Editing Games Workshop (section)

===A Sobering Look at GW's Near Collapse===
On top of all the other financial considerations involved with a company like Games Workshop, there's one major concern that was probably gravely overlooked by the company as it raised prices and cut smaller retailers out of the picture: a concept called "network utility". A lot of products are useless unless they're used by a ton of people. A fax machine is a good example - if everyone owns a fax machine, then one person can use his own fax machine to send pictures of his ass to everyone on earth. That's a good value for a single person, and really makes the fax machine worth buying! However, if fewer people buy fax machines, it becomes less and less desirable to own one. After all, why buy a machine that's only capable of sending a picture of your butt to your grandmother, the only other person who still has a machine? Grandma is never impressed, anyway.

A similar concept exists with GW, and they've ignored it over the past couple of years, especially as they've cut models out of starter sets to reduce costs. If you go down to your local game store and everyone is playing Warhammer 40k, not only are you more likely to get into it because of friendly recommendations, but you're also likely to start playing because you know everyone has an army and everyone can play with you! Even if you aren't personal friends with the folks at your local game store, you know that anywhere you go, the people you meet at the FLGS can play the game with you!

The more difficult GW made it to carry their products, the more game stores turned to alternatives to fill shelves. [[Spartan Games]] and [[Privateer Press]] quickly moved in to fill the void with creative new IP (at least until they ran into their own problems). [[Fantasy Flight Games]] upped the ante even further with Star Wars product that was table ready straight out of the box. The network utility of FFG's products was huge because it was so accessible, making it the go-to for casuals looking to buy into whatever had the most players, despite FFG's extortionate pricing.

Now, models (and games in general) have gotten more expensive; granted, only scaled in price with inflation, but since wages have largely stagnated in a lot of markets these past couple decades, to the typical consumer the costs still feel like they've gone up and the players notice the hikes. When a product gets more expensive, people naturally quit buying it. This thins the dedicated player herd.

Meanwhile, GW also drags its feet when it comes to codex updates, and when it does update, there's no telling whether or not a new codex is going to be a complete load of shit. The Tyranid codex being a huge let down for two editions running is probably one of the most critical examples. Anyone who collected Tyranids as a main army has pretty well given up hope by now, and they've quit collecting. Other players with armies in similar straits, likely feeling abandoned during 5th edition when GW focused exclusively on Space Marines, have also probably drifted away from the hobby. Of course, there have also been a few people who just quit playing out of disgust because their local meta was a bit too hardcore and there was no way to win games without exploiting the broken, disjointed lack of balance.

Although Games Workshop continued to hike up prices and showed fantastic profits in the short term, these issues probably alienated too many people, and as they roll along with the next edition and new codices, they're probably discovering, with great horror, that there aren't enough players buying into it anymore. Worse, the effect can snowball out of control, and GW will probably lose their market control in one big flash of failure. Almost overnight, it'll suddenly seem that 40k has evaporated.

When there are too few players in the game, it's no longer true that you can go to your FLGS and play with any stranger in the store. There's always that one guy - that rich asshole who owns every army in the book and consequently has some of the most boring, broken, frustrating army lists to play against. But do you really want to play against that guy every single weekend? Eventually, you quit showing up to play 40k as well, and once you're gone, even that dick with all his money has no more reason to play. The final pillar falls, and Games Workshop is no more.

In other words, the player base has always been the most important foundation of the company, and it was always GW's greatest strength. Not the model quality, not the rules, not the setting or any of the IP that they keep suing their fans over. The reason Games Workshop dominated was because everyone played their games. As soon as that's no longer the case, the company can't save itself by releasing new models or updating the rules. Their reign is over. They topple, because the foundations have shrunk.