30k release: potential market move?
i'd like to mention that the unease many of us have with the announced rumors of 30k have been exacerbated with GW's treatment of WHF/AoS. there were enough rumors of WHF 9th that kept many of us longtime veteran players hopeful that we would again get to play the game that we had drifted from (for life reasons, time requirements, or just dissatisfaction with product after product and failure after failure on GW's part to create a fun and fair-seeming game). chalk it up to many of the flaws that comes out when you rush a product, to bad leadership, to panic due to losses, whatever.
we heard rumors, and hoped. then, "nope, this is it" happened, and there were repercussions.
now, we are hearing rumors of a new game, a "third line" to replace LotR (that was possibly the original thought for AoS...?)... but that steps on already-trodden ground for GW. with similar-to-AoS rumors that it might not change anything, that FW might continue releasing their HH products, that 30k will be almost like a self-contained board game.
what will that make it, as a "third line" though? will it expand into other similar games, also self-contained? will it be all of their boardgame-style releases, including Execution Force and anything like it to come? who knows.... and who can predict, given GW's ability to make counterintuitive decisions that don't always work out as intended.
my bigger worry, though, is that this is the first step to more fundamental changes.
the internet is uncertain about another new release -- the potential HH/30k plastics. the current consensus seems to be that this will be a part of a boxed set game, much like Execution Force or Space Hulk, that will play on its own bu fit into the world. there have been two leading matchups (which might in fact imply two separate releases, or a change in the production midway... the first could be an indicator of hopeful futures, the latter a warning of AoS-style sloppiness).
either it will be a ship-to-ship attacker/defending game, almost like Zone Mortalis meets Descent, and featuring Iron Warriors vs Imperial fists... or it will be a ground-troop skirmish game featuring Ultramarines vs Word Bearers, almost like a Necromunda reboot.
they both sound fun. regardless of my probably purchase to beef up my Iron Hands, maybe turn them into an actual HH force, maybe just give them character... i'd be willing to play either of those games as is, if the rules aren't AoS-style simplistic. it also opens up for re-entry into the specialist games market (a boarding-entry game would segue well into a resuscitation/reworking of BFG into another board game that meshes with the other one... bringing city rules in has failed for GW in the past, but do a bardgame designed as a hive-crawl with lots of terrain, and you see Necromunda live again as a boardgame). what's more, with those new rulesets in play, and people playing them, it might do what Cities of Death and Planetstrike tried and failed to do to the main 40k representation play.
or, they could just release independent board games, that have neat figures, and be done with it. they still get to claim they are "a model company, not a games company" and we still see imbalanced rules and glaring errors in their products. but they focus on selling to the board game community instead of the wargamers, and they either shift markets or crack into a new one.
or, they become a presence somewhere they were not, that might have more perceived legitimacy to investors... or to buyers.
what if this is their real plan?
what if they are sick of the market they are in, and instead want to make specialized board game style releases... campaign books and new models to boost them for their two main lines (sadly that includes AoS), and strictly board game style releases for 30k? after all codexes are current, they were planning to scrap the codex release model -- and with Dark Vengeance, and Shield of Baal having sold so well, what's stopping that from being the new norm? boxed product set up like more-recognizable higher-end games would certainly appeal in theory to a broader market.
there was speculation years ago about the "GW is planning to make themselves appealing for a buyout" kind of corporate actions. what if this is the next step in that progression: building concrete one-off purchase games, that an established games company can appreciate, in order to sweeten the pot?
i'm not an armchair economist, nor do i have much respect for the repetitions of most of them, so i don't know if this is in line with expectations... but it isn't something that those who tended to make such wide speculations in the past have brought up recently.
are we seeing a deliberate move here, that will in fact affect the future of our gaming and of the company?
