made them a huge success initially. They've certainly become arrogant in actions and words. They don't seem to want to listen to their customer base, and they seem set on cutting costs in a way that is most detrimental to the community (closing/shrinking stores instead of getting rid of middle management).

For those reasons I've not felt compelled to defend the actions of GW in at least the last 2 years.

My reasons are in line with what Defenestratus has mentioned. GW has become a company that once focused on the "character" and "vibe" of the hobby to just another large corporation with the main goal of cutting as much fat from their company to drive up profit margins. Unfortunately, this has had a huge negative impact on the hobby. For example, I have a friend who strictly will not purchase from online, but that wasn't a problem as we had 3 gamesworkshop stores within a reasonable driving distance (less than an hr), but now all 3 are closed. Why? to increase profits, but they lost a costumer(s) in the process. Heck, the brick and mortar stores were the very thing that introduced me to the game.

Also, this is the one thing that really perplexes me. GW keeps stating that they are a "models first, rules second" company. I don't get how they don't realize that balanced rules will drive additional model sales (yes there are a significant subgroup that purchases models for painting/fluff and don't play). They don't update models/ranges because "they don't sell well," but I think (just in my opinion) they don't sell well because the rules for them are not well thought out or/poor in the context of the game. Why, as a customer, would I drop $40+ dollars on a model with unbalanced rules that will ultimately be no fun to use within the game? I'm no power gamer (I play dark angels!), but I want some viability out of the models I use for the price we have to pay. In my mind, rules and models go hand in hand, not one before the other. Balancing the system would help a lot for me actually liking them.

Sly

01-29-2014, 04:12 PM

We hate GW because they seem to be a model company with artists that really seem to care about the art involved in what they do, run by a bunch of corporate bean-counters who do not seem to care about the art involved in making a hobby. As for the rules, I'm not so sure that they're all too good at it, but they again seem like they're subservient to the bean-counters (let's eliminate a deployment option from Tyranids not for game balance, but because a competitor makes models for the spores). There was a time when, despite having bean-counters to count beans for them, it seemed as if the company was run by people who cared more about art and innovation and being good than about profits and cutting corners and being profitable. Ironically, of course, good and innovative art and rules would create better profits.

DarkLink

01-29-2014, 04:40 PM

The fundamental problem GW has, I think, is that they fail to realize, or at least fail to act upon, the fact that their rules are the vehicle to sell their models. Instead, they treat their rules like a throwaway joke. I like the way Reecius from Frontline puts it. There are three pillars of a quality wargame, good minis, good rules, and a good community. 40k has, overall, the largest range and highest quality minis out there. Everyone plays 40k, so it's easy to find a game. But when it comes to rules? By GW's own admission, you have to be drunk to think that they're well written (oh, it's just a beer and pretzels game). And whenever someone says "hey, could we get a clarification on this rules issue", GW (and their apologists) reply with some combination of "just get drunk and you won't care", "stop whining", or just getting straight up ignored.

Compare that to most other wargames, where the actual game is treated as a means of drawing in customers and thus the company provides significant support for their rules, faqs, erratas, and community events. Not that GW hasn't tried it before, but they've always stumbled or shown such a detachment from their customers that they just plain don't get it right, and a lot of their events have failed as a result, so they just draw deeper into their shell.

ElectricPaladin

01-29-2014, 05:12 PM

In my mind, the problem is threefold:

1) Monolithic Slowness: GW takes forever to respond to a problem. Armies like the Tau should not have been allowed to languish in a nigh-unplayable state for so long. In the Internet age, where a slapped-together book can be prepared for nothing more than the cost of recycled art and some of developer's time, there is absolutely no excuse for that sort of thing. GW should be on the constant lookout for unhappy fans and always be ready do what they can to return their favorite armies to playability.

Relatedly...

2) Customer Insensitivity: At this point in time, GW has developed a terrible record for listening to what we want. DarkLink said it best, so I'll refer you to his post. Overall, the problem is that GW seems to have decided that it is the arbiter of style and we must simply suck it up and buy what they offer. They don't realize that they have competition now - some of them incredibly sharp and fast-moving companies. They don't realize that this is an inverted relationship. We are the arbiters of style, they must be responsive to us.

3) Price Gouging: GW minis simply cost too much. The fun per dollar ratio is too low. If I have $30 burning a hole in my pocket, what am I going to buy? Let's see... I could buy a new squadron for my Firestorm Armada fleet. This is probably the only squadron of it's type that I need, and it will add a lot - possibly even an entirely transformative lot - to the way I play. I could buy a warjack/warbeast for my WarmaHordes army. This is a big, beautiful model which will be a lot of fun to paint and play, and will serve as a new focal point for my fun on the table. I could buy an entire new starter box for Malifaux, which will include a new master and several new minions, all of them compatible with the models I already own.

And if I wanted to spend that money on 40k/Fantasy? That's... a new HQ? Potentially useful, but most HQs don't really transform the way your army works. $30 isn't quite a vehicle - at least, none of the cool ones - and certainly not a squad box.

And then there's the way they price everything else. Codices for $50? Rulebooks for $70? These things just aren't fun. Nobody wants to spend that much of their hard-earned money on a book, at least not in the world of minis. If I wanted to spend that much money on a book, I'd go pick up a nice edition of my favorite fantasy trilogy or a beautiful coffee table book (perhaps with pictures of spaceships). When I drop money on wargaming, I want to get new models. Rulebooks are an unfortunate requirement. I understand it, and I'm willing to pay for them if I have to (though I do think that making free pdfs available as a teaser is a great idea...), but that freaking much? It's a pain in the butt. It's boring. Books just aren't fun, and it feels like I'm being robbed. It feels like my gorgeous models - what I got into this hobby for in the first place - are being held hostage for my willingness to cough up another $100 in various rulebooks.

DarkLink

01-29-2014, 05:41 PM

Right. Compared to, say, Warmachine, where $30 can buy you a new Warcaster/Warlock, which will pretty much so completely transform how your army plays that you might as well have just bought a new army. Or Infinity, where your entire army is 5-10 models, and you can buy 3 guys for $30, so you're halfway to a brand new army right there.

Eldar_Atog

01-29-2014, 06:45 PM

I won't cover ground every else has mentioned...

I would just like to mention how much I hate having to go by their stores. This is a hobby I really enjoy but they have turned part of it into a painful chore. Since I tend to be a bit of an introvert, I don't like my personal space being violated. But most GW employees ignore this and start trying to hump my leg as soon as I walk in the door.

GrauGeist

01-29-2014, 07:28 PM

I can afford the stuff, even as the prices go up. And I don't really care how long they go between editions or updates. Not a big deal. Sure, I get that they're milking me, and they're very unsubtle about it.

For me, what really grinds my gears is the constant shifting in the ruleset to add complexity where it isn't necessary or desired, for what is touted as a "beer & pretzels" game - something that can be easily played halfway in the bag. When I play, I want 3 or 4 good hours of shooting the breeze and drinking away. Pushing toy soldiers and throwing dice should take less than half of that time. Stopping to figure out what the rules are kills the buzz.

Captain Bubonicus

01-29-2014, 07:53 PM

Asymmetrical Xeno

01-29-2014, 08:11 PM

Arkhan Land

01-29-2014, 08:12 PM

i would easily agree. a lot of my favorite things about the 40k universe were already solidified by 2nd and 3rd edition, i think now the companys design studio is just filling out the fluffy exspansion of this same universe with carefully calculated changes motivated by the protection of profits and not so much the core ideas that drive the 40k universe itself. that said...
theyve also done some great things too. 30k was an incredible exspansion looking into an often referenced but seldom modeled part of the universe/timeframe and that overall in between alternate versions of battling you can spend hours playing an apocalypse battle or minutes playing a fast paced killteam game. the company has provided us with everything we need to complete what we could want to do/what to buy and then some, now its getting bogged down in trying to keep us buying things. but even if it fails as a buisness this company has given me a set of codified rules and models some of which have been fighting battles for decades enduring paint strip after paint strip, all perfectly fine even if their authorizing voice goes under.

silashand

01-29-2014, 08:22 PM

I think Rick Priestly himself said it best:

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2013/02/08/network-news-rick-priestly-what-2/

"Bryan always said that if the studio ever had to mix with the manufacturing and sales part of the business it would destroy the studio. And I have to say – he wasn’t wrong there! The modern studio isn’t a studio in the same way; it isn’t a collection of artists and creatives sharing ideas and driving each other on. It’s become the promotions department of a toy company – things move on!"

This.

Plus all the other things people have mentioned. Somewhere along the line GW lost touch with its customer base and decided that it was better to pursue the temporary sale rather than focus on what was good for the hobby they created. Nice miniatures are fine, but if I can't afford them (or don't want to) then someone else will get my money. Pretty codices are nice, but if the rules are written to sell models rather than make an enjoyable game then I will lose interest. And if they won't answer questions about their game in a timely and effective manner then those players who do play will get tired of dealing with the problems. Abdicating responsibility to support your own product is not just bad for the hobby, it's arrogant and negligent toward a group of people who are exceedingly loyal. Unfortunately for GW everyone loses patience eventually.

Also, I really think GW overestimates the number of people who buy their products just to paint/model. Sure, people might buy a few, but I find it highly unlikely they will buy in the quantity GW wants unless they have a reason to do so such as a game system.

Dawg

01-29-2014, 08:28 PM

Remember this from Wells from a few years back?

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/05/gw-news-wherein-mr-wells-responds.html

He talks about making things more exciting for veteran hobbyists, changing the trade terms to discourage internet discounters because they cut into the bottom line and don't contribute to growing the hobby, and the international pricing deal.

Now, I may be a cynic, but:
-I've been in this thing since the early 90's and I've been buying less and my reaction is an overwhelming 'meh' to most of the new releases. The fact that chaos has been my passion from the get-go is probably a big part of that.
-my experience walking into their latest model of friendly local GW store.. Am I alone for thinking they just want my wallet and aren't about the gaming, painting and hobbying?
-a couple of people in my local gaming group are debating an international road trip to the US to buy plastic crack in person.

I'm trying not to be inflammatory but the GW hobby specifically has left me cold for a year or two now. Yes, I know anecdotal is anecdotal, but this is closer to support group therapy. "But it was SO good at the start, and he said it would change and things would be get BETTER! Am I alone for feeling this way?"

I mean, WTF? This is a game about rolling dice and pushing around toy soldiers, and I don't want to pull plug because I've got too much invested in armies. And that rationalization is too close to "think of the CHILDREN!" for me to be comfortable.

The worst part is, I made the mistake of asking the local black shirt how much I spent since I let him put me into their system. Talk about hindsight.

ElectricPaladin

01-29-2014, 09:02 PM

God... Warhammer 40k really is that ex I can't quite get over. I think I'm on the verge of quitting. I'm seeing this new girl FSA, and she's really cute and makes a lot of sense. She really has her sh*t together, you know? But then I run into 40k in the mall, and we get to talking about old times, and the next thing you know I'm painting some assault terminators. *******it.

Sometimes I think that it isn't that Warhammer 40k is my least favorite game. It's my most favorite game... but it's so poorly managed that I can't stand to actually play it the most.

DarkLink

01-29-2014, 11:25 PM

I play mainly because I already have an army, and because there's a big community. And I have fun doing it. My complaint is that it could be significantly better.

biffster666

01-30-2014, 12:16 AM

What is it about GW that constantly and consistently makes them a company people just don't like?

I see things as they are, not how they should be. What the heck does that mean? Games Workshop is a publicly traded company that states very clearly that they are a model making company first...and oh yeah we have these games to. Their fans want them to be a gaming company first.

Then in 2009 Kickstarter launched and suddenly other companies got a HUGE shot in the arm.

That's ok though, I know exactly how to deal with that little monster.

daboarder

01-30-2014, 12:22 AM

i see things as they are, not how they should be. What the heck does that mean? Games workshop is a publicly traded company that states very clearly that they are a model making company first...and oh yeah we have these games to. Their fans want them to be a gaming company first.

Then in 2009 kickstarter launched and suddenly other companies got a huge shot in the arm.

That's ok though, i know exactly how to deal with that little monster.

From the GW stock listing, as in how they identify themselves to the world.

Games Workshop lets ferocious armies clash without the drawback of actual bloodshed. Founded in 1975, the company designs and manufactures model soldiers, game systems, and accessories for tabletop wargaming.

ElectricPaladin

01-30-2014, 12:26 AM

GW can declare itself whatever the hell it wants. It can declare itself the prettiest princess at the ball. None of that means a rat's damn if GW is failing to give it's customers what they want, because we are the ones with the money and we decide how to spend it. If we decide that we want to buy the products of a company that takes the rules more seriously, then Games Workship will die, and it will deserve to, because that's what happens to companies who invert the relationship between themselves and their consumers.

Lexington

01-30-2014, 12:27 AM

ElectricPaladin

01-30-2014, 12:39 AM

There's a pretty toxic internal culture at GW anymore, judging from what people "on the inside" say. The creative side of the company feels victimized by a community that's instantly judgmental of their products, and their response seems to be to ignore all critical evaluation of their output. The business side's philosophy when it comes to dealing with hostility to their increasingly crazy practices is, in what are apparently the words of a GW rep, "get better customers." This, and their steadfastly idiotic opposition to having a PR department, makes for an awful relationship with their fanbase.

Yeah... that's a bad combination of flaws. If I were put in charge of GW, I don't know what I'd do to fix that. My random thoughts:

1) Hire a God-damned PR department.
2) Do whatever the hell it takes to improve the morale in the creative team. Super job security? Improve the pay? Facebook-style breakroom? Give them unlimited access to the public to explain their creative choices? The balance to "company that is tight and fast it's feet" is "creative team that is confident enough in its product that it is willing to do create without worrying what anyone else thinks."
3) Cut prices. Release free stripped-down pdfs of rules and codices (no fluff, no art, all the content). Release printable cutout armies. Lower the barriers to entry, trust the product to sell itself when these new players have the cash.

That's what I'd do.

silashand

01-30-2014, 12:42 AM

There's a pretty toxic internal culture at GW anymore, judging from what people "on the inside" say. The creative side of the company feels victimized by a community that's instantly judgmental of their products, and their response seems to be to ignore all critical evaluation of their output.

Well, if they would actually listen to their customer base and care more about the quality of what they produce then people wouldn't demonize them. The fact that they:

1. Leave broken rules intact for years on end

2. Leave player questions unanswered for years on end

3. Tell their customers to essentially "fix it yourself" anything that doesn't work properly

4. Keep spouting the ridiculous notion that they are primarily a model company when their company name is *GAMES* Workshop

5. Keep saying their games aren't meant for competitive play as an excuse for writing sloppy rules

I could go on, but it's really all been said before. If they feel bad about how their customers talk about them or their work they have no one to blame for it but themselves.

DarkLink

01-30-2014, 01:01 AM

Their rules writers also need to grow some balls and start keeping up with the times. There are dozens of units that are really bad (Howling Banshees are a good example) for no reason other than GW just keeps copy/pasting their rules from the last edition. It wouldn't be hard to make them great again, you just need to actually, y'know, change their rules a little bit. Tactical Terminators have been overpriced for a long time, but nope, GW has decided that they are 40pts, get a 2/5+, and have a Storm Bolter and Power Fist, and that's that.

GW needs to go through their books and revamp all of those legacy units that exist in theory but no one actually uses (except maybe longtime vets who pull them off the dusty shelf on occasion for kicks). Bam, there's a ton of new model sales right there. Howling Banshees are awesome models, if they were any good, everyone would get some.

biffster666

01-30-2014, 03:30 AM

Thanks for that nugget Daboarder. What I was making a reference to was GW's business model...

http://investor.games-workshop.com/our-business-model/

I should have included the link.

Denzark

01-30-2014, 04:59 AM

I'm in the military. I sometimes refer to an 'us' and 'them'. The us is the great men and women busting their balls at the coalface, doing the scut work and making it work. The 'them' is the system, its byzantine complexity, staff officer weenies who push out policy with utterly no relation to ground truth, the adminers who **** up your paperwork, etc.

I sometimes feel the same way about GW. The individuals in stores may do the hard sell, but that is policy. The design staff are constrained for sure, the Big company influences game design and I don't like it. But mustering anything beyond ambivalence?

Its like getting upset with George Lucas for Jar Jar Binks. It sucks dogs pizzle for sure, but he gave me Empire and Jedi. So I'm not going to hate him for it.

GW may be nobbers at the moment and have been for a while. I am yet to be convinced they have reached a tipping point for change - I don't think the recent profit dip was the instigator of change ie we have all taken as much as we will and they have to change or die. I may be wrong - the recruitment of an individual to improve the shopping experience may be a sign of a new approach.

But the cost, rules issues etc don't faze me because once I learnt to deal with hte change from my beloved second to third edition, and once I got over Chaos 3.5 going the way of the dodo, I find all the whinging quite laughable.

I have attended around 10 Throne of Skulls tournaments at GW HQ. They are the pinnacle of the hobby experience for me, competitive awesomely painted (in the main) armies played by mostly good dedicated enthusiasts. This is only possible because of GW.

You could argue it is the people who make it not the company but Jervis, Vetock and Blanche would probably consider the company has a little part to play.

SaveModifier

01-30-2014, 05:52 AM

John Bower

01-30-2014, 06:11 AM

People hate Valve, people absolutely hate Valve, people think Steam is evil and that Gabe Newell is a con artist.

Anywhere you look, any hobby, the big fish gets hated, its the way of the world with Nerds. The bigger and more successful a company gets, the more is expected of them and the more people invest in a hobby, the angrier they get when everything they want is catered for exactly how they want it.

People see GW as evil because GW are in control of their hobby, their are Paintballers who hate whoever it is who makes the best paintball guns, Model Train Enthusiasts who hate Hornby, video game players who hate Valve, Activision and EA, Comic Book nerds who hate Marvel and DC, people like to root for the underdog and like to think that the big guy is evil and incompetent, makes them feel more human, they'll let the little companies off with things they'd never forgive the big guys for.

It's not only about that with GW though, their model prices have got exorbitant, proof of that is that some other companies can sell THEIR models 25% cheaper than their own shops do. They can't be making a loss, so how can GW justify the prices. EA, same thing, how can they justify 44-50 GBP for a video game? That's ridiculous.
GW don't write good rules, we must all agree that their rules could be better, some parts don't make sense, other things like their armies not balancing each other is just upsetting to people with the weaker armies. That's understandable. Right now (unfortunately) GW do make the best mass combat rules for 28mm sci-fi, Warmahordes never appealed to me, sorry but losing your boss causing your army to lose the game is poor. yet people love it, and when the nids did something similar with IB, people were incensed over it. Why? It was fluffy, read the Ultramarines novels, where they poisoned the Hive mind, once it died the rest of the nids began feeding on each other. yet people hated on them for that, yet accept that on a much worse scale in warmahordes. I don't hate GW, I do hate their pricing policy, their silly behaviour of making certain armies awesome with cherries on top while nerfing other armies to silliness. And the lack of thought they put into the core rules. I do love the game, though not the actual fluff, so my home campaign has its own fluff.
I like the scale of the battles that can be fought with 40k, anything from a small boarding action or skirmish, right up to a clash of massive armies. I think if GW want to keep at it and remain top dog, they need to rethink some of the things they're doing, books - everyone says are over priced, and some are depending on their value to the person, but some are not, not really if you look at similarly sized tomes they are similar in price. A dictionary the size of the 40k rulebook will cost you similar money if not more. I looked at the cover price of a Janes book, similar thickness to 40k rulebook - 60 quid. Yeah it's facts and figures, but still. If GW is pricey for their books then what was that?

I think saying people hate them because they are top dog isn't true, I can remember when EA while still pretty much top dog churned out good games, now the games that come out are all the same, no imagination to speak of, it's either shoot it, race it, or fight it. There's very little beyond that because they aren't interested in innovation, just the almighty dollar.

Psychosplodge

01-30-2014, 06:57 AM

But its not £40-£50 for a game from EA or activision it's £40-£50 for half a game, and who knows how much to download the rest of it

GravesDisease

01-30-2014, 08:00 AM

DWest

01-30-2014, 08:09 AM

Card games, board games and computer games are all superior to anything a miniatures game could produce rules wise - we all need to let go of this.
What games are you playing, if I may ask? I personally am invested heavily in tabletop miniatures *because* they beat the pants off any card, board, or computer game I've seen.

GravesDisease

01-30-2014, 08:20 AM

DOTA2 and Hearthstone at the moment. Before that, Street fighter and Starcraft2. These games get tweaked every patched every few months by incredibly minute details like +5 mana cost or -10hp on a character that has hundreds. They don't have to wait 2 years for an updated ruleset.

Additionally, they take defined set inputs and are not reliant on a person measuring something and bending down attempting to see whether they are in Line-of-Sight or not. They are able to decide whether a target is occluded down to the pixel level.

ElectricPaladin

01-30-2014, 09:00 AM

Kaptain Badrukk

01-30-2014, 09:14 AM

I can't really get into video games. They aren't as engaging as games I get to play with real live people. I don't care about perfect computer-like precision in my tactical games... but I do want a rules set that functions, creates a more-or-less balanced game, and helps everyone to avoid the dreaded NGE: Negative Game Experience, a loss - or, more rarely, a win - that just isn't fun along the way.

40k does not reliably do this at this time.

I would go so far as to say that in my experience this has NEVER been the case with GWs rules.
Not that I really care, because I'm pretty much all about the painting and modelling.
That said I can see why it bothers people.

I think the issue is unapologetic behavior.
When you screw up you should admit it, when you upset people you should say sorry, so they need to.
They never ever do, that's the issue for me anyway.
The rest is dressing.

ElectricPaladin

01-30-2014, 09:20 AM

I would go so far as to say that in my experience this has NEVER been the case with GWs rules.
Not that I really care, because I'm pretty much all about the painting and modelling.
That said I can see why it bothers people.

An opinion is one thing, but... man, "you're wrong, but I have no stake in what you're talking about" is in kind of bad taste. If you don't really care about the rules, you have no business telling me not to be upset that they don't work as well as I should. How would you feel if a guy who pretty much always buys his models responded to your complaint that the models were hard to paint with "well, I don't really paint my own models very often, but you're wrong - the models are fine."

Not trying to start anything, but you might want to consider in this the future. If you don't have a stake and don't really care, then your opinion isn't really worth the pixels it's printed on.

DWest

01-30-2014, 09:21 AM

Those are pretty much what drove me away from computer gaming- I can't speak to DOTA 2, but having made the mistake of trying LoL, there is no strategy or tactics beyond "do what the guides tell you to do with your character" and the community was toxic beyond belief. Fighting games and RTS games feel extremely formulaic to me, and both increasingly rely on twitch reflexes, whereas biology is increasingly taking the same away from me. What I'd really like is a game where maneuver and tactics matter, and where reacting to your opponent means something other than "keep doing what you were doing and hope you get done first". I'm in no way claiming that 40k provides that type of experience all the time, but it still comes a lot closer than anything I've found in computer games. I would list XCOM as coming very close to this ideal, except for one problem, which is always a danger with a computer game: the system "cheats" in that if you start winning too often, improbably rare events start happening every turn. Yes, a 40k player can cheat, but I can exclude a cheater from my list of opponents; I can't exactly decompile a computer program and clean out the shenanigans.

Kaptain Badrukk

01-30-2014, 09:33 AM

An opinion is one thing, but... man, "you're wrong, but I have no stake in what you're talking about" is in kind of bad taste. If you don't really care about the rules, you have no business telling me not to be upset that they don't work as well as I should. How would you feel if a guy who pretty much always buys his models responded to your complaint that the models were hard to paint with "well, I don't really paint my own models very often, but you're wrong - the models are fine."

Not trying to start anything, but you might want to consider in this the future. If you don't have a stake and don't really care, then your opinion isn't really worth the pixels it's printed on.

Man, you took that massively personally. And I think you're misreading me.
I don't think GW's rules have EVER been balanced. I've played every incarnation, and they never were IMO.
I'm not your arch typical competitive player, i rarely take part in more that two tourneys a year, but I do play.
I just don't think of myself as a "serious" gamer, because my primary love is painting and modelling.
And while because of that it doesn't bug me I can totally see why it bugs other people.

So to clarify what I said was;
Yeah you're right. Don't bother me much tho.
(P.S. When trying "not to start anything" don't end your post with an angry statement, it's pure troll bait.)
Since we agree however, i doubt we'll be arguing today :)

ElectricPaladin

01-30-2014, 10:05 AM

Man, you took that massively personally. And I think you're misreading me.
I don't think GW's rules have EVER been balanced. I've played every incarnation, and they never were IMO.
I'm not your arch typical competitive player, i rarely take part in more that two tourneys a year, but I do play.
I just don't think of myself as a "serious" gamer, because my primary love is painting and modelling.
And while because of that it doesn't bug me I can totally see why it bugs other people.

So to clarify what I said was;
Yeah you're right. Don't bother me much tho.
(P.S. When trying "not to start anything" don't end your post with an angry statement, it's pure troll bait.)
Since we agree however, i doubt we'll be arguing today :)

I'm sorry, man. It's been a rough week. It does sound like we meet in the middle though.

I'd also like to clarify that I fully support your right to not care about a given facet of the game. Don't care about the rules? That's wonderful. You go to town with your bad, not caring about the rules self.

Personally, I enjoy Warhammer 40k as a beer and pretzels game, and I have no problem with that being GW's goal. The trouble, I think, is that it doesn't actually function well in that role for several reasons:

1) The cost of the game is just too high for it to be just beer and pretzels. This doesn't bother me as much, but for a lot of people they want a game they have already invested thousands of dollars in to be a "serious" game.
2) Beer and pretzels games want to maximize the fun factor and minimize the chance of the dreaded NGE. 40k does neither of these. The turns drag on and on, and let me tell you... if you have ever stared down a bad matchup, or Grey Knights or Necrons in their heyday, or one of those awful Ally combos, then you know that GW hasn't done enough to prevent the NGE.
3) In a B&P game, you want to identify strongly and passionately with the army(ies) of your choice. When armies go years without updates and are allowed to linger in nigh-unplayable states, it seriously hurts your ability to have fun with the game, playing with the models you bought and love.

Anyway - sorry if I overdid it. I do think that my point stands in relation to your original post, but now that I see what you really meant, I realize that it was inapplicable.

GravesDisease

01-30-2014, 10:10 AM

..there is no strategy or tactics beyond "do what the guides tell you to do with your character" and the community was toxic beyond belief.... Fighting games and RTS games feel extremely formulaic to me,

Mono-builds and awful community? Are you sure you aren't talking about 40k? :)

Tabletop gaming will always be more random than within a computer or chessboard, for reasons i mentioned before but i'm sure your imagination can come up with more. The absence of this is exactly what allows chessmasters to think 20 moves ahead, similarly to DOTA/Lol/Hearthstone/Starcraft style games with your Rush/Mid/Late game concerns.

For this reason i think it's silly to get mad at GW for having a ruleset that favours randomness heavily, it's what we all signed up for.

Kaptain Badrukk

01-30-2014, 10:34 AM

I'm sorry, man. It's been a rough week. It does sound like we meet in the middle though.

I'd also like to clarify that I fully support your right to not care about a given facet of the game. Don't care about the rules? That's wonderful. You go to town with your bad, not caring about the rules self.

Anyway - sorry if I overdid it. I do think that my point stands in relation to your original post, but now that I see what you really meant, I realize that it was inapplicable.

Sorry to hear that EP, hope it improves.
I've clipped your post down here because you have just exemplified why I love BOLS, and i wanted to address it.
You listened and were reasonable.
That's so freaking rare on the internet.

1)Yeah it's way too expensive for a pick-up and play game.
2)I'm firmly in the "players make the game" camp. And from experience it really doesn't matter what game people play there's always that douche face who ruins the fun. Yeah GW COULD tighten the rules up nice and solid, and the That Guys of this world would have less to access. BUT no matter how tight they run them they'll still play the game. I once played chess with a guy who smack talked the entire way through. Shockingly I never did that again, put me right off chess club (Yes I was THAT cool).
3)Yo! I've played DE for a long while now, and know that pain.

DWest

01-30-2014, 11:40 AM

Mono-builds and awful community? Are you sure you aren't talking about 40k? :)
Sadly, no. I'll take the worst day of trolling here on BOLS vs. a good day on the LoL forums. And that's a terrifying thought.

ElectricPaladin

01-30-2014, 11:43 AM

I'm firmly in the "players make the game" camp. And from experience it really doesn't matter what game people play there's always that douche face who ruins the fun. Yeah GW COULD tighten the rules up nice and solid, and the That Guys of this world would have less to access. BUT no matter how tight they run them they'll still play the game. I once played chess with a guy who smack talked the entire way through. Shockingly I never did that again, put me right off chess club (Yes I was THAT cool).

It's true that no game system is douche-proof, but there's a lot GW could do to make their game more douche-resistant.

Caitsidhe

01-30-2014, 11:50 AM

Why aren't people talking about the models? We are talking Games Workshop the tabletop miniatures company right? I thought there was an implicit concession we have all made when playing with our toy soldiers that we forgo a perfect rules system or a precise balance so that we can pretend to be an army general ordering soldiers to their death. Card games, board games and computer games are all superior to anything a miniatures game could produce rules wise - we all need to let go of this.

To keep it short and to the point, I have never made any such concession. I want the whole package, and I suspect I'm not alone. For the record, while I feel their models in the whole line are consistently better than the competition, they no longer hold the top spot in my eyes for individual models. I've been (as have many others) been buying from others for use or conversion models from countless independents and putting them on the table. The best looking models I see are almost always from someone else or a unique build.

I am a customer. Games Workshop is a vendor. When they don't provide me what I want, I get it somewhere else. I (and many others) have been doing just that with greater regularity. I'm looking forward to another Kickstarter on Feb. 1st in fact where some really nice big monsters and dragons are about to become available.

Well what is the defining thing about GW products then compared to other games companies then? The high quality posable models, all delivered by this "evil monolithic corporation" that invests heavily into the supply chain.

I don't think they invest heavily in the supply chain at all. They expect individual points of sale to invest in them. This is not unlike expecting us (the consumer) to pay for a magazine that is nothing but a advertisements. :) There may have been a time when Games Workshop did as you indicate but that is long past.

Whilst i wish GW kits were cheaper so I could buy more of them, I am kind of glad that they don't read forums. If people on the internet had their way, it would be a race to a bottom.

Actually, no. It would be a race to the top, i.e. quality miniatures, game system, and customer service. They should (and I believe they do) read the forums because they aren't providing the full package. A monopoly on the market was theirs to lose and they have done a very good job of letting it go. The reason we see growing competition is simply because people are unhappy. If you don't fill the need, another vendor will. That competition will always have the advantage of using the newest technology to catch up (and surpass) older companies. It is called innovation and the free market. Good will has to be earned. Games Workshop did earn some over the years. They have also largely used that savings up and have not continued to earn more.

ElectricPaladin

01-30-2014, 11:56 AM

Remember that "reads the forums" and "responds to customer needs and complaints" does not equal "has no creative integrity" or "bows to every customer whim." Spartan, for example, made some changes to Firestorm Armada v2.0 that many fans are having a hard time adjusting to. Spartan has not bowed immediately. They have enough confidence in their product to believe that things will get better with time. At the same time, however, they used the opportunity of v2.0 to adapt to many player complaints, had an extensive beta testing process with community feedback, and generally stay responsive to their customers' needs.

Lexington

01-30-2014, 12:04 PM

satxbrian

01-30-2014, 12:37 PM

Ok, first post….I know, jumping into the deep end.

I’m a new player. I’m a few kits away from building my first 1850 pts ork army. Yes, I am very excited. Filled with the kits that I like…it probably won’t be competitive at the local game store level (I have no plans to play in tournaments), but I’m having a blast building and painting. I’m having a blast reading my codex and rulebook…I even bought a Stompa that I hope I can play at some point once I get a few “normal” games under my belt.

I can’t speak to rules/codex balance…I haven’t played my first game yet. I want my first game to be with a fully painted army. So maybe a lot of you will dismiss my comments, if so, you can skip to the next post.

But, I do think I can speak to price complaints. I don’t get it. Look, I’m coming at this hobby from scale model building, primarily 1/48 and 1/32 scale aircraft (a mix of WWII and modern). You want to talk about price?!? In 1/48, it is not uncommon to spend upwards of $100 on a new kit…hell, even on a 20 year old kit.

Example: The Tamiya 1/48 F-16, considered my most to be the best kit on the market in 1/48 for the Viper. The C/N Aggressor boxing has an MSRP of $74.00. (online it can be found for around $60). This kit basically allows you to build any block of the Viper from a Block 25 to a Block 52. Want a block 40 with the WAR HUD, GE engine and Big Mouth intake? This is the Kit. But, since it is the aggressor boxing it has no weapons. You have to either trade for the weapons from the ANG kit , buy the ANG kit (MSRP $73), raid your spares box, get a Hasegawa weapons kit or build it clean. Once that kit is built, it sits on a shelf and may come off for a trip to local contest. With that said, it didn’t stop me from buying multiple copies of the kit because of one simple fact, I love the F-16!
Any F/A-18 Hornet fans? The Hasegawa kit is probably the #1 kit. It’s at least 10-15 years old. MSRP of a “new” boxing? $100. This is the same plastic just with new decals.
And then in 1/32? The benchmark kit (IMHO), the Tamiya P-51 Mustang. Beautiful kit. Amazing detail. Options. This kit has it. The newest boxing has an MSRP of $218.00, online at my favorite e-tailer, $169.99. The new Trumpeter 1/32 A-6. MSRP $240, online price $191.99.

This doesn’t take into account aftermarket. Resin cockpit? Decals? Resin wheels? Photoetch?…etc…

My point? Well, when you factor in build time, paint time, and play time, in my mind, the cost per hour spent on those 3 things is pretty small for 40k. Ok, so I can hear, “You don’t have to buy multiple copies of those kits to make an army like in 40k/WFB.” Not true, I have decals for at least 4 357th P-51s in 1/32 scale. I have a drawer full of F-16 Decals. I’ll be buying multiple kits for these 2 planes. Yes, that is my choice.

So with that said, $40 for a box of tactical marines is pretty doable. $29 for a box of boyz? Impulse buy area (IMHO). I assume the boyz kit will jump to $40 with the new codex release, but if it is a new tooling like the marine box, I’m ok with that.

Sure there are things that may be expensive (I’m thinking of starting a second army…maybe Eldar (love the models) and I really want a wraith knight, but at $115, I’ll have to plan for that purchase). The books are pricy. But I can’t really say anything about that since I have a shelf of reference books for aircraft and most photography books are in that $40-$70 range depending on what you are looking for.

Do I wish things were cheaper, sure. I’d also like the new C7 Sting Ray to be cheaper….

Some may say it’s apples and oranges, but I look at it as similar. At it’s very base, it’s a plastic model kit. Anything plastic has gone up in price recently. Model kits, etc…

When I started researching this game, I never thought of it as a pick-up and play game. It’s like getting into photography and complaining about the prices of camera bodies and fast glass. GW kits are beautifully molded. When I opened the new Tac marine box I was blown away. I compared it to Tamiya quality molding. I just wish the sprue attachment points were smaller.

I am in no way saying that any one here is wrong. We are all entitled to our own opinions. This is just my opinion. I’m not rich, just a middle class guy who was pulled in by the models and stayed for the game. I got into this for fun. I wanted a fun hobby that would get me outside my bubble and hopefully get me some new friends that I could have some fun games with.

Take care, everyone! Looking forward to talking about 40K with everyone!!

Brian

Mr Mystery

01-30-2014, 12:41 PM

I don't get the hate myself.

Granted, I'm a three-time former employee, so have a different perspective.

But even then, they're just a company. If you like their product, fair enough. If you don't like the company, fair enough.

But the bile directed at them is quite baffling to me. It's as if some just don't grasp that they are a company, and doing nothing the other companies don't do, namely seeking the highest possible level of profit. Sometimes that annoys people, and with the size of their player base, that's a lot of people to potentially annoy, compared to the rest of the market. Yet there seems to be those who treat every decision made by GW, regardless of what it actually is or the reasoning behind it, to be some sort of carefully calculated personal insult.

Me, I'm happy enough just enjoying my hobby. The company responsible don't irk me one iota. If they did, I personally wouldn't buy their product. Take Nestle. They have been a company of dubious morality, so I choose to avoid their products wherever possible, even if I don't always stick to that (damn you peanut butter KitKat chunky!). GW? Some of their detractors strike me as 'typing one handed' when posting. Not all by any stretch, but some.

ElectricPaladin

01-30-2014, 12:58 PM

But the bile directed at them is quite baffling to me. It's as if some just don't grasp that they are a company, and doing nothing the other companies don't do, namely seeking the highest possible level of profit. Sometimes that annoys people, and with the size of their player base, that's a lot of people to potentially annoy, compared to the rest of the market. Yet there seems to be those who treat every decision made by GW, regardless of what it actually is or the reasoning behind it, to be some sort of carefully calculated personal insult.

It's a short term vs. long term problem.

We all want GW to make money for their trouble, but I think we would prefer it if it felt like they were doing that by making the best decisions for the game, which would have the long term effect of creating a healthy community for the passtime, and making them money over many years. It feels - to us - like they are making decisions that benefit them in the short term but hurt the game - and our enjoyment of it - in the long term.

Defenestratus

01-30-2014, 01:18 PM

It's a short term vs. long term problem.

We all want GW to make money for their trouble, but I think we would prefer it if it felt like they were doing that by making the best decisions for the game, which would have the long term effect of creating a healthy community for the passtime, and making them money over many years. It feels - to us - like they are making decisions that benefit them in the short term but hurt the game - and our enjoyment of it - in the long term.

Couldn't have said it better.

We don't begrudge GW for profit-seeking. Its the ultimate reason why they're in business.

Its just that we see their actions and decisions as incredibly short-sighted, and even at odds with their customers who provide them the revenue for their profits.

We WANT to love GW. We're not asking them to switch their operation to a charity. We just don't want them to give us more reasons to buy from someone else.

Eldar_Atog

01-30-2014, 02:34 PM

Until 6th edition came out, I stuck with just 40K for my wargaming. I didn't really pay attention to other wargames like hordes or warmachine. But a few months ago, I felt like getting out but GW was in a stupor on the couch. She had been drinking again and I knew she would be worthless till she sobered up. So I just went to a new gaming store that I had heard about to just chill and visit.

I was walking around when I felt someone bump into me. Turning around to apologize, I find Warmachine and her twin sister Hordes smiling at me. Before I can even get the words out, they ask me if I'm alone. At this point, I think back to GW back at the apartment. She probably still asleep or has thrown up and is waiting for me to come clean it up... So I tell the twins that I'm alone.

They invite me to join them and I start noticing how pretty they look. I'm a little tentative but they quickly make me feel completely at ease. They ask me why I'm alone and I admit that GW no longer seems to care about me. Most of the time, I'm nothing but a wallet with leg to her. I'm sure they could tell I was a little weak that night but I didn't care at that point. When they suggested a demo, I just.... couldn't tell them no.

John Bower

01-30-2014, 02:56 PM

But its not £40-£50 for a game from EA or activision it's £40-£50 for half a game, and who knows how much to download the rest of it

And that my friend is what is even more disgusting. And it's what GW seem to be doing, BF4 is a good example of EA strategy (pay to win), GW is going down the same route by bringing in Super Heavies and other massively hard hitting stuff that frankly doesn't belong in a competitive (re: ordinary) game of 40k. In fact 40k is not meant to be competitive at all, and that is where the issue lies. People want to play it competitively, when GW have (if everybody hasn't forgotten what they told the Beastsofwar team once) said they could care less if some armies can't win for toffee.

Arkhan Land

01-30-2014, 03:18 PM

DarkLink

01-30-2014, 03:38 PM

You got a thing against Warmahordes? That's nothing that GW hasn't done before.

Couldn't have said it better.

We don't begrudge GW for profit-seeking. Its the ultimate reason why they're in business.

Its just that we see their actions and decisions as incredibly short-sighted, and even at odds with their customers who provide them the revenue for their profits.

It is worth noting that a lot of business decisions look like nonsense from the outside, but when you actually have full information and know everything that's going on and you've crunched the numbers everything suddenly makes perfect sense. For example, it seems GW's recent strategy of price hikes was, in fact, paying off by keeping their profits up during a recession, and only just in the last few months have they hit a wall. They'll probably have to change strategies now, but it got them through a time that could have been a lot worse.

Eldar_Atog

01-30-2014, 03:48 PM

a rather intense metaphor...

Every once in a while, all those college level writing courses want to be used :)

I have to agree that fewer people play but I've never seen an elitist attitude from the warmachine/hordes players. The ones I have met have been very welcoming of new people. They kinda have to be... or everyone would just ignore them.

To me, GW has the more elitist mind set. You rarely see them at geek conventions. In Memphis, we have a nice sized convention (Midsouthcon) and there will always be people doing demos of most of the other wargames. GW only has a presense every other year or so and I don't understand why. The US headquarters is in town and one of their training stores is less than 5 miles from the hotel. You would think they would have one employee come out and do some small demo games.

I did go to the Games day that was downtown this year and I wasn't really impressed. I loved seeing the golden demon submissions but that was the only highlight. It was like they moved the bunker downtown and brought in a forgeworld warehouse. It didn't feel like a gathering of like minded geeks that love their hobby... It just seemed like a giant money trap.

DarkLink

01-30-2014, 04:39 PM

In my experience, warmahordes players have an infinitely better attitude regarding just about everything than 40k players do. Half the time 40k players are whining about how broken your fluffy thousand sons army is because you just beat them and that means they're broken. Haven't seen much of that in games outside of 40k, though.

biffster666

01-30-2014, 06:04 PM

It is worth noting that a lot of business decisions look like nonsense from the outside, but when you actually have full information and know everything that's going on and you've crunched the numbers everything suddenly makes perfect sense.

Yup. P/L is fun! It's over the last six months, so you ask yourself what's occurred in the last six months with GW? Supposedly they are launching a whole new website that will include FW and BL. Streamlining their model production process between 'parent' and FW? Wasn't there a verdict handed down on some lawsuit recently? All of that costs $$$, LOTS of $$$. How did they outlook each item, as a onetime hit or over 'X' amount of months/years? And on and on! hehehe

Oh, and GW can't use Kickstarter. This is a huge advantage to the other guys, but it's not hard to plug that hole if you think about it for a bit. GW also has a corporate arm, the decision making process is VASTLY different from the other guys who can adjust to their customer on 'the fly' much faster. People seem to forget this IMO, but that's a different conversation hehe

GravesDisease

01-31-2014, 03:44 AM

Look, I’m coming at this hobby from scale model building, primarily 1/48 and 1/32 scale aircraft (a mix of WWII and modern).

Welcome to the forums and thanks for the perspective :)

I know Tamiya are the big boys in fixed model kits, but would you say hold as much market share as GW does with Tabletop wargaming? If so, are they as maligned?

satxbrian

01-31-2014, 09:47 AM

Welcome to the forums and thanks for the perspective :)

I know Tamiya are the big boys in fixed model kits, but would you say hold as much market share as GW does with Tabletop wargaming? If so, are they as maligned?

Thank you for the welcome!

You bring up a very good question. I have no idea who the industry leader is. It is a little different in the sense that there can (and are) multiple companies releasing the same type of kit. Revell, Kinetic, Hasegawa and Tamiya, for example, all have 1/48 F-16 kits. Plus there are companies that specialize in a certain genre. AFV Club focuses more on armor. Tamiya has kits in a few (ships, cars, planes, armor). Money wise, I would say Tamiya is near the top…but I’ve never really thought to look at financials. I would say “no”, I don’t feel they are as maligned as GW is.

I think in terms of innovation leader in the industry, the leader is Tamiya (IMHO). They don’t release a lot of kits, but when they do, it’s quite the event. Message boards buzz with excitement. With their new wave of kits, starting a few years ago with the 1/32 Zero and F-16, they changed the game. The Zero was their first “super” kit. High detail, high accuracy, and high price. They followed with the Spitfire, the Mustang and last year, the F4U Corsair. All just kept raising the bar. But as great as the Mustang kit is it had its fair share of critics…mainly about rivets on the wings.

I’ve stopped going to quite a few modeling forums because the tone is always so negative. I sit firmly in the camp of “if it looks like an “insert subject here”, it’s good enough for me. But there are voices out there that will point out every flaw, shape error, scale length error, color call out error in every kit that is released. I just got tired of reading it. And you know, if that is how you have “fun” in your hobby, that’s fine. But I just want to build. I go to forums to get inspiration, all that negativity was not inspiring. There is really only one site I go to anymore because the owner has the thought process of, “Just build the kit and have fun”.

We all have different expectations for our hobbies. But I try and keep in the perspective that this is just a hobby. I love the models for the Deff Dread and Killa Kans. But most of the time all I read is how broken they are with the rules (Again, I can’t say since I am still getting ready for my first game), I still bought a Dread, and had a blast building it and it was cheaper than the latest F-14 kit I want to get…and I get to play with it! After all, I never fly my model planes around when I put them on the shelf…. :rolleyes:

The buy in cost of the 40K hobby is expensive, but over the life of the model, the cost per hour is pretty small (again, IMHO). I’ve been at this for less than a year, but every time I work on one of my ork models, it always brings a smile to my face. That is worth the price of admission.

I hope that first post didn’t come across the wrong way. Tone is always hard to convey in text. I just wanted to get that out about price.

Back to the bench, the WAAAGH! won’t paint itself!

Brian

Johnnycache

01-31-2014, 12:45 PM

The bottom line for me is their weird, closed off secrecy and bad communication whereas with other games you can talk right to the actual people.

I think they should get out of retail totally, what's the point of a game store that sells one game and barely has any space?

I feel for the ordinary people AT the company who get into it wanting to do what they love and end up on the receiving end of years of community vs company issues.

tastytaste

01-31-2014, 12:47 PM

Funny how I just wrote about this topic a few days ago...

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2014/01/28/meat-meta-answer-haterade/

confoo22

01-31-2014, 01:00 PM

It's not only about that with GW though, their model prices have got exorbitant, proof of that is that some other companies can sell THEIR models 25% cheaper than their own shops do. They can't be making a loss, so how can GW justify the prices.

GW can justify the prices because other companies also sell at those prices and often with less options for customization. Look at Dreamforge games and their pseudo-titans. When they were released they retailed for $120 and you got one set of weapons load out and had to purchase additional ones if you wanted other options starting at $30 a pop. When that was released people talked lovingly about how awesome the model was and some were even saying that they'd get two. Yet people went nuts with rage when the Wraithknight was announced at $115 even though you get all the possible load outs meaning that with magnetization you'd really only need to buy one for multiple playing scenarios.

Look at Privateer Press that regularly releases 10 or 12 man metal kits with no additional options at $60 each, but people talk about PP as though it's the cheapest system out there. Look at Infinity who sells their models at about $10 each. Toughest Girls in the Galaxy had a pretty successful kickstarter and they sell single models for upwards of $30 each. All of these are comparable price points to GW and nobody complains about how expensive those companies are, but GW regularly gets taken to task for having similar costs.

And it's not like you can't play small games with GW. They released updated Kill Team rules that are pretty good with multiple missions and ways to turn it into almost a campaign style, giving you a fun game at a lower cost. You'd need a single Space Marine Box to create a decent Kill Team costing $40 at full MSRP (and let's face it, most people buy their GW stuff at 20% off), but where was the praise for that move? Even Necromunda is still a fun game and easy to find the rules for (though updated rules and new models would be nice). This is what people mean when they say that GW gets a majority of the hate because they're the biggest fish in the pond; Other, smaller companies get let off the hook for similar practices, but the moment GW does something similar it's always a "money grab" or "a slap in the face to veteran players."

GW can and should improve its interaction with customers, but it's also the biggest company out there and it's probably got the biggest customer base so who should they listen to? You can't please everyone since the moment you change one thing to appease player A, player B will go nuts about how unfair it is to them.

Wildcard

01-31-2014, 01:19 PM

I've been thinking why i hate GW so much for a long time myself. The conclusion i have come to is that i fear their arrogance.

For me the 40k universe is hands down the best scifi setting there is - by far. It's grimdark and with years and years of fluff / background it's really easy to immerse oneself on it.
Now, static setting may not always be good, but i hate and fear the thought of something established changing completely. Grand example of this was the way how they changed the necron fluff.
What if they change something i hold even closer to my heart? And in a way that takes stuff away from grimdark aspect of the franchise?

Then there are four more practical issues to be mad at:
- Pricing: It's not that i cannot afford the models, they just feel ridiculous investments.
- Method of selling stuff: New ones are the best to boost the sales -> GW tells us what we need to buy and not so that we can buy what we want and like.
- Consistency of fluff and description transforming into rules. For example best of the best of the best Grey Knights have same skill level and mental fortitude of any rank and file spacemarine, only difference comes from the wargear they are entitled to.
- Internal & external Codex balance: One of the coolest model boxes is Grey Knight Terminators, yet they are totally inferior in any way to their power armored counterparts.

-Mike

Resinpants

01-31-2014, 01:21 PM

I was there in the 80's when you could buy 5, or sometimes 6 metal figures in a blister for £2.50. It was awesome. 30 marines or 2 Land Raiders or 3 Rhinos for £10? Yes please! A game in a box for £20 (Blood Bowl, Space Hulk, Adeptus Titanicus, Dark Future etc) Fantastic!

It's not just money (every company needs to make money) but attitude. When your fan base couldn't care less if your company collapses or not, you really need to question your ideology.

Gingerpanda

01-31-2014, 01:52 PM

The only thing that has really made me dislike Games Workshop is their current fad of making Codex/Army Lists books such high quality and at the same time expensive when it is just not needed. The army book is going to get bashed, dropped, bent & scratched over the course of it's life, and for a £30 book that life is reasonably short. Now don't get me wrong these books are amazing quality, full colour art, fluff etc. . but £30 is quite a high price tag.

As for the model kits, yes the price is high but just look at all the extras you get with the kits? pouches, grenades, heads, knives, weapons etc. . . most of it superfluous as in my experience with the people I play with just have the bog standard "set up" and only use all the options on the a few particular "characters" they wish to make stand out. I would personally like to see the price of kits reduced and all the wonderful; extras put on a sprue which could be sold separately. Help to reduce cost and the carbon footprint of the company a little.

On a finally note I would also like to point out Games Workshop/Black Library's obsession with "Limited Editions". While I have no problem with them making special editions, all whistles and bells, signed numbered dated and included a sample of the authors DNA to boot and if they want to charge the earth for that all well and good but where is my copy with just a plain soft back cover that I can afford to buy and read? Oh I get to wait 6/12 months maybe even longer to get a copy? If they want to sell me stuff I am happy to buy but I just don't want to drip feed £1.50+ for snippets of a story or have to cry at the price of a certain beautiful HH graphic novel which unless they decide to produce a much cheaper version I'll never get to see in my life.

bfmusashi

01-31-2014, 02:06 PM

Because no one likes saying "hey man, I like your game, but these things don't seem to work right" only to be greeted with "It works as intended," "you're just doing it wrong," or "that's not a priority for us."

Martin Lymer

01-31-2014, 02:09 PM

What I hate most is how they just refuse to admit that there is a miniatures hobby beyond them and how they treat the online community with disdain.

DarkLink

01-31-2014, 02:11 PM

For me the 40k universe is hands down the best scifi setting there is - by far. It's grimdark and with years and years of fluff / background it's really easy to immerse oneself on it.

And basically all of it is ripped off from someone else, with some minor twists here and there.

Wilfen82

01-31-2014, 02:39 PM

I don't hate them, but I've come to realise I'm truly apathetic to their existence.

If they went under tomorrow (and I'd rather they didn't) I'd feel sorry for something that was a very fond memory for me and the people out of work but that's it! Part of it comes from their stores. They tell their staff very little and in turn the staff wont talk about anything that hasn't been released. Gone are the days of "Yeh I agree it's abit steep" or "Think they could of done better with......" now the staff don't empathise with the customer, instead telling us this is the best thing since sliced bread and looking at us like plague carriers if we disagree.

Eldar_Atog

01-31-2014, 03:05 PM

I've seen a couple of people try to defend GW's lack of good customer relations with things like:

"They are a big company. It's hard to quickly deal with issues"
"They can't react to every single issue a group of players have"

I just can't buy either of these 2 excuses. I played Magic the Gathering and Legend of the 5 Rings for years and I never felt like major pain points were being ignored. Wizards(now Hasbro) and AEG was seemed open to customer issues and I never felt like the company viewed the players with disdain. If a card was causing a major negative play experience, you could usually count on them to react with an errata within 3-6 months. Channel/Fireball causing a bunch of grief to players? Restrict/ban Channel. A card is confusing players? Let's issue an errata on the card on the website. People are putting Lotus Petals in every single deck they own? We might need to restrict them. They could be warping the environment in ways that hurt players in the long run.

Did those companies do everything that the players requested? No but I never felt like player concerns were being ignored. They were listening and dealing with the major pain points. Even today, I still have a lot of goodwill built up for those 2 companies.

Chris Zygmant

01-31-2014, 03:15 PM

I started collecting the hobby properly in 1994 and a lot has changed since then. I think my main issue can be summed up by a discussion I had with a Games Workshop employee a couple of years ago over finecast. I also went on to study modelmaking at University so I knew a little about casting in resin. My main issue was not that they had switched to resin or the fact that a lot of time their casting was awful/wasteful.

I just wanted to know how they could justify switching to resin as a material and still putting the price up. Resin is dirt cheap. The response I got from the GW staff member was first one of rubbish, if I tell this guy a load of bull maybe he will believe it. Then I was told that material costs had gone up and finally that it's an expensive process of removing the resin from oil.

When I still said that doesn't justify what it happening he basically told me to lump it or like it as GW will be indifferent to my and peoples like me custom. I had known this staff member for about 14 years and playing the hobby at the time for about 19 years.

This made me very sad, it's that kind of relisation that a good friend of your's is actually a complete (obscenity).

I know this story is largely a part of the attitude of the GW staff (who lets face it were probably fed up of people moaning about finecast) but to be honest he summed up GW's attitude for well at least the last few years.

They don't care about us they just want their monies.

Aegwymourn

01-31-2014, 04:20 PM

My biggest problem with GW is their attitude that the rules for their game should not be written cohesively. Now I can understand that their philosophy is that 40k is designed as a "beer and pretzels" game. Which is fine. Everyone is entitled to play the game however they choose. But why not allow those same players the enjoyment of a well written ruleset. Every game is going to have balance issues. Or rules that don't make a lot of sense. Which isn't what I am complaining about. The ruleset needs to be well written enough that your average person can pick it up, read it once or twice, and play it most of the time while following the rules. But when you can't write a ruleset well enough that "if you ever can't figure out what is going on roll a 4+" is an actual rule I can't help but wonder. Especially when you are going to make it a $100 hardcover monstrosity.

I have been playing GW games on and off since I was 13. I love the settings, the games (tabletop and video), the books, the art. I really want GW to succeed. I don't even really mind the price of everything. But if you want to publish rules and charge me, what I think is a premium price, then it should be a product you can stand behind. Really at this point if all they want to be is a model company really why don't they keep that part of the business and licence the rules portion of it. Perhaps they are worried of losing control, but is that any better than producing a product that could very well turn people away from the entire hobby?

Denzark

02-01-2014, 04:11 AM

What I hate most is how they just refuse to admit that there is a miniatures hobby beyond them and how they treat the online community with disdain.

I'll pick up on these as I expect most people erroneously think I'm a GW apologist anyway.

Firstly, GW uses the term 'The hobby' to refer to collecting Citadel miniatures. I have seen this in their corporate literature, I can't be arsed to find a source. They don't claim 'The hobby' (GW) is 'The hobby' (wargaming) -although the possible connection in the mind of anyone is a bonus. But they are clear that when they use the term 'The hobby' it refers to collecting citadel miniatures, painting them using citadel paints and using them in citadel rulesets - the latter an afterthought.

So why should GW admit there is a miniatures hobby behind them anyway - even mentioning anything outside their parameters is free advertising to other companies and mentioning the competition ain't good business.

As to your second point, can you really and honestly say the online so-called community isn't worthy of disdain? I am mildly contemptuous of 80% of it just because of its facile sense of entitlement - and a check of my E-peen shows I come here and post three-times-daily.

daboarder

02-01-2014, 06:12 AM

I'll pick up on these as I expect most people erroneously think I'm a GW apologist anyway.

Firstly, GW uses the term 'The hobby' to refer to collecting Citadel miniatures. I have seen this in their corporate literature, I can't be arsed to find a source. They don't claim 'The hobby' (GW) is 'The hobby' (wargaming) -although the possible connection in the mind of anyone is a bonus. But they are clear that when they use the term 'The hobby' it refers to collecting citadel miniatures, painting them using citadel paints and using them in citadel rulesets - the latter an afterthought.

So why should GW admit there is a miniatures hobby behind them anyway - even mentioning anything outside their parameters is free advertising to other companies and mentioning the competition ain't good business.

As to your second point, can you really and honestly say the online so-called community isn't worthy of disdain? I am mildly contemptuous of 80% of it just because of its facile sense of entitlement - and a check of my E-peen shows I come here and post three-times-daily.

I believe you'll find you've made the wrong assumption Denzark. I am pretty sure lymers comment was that he feels GW refuses to admit the online warhammer (or the hobby (GW)) exists and treats them with disdain.

Book of Fire

02-01-2014, 01:23 PM

They closed/shrank stores AND got rid of middle management. I worked there during the restructure in 2010. It was intense.

Ezaviel

02-01-2014, 05:44 PM

I hear ya.

I love 40k. Love pretty much everything about it except the existence of Tau. I love the game, the rules, the models.

I *used* to love GW.

This echoes the way myself and a lot of friends who started at the same time feel.

Back in the 90s the magazines contained interesting content, the company felt less oppressive, the models were less expensive. It felt more like a company run on passion than on profits.

These days, well, it feels like we are having our wallets sucked on by a souless company.

It doesn't help that this lack of soul feels like it is spreading into the community. Tournaments are full of broken armies doing broken things, controlled by rules-lawyers with no love of fluff and very little social skills. Back then the guys in White Dwarf and even the developers were pretty active about disparaging this style of play. I can't help but feel they encourage this style of play with the new broken flavour of the month codices, and over-priced over-powered models.

It is... disheartening.

danscan

02-01-2014, 09:53 PM

It's not so much hate as watching a dear friend treat you like crap when you had such good times together. So how do they do this?
1. Prices. We know they are too high, how much is up for debate. Some units are unplayable because they cost too much to field. If you enjoy other hobbies or the love of a good women you really have to think about the purchase.
2. The lawsuits. They seemed wasteful and shortsighted. Unless there is direct competition in actual design the 3rd party designs should be encouraged. See the app model in computers.
3. The general treatment of the player base and community. I know you run a virtual monopoly, you know you run a virtual monopoly but don't treat me like you are the only game in town. I feel like that girl who got the wrong phone number from the one nightstand. I buy a codex and they are happy with me. Then when I have a question and it's ignored or never solved. I mean they could easily solve the balance issues.
4. The one person store. This was so obviously a quick money move. I rarely go to a gw store but this May caused lots of lost revenue because one man cannot manage selling, playing, training, and security. I had to awkwardly watch a pissed off parent ream out the one man store guy because he took lunch and she had to wait in the parking lot.

On general note. This is why I hate the way public companies are forced to work. I am a capitalist but the short term stuff seems to be killing too many companies. It almost looks like general motors to me. Ignore the competition until they just crush you.

Low

02-02-2014, 07:47 AM

Hi guys/girls, long time lurker here.

Couple of points from an ex-employee of both GW and EA (i'm inclined to evil, what can i say?).

1. A serious issue with both these companies is that they are publicly traded. That means they are pressured by shareholder to generate quarterly profit and that some of that profit is reserved for increasing stock prices. If the board cannot do this, they are in trouble. This can lead to knee-jerk decisions on product development, mass layoffs and other quick-revenue moves. In my experience this is one of the most limiting factors for creative companies. Note that PP is not publicly traded. If the board does not have the trust of the owners, a company will be crippled in it's long term decision making. Why do you see Space Marines, and increasingly faster Core rules turnover? Same reason as you see BF4. They are guaranteed to generate revenue. That is the sad truth. Everyone loves to see the forgotten armies updated. I certainly think GW's design team thinks so too. It's jut not good business - for this quarter. Maybe the next will be better?

2. Pair what I've said above with a slow turn around time. When at GW HQ (a long time ago but should still apply) the studio had a turnaround time from concept to when it's in the customers hands of 6-12 months. In AAA video games development it's significantly more, 15 - 36 months i'd say. During this time a lot can change with your competitors and there will be many quarterly shareholder meetings where decisions will be challenged.

3. GW has never focused on customer relations. It would require a massive customer support personnel investment OR letting the design staff engage with the public, which require significant training and time. EA has recently improved their image by letting the studios developers market and communicate with the public. But it takes a lot of time and that's not the main reason a designer got in to the industry. I think GW should go down this road though, letting the designers talk freely about what they are doing and why.

4. GW is very secretive. They only announce the upcoming products when it is just about to be released. I never understood this. One of the main things about marketing video games is building hype over a long period of time, gradually building it to release. It leaks out anyways and the funny thing is that sites like these are almost always right in their predictions. So why the secrecy? I think GW's main reason are a fear of competition, which is absurd in my eyes. Since they have a firm grasp of their own IP's (intellectual properties).

5. The lawsuits. I totally understand the need for this from GW's point of view. They can't allow another company to profit on their IP's without their consent. It's not pretty, but chapter house had no business stealing design like that. They could make their own IP like Mantic has done if they want to sail in GW's wake.

6. Prices. Too steep to get in to for beginners, but that's mainly because the skirmish games have been unprofitable for GW. You show a 13-year old Kill Team and regular 40k and see which one he goes for. I think perhaps the regular core games could be streamlined in their army selections to work better at lower points. But this would be one of those long term bets the shareholders would frown upon, because short-term that might actually mean less sales.

7. Rules balancing. GW has in many ways painted themselves in a corner here in my opinion. They have a vast game with so many units and stats it would take a massive undertaking to balance it all properly and again that effort is a hard sell to management. "Can we prove that we'll sell more minis if we do it?" "We have no data to support that" is the likely answer. Or in EA's case it can be dismissed. "Only a vocal minority on the internet claims they want this. The majority doesn't care." Another facet of this is that the stats might not work for balancing at all. M WS BS S T I A LD SAVE Points - sound like enough right? Set in stone. Might not be so easy to tweak. I think that's why we have seen an influx of USR and Unit Special rules. Making the game even more complex, unwieldy and favoring mono builds.

8. Competition. PP have built their stats to be easier to balance from the ground up. However, they have difficulties when ramping up to large scale battles. It turns awkward fast. It's a trade off. Also note that PP has forced GW to push 4 color print to all their printed materials. One of the most glaring signs that GW is feeling the pressure.

Big rant this - but my point is. It's complicated. GW is a behemoth that has perhaps been built on the wrong foundations. Maybe it can be torn down and re-built by a courageous management given enough trust. Maybe it will just slowly make it's way to the elephants graveyard? In my opinion - I hope they get bought up by another company with some guts to do what's needed. I think it's likely, given the popularity of the IP's. Maybe the share price drop will be the best thing that happened to the GW hobby?

This was all rather stream-of-consciousness - I apologize but hope I made some valid points.

eldargal

02-02-2014, 08:06 AM

I don't love GW. I love the products they produce. I don't hate GW either, I have better things to do than waste emotions on a corporate entity indifferent to my existence. I do think, however, that people often let their sense of entitlement stand before their reason and forget that our understanding of how GW operates and what their short and long term interests are is radically different to theirs.

I do find some of the visceral hate spewed at GW quite inexplicable, though. I mean when you start calling a toy company that does no environmental damage, exploits no communities nor does anything more reprehensible than sending out some stupid C&Ds sometimes 'evil' you really have to question your sense of perspective as far as I'm concerned. Yes I've seen people refer to GW as evil in a serious, un-ironic sense.

the jeske

02-02-2014, 09:13 AM

I think it is a choice vs no choice thing very offten . You can buy a model kit made out at any price . Heck you could buy a chiness copy of the actual aircraft , if you have the money and your own countries import laws aren't against people owning war planes . But it is your choice . With GW games you don't have a choice. A sob player can't say ,that he will get them from a different source [well he technicly can , but then he has to explain how he got so many 'finecast" sobs]. I can't say no am not going to buy 10 dudes for 50$ for WFB [unless again I buy recasts] . The rest is mostly bad marketing decisions and rubbing their fandom the wrong way at wrong times[price goes up and finecast in at the same time? couldn't they have made one a month sooner or later].

I also dislike GW on a more personal level . They didn't like the fact that my very good friend friend cornered the market for selling their models here and they have driven him out of buissness with late deliveries .

I mean when you start calling a toy company that does no environmental damage,
not possible when you work with metal , plastic or resin .

exploits no communities nor does
they had a FW factory in China.

anything more reprehensible than sending out some stupid C&Ds sometimes 'evil' you really have to question your sense of perspective as far as I'm concerned.
I know more then a few store and Online store owners who went bankrupt or had to close their shops , because of them . In the 90s they had a normal procedure of finding a city with a big GW games supporting comunity , opening their stores there,then doing buy 3 get the cheapest one free ,which ended with the FLGS going out of buissness . It is a normal thing for them to get late with shipments to FLGS , if they have a new GW store in the area , specialy if there never were any GW shops there .
They can be late anywhere from 2 to 4 months with payment for translations of army books , rules books. Oddly enough BL pays on time .

Valhalla Games

02-02-2014, 02:52 PM

This is a great thread, I hope 'They' are listening...but for the reasons we have presented here, im guessing they arent looking through such forums to find constructive criticism and areas for improvement!
What i found amazing is the majority of these posts, especially the first few, actually have an undercurrent of passion...even in writing letters why we hate or cannot support GW, there is this real feelingnthat we WANT the opposite! And that makes sense, because we havent paid for our hobby in cash, sweat and tears to get it onto the tabletop to want to drift away.
I do believe the rules are getting better if 40k is anything to go by ( By better read less ambiguous perhaps..), but I stand by my question ESPECIALLY regarding the dead horse that is WFB;

GW, if all your current model casts and machinery were destroyed by some freak occurence, would your rules sets be strong enough for your systems to survive while you rebuilt?

I suspect that for 40k the answer may well be yes, for the hobbit/LOTR the answer is who cares? (And thats the point with that system..shouldnt they have convinced us by now?!) And for WFB they answer is.....NO WAY.

I started in WFB. A game i loved is being destroyed because someone couldnt say no.
THE EMPEROR ISNT WEARING ANY CLOTHES!! Blatant commercial decisions are destroying the game: create a stupid horde rule to sell higher quantities of miniatures, every army must have 1 or more huge models regardless of army background and character...the games charm of mixing tactics with fantasy models was detroyed by stupid special weapons auto select rules, lackmof maneuover as charging first doesnt mean squat half the time as with charging flanks etc etc. Heavy cavalry back in the stables as they are useless.
Stop employing yes men in games development and get someone with the balls to say no to stupid mechanics.
For all our questioning over jervis and the likes poetic musings, they understand..i feel like if any of the new guys in development had understood jervis' murdering your darlings rant the WFB rulebook wouldnt contain half the dross it has in it, neither would we have to negotiate half the crap that we must from codicies/rulebooks ..yes im looking at you, mat ward.

Organised play being systematically wiped out does not help a system, community or a company trying to sell their wares....neither does employing extremely poor trade sales reps..i firmly believe after seeing most of the unpopular product and poor advice supplied to new independants that the standard of most of these reps is professionally unacceptable.THIS is killing independant stockists quicker than we can keep up.
Get a grip GW, we want you to succeed because we love our games, dont treat us like dogs you throw scraps too and we must eat or die...your models dont fit that profile, most ofthe low level people in your company, and the great artists etc we meet at events arent like that.
Stop raping us financially at the expense of your future customer base, because we WANT to still be here.
Rant out.

Death Shroud

02-02-2014, 04:13 PM

Like almost everyone here I loved what GW did and, like anyone who sees something they love been mistreated or mishandled, I get angry about what direction things have headed in. Main problems?

1. Change for changes sake. 3rd edition 40k was fun but massively flawed in certain areas (combat). 4th edition fixed it and was an absolute joy. 5th edition came along and threw it all away. The removal of normal cover's ability to block line of sight made the game static and dull. You could see and shoot anything in range (even through a window in a building).

2. Price rises. Yeah people moan if prices rise. But when prices have risen by such massive amounts as they have in the last 10 years you cannot write it off as customers moaning. When I was GW the talk was of the business not being price sensitive, we were in a hobby we loved and would pay for it anyway. GW have convinced themselves of this and so when sales drop (partly due to the rises in prices and customer dropout) they rise the prices to mitigate the loss of profit (anyone see a vicious circle forming). When I started gaming £10 got you 30 marines now £20 gets you ten, models are 6 times as expensive as they were. Computer games are less than twice the price that they were at the same time despite a massive increase in production costs.

Psychosplodge

02-02-2014, 04:20 PM

and a check of my E-peen shows I come here and post three-times-daily.

Is that what that number means?

n-j-x

02-03-2014, 06:00 AM

(first post on BOLS)
I just delurked to put my 2 cents in, I Have been buying GW models for over 10 years and The reason that in the last few years I have stopped is only partly due to price.

1) I am a WFB player,and I currently do not enjoy playing WFB possibly because I enjoy Warmahordes more, I would never have strayed to PP if GW had kept me interested

2) I am more interested in models than gaming, to me playing/ collecting since I was 18 GW has always been crazy expensive but I always dropped the cash because I really wanted the models

(MAIN POINT) I don't like GW's new direction with models, I like the old hand sculpted models with soul and character that the new digital models do not have, the mass produced plastic is fine for mass troops but I miss my nice characterful metal Heroes.

3) £35 for 10 plastic troops in a game where unit size in 20 minimum, £80 for the slayer unit with new crappy plastic hero ( love the old slayer sculpts though), how about get .......

BeardMonk

02-03-2014, 07:22 AM

Im NOT a 40K player so i cant comment on the broken rules side of things. Im 27 and I largely left Warhammer for 10-12 years. I kept “in touch” through Battlefleet Gothic, Mordhiem and Inquisitor however we often used GW models as miniatures for Pathfinder. Im now back into collecting and playing WHF. The reason why im a fan of the game again but not of the company does come down to the bottom line of price. Even on my very decent salary, it’s just unreasonable.

The price of a model should reflect a number of thing. 1) The amount of physical materials required to make the miniature, 2) the cost of packaging, 3) the cost of the sculptors/artists who created the works. That combined price should then have a small but reasonable mark up for profit which allows a company to invest in the next gen of the game, new models, paints etc. As a tomb kings player I remember that back in the day a regiment of 20 plastic with metal command pieces was about £10-12. That was a reasonable price for a young person to save their pocket money towards or an ideal price for a xmas/birthday/”well done” gift from a parent or family member. These days your paying £20-£25 odd for 10-15 models. Often double the price for half the content.

On this theme something that also angers me is that in addition to the price hike, GW seems to be pushing bigger and bigger models/monsters as a standard part of the game. Returning to 40K for a sec, the apocalypse release last year is a classic example of this. The Korn Lord Of Skulls is £95!!!!! And what is it? As small plastic kit, no bigger than a large matchbox when constructed and containing about as much plastic as a regiment box set yet they feel it’s acceptable to charge the best part of £100? Im also a guitarist. I could pick up a 4x12 cab (i.e. BIG speaker) for about that price. Im also do a lot of mountaineering, I can pick up a basic ice axe for less than that!! Is it small wonder that most of us buy our stuff from retailers how somehow manage to provide GW products at 20% discount? Or browse ebay looking pick up a kit at a price that can be justified

Additionally, im not sure how GW does not realise that their current pricing strategy is putting off the next generations of war gamers from taking up the hobby. I look at my local GW’s as i go past them. When I was a teenager, they were packed with people of all ages buying, painting, gaming and having a laugh. Now days they seem emptier, the customers older. Where is the next generation? The community has moved out of GW and to the independent shops and clubs, most of whom are also playing Warmachine/Hordes and other games. Because the price has driven people out of their shops, GW has become the author of its own isolation.

I will say however that, with a few exceptions, GW miniature are still the best out there. But the other companies are catching up. FAST. The new generation of Warmachine/Hordes models are pretty much on par. GW will soon have to share its crown of “the best wargaming models” with other companies. Unless they become competitive again, people will simply vote with their wallets and walk away for good..

The friends I game with have the same opinion. They love the WHF demo games I have run for them but they just can’t afford/justify having to spend £100-200 to get anything like a competitive army that’s worth playing anything more than a small skirmish with. Which is why they/we are playing Warmachine/Hordes at about 25pts-30pts. And I can’t blame them.

Denzark

02-03-2014, 08:41 AM

Is that what that number means?

Yes, I have extrapolated yours out to be 9 times daily over your 4.5 years here. Thus your E-peen is 3 times the size of mine! Wowzer.

ElectricPaladin

02-03-2014, 08:47 AM

Now I need to figure out the size of my e-peen...

My e-peen is 3.5. Is that good?

Psychosplodge

02-03-2014, 08:51 AM

Yes, I have extrapolated yours out to be 9 times daily over your 4.5 years here. Thus your E-peen is 3 times the size of mine! Wowzer.

I better work on that then...

Mr Mystery

02-03-2014, 08:52 AM

I dread to think the size of mine....

Psychosplodge

02-03-2014, 08:54 AM

I dread to think the size of mine....

13? :eek:

Denzark

02-03-2014, 09:10 AM

I dread to think the size of mine....

Bloody hell MM 14.97 rising...

A mighty electronic pizzle indeed Sir, my compliments.

Wolfshade

02-03-2014, 09:13 AM

I am confused.

Mr Mystery

02-03-2014, 09:41 AM

Wahey!

DarkLink

02-03-2014, 12:51 PM

Now I need to figure out the size of my e-peen...

My e-peen is 3.5. Is that good?

It's how you use it that counts.

Mr Mystery

02-03-2014, 01:16 PM

Easily said when it's not dragging behind you :p

(Amidoingthisright?)

Psychosplodge

02-04-2014, 04:21 AM

Easily said when it's not dragging behind you :p

(Amidoingthisright?)

Pretty much...

Honkie McGee

02-06-2014, 07:25 PM

I apologize if I'm a little late to the party but I had to throw in my two cents.

I, like a lot of others here, had my fair share of grumbles and complaints about GW. But what did it for me was shuttering Specialist Games. This is pretty silly to say, but I felt betrayed by that announcement, deflated. I was trying to get back into the swing of things after life got in the way by repainting my old BFG Elder fleet. Hearing about Specialist Games totally took the wind out of my sails, what little there was anyway. I'm sure there are plenty of valid business reasons to end production of SG, but I can't help but feel like if GW supported SG, more it'd still be around. By killing SG, GW has made the game smaller.

At the same time, GW is making the game bigger, which brings me to my second issue, flyers and big kits. Its like they've forgotten that 40k is a miniatures game. They're introducing units into 40k, not Apocalypse, but regular 40k that, I believe at least, are more appropriate for Epic (part of the defunct SG range).

And speaking of flyers, why do they have to be so frakking ugly? Everything after the Ork Bommer has been just stupid looking (I include the Stormtalon in this statement). They have me questioning the quality of GW's artists and sculptors if they thought that releasing the Tau Sun Shark was a good idea. That thing is hideous, IMO obviously.

My third issue is of course the descent of White Dwarf. I remember when it was useful, had experimental rules , and chapter/legion specific rules. Now it's just a catalog with pretty pictures and "How to paint space marines" articles. It's just sad.

One more thing, it's been said several times in this thread that GW considers their games to be "beer & pretzels" games. That might be a valid excuse if they didn't charge "champagne & caviar" prices, for minis and rules.