Tom Kirby

This article is about something that is considered by the overpowering majority of /tg/ to be fail. Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it.

Chairman and former owner of Games Workshop. How bad is he? Forbes magazine allegedly described him as a "fucking tosser," which for those unfamiliar is akin to being called an unpleasantly diseased scrotum by Nurgle, or being asked to control one's temper by Angron.

He continues GW's quest to make Warhammer as unplayable as possible and be as much of a dick to the devoted fanbase as possible. His reward thus far has been a company rapidly trending downward towards dissolution and irrelevance, or at least that's what people have been saying since about 1993. There's a recurring theme of the media calling him a straight-talking person followed by him giving nothing but vague and/or evasive replies when he speaks, making it some kind of media in-joke.

It's worth noting some good things did come out of the first part of Kirby's GW management career, notably the meteoric rise of Warhammer 40,000 and the company's survival during the early digital age that laid low most of its competitors. Games Workshop's subsequent descent into arrogance and stagnation during his extended tenure says much about the perils of one guy calling the shots for too long. Kind of like the Imperium of *BLAM* The Emperor protects! His is the best of all possible galaxies!

Update: As of January 1st, 2015, Tom Kirby stepped down as CEO of Games Workshop[1]. The company's board of directors decided to use Tom Kirby's "we recruit for attitude and not for skill" logic in order to find their next CEO, thus it looked like anyone interested in the position merely needs to apply for it. This entailed some rage and butthurt from neckbeards denied an interview. (While it's fair since he is presumably looking for people with GOOD attitudes, not rage-filled snowflakes, that depends on how he defines "GOOD"). It was said among fans that a suitable candidate cannot be found, Tom Kirby's wife would probably take his seat as CEO. Yeah.

The new CEO is named Kevin Rountree, who used to be their COO, and before that, their CFO (and before that, middle management). He is generally regarded as a breath of fresh air for an organization drowning in an ocean of bad ideas and has put GW on a more customer-focused footing.

Bottom line, Tom Kirby is a typical douchenozzle, next financial quarter thinker type, in an industry that thrives first on genuine creativity and imagination. He only cares about leeching the phenomenon the great Ian Livingstone created.

He is now gone, stepping down after GW released their 2016-17 financial reports that showed massive profit increases under Rountree. He remained consultant for 12 months before being replaced, and the company is now completely rid of him.