Collectors vs Casual vs Competitive

[DarkLink]

So, given this article: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/03/so-gw-you-still-think-youre-just-model.html

How many people here do or don't play 40k?

[sebi81]

I haven´t played a single game in about three years and when I played, I played only casually with friends. Although I buy every codex at least in the ebook version and write lists for all models I buy. I like buying and building models and I like reading fluff and build fluffy armies. I don´t have the time to really paint all the stuff I buy and to play games. For me, GW is doing it right... I can buy new models and think about fluffy ways to use the new rules and models to build fluffy armies.
By the way: I own a huge Imperial Guard army (9000), a huge Chaos Space Marines army (8000), Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Iron Hands, Grey Knights, Chaos Daemons, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Inquisition, Adeptus Sororitas, Adeptus Mechanicus counts as IG, Celestial Lions counts as Space Wolves, Imperial Warbringers Space Marines and a Knight. As you can see, almost every new release can be build in any of my armies, so I buy new stuff frequently. The last things I bought were fantasy knights, to put my space marine "bikers" upon, a fantasy chaos lord, to build a custodes captain, a land speeder storm as a transport for my old Adeptus Arbites counting as scouts for the deathwatch allies of my xenos inquisitor, an Imperial Knight and the new hellbrute, to use the spare parts for old chaos dreadnoughts.
I tried Infinity and bought some Aleph minis, but I don´t get in the fluff, cause I didn´t buy a rulebook (the rules can be downloaded for free without the fluff parts) and the setting is not "dark" enough for me. The rules seemed to complicated to get in it easy. So I only played once. I never thought about WarmaHordes cause in my opinion the minis are plain ugly. What I do is use minis or parts from other companies in my armies, for example hasslefree, cmon or raging heroes. Never thought about playing on tournaments or in GW stores, so having no problem with this.
I spend a fair amount of money on GW products and enjoy the hobby without plaing games. The rules are interesting but not decisive for me to buy a mini. As far as I am concerned GW is doing it completely right at the moment.

[Wolfshade]

I would primarily count myself as a collector. When my army gets updated I want/have/need to buy enough kits so that I can field every option available. The move to double FOC hit my wallet hard :(. Aside from that I keep building out my BAs until I have an entire Chapter.
In the mean time trying to be able to play "every option" to my orks, then my eldar and grey knights need new models though so far I am resisting this. The thoughts of an imperial guard army (counts-as Baal PDF) are never far from my mind.

That being said, it is a rare month where I don't play at least 1 game. But certainly, it is all about the pretty miniatures :)

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

I count myself as a narrative player.
I enjoy writing background for an army, then modelling and painting that army to perform like I have written, and then I can play with it competitively or casually. So long as I have stuck to the background of my army in question.

Basically, I follow the Codex Astartes.

[Psychosplodge]

I'd still play if I had anyone to play with anymore :(
But primarily I'm a collector. Hence why I have about three times the amount unpainted bnib than painted.

[energongoodie]

I've been a collector for many years and have only just found a gaming club that I like in the last couple of years. I've played more in the last 2 years than I have in the last 18. I'm loving it!

[Piotr Fr]

I'm still painting... and painting and painting... lack of time prevents me from finishing the painting process and start playing so I consider myself a collector.

[DrBored]

I play rarely. I can go months without playing a game (but then, I can go months without painting a model too).

I enjoy building and painting the most, and playing a casual game against fluff-listers is a lot of fun. I don't mind helping people perfect their tourney lists, but sometimes my lists/strategies aren't up to snuff, so I can't really offer much more than some models that the enemy can practice target priority on.

[Dave Mcturk]

superglue, bluetack, marker pens, spray can ! the plastic crack is for playing with !

[KaylaFigg]

I play casually: my Dark Eldar vs my boyfriends Nids, Iron Hands, Tau, or Necrons. And my cousins Chaos. It's always a loss for me but it is nice to have people to regularly play with.

[ToHitMod]

Painting and collecting are my hobbies. Occasionally, once a month or so I'll play, but i prefer fluffy games with a story, not all about points and all that boring stuff

[Domine Nox]

I love to play, but generally more of my time is in the hobby aspect as I am not free to play as often as I would like. So the armies sit on the shelves and wait patiently.

[Dave Bone]

No wonder most folks aren't complaining about the codexes. Nobody even plays the game anymore.

I think I'm gonna start ebaying my 6th and 8th ed books right...now.

[Psychosplodge]

but they won't sell, nobody plays the game... :D

[KingMardi]

Of all the choices, I fall closest to "I play sometimes, but mostly just collect". I play a flavor of warhammer, a couple of times a year and paint 40 ish models a year.

[Gilbert Gordon]

It's been several years since I last played a game. I still have a Space Marine and Imperial Guard force, and I'll purchase a new model or figure if I like the way it looks. Now I spend the time collecting and painting...when the mood takes me!

Stopped playing because in my area it's become all about competition, and I'm just in it for the fun. Have played in tournaments before, both won and lost, and it was okay...but when you're in constant tournament mode, like most of the gamers I know...it gets a little annoying!

[ligolski]

I play once in a while with friends and thus seem to just collect a lot and theoretically list build a bunch...however I would love to play more, just need people to play against.

[Charon]

I play quite often (1+ games a week). Started in 2nd edition 40k with the Dark Millennium box. I wnt by train very often so I got myself something to read regularly. One day I forgot my book at home and found a magazine called "White Dwarf". It was absolutely amazing and I fell in love with the battle report featured there (Eldar vs Orks) and from there on I starte my own armies.
I always was a player but was collecting too (and I got EVERY specialist system out there)
I had a Chaos and Undead army in Fantasy and Chaos for 40k. Some of my friends picked it up too and we played at every opportunity. I always bought the newest stuff for my armies even if I didnt intend to use it.
Years came and prices got higher but that was ok for me as I just "needed" new stuff.
Then the downwards spiral began. First my Chaos Army was invalidated (it was Warriors + Beastmen + Daemons), then my Undead where killed (splitted up into Khemri and Vampire), so I stopped playing Fantasy.
A freind of mine also stopped and gave me his dark elves and eldar. I started to play fantasy again with Storm of Chaos (Druuchii Slannesh Cult) als I had daemons and dark elves. New edition and I stopped it again as Slaanesh Cult was illegal now. So I sold them and never had a second look back on Fantasy again.
40k was more stable. The transistion to the "no brain" 3rd edition was quite hard to swallow and I still miss some mechanics (Cover, range modifications, PSI) but it grew better. I meet more ppl to play with and also started to participate in club and national tournaments (with good results).
Nowadays im more of a fluff gamer. I still like balanced games but I love to write stories for my armies or our campains. All of my models are painted some of them heavily converted. Its 3 armies now (CSM, DE, Eldar) but I stopped collecting. I wirte armylists, I playtest and if I like the result I buy. The model can be as great and shiny as it could be, if the rules suck I'm not gonna buy it. No need to take away space on my shelves (they are needed for most of my specialist teams/warbands/fleets/...)

[pseudodelic]

Funny how the comments so far don't really support the votes... perhaps the collectors have more to say? I play... I hadn't played or painted for about 25 years and suddenly got the itch. I am busy building an Ork Army (see my posts on here) totally fluff as they are underpowered in terms of rules and codex at the moment. I love building them and painting them and making them look real. I play casually and tournament and love it win or lose. I guess you have to collect to play but you don't have to play to collect. I do think that either way a well built and painted army/set of miniatures is preferable to BNIB or just build and possibly just base coated. As for Hordes etc... I think some miniatures are great, the fluff is evolving and the rules are kept current. GW could learn a lot from their competitors but if they ever will who knows... lets hope if GW go down the sink one of their competitors picks up the baton and does a better job of it. I still wonder why we don't all get together as a community and take the best of all the rule editions and codices and come up with the definitive army list, rules and perhaps even fluff to make Warhammer 40k and WFB what they should be. Then GW can just concentrate on their "core business" making miniatures and models and leave the gaming to a committed bunch of US (no not America)

[Deadlift]

I'm a painter 1st player second, I went for the 2nd option as far as 40k goes. Throw x-wing into the mix and I'm playing a game at least 1-2 times a week. It's my favorite to play by far now.

[Eldar_Atog]

I usually get 1 or 2 casual games a month. My group has experimented with firestorm armada, flames of war, and x-wing but we mainly play 40K. We have been talking about having a set of house rules to control some of the bad elements of the game.. like keeping flyers out of 1000 and 1250 games and making warlord and psyker powers a little less random.

I will say that a lot of my playing is about showing off my army... especially my Thousand sons army. I have done all the painting on that army and almost of the customization so it's always nice to hear how the newest unit looks great.

My eldar get a lot of praise too but it's not quite the same. I only painted half of it so it's not quite the same. The unicycle wraithlord always gets a double take when new people swing by :)

[Orange]

I play fairly regularly, but I could go months without getting a game in due to my job profession requiring me to be close to a hundred miles off from the closest store to get a game in. I will still have models shipped to me to paint as I really like GW's product line and wouldn't switch over.

[DrBored]

Well, as it stands, it looks like 60% of people are casual players.

So why all this crap about balanced rules? Vocal minority of WAAC players?

[Charon]

Maybe because even casual players want even games?
Casual does not include a mutal agreement to only play "soft" lists.
A casual gamer can still bring a screamerstar, jetseers or 4 turkeys- There is no rule that prevents them from doing this.
Casual doesnt mean bad or mentally handicapped or "lol I dont even know the rules".

[Eldar_Atog]

Well, as it stands, it looks like 60% of people are casual players.

So why all this crap about balanced rules? Vocal minority of WAAC players?

I've met many a WAAC player playing casual games. I would love to see a more balanced rule set with FAQ's that really focus on the issues that players are running into. Would it really be so hard for them to dedicate a resource or 2 to maintaining a simple ruling request system?

[DrBored]

Maybe because even casual players want even games?
Casual does not include a mutal agreement to only play "soft" lists.
A casual gamer can still bring a screamerstar, jetseers or 4 turkeys- There is no rule that prevents them from doing this.
Casual doesnt mean bad or mentally handicapped or "lol I dont even know the rules".

When I hear 'Casual' I think 'beer and pretzel' which makes me think 'Wait, so the rule says we have to roll for Mysterious Terrain? Ah, screw that, let's just put models on the table so I can roll dice at you.' or 'What's this about Imperial Knights having wonky rules? How about we just agree on what we think it should be and move on with our lives.'

[Eldar_Atog]

When I hear 'Casual' I think 'beer and pretzel' which makes me think 'Wait, so the rule says we have to roll for Mysterious Terrain? Ah, screw that, let's just put models on the table so I can roll dice at you.' or 'What's this about Imperial Knights having wonky rules? How about we just agree on what we think it should be and move on with our lives.'

To me, it has always meant a non tournament setting.

[DrBored]

To me, it has always meant a non tournament setting.

I can see that. And to your earlier point, it's true, they really should have just one or two guys that take the questions of the community and update them in FAQ's. How hard could that be? You could get some interns that you pay minimum wage to play out the rule-breaking scenarios and then with their data, ask the designers, and then publish a FAQ within the week.

[Charon]

When I hear 'Casual' I think 'beer and pretzel' which makes me think 'Wait, so the rule says we have to roll for Mysterious Terrain? Ah, screw that, let's just put models on the table so I can roll dice at you.' or 'What's this about Imperial Knights having wonky rules? How about we just agree on what we think it should be and move on with our lives.'

That has nothing to do with casual. Thats a matter of houserules and personal style. If you agree to play "pew pew you are dead" you can completely play without rules at all. You can just rule that for every beer you drink you may remove 3d6 enemy models from the game. You can even rule to place your friends 2y old son on the table and every model that the mini titan turns over is removed as a casualty.
But that has nothing to do with casual.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Collector.

I enjoy painting for 40k/GW stuff and I spend most of my spare time either sculpting my own game or producing my electronic music. I don't really have any interest in "games" of any sort in general, personally.

[Eldar_Atog]

And to your earlier point, it's true, they really should have just one or two guys that take the questions of the community and update them in FAQ's. How hard could that be? You could get some interns that you pay minimum wage to play out the rule-breaking scenarios and then with their data, ask the designers, and then publish a FAQ within the week.

Perhaps they think that will detract from the bottom line but I would think it would help their reputation. It's true that you can't please everyone but how can it be better to let a rule issue to exist for years.. and across multiple codexes.

[jonsgot]

I'd still play if I had anyone to play with anymore :(
But primarily I'm a collector. Hence why I have about three times the amount unpainted bnib than painted.
I only get to play because I found new younger people to play with. I'm still no sue if I'm too old or if 6th killed 40k.

There is very little point spending a day playing a game if you know the outcome before you start. There even less point spending hours painting models just so you don't know the outcome.
The games need more balance and less nurf bat!

[SquigBrain]

Okay, take this all with a big grain of salt, as it's just IMNSHO:

Those of us who are long-time veterans of the game are not GW's target market. Two different things I have heard directly from people at GWUK who should know such things:

"The target audience for our product is 10-14 year old boys".

"The average customer is a GW customer for two years, then they're off to other things."

Admittedly, both of these quotes were from years and years ago, but it seems to me that things haven't changed. Now, that means that *most* of their audience never plays more than one edition, and probably never sees their codex updated. They buy product for two years, then it goes in a closet / goes to ebay.

Again, remember, not talking about die-hards like most, if not all of us are. This is what GW says their primary customer is.

This means, they want to sell as much product in that two years as possible... and that means focus on cool stuff, rather than a tight rule set. If you quit playing after two years in because of *any* reason, GW will just nod and pat their business analysts on the head and give them a biscuit.

Allies weren't added to be cool....they were added because GW's prices have gotten to the point where most of their customers weren't buying second armies. Sometimes, it has been many many years between releases for a particular army...so in those years, people weren't buying *more*. Allies meant you could buy small bits of other armies...and you'd need the codex for that other army, right? Maybe different paints?

TLDR: GW is selling to the 12yr old boy in each of us, and they believe that boy is far more interested in buying cool models than buying tight rules.

[Littha]

TLDR: GW is selling to the 12yr old boy in each of us, and they believe that boy is far more interested in buying cool models than buying tight rules.

The issue being that having tight rules does not necessarily make your models less cool. If they put the effort in they could have both.

[Orange]

@SquigBrain And they would be correct in that assumption. I play Enclaves because I like mechs and Enclaves gives me the ability to field an all mech army and the models look nice. I could care less about the rules only that I have robots.

[SquigBrain]

The issue being that having tight rules does not necessarily make your models less cool. If they put the effort in they could have both.

Yes, but what is their business incentive to do so? GW is driven not by "are we making good games/models" now. They are driven by "Are we selling product".

If you spend time writing new rules, that get sold (and GW is coming up with plenty of new ways to sell rules), you're obviously, *measurably* selling product.

If you spend time playtesting, writing FAQs, editing, etc you're *not* obviously, measurably selling product. You can say that by doing so, you'll increase sales because people will buy more stuff if the rules are well-written.

Developer 1 writes cool new codex, reports to corporate overlords, "I wrote a book that cost $50, and we sold 100,000 copies! That's 5,000,000 dollars I made for the company!"

Developer 2 writes FAQs and answers phone calls about rules does the same "I made the rules better for tournaments, and inform the customers how our rules are really supposed to work. They might buy more product because of that, but I have no idea if they do or not!"

[Chaoschrist]

I tend to collect and paint more than game. Though I collect with a notion to game every once in a while. And even there, I play casually (either with friends or in a gaming store). Since I got back in 40k early 2012 I played 5 games or so.

And my collecting isn't 40k exclusive. I have 4 warmahordes armies though I haven't played a single game. I just like the models... though they're perfectly playable armies on their own if I ever find a player in the area (since that might also contribute to not getting a Warmahordes game in). And in the year I have owned a Dystopian wars fleet I got 1 game in (only to discover the faction I have isn't really my style, yet I like the models too much to change faction).

[ToHitMod]

GW don't care about competitive players, never have done, never will do, they care about selling cool models and they aim at the 10-14 year old boy market because thats where they get the most money, anything else is an afterthought.

If you think GW models are too expensive, thats your problem, not theirs, this is the business they want to run and this is how they think its best. If you don't think the rules are good enough, same thing, go else where, you're not spending much mon GW stuff anyway so why should they care?

The games are casual, they allow for houserules, for things to change for something thats cool, want to have your Space Marine Commander leap on to the back of a passing Hive Crone and attack it in Melee, if your opponent agrees, go for it. Thats what casual means, you do whats cool and enjoyable, winning and sticking to the rules isn't the main focus, having fun and telling a cool story with your armies is.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Wow. Those poll results are... wow.

I mean, I always thought it was skewed that way, but not by that much; and not on such a "but tournaments! tournaments!" site as BOLS. Innerestin'.

I've always thought the beauty of this hobby was the freedom to do with it what you want; whether like me you like collecting things for thematic reasons and spending hours painting them, only occasionally venturing to a gaming table (although I really enjoy that) or you're a hardcore competitive player, there's room for you.

[ToHitMod]

Wow. Those poll results are... wow.

I mean, I always thought it was skewed that way, but not by that much; and not on such a "but tournaments! tournaments!" site as BOLS. Innerestin'.

I've always thought the beauty of this hobby was the freedom to do with it what you want; whether like me you like collecting things for thematic reasons and spending hours painting them, only occasionally venturing to a gaming table (although I really enjoy that) or you're a hardcore competitive player, there's room for you.

Imagine what its like when you factor everyone in, the people who just pop into their local shop to buy the latest cool model and don't even think of going online, the kids who don't. Its a casual hobby, the game reflects that, competitive players are a tiny minority with a superiority complex.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Oh, yeah, for sure. The atmosphere at my local GW is unrecognisable from that of the internet.

[Dave Mcturk]

anecdotal i know, i went down to one of my old games club that used to be a staunch 40k/wfb group - with some odd stuff chucked in for flavour - epic / battletech / etc.

still a healthy group and running a 40 player 40k event in august

but club night

4 guys playing x-wing; drooling over the two new packs - i went for a looksee at the game - [bring the micrometer !]

2 guys playing dark age skirmish [SAGA]. certainly having the most fun and on a budget

8 guys playing serious warmachine ... i mean serious... only one army fully painted; but oh; the cards, the tokens, the markers, the use of a wildly accurate flailing diy size tape measure!

a few guys floating drinking beer and swapping / buying stuff - terrain / books / models etc.

im still of the opinion that with some house mods or some tournament mods 40k is a great game but the majority have moved on.

[Pssyche]

I play as often as I can, but my work dictates that to be somewhat sporadic.
I probably get in 25 games a year. Although they could be seven games in one month and nothing the following month.
I do not play nor have any intention of playing in Tournaments.

I collect and paint constantly.

My Army List varies from game to game.
I've got +20K Eldar painted and based and I obviously would like to field all of them, clearly Points restraints mean I have to pick and choose what to include. That means I usually field themed Lists, dropping Units in and out as the mood takes me.
I cannot stress enough though, that I do not tailor my lists in any way.

I have fielded everything once though, last Easter in a massive Apocalypse Weekend.
It felt good...

[Dave Mcturk]

i think the poll shows that 50% of ppl arent really wargamers at all they are just artists.:eek:

[DarkLink]

But, yes, there are slightly more collectors than I thought there would be.

- - - Updated - - -

You have to be very careful about prematurely drawing conclusions. I noticed a lot of the collectors mentioned that they didn't play because they didn't have anyone to play against. That alone warrants a follow-up, and there are a few other questions I would add to a study before drawing any real conclusions from this number.

[quindia]

I play a couple of times a year, but I paint nearly every day so I'm more of a collector.

I have five armies (six counting the new Imperial Knights I'm collecting). I don't worry about collecting to a specific point value, optimal unit or army compositions, or the balance of the newest codex. I just paint the models I like and cobble together forces when I decide to get into a game.

I don't win very often, but that's not why I'm involved in the hobby...

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I dunno, man, this squares absolutely with my experience of the community at large.

[Arkhan Land]

The only reason I play 40k is because I have friends/bandmates/roomates who do it, If these people werent around I would NOT choose to play with random people I dont know

[Orange]

This to me says that Reese's Pieces or whatever his name is blows smoke out of his *** a lot of the time and people just blindly follow with the GW hate that is so common on here and other sites and that most of the people who collect 40K figures don't actually go outside and play.

[Charon]

You might do do your math again...

16 people ONLY collect.
69 play SOMETIMES. Yes. Even they are playing, but rarely.
86 People play FREQUENTLY.

how is 16 people which are

the people who collect 40K figures don't actually go outside and play
in any mathematical system the MAJORITY? Oo

[DarkLink]

Not to mention, as I said literally four posts before yours Orange, that a lot of the people who posted saying that they didn't play very often did so because they didn't have anyone to play against, not because they didn't want to. Drawing ill-educated conclusions like yours is one of the great dangers of statistics. It's the reason idiots still think red meat is bad for you, or that you swallow 8 spiders per year while sleeping. Plus, if you'd've ever met Reece in real life for a few minutes, you would feel bad about talking **** about him because he's just generally an awesome guy.

- - - Updated - - -

Not to mention the small, isolated sample size. Anyone with a decent understanding of polling and statistics will immediately know that this is not exactly a valid survey, more just an interesting little experiment.

[mysterex]

I play about once a month on average which I consider casual. However I spend more time making or updating existing models. I also try to build fluffy armies rather than just going for something that is effective but makes no sense in terms of the background.

That said, while I won't buy anything I think is ugly I also won't buy anything that has rubbish rules. I've got a limited budget and can't afford to buy stuff that will be next to useless on the table.

I also care about the rule set and think that while much of the core of 6th ed is better than previous editions, a lot of the supplements have just made the game worse.

[Orange]

You might do do your math again...

16 people ONLY collect.
69 play SOMETIMES. Yes. Even they are playing, but rarely.
86 People play FREQUENTLY.

how is 16 people which are

in any mathematical system the MAJORITY? Oo

[Comment removed http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/faq.php?faq=termsmaster#faq_bolsrules]

Reese's Pieces is a GW hater and that's fact.

Also the supplements kick ***, Chaos is beyond viable now and is a cho-cho train of rape between the Nurgle Lord with Daemon Heart and Siphon Soul coupled with Precognition with your Sorcerers, you are going to make armies cry. Hellbrute formations kick ***, coupled up with some Turkeys and Chaos will run train on the blue people.

[Eldar_Atog]

Insulting someone who has a different opinion than you will not help you win an argument/debate.

[Psychosplodge]

You might do do your math again...



*maths

There's an s...

- - - Updated - - -


You might do do your math again...



*maths

There's an s...

[Charon]

*maths

There's an s...

Apologies. Maybe we should have a conversation in my native language?

[Wolfshade]

Natürlich..

Disagree, certainly, but do not resort to insults.

Here are the Ts & Cs if in any doubt
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/faq.php?faq=termsmaster#faq_bolsrules

[Psychosplodge]

Apologies. Maybe we should have a conversation in my native language?

Oh if you're translating to English I'll forgive you.

[DarkLink]

Reese's Pieces is a GW hater and that's fact.

So you've met him before, and known him for longer than I have (been about... five or six years for me, I think?), and he acts completely differently around you than me or any of the other people who we're mutually acquainted with?



Also the supplements kick ***, Chaos is beyond viable now and is a cho-cho train of rape between the Nurgle Lord with Daemon Heart and Siphon Soul coupled with Precognition with your Sorcerers, you are going to make armies cry. Hellbrute formations kick ***, coupled up with some Turkeys and Chaos will run train on the blue people.

The relics are solid, but the formations are not particularly special, mainly because they still require you to take a Helbrute. Nothing changes the fact that CSM troops are pretty terrible, so no matter how good the army is otherwise, it's going to have some fundamental weaknesses. Though Fearless cultists is pretty neat.

- - - Updated - - -

I've got a friend who had a career working with CEOs and such internationally, and he mentioned that hands down, the most self-centered, arrogant business men worldwide were all from the UK, at least until he told them "hey, dumbass, I'm going to make you this much money", and then suddenly they'd be all friendly. Totally unrelated to anything else in the thread ;).

[Psychosplodge]

S
I've got a friend who had a career working with CEOs and such internationally, and he mentioned that hands down, the most self-centered, arrogant business men worldwide were all from the UK, at least until he told them "hey, dumbass, I'm going to make you this much money", and then suddenly they'd be all friendly. Totally unrelated to anything else in the thread ;).

http://static.lfgss.com/attachments/7410d1237904524-vic_bob_handbags.jpg

[Kaptain Badrukk]

I only collect, and don't play at all 8.70%
I play sometimes, but mostly just collect 40.22%
I play casually reasonably frequently 31.52%
I play both casually and competitively 16.30%
I go to all the tournaments I can 1.63%
What's 40K? 1.63%

Thank's DL for running this lovely opinion poll.
I've been waiting to see how this turned out, and I'd say it pretty much backs up what I've been feeling for a while now.
Lots of us play, most of us irregularly, and a small proportion are heavy tournament goers.

What this tells me is that the general feeling that GW staffers have (or had in 2011 when I left) that the majority of their customers aren't tourney heads is pretty much upheld.
Now 18%(ish) attending the odd tournament or more is a pretty big amount, but when you consider that we don't really represent the in-store demographic then you can see why from their point of view the tournament meta isn't a big deal (I doubt that there's many of the younger kids on here [correct me if I'm wrong]).
72%(ish) Do play, but well over half of them are primarily collectors and the rest define themselves as casual and without conjecture we can't decide what they feel about the tournament meta, although it'd be fair to speculate that our 40.22% aren't hugely bothered.

What we do know is easily boiled down into ten points;
1: Bloggers and the like write "what generates hits" not "what proportionally represents the opinion of the majority".
2: The unhappy are the most vocal.
3: The happy are the least vocal.
4: GW are AWFUL at addressing the imbalance of their games.
5: Their opinion that the majority of their customers can still enjoy their products without them being bothered is probably born out by the results of this survey.
6: That it really wouldn't hurt them to, and they'd get NO complaints from 100% of their customers.
7: That this punishing release schedule and the constant reformation of what one can and can't put in a GW legal army is only going to make things worse for the vocal minority.
8: That by the ned of next week another one of the BOLS big-names will come on the front-page with an article that bemoans the meta/design of GW's products.
9: That GW DO need to react to the fact that they're no longer the only player in town, but the way to do it is unlikely to be shoring up their rule-set for the benefit of the tourney-meta minority.
10: That this hobby is what WE choose to make of it, I could get my models and play a game of 2nd edition right now(provided I could find an opponent) and GW could do diddly to stop me after all.

I guess what this rambling wall of text from old Kap really sums up to is this, we make the game. We do, honestly.
We tournement players [I'm in the 16%] determine how WAAC the tourneys are, and how the meta is therefore affected. TOs and GW can tighten the rules, we'll still find every last thing to give ourselves an edge.
Warmahordes and Dystopian Wars teach me this, that even with a tight rule-set and decent army list balance there's still room for list building and army selection to help you win (there are some clear winners and losers in the pile even if the spread is WAY tighter than GW's).
We collectors let GW know it's ok to up their prices in silly ways (hardback army books) or stagnate the setting (ret-con inserted Marine units ahoy!) because we buy it anyway. The message this send sis that they can keep doing it.
WE The internet peoples, then shape the opinions of the next, impressionable generation of players with our "truth" of how things are and surely as GW shapes with theirs. As a staffer we could tell which kids would end up being "that guys" or "the customer who talks about stuff from the internet all the time" pretty quickly based on what warhammer site the kid started frequenting first, we we're pretty damn accurate too.

Ok I've had my vent for the day. Ignore me, disagree with me, agree with me, feel free to internet as you will. Me I'm headed off upstairs, I've got 5 heavily converted Tau Battlesuits sat waiting for me to paint and the first season of Grimm on DVD to keep me company while I paint.

[DarkLink]

I would be cautious about a couple of your points. This was an observational study with a small, biased sample. In particular, I noticed that a lot of the collectors mentioned that they would like to play, but didn't have anyone to play with simply due to geological location. I also think I worded the casual vs. competitive answers poorly, as the line between the two is very blurry. A lot of "casual" players may attend tournaments as a means of getting in games, but consider themselves casual rather than competitive because they're not playing specifically to win all the prizes even though they do play in tournaments. After seeing the initial responses, I immediately had a couple of follow-up questions that I might open a poll on at a later date.Also, quite contrary to the idea that GW should ignore what you refer to as the vocal minority, what I saw was that about 50% of players are just that: players. Since GW produces rules and makes quite a bit of profit off of them, and since a significant portion of their customer base makes regular use of those rules, there's a clear reason to utilize those rules to expand their market to people they either don't engage, or don't fully engage, with their current "we're just a model company strategy".

[Wolfshade]

I would echo DL's caution adding that self reported studies are inherently unreliable

[Psychosplodge]

We could just go with

Are you competitive?

Are you casual?

[Eldar_Atog]

We could just go with

Are you competitive?

Are you casual?

The second question would have to be expanded. Casual is everything except for the heavy tournament player. The beer and nuts crew, the story driven players, the painter that likes to show his/her work off, the rules lawyer that hates tournie play... they all fall under the casual label.

[Psychosplodge]

But we are comparing the two, what kind of casual is largely irrelevant unless that was the original question, we could then have a further breakdown as you say so we get to have even more polls...

[Eldar_Atog]

But we are comparing the two, what kind of casual is largely irrelevant unless that was the original question, we could then have a further breakdown as you say so we get to have even more polls...

To truly compare the 2, you'd need a strict definition of what casual means. I've seen people say that casual is only the beer and nuts crew while others (myself included) say it everything outside of tournie play. You can build a poll with just these 2 questions but it's not going to be very accurate. A small sample size plus loose definitions will heavily skew your results.

[Psychosplodge]

It's a poll on the internet, it requires you to find the site, and then be arsed to participate. Accuracy is non existent :D

[Eldar_Atog]

Lol, true.. I just don't want to have read about how one group or another is wrong because of the poll. It would give me a headache :)

[DarkLink]

We could just go withAre you competitive?Are you casual?But how do you define the two? Most tournament players, the 'competitive' crew, also plays casually extensively. I would suspect a very large percentage of players who do play competitively at tournaments would overall self-identify as casual.

[magickbk]

One thing that may skew the results is that this survey represents the actions of the respondents, as opposed to their nature or inclination. For example, I rarely play, but would like to in a casual setting, but no tournaments. Most of my time in the hobby is spent painting as a result of work schedule, commute time, living 40 minutes away from the closest store, family time, etc. I answered play sometimes, but mostly just collect, but the reality is that group will end up including both people who want to play more but can't, and people who aren't as interested in playing.

Having said all that, the results are certainly telling about the nature of visitors in a small sample size, and I think underscore the balance issue: GW doesn't need to balance better because more hobbyists don't or barely play than attend tournaments. I would be interested to see a follow-up survey at some point that looks more to how people would like their hobby to be, for example, would like to play more casually, would like to play in more tournaments, prefer to play at home, prefer to play at a store, prefer painting to playing, prefer playing to painting, etc.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

I play as frequntly as i can. i play competetively when i can it all comes down to whats going on. like now that its the summer i will have more free time to do stuff since i'll be using vacation time and people will be off work or atleast in a better position to wish to game. For me if i am unable to game i simply work on whih ever army i have milling around. Like this months plan is to convert 100+ mauraders i sngged out of the bits bin for 50 cents a pop. They will become the Blood Tide under Voltire The Reaver of Kalista. AKA cannon fodder for My World eaters 8th assault company.

[Psychosplodge]

But how do you define the two? Most tournament players, the 'competitive' crew, also plays casually extensively. I would suspect a very large percentage of players who do play competitively at tournaments would overall self-identify as casual.

I don't know I didn't think that hard about it...