Troubled Games Workshop Appoints New CEO for 2015

[bjj hero]

To play Devil's advocate for a moment, is this a recent thing? Because they're not having any events at warhammer world at the moment due to renovation work, which is going to last until 'early' next year minimum, so normality probably won't return until June or so at the earliest.

However, the killing of the Specialist Games (while keeping the Hobbit stuff knocking around) was undeniably poor form.

I wish this was the case but I believe the last 2 blood bowls, every May, have been at the Uni. Theyre planned about a year in advance so its likely that weve been uninvited for much longer. I believe GW have also stopped the "governing body" for TT rankings, "The NAF" having permission to produce "official" blocking dice which they used to do for members with GWs blessing every year.

Jervis Johnson still turns up at the Bloodbowl each year though as BB has always been his baby.

 

[Verlander]

Tie prices to points for smaller purchases. Let's keep it real, the models cost fuck all to reproduce, so instead of arbitrary boxes and prices, tie the cost of the purchase to how many points it brings. Haven't played in years, so unsure how realistic that is, but realistically for a new starter you want them to get the large starting pack, and then begin to supplement that in continuous installments. Don't bankrupt kids with large purchases, ease the money out of them with loads of smaller ones

 

[endtherapture]

Games Workshop is a wanker of a company. Very overpriced, shite practices when it comes to copyright and such (tried to sue someone for putting "Space Marine" in a book) and overly frequent releasing of new edition and army books/codices. However, out of the Wargames that I have sampled, 40k is my favourite (despite the increasing in power of the more favourite factions) and the community are generally great people, with a great sense of humour (even if they do often become irrationally angry at some things). The pricing, though, isn't so bad if you look at it like this:

My 2500 point Tau army (which is a pretty high point army) has cost me about £500-£600. Including glue and paints. I have then spent about £50 on scenery (I make my own from foamcore) and a table (a piece of plywood on legs). So that's £650-ish.

My PC cost me £715. And that's the best deal I could get and is about mid to low end of the high range of PCs. Gaming keyboard and mouse (not a necessity, I admit, but neither is the scenery for 40k) cost me £113. That' already £178 more expensive and I couldn't play with this because it doesn't include games. And once I do have game I would still have to pay for internet and/or power. Now, admittedly, that last point is a bit silly, but you absolutely don't need them for 40k. So as a hobby it really isn't very expensive. Neither is PC gaming, compared to, say golf or sport shooting or skiing or track racing.

My point is that really, when looked at alongside a lot of other hobbies, it's pretty acceptable. Any hobby needs time, effort and money.

I suppose that was a bit off-topic, so on-topic: Ok. It'd be good if he issued price cuts, but I doubt he will.

With a GW army once you've made the army up, that's it. You can play with it a couple of times a week, but that's it, and you have to pay to add to it and get new models to convert, collect and paint. Also they're just small pieces of sculpted plastic and metal.

Spending money on a gaming PC is completely different because it can be used for work, internet browsing, YouTube, Netflix and games. You can play old games on it, new games on it whatever you want really. The £700 for a PC is a much better £700 spent than £700 on plastic miniatures (I come saying this as a former plastic miniature collector).

 

[Rodolphe Kourkenko]

I played 40k for a long time... When i began their were five gods of chaos (i feel so oooold lol) i stopped playing when the fifth edition came, not enought time and no wish to buy again everything. I played the IG (and i kept my army, i can't sold it, too much nostalgia ^^) i use it only for apocalypse shows during gathering.

The price exploded since several years, example i buyed two titans (a warhound and a reaver) for 200 $ ten years ago (and yes, i've a really BIG army, i played the same army for almost twenty years), look at the price today, inflation isn't the only answer !

The players numbers aren't stretching and GW is almost the lone company to make big battlefields with big armies but not to make figs (when i buy some officier, it's from Raging Heroes, not GW). They choose to make DLC (really !) for each codex with an insane pricetag, the fluff isn't evolving anymore, the statu quo is always their answer. It's boring.

Again an example: to have ALL rulebooks of the sixth edition, you have to buy for 1600$ of books !!! Half of them only digitals.

It's INSANE !!!! And if you want to upgrade them to the seventh, it's the same cost but only digital...

And after that, they don't understand why they're losing customers.

Meh... Time to evolve GW.

Edit: the only thing that redeem them imo is Forge World and their Horus Heresy's books. I use them to make a Deathwatch campaign during this time. So i buyed them not to play it on a battlefield but for tabletop RPG.

 

[elvor0]

The really big problem with games workshop is that the hobby is simply not affordable unless you have tons of disposable income on top of a lot of time.

They are a perfect example of a business that is being screwed over by large swaths of people not being able to find a well paying job.

They're not being screwed, they're screwing themselves. When it costs £15 for one plastic figure, that's why noone wants to buy from them. Compared to reaper, where I can get really high quality metal figureines or 20 equal quality if not better plastic figures for a fraction of the price there's really no point buying GW stuff.

 

[Aetrion]

They're not being screwed, they're screwing themselves. When it costs £15 for one plastic figure, that's why noone wants to buy from them. Compared to reaper, where I can get really high quality metal figureines or 20 equal quality if not better plastic figures for a fraction of the price there's really no point buying GW stuff.

Well, to be fair, GW did in part switch to resin figures because a lot of their fans prefer plastic miniatures for the ease of assembly and modification. Metal minis are a lot nicer if you're big into the hobby aspect, but there were just tons of people who couldn't be bothered with a lot of the more intricate miniatures that came in white metal.

The price hike on their stuff did probably hurt them, but I wouldn't say that they switched to resin to rip people off.

 

[elvor0]

They're not being screwed, they're screwing themselves. When it costs £15 for one plastic figure, that's why noone wants to buy from them. Compared to reaper, where I can get really high quality metal figureines or 20 equal quality if not better plastic figures for a fraction of the price there's really no point buying GW stuff.

Well, to be fair, GW did in part switch to resin figures because a lot of their fans prefer plastic miniatures for the ease of assembly and modification. Metal minis are a lot nicer if you're big into the hobby aspect, but there were just tons of people who couldn't be bothered with a lot of the more intricate miniatures that came in white metal.

The price hike on their stuff did probably hurt them, but I wouldn't say that they switched to resin to rip people off.

I wasn't saying they did it soley to rip people off, but they are and at the going rate, I wouldn't be surprsed that the decision was made partly due to fan asking and partly due to profit margins. True, plastic is a lot easier to assemble and modify for large scale armies, god knows I wouldn't want an army of metal either.

But they should have adjusted the prices accordingly, not doubled or tripled the price, no one in their right mind should find £15 for one plastic figure acceptable. Which obviously they don't otherwise their stock wouldn't be going down the drain.

 

[wAriot]

You know, most of the codices and rulebooks are on the internet. You can just download and use them until you get enough money to buy the "real" ones. This is what most of my friends did, when we played WH40k, anyway. This also lets you make notes on the pages and whatnot, without caring about ruining them.
And if for some reason there is a hardcore GW employee who gives you a warning (never happened in almost a decade), just tell him you photocopied the important pages of your rulebook so as to not carry it around.

 

[spartandude]

i've heard that the prices for gw models are actually pretty consistent with the rise of inflation, but our incomes fail to rise along with inflation thus leading to an even greater sense of price hikes.

About 10 years ago (not even that) you could get a box of 20 Cadian Shock troopers for £15-£20, now its 10 for £15-£20, thats literally double the price. And its not like the model quality has improved at all.

 

[Johkmil]

Well, to be fair, GW did in part switch to resin figures because a lot of their fans prefer plastic miniatures for the ease of assembly and modification. Metal minis are a lot nicer if you're big into the hobby aspect, but there were just tons of people who couldn't be bothered with a lot of the more intricate miniatures that came in white metal.

The price hike on their stuff did probably hurt them, but I wouldn't say that they switched to resin to rip people off.

The problem is not the metal-into-resin, as an Infinity player I can honestly say that I hate metal with a passion, but a lot of the plastic-into-resin that created major price hikes with minor or no increases in quality. My FLGS still has some of the old plastics on the shelves next to the Finecast, and it is painfully obvious that they've reused the old molds in some cases. Others, like the Flamers of Tzeenech, looked much better in their multi-part glory.