Games Workshop
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"In the state of nature profit is the measure of right."
-Thomas Hobbes
"A fool and his money are soon parted."
-Dr John Bridges
"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart."
-Jonathan Swift
"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows."
-1 Timothy 6:10
"Games Workshop is in the business of selling toy soldiers to children."
- Tom Kirby, Chairman of Games Workshop PLC
"...we recruit for attitude, not for skills."
- Tom Kirby, 2013 Chairman's permeable (Note how he claims it's to provide quality service and good attitudes, but avoids mention of customer complaints and what exactly those "desired" attitudes are).
"Games Workshop is in the business of fixing itself from the piece of shit Tom Kirby left me with. I mean, have you seen our stocks lately?"
- Kevin Rountree, if he has any common sense, even if he doesn't say it out loud.
Games Workshop is a company which produces miniatures, and although they claim otherwise, games. Their two most notable games are Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. The first thing that you need to know is that in /tg/'s general opinion, Games Workshop used to be good. It could also still be again. See Mordheim, Beakie, Rogue Trader and Talisman. They are now run by idiots. The second thing is that Games Workshop is the reason /tg/ exists in the first place, originally being a partition to isolate Warhammer from general population on /b/. Warhammer is also a massive part of tabletop gaming culture history. As such, the importance of Warhammer in /tg/ cannot be overstated.
Note:Before reading this article, see this chart for an illustration of what is GW current situation.
Also, sign this petition. Get your friends and family to sign it. Sign it, lest GW continue their abhorrent business activities unmolested.
Laughably, Games Workshop are extremely protective about their precious intellectual properties. This is funny because you can count the number of original ideas in their core games on one hand, with the original creators outright admitting they ripped off existing works wholesale. The vast majority of backstory in Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 is a rehash of established fantasy/sci-fi literature, padded out with stuff the writers half-remembered from A level history lectures. This is particularly true in the case of Warhammer Fantasy, which actually makes sense when you realize most of GW's founders actually had history degrees. 40k by contrast is mostly Fantasy IIIIIIIN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!
History
Ancient History
The original Games Workshop was established several hundred years BC, originating in China. However, when the Emperor placed a commission for thousands of life sized soldiers, this predecessor began to collapse, as with all production geared to the creation of these soldiers and the murderous ire of the first Emperor they were unable to introduce price rises. As one, their board of directors resolved that they must fall into hibernation, to wait out the storm, screaming defiance at the one man who ever defeated them.
Almost-as-Ancient History
Games Workshop was established in 1975 in London as a small literal workshop that created wooden boards for public domain games, such as Chess which it sold through mail-order catalogs (not its own). The original staff was just three men in a flat in London. John Peake, Steve Jackson (not to be confused with the other /tg/ Steve Jackson), and Ian Livingstone. Livingstone was a massive game fan and was captain of the Chess club in grade school while Peake carved wood as a hobby. They soon made a business of selling boards for Chess, Go, and Backgammon.
In the same year Games Workshop put out its own newsletter, called "Owl And Weasel" which somehow wound up crossing the Atlantic and ending up in the hands of the tabletop gaming Jack Kirby, Gary Gygax. Gygax sent the trio a copy of Dungeons & Dragons to playtest for a review in their publication. Jackson and Livingstone were hooked and ordered six more copies. Gygax, thinking they were a much more established (as in established at all) company, offered them exclusive distribution rights in the entirety of Europe.
In 1977, Jackson and Livingstone accepted and began selling copies of the game straight out of the flat by using Owl And Weasel to get the word out. Gygax himself had also been selling out of his apartment at the time, and neither found out the other group was just a couple of nerdy kids selling shit out of their home. Peake left the company as he had no interest or patience in new games (yep, people complaining every time something new comes along have been in since the beginning).
After he left, D&D exploded in popularity and people who came to buy a game were continually knocking on the floor level homes before being directed to talk to Livingstone and Jackson on the top floor. Predictably, this earned them a boot out the door from the landlord.
They rented a small office to be the original Games Workshop, slept in a van in the parking lot, and bathed in the restrooms of a nearby sports club while pretending to be patrons. They continued distributing D&D through mail order but had absolutely no success in convincing established hobby shops to carry the product.
Without alternative, Livingstone and Jackson bought a place in western London in 1978 to sell mostly imported American gaming accessories from Dungeons & Dragons to Call Of Cthulu and more. The two entered into negotiations to merge with TSR Games to retain exclusive distribution rights, but the owners of TSR (other than Gygax, who supported the idea greatly) turned the offer down.
Citadel
The new building allowed them to host gaming conventions which would later become the famous Games Day. This was followed Owl And Weasel being discontinued and replaced with White Dwarf, a small magazine (originally just black and white on colored stationary) written by the now obsessed tabletop gamer Livingstone, which covered industry-wide tabletop gaming news. White Dwarf was supposed to be sci-fi and fantasy neutral, referring both to a dying star and to, well, Dwarves. Originally the magazine was everything Livingstone felt like writing about, from movies to publishing short stories to computer and computer gaming-related articles. The letters section quickly became THE forum for tabletop gaming in the Old World Europe, where everything from rules clarifications to personal reviews were published. Interestingly, Livingstone published letters that were critical of both him and Games Workshop.
Games Workshop's very first new product, Reaper (not to be confused with Reaper Miniatures) which was a basic fantasy skirmish game for between 5 and 30 miniatures. In 1978, Citadel was established under a man named Bryan Ansell as the miniature manufacturing division for any future Games Workshop products, which would produce them in bulk. Although initially a separate company simply owned by the same people as Games Workshop, it would eventually merge in the 90's into one company with the name only being a vestigial remainder of independence.
This was followed in 1980 by the release of Valley Of The Four Winds, a mostly forgotten fantasy game where two players fight over the fate of a realm. The side of evil consists of demons and the undead while the side of good consists of Elves, humans, and Dwarfs Dwarves (that spelling comes later). Battlecars was next, as a Mad Max style game. The first RPG created by Games Workshop was a licensed Dr. Who roleplaying game. Fighting Fantasy was a project of Livingstone and Jackson, a fairly popular game they would leave the company to pursue.
Nothing Games Workshop made was as successful as Dungeons & Dragons, which was now being carried by competitors. Citadel sold generic fantasy miniatures for use with D&D, but players only ever made small purchases and were not in the market to collect one of everything leaving some stock hard to move. Ansell had become the primary boss of the company, and his solution was the wargaming market that had begun to catch on internationally. At this point, Games Workshop was still very much a small business with most employees putting in work as needed; a writer or mail sorter would load shipments into the building or package products.
Warhammer
In 1983, Warhammer was released. It was created by Games Workshop writer Richard Halliwell and his friend (former mail order department) Rick Priestley (known by many nicknames on /tg/, often "The Based"). Priestley was mostly inspired by growing up and delving headfirst into both science fiction and history, the news of the Atomic Age, and World War 2; all of which lead him to the first wargames, and eventually getting a job at Games Workshop with the goal of working on his own. The requirements for the new product were simple. 1. Take advantage of popular fantasy favored by gamers like Conan The Barbarian and Lord Of The Rings. 2. Every model must have rules, so everything gets sold. 3. Use six-sided dice since almost everyone everywhere already had some they could scrounge up to play the game.
Halliwell did the first draft for the game and did most of the work on raw mechanics, Priestley did development and editing.
Originally having no actual miniatures associated with it, it simply consisted of a single set of three books giving a basic rule system and scenarios. While filled with typos, contradictory rules, and BADLY needing an FAQ that never came (so basically Games Workshop has always been bad at balance and fixing mistakes) it was well accepted for introducing the concepts of magic failing and of the psychology of forces on the field. The setting was almost non-existent, and what little lore there was only existed in the flavor text of magic items. Of special interest is the game was originally conceived partly as a wargame, partly as a roleplaying game with actual guidelines for leveling up your general and interacting with the world-even an alignment system! If anything, the game combined the role of Dungeonmaster and player into one as a character lead a force of generalized encounters against each other and looted the dead. Every group of friends had a different world, as the results of a previous battle fitted into the unending campaigns of war. A major difference between current and early Warhammer is an extra player was required as a Game Master for a battle to take place.
Also in 1983, to much less fanfare but still modest success, the board game Talisman was first released. In it, players are adventurers trying to obtain the Crown of Command and kill their opponents.
Ansell used the success of Warhammer to move Games Workshop HQ from London to Nottinghamshire, in what was presented as a merger but many at Games Workshop saw as a Citadel takeover. By that time there was six other Games Workshop locations, and the cost is the only reason the name was not changed to Citadel. Few Games Workshop staff stayed on, as Nottinghamshire was in the midst of a nasty Thatcher-era labor dispute that saw employees harassed.
Due to popularity, an expansion for Warhammer was released in 1984 which began to describe the factions in the world (all still extremely generalized, mostly Dungeons & Dragons based). The same year also saw Games Workshop stop importing printed books from the United States, and instead print them in the UK while also expanding into having a US headquarters and manufacturing division so as not to have to physically import goods in reverse.
Later in 1984, the second edition of Warhammer was released. It combined the expansion with the core game as well as suggested supplementary rules from White Dwarf. Still having very loose rules, the game was three books although this time they were actually professionally printed rather than looking like something off a photocopier. Paper punchouts were included to represent troops rather than any miniature although Citadel produced a range of minis which were advertised in White Dwarf (although the rulebooks still said in those days to simply use whatever you want), and the very first Warhammer lore was established. The Empire was a vague kingdom of men in decline, Chaos was some kind of Demonic extra-planar threat that prophesied the end of days, there was some kind of ancient race that created the monsters of the world called Slann, and Elves had some kind of civil war going on. Three supplements were released, the first adding the very first Warhammer villain, Heinrich Kemmler, in the "Terror Of The Lichemaster]] campaign. The second, "Bloodbath at Orcs' Drift", introduced the first Orcs to the setting (although they weren't the asexual greenskins of today, but rather generic Dungeons & Dragons Orcs and Half-Orcs). The third, "Tragedy of McDeath" was basically Warhammer Macbeth, involving a plot of necromancy with Dwarfs and humans who would eventually come to be the Bretonnians. The final expansion, "Blood In The Streets", was just rules for fighting with buildings as well as paper scenery.
On the side, Citadel had acquired the rights to produce miniatures for everything from Judge Dredd to Doctor Who, and collaborated with many other companies including Ral Partha (one of their most successful partnerships, which launched Citadel into the mainstream of tabletop), Iron Claw Miniatures (which went out of business with their molds and copyrights being absorbed by Citadel), and Marauder Miniatures (technically another company owned by the founders of Games Workshop, much like Citadel itself, which was absorbed into the company in the early 90's much like Citadel would be absorbed by Games Workshop not long after).
Games Workshop saw aggressive expansion during this time, as White Dwarf went from a newsletter to specifically just a catalog for Games Workshop products. By opening physical retail stores to encourage gamers to meet at, they got easy advertising as Games Workshop products were on the shelves all around them. Many smaller companies began to suffer and close due to the slow death of the mail-order catalog business model that many companies relied heavily on.
Talisman received a second edition, different only in that the pieces were printed in color, in 1985.
Games Workshop also acquired the license to make Lord Of The Rings miniatures in '85, taking over from competitor Grenadier Miniatures.
In 1986, an expansion set for Talisman, called Talisman Expansion Set (clever) was released which had an FAQ, more characters, alternate endings, and enough stuff for up to 12 players to play at once!
In 1987 GW lost the license for LOTR, which passed to Mithril Miniatures.
Third edition Warhammer was also released in 1987, and was just a single hardback book (the ancestor of the Big Red Book of today yesteryear). The rules were finally ironed-out although the magic system remained the same. Players now controlled large forces with specialized troops including elites and warmachines, movement was extremely important tactically as there was Charge actions, and generally the game was considered a bit more complicated to pick up and learn than your average tabletop game. Games Workshop began to push it's own miniatures more and more, and the rules for certain types of troops came bundled with them rather than in the core book. The Warhammer setting was more fleshed out, and many consider this to be the first true edition of a Warhammer game fluffwise. Orcs and goblins were not connected and had females, undead didn't really have a reason to exist, Chaos only really mattered if you were talking about Chaos, the Empire's decline was because of cultural problems rather than being buttfucked by everyone else with twelve men or more at their command every other season, Elves were pretty much just snooty Elves and douchey Elves, Dwarves had no real flavor beyond Joseph Bugman existing, and the rest of the world was just kind of assumed to be like our own somewhat.
Even going beyond this, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was released which introduced an entire world outside the not-Europe of the Old World by touching on Ind, Araby, Nippon, Cathay, Naggaroth, and more.
Third edition had two expansions; Realm of Chaos, written by Ansell as a blatant ripoff of Moorcock, which introduced everyone's favorite (or hated) Evil Sues and established Chaos in a way it would basically remain from that point on, Slaves To Darkness which detailed pretty much everyone in the actual physical world who wanted to kill you for no particular reason, The Lost And The Damned which continued giving reasons why living in Warhammer would fucking suck, and finally Warhammer Siege which gave scenarios. So more or less the late 80's introduced grimderp.
Talisman: Dungeon came out in 1987 as well and came with an additional game board and rules for navigating it on the side of the main board.
Spess: Tha Finuhl Frunteer
Later that year, Games Workshop released Rogue Trader. Rogue Trader was Priestley's first creation, before he became the mail packager at Games Workshop HQ. Based on the idea of having a ship and using miniatures to play the game, and he'd refined the game as he did rules articles and sci-fi discussions in White Dwarf.
Conceived as a Frankenstein's Monster of of Warhammer/Judge Dredd/Dune/Moorcock/Heinlein/Lovecraft/John Milton's Paradise Lost (the latter work inspired the Horus Heresy) with a sprinkling of anything else conceived as cool, the game was functionally a combination of Warhammer 1st edition with Warhammer 3rd edition as a roleplaying/skirmish/wargame. It was mostly just an updated version of the game Laserburn by Ansell, who after the financial failure of his solo creation re-imagined it for Games Workshop. Forces were originally just a Space Marines faction decided by rolling dice rather than listbuilding, which was added later as well as with most of the story in White Dwarf. The Imperium was given fluff, Orks were created as green skinned assholes described briefly in 3rd Edition although now with asexuality to go with it. Extremely complex rules for vehicles were added, and finally Ansell's Chaos was copy/pasted from Warhammer to Rogue Trader with the overt Moorcockyness removed. Priestley designed the Rogue Trader setting as part irony and part parody, with only self-deluded antivillains as protagonists. It was hinted at various points that Warhammer 40,000 was Warhammer Fantasy in the future, then later than Sigmar was a "son" (its complicated) of the Emperor of 40k and thus all of Fantasy was a planet in the 40k universe, later that the 40k universe entirely existed in a box on a wizard's shelf in Fantasy, before finally the creators decided both Warhammers are reflections of each other in a multiverse.
For Those About To Rock, We Sell-out You!
Many employees in 1988-1990 left the company, unhappy with the increasingly profit-driven model of the company. Many created their own games, publications, and even went to Games Workshop's (few remaining) competitors. Notable was Fantasy Warlord, which barely sold enough to break even before shutting down. The miniatures created for Fantasy Warlord by Alternative Armies are actually still available, although some were sold to Mayhem Miniatures (which became Kennington Miniatures).
Unchallenged in the market (being the Apple of miniatures in that day), Games Workshop sought to expand its customer base into the mainstream. Television commercials were made, Games Workshop expanded aggressively into France and Australia, and the miniature lines were made less grotesque and more like the artwork. Any place that could support a major sports team was designated a potential, even eventual, Games Workshop location. Later on Games Workshop prospects were locations that could afford to support high end clothing stores like Marks & Spenser or toy store retail chains like Early Learning Centre. Games Workshop stores were designed to be friendly, with owners and employees being outgoing and knowledgeable about tabletop games while popular music like Grunge and early Alternative was played over speakers.
Ansell in the meantime had begin to expand the company into entirely different mediums, and due to his love of music had begun to use Games Workshop as a publisher for bands like Sabbat, Saxon, and Bolt Thrower. He opened a Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000-themed clothing line, licensed novels set in the universe, and funded LARP events. Ambitions that were not realized even included a gameshow set in 40k where players built robots to fight other robots (so a themed British version of the American television show Robot Wars).
In 1988, Talisman: Timescape was released in which players in the medieval core game could randomly be thrown through space and time into other time periods, mainly those inspired by Warhammer 40,000.
In the same year, to compete with rival FASA and their Battletech game, Games Workshop released Adeptus Titanicus, a 10mm scale tabletop game where twelve Imperial Titans fight each other in a city. Games Workshop tied the game to the 40k franchise to boost both games. White Dwarf expansions added rules for vehicles, infantry, and arial combat.
Talisman: City came out in 1989 which added a new board, a city for players to interact with the city guards and buy/sell items. It was likewise followed by Space Marine, which was a battle between two Space Marine armies and included miniatures for vehicles as well.
In the same year, Codex Titanicus was released which combined Space Marine and Adeptus Titanicus together into one game, the first edition of Epic. Over the next year the game received major additions including Knight, artillery, and infantry models in not only Space Marines, but also Imperial Guard (1991 Armies Of The Imperium), Chaos and Eldar (1992 Renegades), Orks and Squats (1992 Ork and Squat Warlords), and finally Tyranids (1995 Hive War).
Bitch, Where's My Money?
In 1991 Ansell left Games Workshop, and sold his shares to the General Manager Tom Kirby. Kirby's first order of business was to grow the company to quickly pay off what he had borrowed to buy it, and he was presented with two choices; grow the company more diverse games or focus heavily on the two Warhammers. Kirby opted for the latter, and pushed the idea of more games in the two settings along with much bigger editions.
Warhammer 4th edition was released in 1992, with changes to rules bringing the term "Herohammer" into the fanbase as most of any given army was simply there to protect the powerful characters the game was REALLY about. This was the first edition that had miniatures specifically for everything in the rulebooks, had specific race selection that prohibited using troops of another type in your army, and had a starter set which contained a two-force starter game which was High Elves VS Goblins. Magic was entirely redone, and was marketed as an expansion and used cards as spells. Magic had two further expansions, one for general magic and one for Chaos. Warhammer lore was more fleshed out, coming to resemble more or less the factions of today. The Empire was the human focus of 4th edition, with the valiant knights having no mention.
In 1993, Games Workshop came out with Warhammer 40,000, normally called Second Edition. Like Warhammer (now "Warhammer Fantasy Battles"), it was built around small units of infantry supporting ridiculously munchkinized special characters with complicated rules and wargear and appropriately pricey lead models, but at this stage Games Workshop actually cared somewhat about customers; models were made in plastic or wallet-friendly, Roman-Empire-collapsing lead, game sets included serviceable army lists and collections of miniatures, and paints were provided in 20ml pots, later 17.5ml. This switch was perhaps the first sign of the next age (and every other age, by the looks of things as paints are now just 12ml per pot).
Special NEERDS!
In the same year the very first of what would later on fall under the label of "Specialist Games" (anything not Warhammer or Tolkien) was released; Man O'War. Warhammer Fantasy setting, but rather than commanding an army the players were heads of an armada on the high seas!
1993 also saw the release of the final 2e Talisman expansion, Talisman: Dragons. It added new characters, locations, spells, and items, all themed with dragons, into the game.
In 1994 the third edition of Talisman was released, adding miniatures, experience points, alterations to the board, and the biggest change of all; it was set in Warhammer Fantasy. Later that year, White Dwarf contained mini expansions to the game while the first true expansion, City Of Adventure, reintroduced the city board as well as a forest. Dungeon of Doom came next, adding the dungeon and a mountain. The year also saw the launch of Second edition Epic, still consisting of two games. The first was a rerelease of Space Marine that had Space Marines, Orks, and Eldar. The second game was Titan Legions which had the same factions.
In 1995 Dragon's Tower expanded Talisman 3e as an alternative end goal as players climbed a tower and killed a dragon (duh). It came with another White Dwarf expansion.
In 1996 Necromunda was released. Priestley was inspired by his meetings with the creator of Judge Dredd during the days of Games Workshop licensing the IP, and used it to resurrect the forgotten RPG aspect of Rogue Trader.
Fifth edition Fantasy was released in 1996 as well, along with its magic expansion which rebalanced and simplified the magic system and included all three 4e expansions. Cards remained available to buy, although all the Winds of Magic-based magic spells were included in the core rules (meaning you still had 20 more spells you had to buy cards for). Of particular note is the Slann finally being fleshed out, creating the Lizardmen army with the starter being Bretonnia VS Lizardmen. Campaigns were released which were heavily involved in the lore; The Grudge Of Drong featured a conflict between Elves and Dwarfs which lead to the War of the Beard, Tears Of Isha involved the bitter war between the High and Dark Elves, Idol Of Gork was the first time that Orcs were truly Orcy as known today with the introduction of Gork and Mork (or was it Mork and Gork?), Circle of Blood as the Vampire Counts (then still one army with the Mummies) VS Bretonnians as the first introduction of the Blood Dragons, and Perilous Quest as a war between the Bretonnians and Wood Elves during their introduction to the lore . Each campaign came with multiple endings decided by player involvement (becoming the precursor to Warhammer events), paper scenery which defined the architectural styles of the featured races from then on (although this was sadly the last time these races got scenery before everything simply became Empire and Chaos), and a campaign book summarizing the story.
At some point it was determined that the stock army lists weren't enough, and so "Army Books" (for Warhammer) and "Codex Books" (for 40Kl, later simply "Codex:(faction)") began to come out, each bringing new models and rules into the game. The last round of these for 40K (Codex: Tyranids in particular) tended to make the army ridiculously overpowered and make everyone else want a new Codex to rectify the balance. Perhaps the ultimate example of Second Edition philosophy was the last book, Codex: Assassins, which consisted of nothing but four hideously powerful special characters. These included this asshole who caused the psychology effect Terror to all psykers, regardless of anything, meaning Greater Daemons and Hive Tyrants would occasionally shit themselves and run for the hills when faced with a normal-sized human.
One notable aspect of this period was that Games Workshop hated trees, and would thus include several million cards in every boxed set if given the slightest provocation; the core sets for Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 both received an update governing the magic / psychic system which consisted solely of cards and templates (which were card). Some entire games (Doom of the Eldar, Battle for Armageddon, Horus Heresy) came out in this period which consisted of nothing but OUR GREAT SOVIET UNION a board and lots of high-density card counters to lose down the back of the sofa or inside the dog.
Gorkamorka came out in 1997, and was Priestley's answer to Mad Max meets 40k, featuring Orks in different groups crashed on a desolate planet using vehicular weapons to slaughter each other. Third edition Epic was released as well as a single game with simplified rules, but it was a financial failure after barely moving any units in six months and was recalled. This is unfortunate because Jervis Johnson and Andy Chambers consider it the greatest game they ever made. Most of the planned models were never released.
Mordheim, the Fantasy version of Necromunda set in the ruins of an Empire city where all factions are scrambling for control was released in 1998.
The last Specialist Game was Battlefleet Gothic, essentially Man O'War in space using massive battleships.
Learning The Wrong Lessons
Despite the Specialist Games being massively popular, Kirby had expanded Games Workshop incredibly fast into unknown markets and as a result a massive amount of Gorkamorka sets in French, Spanish, and Italian were left unsold while English demand was high. Games Workshop was left almost on the verge of bankruptcy, causing a new sales philosophy to be decided upon. Rather than one based on restraint and market research as one would expect, the new direction was "only sure things, minimize risk". Suddenly, the irony of the 40k setting was dropped. The Imperium suddenly WAS the heroes, and Chaos the evil that always wins in the end rather than these things being the punchline at the end of a sarcastic joke.
One of Bryan's policies for the company was that the production studio and creative minds must always be kept in charge of marketing or the company would die. Kirby, after Gorkamorka, decided the opposite was true.
Plans were made to phase out all of the Specialist Games, and over the next few years the only things available were simply unsold stock. An excuse was made for the first, Man O'War, that the molds had broken and somehow couldn't be fixed (bullshit for many reasons). The rest were quietly and unceremoniously dumped while all referenced to them were dropped as well.
Sometime in the run-up to Third Edition, it was decided that models should switch from toddler-murdering lead to safe, pointy pewter (or "white metal" as the industry [not just GW] insisted on calling it). This led to a 25% cross-board increase in all metal mini costs, even those ordered through Citadel's back catalog (because those figures from their back catalogue were cast up, when ordered, in the new white metal). At this point, it seems, something clicked in the heads of GW's management; they had just made a ton more money without actually doing anything. Perhaps they could do that again.
Third Edition 40K came out in 1998 and Warhammer Fantasy Battles 6th Edition (featuring Orcs VS Empire, and the last edition to come with paper scenery) came in 2000, both reducing the dominance of single munchkin characters in favour of large armies, conveniently meaning players had to buy far more models. Then along came the fucking screw-tops, and proof that any pretense of caring about the customer had been cast aside.
Ringhammer
Games Workshop had begun to suffer financial troubles in the late 90's with competition from the surging (and independent) Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, Magic The Gathering, and Pokemon (no seriously, Pokemon was THAT fucking big back then).
The answer? Huge cash cow intellectual property. Priestley suggested to Kirby they cash in on the upcoming Lord of the Rings movies with the Lord Of The Rings Strategy Battle Game. Kirby was unable to see Priestley's ulterior motive, moving away from large and complex kits back to the roots of single characters and groups of soldiers, through the dollar signs in his eyes and approved the project at once. Alessio Cavatore, a major developer of Mordheim and supplement materials, was also put on the project and it was applauded by the gaming community. Games Workshop blew through the movie material and even began making miniatures based on things from Tolkien's works that weren't in the movie such as Tom Bombadil and his wife...river...his river-wife. Whatever. The miniatures were required to be produced in 25mm scale by contract, rather than the 28mm heroic scale used by Warhammer. Its been theorized by fans this was to keep the Tolkien miniatures out of Warhammer and keep their IP from becoming an expansion to GW's existing IP.
Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain
The issue is that as hype from the movies diminished, so did sales. Kirby by this point had expanded sales and marketing into autonomy, and when the interest in the game died down (something creative teams said would happen but marketing had shrugged off) the result was marketing attempting to drive up profits with unpopular schemes, the first among these being a major change the range of paints sold.
The "problem" with the older screw-top paint pot designs that had been sold up until this point was that they actually kept paint usable for a long time. The flip-top style on the other hand suffered from shit hinges and opening tabs which would both break after about four uses. Obviously, screw-tops were no good to GW, and so a new pot, the Screw(you)top, was designed which would gunk up its own thread and either glue itself shut forever or prevent an airtight seal forming after a couple of uses. Apparently forgetting every other company in existence that made model paints, GW also raised the price of these new and terrible things; clearly justified, since they contained a mere 30% less paint than the old design. It was also around this point that photographs of the 'Eavy Metal studio started to vanish from the pages of White Dwarf (along with all other content that could be considered useful for anything at all other than advertising models) since they kept forgetting to hide all their non-Citadel gear for photoshoots. Even though, of course, everyone had known for years that the painters didn't "mix Snot Green with a little Chaos Black" to get a paint shade that was in Tamiya or Vallejo's stock range. Nowadays of course we can get the good stuff for cheap from Privateer Press (problem, GW?), but back then it was just fucking terrible. GW managers and staff also suffered a change in personality, pushing the idea that anything other than GW was a plague, and it was to be treated as such. "Saw you just bought some Knights of Minas Tirith, well, what about a Stompa?"
Games Workshop, highly resistant to change (ironically), began to see the shifting face of tabletop gaming towards electronics as unimportant with Kirby even calling video games "a fad". Just as Games Workshop had crushed their competition with physical stores, the internet distribution saw many new companies begin to emerge as they brought their products directly to the consumer via the internet. Games Workshop attempted to compete in this regard, although they never moved past having anything more complex than a digital version of a catalog and a little-moderated forum (which was closed down to much rage in the 2000's). Games Workship kneejerked and made White Dwarf exclusively Games Workshop products, allowing longtime competitor Dragon Magazine to reign triumphant as the source of tabletop gaming news in the last age of printed publications. Meanwhile a new market had emerged of making miniatures specifically designed to look like Warhammer models and be used in the game. This...did not go over well, and Games Workshop came to be known as ready to sue anyone at the drop of a hat, even once famously attempting to copyright "Pauldrons" and sue over the concept of a wolfskin cloak on a viking-looking warrior.
Prices began to ramp up ridiculously as GW realized they could charge whatever the hell they liked and their longterm fans would still pay. While GW was never particularly cheap, their chunky kits ended up in the same price bracket as top-quality scale miniatures by other companies; today, a Citadel Space Marine Hunter( 125-parts entirely cast in opaque plastic) costs about the same as AFV club's Churchill mk3 (400+ parts with 2 vinyl tracks, 22 metal springs, 29 Etched Brass pieces and a turned aluminium barrel). At some point, someone remembered that back in Second Edition days they actually had people willing to pay for gigantically expensive, limited-edition lead Thunderhawk Gunships. To hit this niche of "people with more money than sense," Forge World was created; all you had to do was get mom and dad to sign that second mortgage and stop being so damn selfish and a 40K-scale Titan would be yours.
Minimize Effort, Maximize Rage
In the year 2000, Warmaster was released. Designed by Based Priestley, it was essentially the Warhammer Fantasy version of Epic.
Fourth edition Warhammer 40k was released in 2004, and was more an advertisement for more models than an actual edition. It was advertised as being "backwards compatible", mostly because by itself it was barely a game. The rulebook was mostly sections of painted licensed plastic terrain and large models than anything else.
In 2005, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was given a second edition which was largely the same but was up to date with the lore, and had a better magic system. It was used more to advertise the wargame however than as a frontline product. This came with a single unified rulebook for Lord Of The Rings that included the (greatly) expanded line in the form of the One Rulebook to Rule them All.
Around this time the bulk of plastic Warhammer scenery was released, with almost all of it in Fantasy geared towards the Empire or Chaos (with some trees maybe representing Elves?) and 40k towards the Imperium or Chaos (with a few Necron and Tau pieces from Forgeworld). Games Workshop had seemingly decided who the main characters were, and some factions in either game from this point on only were mentioned in passing while receiving no support or updates.
Seventh edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles in 2006 luckily avoided this, with Battle For Skull Pass as the starter set between Dwarfs and Night Goblins. This marked the last major change for Warhammer Fantasy, as the next update only really changed by adding more models and having minor rebalancing. Many fans of armies like Bretonnia and Wood Elves were left very unhappy their army was not updated in 7e, relying on outdated rules and thus being extremely underpowered all in favor of an event. Looking to resurrect the dying Lord Of The Rings game, Games Workshop Legions Of Middle Earth, an "expansion" suggesting buying larger groups of models to use in a theme force using the existing rules.
Storm of Chaos was released as the major event of the 2000's to much pomp and circumstance, supposedly being the canonical transition from the old into the new as Chaos made its great attempt to destroy reality while every faction strapped on their wardrums and marched into the clusterfuck. Players were selected to actually play the factions to drive the narrative, and the community was kept informed of what was going on. Except...Chaos couldn't win. The bulk of the story for the event was driven by the fact a fuckhuge Chaos army was invading, but the players for Chaos couldn't even manage to scrape out a single win. So the narrative kept going that Chaos was a fuckmassive force that made all the other fuckmassive forces pretty much not worthy of note, and every time a player on another faction beat a Chaos player before turn four the story would state that the other player had barely delayed the forces of Chaos for only a brief time and at great cost, sometimes their complete destruction occurring anyway despite the actual battle report results saying no Chaos survived the battle and almost none of the other army was killed. In the end, Chaos was given one last chance in the very last match as the defenders (meaning they had the advantage) in the last battle. Even this, they lost. Badly. In a phone-in result where Games Workshop made a desperate bid that fans would choose for Chaos to win and make all the actual promised narrative unnecessary, players chose to let Chaos deservedly lose. So the event ended with a single crazy fucking Orc headbutting Chaos Darth Vader in the balls, laughing at him, and walking away and thus saving the world in an ending befitting a Saints Row game. Games Workshop quickly stopped promoting the event and from that point on pretended it never happened. This also marked the last time Games Workshop put any control out of their own hands.
In 2008, fifth edition Warhammer 40k was released and borrowed heavily from 7e WFB as well as implemented a HEAVY emphasis on cover rules while making shooting much more important.
In 2009 Games Workshop launched released War Of The Ring, which made the skirmish game into a full-fledged wargame. The rules were highly simplified to enable quick games with larger groups of models.
"How Bad Can We Be?"
In 2010, Based Priestley left Games Workshop forever, saying that "the creative team was no longer doing anything creative" and "game development and game design wasn't of any interest to them. The current attitude in Games Workshop is that they're not a games company, that they're a model company selling collectibles."
In May 11th, 2011, Games-Workshop's new terms of use restricts sales of all of their products to the European Economic Area, (EU + Norway, Switzerland and Iceland). This essentially removed Games Workshop products from online distributors other than themselves, and furthermore made their actual in-store stock of products highly limited with many models only being available directly through them (although many Friendly Local Game Stores will order from their website to fulfill requests). Oh, and they spiked the prices another 10-15% for most models.
Additionally, all metal models were on their way to being discontinued, to be replaced with much more expensive Resin kits which were INCREDIBLY unpopular with the community due to low quality casts and high price without the sense it was worth it. Unlike the pewter kits (which are basically tin), the resin kits are loaded with carcinogens; strange, since last anyone checked the reason for switching to pewter in the first place was that lead was toxic (and nothing to do with hiking the price). The quality of the product could lead one to believe it was much much cheaper, but resin damages the mold more than pewter because it sticks to the mold more. It gets expensive when you have to replace molds more often, and they also break fairly easily so that all the little ten year old Smurf players have to buy new ones when they snap them in half. So essentially, Games Workshop not only ruined the quality of their models, they jacked up the prices and made it nearly impossible for anyone outside the EU and 'murrica to obtain it. Kinda like going from fine French wine to your corner-store cheap beer... and the beer is more expensive than the wine.
Eight Edition Warhammer Fantasy was released in 2010, introducing 40k-esque large models (and pretending Storm of Magic didn't happen). Many fans hold that this is the most balanced the game ever was, despite some particularly nasty cheese existing and some factions STILL not getting long overdue updates and having to rely on 6th edition books in a system that had nerfed the core mechanics their models relied on. In 2011 it was expanded with Storm of Magic which introduced fuckhuge monsters from Forgeworld that could be summoned, as well as a redone (and pretty broken) magic system. This did poorly however as the magic was ludicrously terribly balanced and was only useful to a small number of armies, while the prices of the monsters were laughably high and the rules for them were not worth taking over basic infantry.
Blood in the Badlands came out in 2012 and added siege combat and advanced scenarios to the game, strangely echoing the early days of Warhammer. As Lord Of The Rings interest had largely waned, it was rereleased with updated rulebooks, new models, and locensed The Hobbit miniatures in 2012 as well.
In 2013, Games Workshop decided to transfer their sales restriction to Canada, just as they had to Europe. As the United States had already had international sales cut back in 2003, this had lead to a large online market for Canadian retailers, selling their products at discount sales to US customers. However, with this new change, all international sales in North America are now completely gone, as GW once again decided to fuck over long term customers and local retailers in favor of luring more small children with disposable income to their overpriced, neckbeard-run stores.
MiniWargaming, a well known FLGS with an extensive online store, has decided to close shop because of these new rules. Their store manager made an entire video explaining their reasons and going over just how asinine Games Workshop's new rules are. Between jacking up prices, locking down international sales, and screwing over online sales and bitz sales, Games Workshop intentionally set itself on the fast track to running itself into the ground in the eyes of long term followers. Possibly due to their apparent belief that removing the entire world (excluding European Economic Area and Canada) from their consumer base is a good idea.
Also in 2013, Sigmar's Blood came out with a campaign between the Empire and Vampire Counts lead by Mannfred von Carstein, introducing advanced diplomacy rules mostly involving misfortune. The Desolation Of Smaug expansion to LordOf The Rings finished off 2013 releases.
Between all that in 2012 came sixth edition Warhammer 40k, borrowing even more heavily from Warhammer Fantasy with psychic power taking on a decidedly magical system while scenery became interactive. Furthermore, armies were no longer exclusive with mixed-faction lists being possible.
The Fall of Warhammer
In 2014 the End Times event was announced for Warhmmer Fantasy while Warhammer 40k got its seventh edition. 7e 40k removed restrictions even more on armies and simply allow you to mostly take whatever you want if you are okay with some penalties, although you get advantages for sticking to groups existing in the canon. Otherwise it just added more diverse style of play for scenario-like gameplay in simple games and added even more Warhammer Fantasy-esque psychic and terrain rules.
Meanwhile, End Times... ended Warhammer Fantasy. Billed as the next big thing, the event consisted of staggered releases of extremely expensive books, nearly as much as a new starter set, and new (very large and expensive) models. The books contained scenarios, massive amounts of lore, and also removed a great deal of restrictions on how armies are built; first by allowing an army to be 50% low-level characters (Heroes) and 50% high-level characters (Lords) so long as the default core requirement of 25% of your army on basic troops was fulfilled while turning every spellcaster into a master of magic, then by making magic even more fucking insane by diddling with spells and giving a metric fuckload of dice to cast them, then in the final book simply throwing all listbuilding rules out the window and saying "take whatever the fuck you want and put it on the table". Meanwhile the story consisted of everyone taking it up the ass HARD from Chaos, other than the Undead who united under the resident Voldemort named Nagash, as it slowly meandered its way through all opposition to the heart of the Empire (read: what they wanted from Storm of Chaos) and faced off against the "heroes" of the setting who all failed miserably and were consumed by black nothingness filled with plagues, gnashing teeth, evil intillects, and shitting dicknipples as the world simply ENDS. Fantasy fans were left feeling cold and full of hate, and for nearly a year simply assumed their setting had been completely and unceremoniously raped to death.
On a side note, multiple video games for Warhammer Fantasy were announced with some being released in this time, leaving fans tearing their hair out in frustration at the idiocy of killing a setting, then FINALLY making decent video games for it. This games include Total War: Warhammer, Mordheim: City Of The Damned, Man O’ War: Corsair, and The End Times: Vermintide.
Age Of Skubmar
When it seemed it couldn't get any worse, Games Workshop then decided that since it had made 40k mostly like Fantasy, it would make Fantasy into 40k. A happier, LSD-fueled version of 40k.
That version, believed by some to have actually been made with Skub mixed directly into the material, was Age of Sigmar which removed literally ALL limitations on army building (as in you can take any models in the game from any faction in any number and call it an army, with rules for your opponent to play the game with an easy win condition if your army is x3 the size of theirs) and consists of a skirmish game with only has four rules, officially making it even less of a Warhammer than Warhammer 1st edition.
If that wasn't enough, almost everything was arbitrarily renamed to be copyright friendly. Zombies became "Deathshamblers", Elves became "Aelves", and Lizardmen were given the hilariously terrible name "Seraphon" which, if googled, brings up the career work of a furry tickle-fetish artist (in their defense, the name already existed as the name of Elf Darth Vader's dragon in Warhammer, although the connection between that and Lizardmen was never actually given so its a moot point). The only faction that escaped the renaming was the Tomb Kings, which for some reason simply became "Mummies". Derp.
The story was worse still, consisting of Norse mythology mixing with superhero comics in an awkward combination where Chaos Gods can be kidnapped by Elves, Warhammer Darth Vader becomes the master of the Dark Side rather than the other way around, and characters introduced and given importance in one book immediately die in the next.
The advertising for Age of Sigmar was the rules (all four pages of them) and the stats of existing models being free on launch, followed by outrageously expensive digital content that updated the game, the core lore advancement being contained within scenario books that are ludicrously expensive, and a requirement for many scenarios to have specific models which includes the expensive as hell new terrain, the rules of which can only be viewed by buying the model. To put it simply, Games Workshop managed to take the hated practice of DLC content in video games and push it fully into tabletop gaming.
To top it all off, Games Workshop replaced their iconic Space Marine statue that had sat in front of their headquarters and replaced it with a giant statue of a Stormcast Eternal (the Sigmarines Space Marines of Age of Sigmar) almost overnight, while relegating the beloved servant of the Emperor to being hidden under a staircase and behind an advertisement for Age of Sigmar. We...really wish we were making this up (Also notice how the two-headed Imperium eagle was replaced with gold Stormcast wings and Ghal Maraz).
Games Workshop had promised their investors in 2014 that 2015 would be a massive year of financial returns, although by the time of the Half Yearly Report they had grown a mere 1%. To make matters worse, this included the ample revenue from their new video game licenses as Age of Sigmar had been largely rejected by large portions of the gaming community as many stores were completely unable to even move starter sets, resulting in a few months of them being at clearance prices online through third party distributors. Further still, many FLGS dumped all Fantasy Warhammer stock, some even Games Workshop stock entirely. Considering the 2015 Financial Report of Games Workshop, Age of Sigmar is going nowhere and GW outright stated they do no market research and do not plan to start. They believe that only 20% of their fans actually play the game or give a fuck about the story so in their eyes the plot and rules are not to blame for any major decrease in sales and anyone who doesn't like it can fuck off. Like it or not, Warhammer Fantasy is dead and buried while Age of Skubmar is here to stay.
Games Workshop plugged on ahead regardless by rebranding themselves, changing the names of Games Workshop Hobby Stores worldwide to Warhammer Stores after the deathrattle of The Hobbit merchandise.
You Are The Special
Following the disaster launch of Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop announced a plan in December 2015 to resurrect the Specialist Games division and the games Blood Bowl, Epic, Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, "And Many, Many More" while resurrecting the Tolkien games.
In February 2016, it was believed that Games Workshop used a Cease And Desist order to shutdown Warseer, the largest Warhammer community forum other than /tg/, but thankfully that turned out to be a simple virus and database corruption (but to be fair, one could hardly be blamed for thinking GW responsible). In more substantiated dick-move news, Josh Reynolds, a freelance writer employed by Games Workshop known for actually answering fan questions about the setting and filling in plot holes in End Times (as many, MANY characters and plots were forgotten in the event even between books) and attempting to assure fans Sigmarines and Space Marines are totes different, was essentially told to shut the fuck up about GW IPs on social media while his entire list of lore mending was declared non-canon via being told to say nothing he writes reflects GW outside novels.
Going even further into community-souring, the popular Tomb Kings line was squatted unceremoniously in the same month, putting an end to Warhammer Egyptians and axing the faction that gave rise to all remaining Warhammer Undead. Needless to say, this was NOT well-received by fans, especially those who played Tomb Kings themselves and those sick of Age of Sigmar Stormstormed Stormbolters and their leader, the Celestial Primarch.
To sum up - GeeDubs started to fix their shit, but decided it was too much effort and went back on being raging dickmongers as usual.
/tg/ Analysis Of Games Workshop
Blind Deaf-mutes
In a meeting with shareholders, Games Workshop exhibited their attitudes quite plainly.
- "- the word “Game” in Games Workshop encourages the misconception that games are its business, but that only about 20% of Games Workshop’s customers are gamers. The rest are modellers and collectors. Maybe half of them think about playing now and then. The other half have no intention. People actually walk into the stores because they’re curious about modelling fantastic armies."
When asked "-if the company would sell games with pre-painted easy to assemble miniatures like the popular Star Wars themed X-Wing game" they said:
- "It wouldn’t be a hobby business then, it would be a toy company."
- "-introducing products at new price points is different to reducing the recommended retail price, something the company resolutely refuses to do. It’s considering “putting more value in the box”, discounting in other words, when people buy in number. That ought to encourage gamer-modellers."
- "Potentially lucrative income from licenses granted to video games producers like the much anticipated and soon to be released Total War Warhammer will always be incidental because video gamers do not become modellers, and Games Workshop doesn’t know how to make good video games."
In their 2015 Financial Report, they stated:
- "The Group does not undertake research activities."
In the same report, the words "market" and "research" never referred to the same subject. They claim their main audience is teenagers, although they also state that the hobbyist crowd is their main fanbase. Furthermore, they make assumptions about their fanbase despite admitting that they do not research about them.
So what can be learned? Games Workshop has absolutely no longterm plan other than to make more expensive models, and cater to those who can drop thousands in a single impulse buy. Rather than expanding and reaching out to new customers, they are intentionally becoming a niche market for an elite crowd. In other words? "Fuck you, you smelly hatless Irishman."
The Digital Age (And Completely Missing the Point)
Games Workshop would sign a deal with Apple to sell eBooks on the interwebz, instead of Amazon (the largest retailer worldwide), because then the books would have to be cheaper. Games Workshop refused to understand the fact that eBooks almost always cost less than what they would if bought from a book store. That 1 pence discount doesn't count. (From GW point of view, even tho it's stupid to put the same price on eBooks as the Hardcover Army Books/Codices, it makes sense. Because if they were to sell them cheaper, they would sell much less books, meaning they'll lose money from the traditional books. Yes, it cost $80 in Australia for both the eBook and the Hardcover, which again is bullshit.)
Though in this regard, GW does seem to be slowly figuring out what works: Dataslates are a cheap effective means of deploying models without committing to entire armies/detachments. Essentially like microtransactions. While around £3 might seem like a lot of money for only a few pages of crunch and only two or three new units/formations, they are some of the cheapest products GW have released in a good long time and they do also use these to repost entire rules sections dragged out of the codices in addition to the product itself, so you never needed the codex if you never owned it in the first place.
Some of the Dataslates are extremely high quality (like Cypher) and are virtually must-haves, while some others are complete dross (Reclusiam Command Squad?) that were dreamed up over a 5 minute coffee break just to sell something. But with the advent of 7th Edition, armies can be made up entirely of dataslates (or just go unbound) so they are no longer telling you how to build your army any more and you can keep it cheaper by bringing only a few models to make up your chosen formation.
Oh, and they sell them in various formats so you don't need that iPad if you don't have one since eReaders can be downloaded for free and if you still don't have anything to read them on, then have a think about how you got onto the Internet.
Just fucking pirate them. Pretty much every 6th edition Codex is available in PDF format on torrent sites. If GW don’t want to play nice then why should you?
Why Games Workshop is Bad and it Should Feel Bad
When speaking of a company, a person is tempted to think of a large body of human beings coming together in an efficient group. The group is governed, and it is thought that someone is there to ascertain the best possible choices are being made granted the information available at hand. However, this perspective, like most of 40k's explicit war “tactics”, is absolute nonsensical trash.
Never mind that large groups are often less efficient due to the fact that most people like to agree and be part of a group, even if the group is wrong. Forget that the burden of hard work is often shrugged off thanks to the assumption that everyone else will be carrying enough of the real challenges to pull things through (and that when things go wrong, it's a flaw of human nature that people don't like to admit and accept when they screw up). Instead, focus on the fact that the people heading GW – or most large corporations for that matter – are successful, rich, ordinary men who are blessed by good fortune in an unfair universe and probably don't realize the reality. Further, examine the knowledge that, according to Sun Tzu and a variety of psychological studies, successful rich people with the aforementioned profound luck are the folks most likely to make stupid mistakes out of anyone!
Now you know why GW (or the entire world, for that matter) is run the way it is.
A source of some debate on /tg/ is whether or not it is actually charging prices that make sense for the hobby. All logic points to a resounding “no”, but another interesting social phenomena is this: fanboyism is an inbuilt human process. Whenever money is spent on a good, especially a luxury item, man has a way of increasing the illusionary worth of that item.
Imagine buying tickets to see your local team play football, and they lose. It's not even a good game, to be honest. People around the country were disappointed. However, those tickets cost a lot of money, and having spent all that money for so little in return makes a person feel stupid. We grope for other things, then, to make the tickets worth while rather than admit we were wrong (even if we were only wrong due to events beyond our control) and learn from it. Yes, it was cold, but your wife was there, so you bonded! The beer was too expensive as well, but they sold your favorite brand! You had an experience! It was fun! Yes, those tickets were worth it in the end.
We'll even do this with soft drinks. Even if brain probes reveal a man likes Pepsi more than Coke, going back and telling the man what he was drinking can actually alter his memory so that he remembers liking the Coke more. It's amazing.
GW products are exactly the same way. They're ludicrously expensive. Even people who support GW fervently wish they weren't. It hurts. In a rough economy, it's hard to play the game. You spend months, years – who knows how long waiting for that new codex, it turns out to be awful compared to expectations (hello, Tyranids!) (UP YOURS ASSHOLE.), and now you've either got to suck it up and keep playing (got to buy the new Trygons, I guess, even though they aren't that great), or take a huge monetary loss and give up. Fanboyism steps in and makes it all okay. You're not just buying the models, but the game and the network utility too, so 40k is still totally fun and cool!
Big corporations, and GW as well, are predators. They feast on fanboyism. Like the Dark Eldar, they prey on your suffering and write sick, stomach-turning poetry about the flowing, green streams of vital wealth they siphon from your being. You are a toy. That cute girl at the convenience store you see all the time? Thanks to GW, you have to choose between inviting her to the theater and buying that new squadron of Guardsmen. Those of you scoffing at the dilemma, shut up; those Guardsmen are not going to nag nearly as much after you've had them for a little while, so it's totally a tough call.*BLAM!* HERESY!!! NOT CHOOSING THE EMPEROR'S FINEST IS HERESY!!!
But putty in their hands you may be, there are still some principles of basic economics that imply GW might not be earning enough revenue, and surprisingly, they can only lose more money by raising prices! There's no real way of knowing how things really are within GW without a look at the delicate, inner machinery they never should have let Matt Ward near. But it does all come back to our first consideration: GW is run by the type of person most notable for making poor decisions – lucky, successful people, and a group, no less.
Whatever idiot wrote the following has no _actual_ business sense. Revenue ≠ Profit. Profit = Revenue - Cost... yes, but still give you a good idea about GW policy.
The situation is thus: there is more to money flow than just the bottom line, though often it's all we think of, but basically there's income, cost, and revenue. What is of most concern is revenue, which could also be thought of as profit. GW sells their models for a greater amount than what they cost, and the amount they make is revenue!
So now, there's revenue, and then there's marginal revenue. Revenue is just how much you make. Sell a thousand Guardsmen and make ten thousand dollars? Your Guardsmen revenue is $10,000! Marginal revenue, on the other hand, is how much you make compared to selling one less of the item. In this case, the Guardsmen have a marginal revenue of $10. Each Guardsman made a profit of $10, and if you sold one less Guardsman, you'd make $10 less. See? Easy. Well, for this simplified example anyway (in reality there are a lot of fixed start-up costs, but point made).
Now let's raise prices. From now on, we'll sell half as many Guardsmen per box, and the boxes will cost the same. Now marginal revenue is $22, because every time a Guardsman is sold, we bring in $20 per Guardsman plus an additional $2 gets saved thanks to the Guardsmen we didn't make! This is cool – we're in business, just like GW, /tg/! Let's do that again – our customers are fans, they'll bear it! Now we'll sell five Guardsmen to a box, and we have a marginal revenue of $45!
Okay, wait, wait. I've got it. I'm a genius. Let's sell one Guardsman. Sell it for the same price we used to sell twenty of them! We're going to be rich! Marginal revenue is going to be amazing! Like, what, over a hundred dollars a purchase?
So what's our profit in the end? What! Negative? How!? We're making so much per model! The marginal revenue is so high!
The answer is simple. Not enough people are buying one crappy Guardsman for $200 dollars. A few of the fans are sticking it out, hating us relentlessly, but newcomers to the game see the price tag and run screaming. People who can't afford it leave because they have no other choice, but they're happy in retrospect. Even some of our most loyal customers finally decided to just date that girl after all – she's not nearly as pricey and they'll deal with her constant bitching. Actual revenue is at an all time low.
Believe it or not, lots of other companies really do make this mistake, albeit not often to this extent (unless you check out Forge World, anyway. Anyone want a Tau Manta? Under £1,000). It's because maximizing marginal revenue is very easy. It's simple arithmetic, and if your market base is rather inelastic (and GW's market base certainly is due to the high investment requirements of their games), a lot of times price changes won't have a huge impact, so it's easier to focus on. GW is at some point in the middle here, where it has started to become questionable.
It's hard to say if they're making right decisions or if their pricing makes the most sense. It's becoming the status quo that their games are really a hobby of those with absurd disposable income, which is not a quality described of the young men who are presumed to make up 40k's primary demographic. It's possible that they're targeting young teens with parents who will buy the models for them, but that's hard to say as well since parents will lack the dedicated fanboyism to continually invest in the absurdly priced hobby.
Mix in unbalanced rules that unfairly favor certain factions, long wait times between army updates, inferior model quality compared to what's provided to model hobbyists outside of the wargaming industry, and GW may have a recipe for a failing market.
In fact, by using some math and basic market theory, we can actually take a look at how much GW is supposedly spending to bring our hobby to us.
The list below will give us some basic numbers to work with. We know that GW currently sells its rule books at $74.25. What we don't know is GW's actual costs or how many books they're selling. These things have an impact on the math, but we'll sort of fudge it. Now, based on that alone, we want to price our book at twice what it costs to make the thing. In the real world all this nice math has the tendency to fly apart, but generally speaking that's the ideal manner of doing things. For example:
Quantity sold: 0 Price of book: $0 Estimated cost to GW: $0 Marginal Cost: $0 Marginal Revenue: $0 Total Revenue: $0
Quantity sold: 1 Price of book: $74.25 Estimated cost to GW: $37.13 Marginal Cost: $37.13 Marginal Revenue: $37.12 Total Revenue: $37.12
Quantity sold: 2 Price of book: $74.25 Estimated cost to GW: $74.25 Marginal Cost: $37.13 Marginal Revenue: $37.12 Total Revenue: $74.25
And so on. Since we're assuming that every book has a fixed cost to produce, we just get a rough idea of what it's actually costing GW to make rule books for us. Or so such is true only if we figure they're trying to price things according to a competitive market where the consumer sets the price. Basic economics says we want to have a marginal revenue equal to our marginal cost if we want to work with a price we can't really control, and that's what this does.
See, there's a few things to consider. The first is that, in a competitive market, people are just going to buy the cheapest product. That means whoever is selling cheapest kind of wins the day, but while GW could maybe sell their rule books at $20 each, they'd be suffering huge profit losses that are not directly proportionate to the change in price. Instead, they'll try to follow along with what the market is doing, and to their very best possible effort, they'll try to lower their costs so that the marginal costs equal the marginal revenue (or, again, their prices are basically double their production costs per item). That just simply maximizes revenue, since if they raise prices their competitors will undercut them and GW will be able to sell nothing.
But honestly, if you've read this far, then hopefully you're braced for this shock. According to estimates from a few publishers, it only costs about $3 per book to publish 5,000 hardback books, and that cost decreases as you publish in greater bulk. 40k books do have a lot of pretty pictures, so maybe that increases costs somewhat, but again, costs generally tend to get smaller as you order more of an item, and it's pretty likely that GW is not just settling for a measly 5,000 books internationally. They sell all over the world.
So where are all these other costs popping up that should cause GW to spend $37 on every single book they produce? In small production quantities, we'd consider the cost of labor. Who knows how much Matt Ward demands to be paid to lick every rule book before it leaves the factory! What do the photographers want in compensation? Actually, stop. At GW's production rates, those expense considerations become almost completely negligible. You pay Matt Ward a salary to lick all the books. It's a yearly thing. You pay him once and you're done, so by the time you've produced a million books, even if you paid Matt a million dollars to slobber on every single page, Matt is only increasing the cost of the books by a dollar each.
Margins are all that matter. GW talks about overheads and so forth as an excuse, but that's insanity. In a perfectly competitive market you don't increase prices to cover overheads. You reduce the overheads because they're predictable annual costs that you more or less established on your own! Besides, you shouldn't be able to arbitrarily raise prices like that, seeing as how your competitors are supposedly keeping you in check! So really, what we can infer is the following:
A. Basically, GW has no competitors controlling their pricing right now. (This was especially true in the old days. Nowadays, this is less of an excuse as wargames and miniature companies branched out into all sorts of different fields. Thus, the monopoly GW used to have is no more.)
B. They are price gouging their players to fill the pockets of the people who run the company. (This scares off a lot of players, especially ones who have to buy a bunch just to keep up with the inconsistent update schedule or wish to start with a full army. Thus, the only people left are the people rich enough to afford it and those too ignorant to really think otherwise/the GWIDF)
C. Their pricing is not directly related to their costs, and anything they say to the contrary is a big fat lie. (This particular argument is used by Recaster supporters and proponents of 3-D Printers as they slowly advance in complexity to begin making more accurate and good-quality resin models.)
D. You could play another game, but all your friends are playing 40k anyway and you don't want to feel left out.
E. Fuck Games Workshop
This article also explains the problem with Australian prices, in a slightly less detailed manner; [1]
Games Workshop have sat pretty at the top of the miniature wargames shit-heap for many years (indeed, the scale models industry tries to ignore that they're the biggest single seller of miniatures) and have abused this position to increase their own profits. However, fortunately for the long suffering gamer alternatives are emerging. Privateer Press for example produce the games Warmachine and Hordes and offers slightly cheaper models and starter sets. In the market for wargames Privateer Press and Coolminiornot are rapidly emerging as a viable challenger to GW's monopoly while Reaper Miniatures takes them on using the same tactics that made them in the first place; licensing IP's, and making things for other games. They are the Tau, Dark Eldar, and Chaos to GW's Imperium.
Also worthy of note is Mantic Games who produce Kings of War, a fantasy battle game in a similar vein to Warhammer. The rules system was even written by former GW man Alessio Cavatore (essentially succeeding at what every frustrated ex-GW employee since 1988 has dreamed of) and it is fast, fluid and a lot more fun than Warhammer. The company is pioneering the use of plastic-resin alloy (or 'restic') as a cost effective alternative to pewter. Oh, and equivalent plastic models cost about HALF what GW charge (e.g. GW High Elf Spearmen (16 models) - £20, Mantic Games Elf Spearmen (20 models) - £13.99). Which detail wise aren't close to comparable.
One can only hope that these new upstarts will beat down GWs monopolistic hold on the wargame market.
The Beginning of the end?
Games Workshop's poor treatment of their customers is finally catching up and hitting them where it hurts. The first evidence was when they started making changes (you know how Games Workshop feels about change). They have started making supplements to armies besides Space Marines in Warhammer 40k, started increasing the amount of plastic models and, once or twice, making them reasonably priced. With the End Times, Warhammer Fantasy's plot is actually advancing. They've even released discount box sets from the new IG stuff. This sounds good, although long overdue, but one must ask; Games Workshop hasn't made these changes despite years of complaints or demands, why are they doing it now? The reason is simple. There are cracks appearing in Games Workshop's foundation, and these tidbits are too little, too late. So many customers have said "enough is enough" and washed their hands of GW's merchandise that they're starting to lose revenue. For example, many GW shops in Australia have moved from upscale shopping centers to smaller stores in less-expensive locations as it's cheaper and easier to control.
Their Chairman Tom Kirby mentioned in a 2011 press release that they were increasing cost cutting measures and making more products while avoiding mention of actual profits (note this is a summary, not his exact words). If their profit was growing, they would be more likely to announce it. If their profits were stable, considering cost cutting measures, that suggests a decrease in the actual profits (the decrease offset by the money saved from cutting costs). Just as the Imperium is starting to come under increasing threat in 40k (ie; their stagnation, Chaos starting get its shit together, Necrons reawakening, the Tyranids rushing towards Terra), Games Workshop could be in their final days. Since this is real-life, they don't have the plot armor of their Creator's Pet "Imperium of Man" and are less likely to survive. (More on this can be found here [2]. It would make alot of sense that the reason The Imperium in 40k is GW's favorite faction is they have a lot in common [and that's not a compliment]. The article is old, but it's still relevant today).
Whether Games Workshop will actually fall and go out of business is unknown for now. They may survive another twenty years, or less than five. There's a possibility (however unlikely) that they may pull their heads out of their asses and revamp everything about the hobby; from supporting expansions (such as Blood Bowl) to charging lower and more reasonable prices for their products, and maybe even advancing the plot for Warhammer 40k (yeah right!). Whatever Games Workshop's ultimate fate, none can deny that the ground is shrinking beneath their feet. As the old saying goes "Fist of iron, feet of clay"...
They have also demonstrated another old saying; "the bigger they are, the harder they fall". Games Workshop's stock as of Thursday the 16th of January 2014 took a nose dive of 24 percent . Adding to this, it's now been rumored that the GW Headquarters in Germany, France and the United States will be closing down, too.
However, GW claim they are Abaddon and all of this is no failure but just as planned. Whatever may be, on 7/29/2014 Games Workshop Chairman and CEO stepped down. Whether that will be for better or worse? We shall see.
Network Utility, and How it May Contribute to the Fall
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!
Well, several things have happened to the hobby. First and foremost, the models have gotten more expensive; granted, many models 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 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.
GW The Bully
Games Workshop has long had a history of being one of the most litigious companies in regards to its IP in existence. One needs look no further than our own Pauldrons article to get an idea of how bad it is, in that it uses its designs to openly fight any company that dares have any remote similarity to its own models in any way, shape, or form. You have any wargame with armored dudes with big pauldrons? Lawsuit. You run a company that makes third-party components for existing models? Lawsuit. You make anything remotely resembling any GW IP ever and aren't a massive company that could actually contest the giant copyright stick GW is swinging around and make them look like the idiots they are? LAWSUIT.
Whilst GW has a lengthy history of overstepping boundaries in its war to enforce its copyright, it only recently decided to go nuclear. GW is now claiming that it owns the phrase Space Marine, ignoring that sci-fi has used the terminology for the better part of eighty years (and shows their hypocrisy as Games Workshop shamelessly stole the term 'Eldar' from Tolkien; yes, he invented the word 'Eldar'). The story in question "Spots the Space Marine" is about a middle age housewife, nicknamed Spots, being recalled back to the Marine corp (ie a Real Marine, in space) to fight giant enemy crabs (in space). It has nothing to do with GW's Space Marines or the Warhammer 40K setting.
- The History of the term "Space Marine"; The term 'Space Marine' was made famous by sci-fi author Bob Olsen (real name; Alfred Johannes Olsen, 1884-1956), who may be the true creator of the term. He first used 'Space Marine' in his short story "Captain Brink of the Space Marines" from his "Amazing Stories" series, first published in 1932. Warhammer 40K started as the Second Edition of Rogue Trader and was released in 1993, while Rogue Trader itself was released in 1987. Games Workshop was founded in 1975; even its oldest founding member (Ian Livingstone) was born in 1949. Therefore the term Space Marine was in use for forty-three years before Games Workshop existed (even James Cameron has more right to trade mark the term than GW, as his 1986 movie 'Aliens' came out one year before Rogue Trader did).
Clearly GW needs to sue Bob Olsen. Sarcastic jokes aside, seeing GW fall on their ass for trying to sue Bob Olsen, the rightful owner of the term 'Space Marine' (also remember he died over fifty years ago), would be hilarious. Even in 2026 (seventy years after Bob Olsen died) when the term Space Marine should become public domain, that doesn't help GW as they can no longer trade mark it then.
This means that what GW tried to do was plagarism, which is a direct violation of copyright law. Games Workshop's strategy is to make "space marine" less generic by launching high profile, bullying attacks on every professional author or artist who isn't associated with a huge company who uses it, so that there may yet come a day when people hearing the phrase immediately conclude that it must be related to Games Workshop, because everyone knows what enormous cocks they are whenever anyone else uses the phrase. These attacks will not, again, be targeted at any opponent that can credibly fight back; this is because if it actually came to attempts to litigate over the phrase, GW would be laughed out of court. It's not going to stop GW from being cocks, though. In fact, as of 2014, Games Workshop's website still has 'Space Marine' listed as one of their copyrights. This copyright backlash made them rename the Imperial Guard "Astra Militarum" (This is not the correct Latin declension for "Star Military." If it was the correct declension, then it would be just as hard to trade mark as "Imperial Guard"), but their hard-on for space marines stopped GW from renaming the codex something original, such as "Adeptus Astartes".
GW would after the failure and fiasco of the Spots the space marine post a lengthy and self defeating rant on their own Facebook page, which basically displayed the ignorance of those writing the post. Shortly afterwards, the Facebook page went down after the backlash it caused. Several who queried GW over the pages removal were told that GW wished for the experience with the fanbase to be more personal, thus people should be following their own GW stores.
Recently, their bullying came back to bite them in the ass after a failed attempt at suing the third-party manufacturer: ChapterHouse Studios; when they refused to back down from GW's threats to sue them for making unauthorized models (specifically Mycetic Spores, the Doom of Malan'tai, and the Parasite of Mortrex), the lawsuit went to court- which GW failed to argue the majority of alleged copyright breaches. Apparently just writing up the rules for a model doesn't give you the sole rights to making that model after all. Undaunted, GW did the next best thing-they removed the offending models from the Tyranid codex, cutting off its nose to spite its face. Way to put the customer first, GeeDubs.
And now there are rumors that GW has been bought by the same corporation who owns Hasbro Toys. Expect "My Little Space Marine: Friendship is HERESY!" to follow if true.
So This Is How The Shit All Began...
So GeeDubs apparently got an idea that, a company that made its name and infrastructure as a wargame hobby company, is actually a collectibles hobby company. This would help make sense of their previous decisions to minimize what you can get at your FLGS, and make much of their lines as web exclusives (and the accompanying £4 million site), as well as extending Citadel modelling and certain questionable modelling decisions that would make sense on paper (but is brimming with shit and FAIL in practice), and the regular price rises. While this all would make sense if they were a collectibles company, nobody but Games Workshop is under the delusion that they are. The good news is that GW can hypothetically survive as a collectibles company, the bad news is under that model, all six of the pure 40k Collectors could collectively shell out just enough to support Alan Bligh and Simon Egan working a business out of a garage. (Don't pretend you didn't know this already.)
This attitude towards one's IP, company history, and misunderstanding of one's own consumer base is now known as the "Games Workshop handstand", or the "fecally incontinent handstand". The reasoning behind it is that one maladjusted asshole is held in a position above the rest of the body, and shit starts to shower all over the whole. In other words, with an executive board pushing a misaimed business model and misapplied corp-think into the whole without being able skillfully shift their target consumer, or without adapting to a model that can support their logic, then profits start to fall. Oh, wait...
The PR¥€£$
In the grim darkness of the near future, there are only price raises.
GW is infamous for their steep prices, and they would have been replaced by a more reasonable company for gaming dominance if their popularity wasn't XBOXHUEG compared to competitors. They have a nasty habit of making prices proportional to how good a model/unit is in game, rather than the actual cost of materials and manufacture. Of course, if we really want to stop the price hikes, /tg/ should probably start a legitimate campaign to give perspective and shine the spotlight on other wargames like Warmachine. Of course, /tg/ can't actually get REAL shit done!
A look into GW's codex-writing processes
For The Lord of the Rings tabletop game: currently on hiatus.
For Warhammer Fantasy: Currently being changed, balance between army books as a guideline. Also of note is that every time Games Workshop creates a nation in Warhammer Fantasy, they follow a three-city formula; one city is the capital (eg; Naggarond, Khemri and Altdorf), one isn't the capital but has a lot of cool things (eg; Clar Karond, Lybaras and Nuln) and one is the butt monkey of cities that the writers neglect and/or shit on (eg; Karond Kar, Quatar and Middenheim).
Actually scratch that, as of 2015, GeeDub have anally raped all decent fluff they have been writing for nearly 35 years. And so begins, the Age of Skubmar
For Warhammer 40,000: Follow the algorithm below.
1) Is the army a Space Marine Army?
- Yes; go to question 3
- No; go to question 2
2) Is the army a human army?
- Yes; Keep them effective as long as they don't surpass Space Marines.
- No; go to question 4
3) Do they fight for the Imperium?
- Yes; Give them a badass update, keep them strong and patch any weaknesses they may have in the crunch.
- No; go to question 4
4) Do they have anything that's good at killing Imperium-aligned Space Marines?
- Yes; Go to question 5
- No; Change the crunch by nerfing popular units and buffing unpopular units with the occasional new units, rules and fluff.
5) Is it a popular faction?
- Yes; Nerf slightly, as in question 4, but keep the army as a whole effective. Buffs are done at the discretion of the writer and can outweigh the nerfs.
- No; NERF THE SHIT OUT OF THE ARMY, ESPECIALLY ANYTHING EFFECTIVE AGAINST SPACE MARINES!
This has been GW's often-used codex-writing process for years. Recently it has been shaken up the exceptions the Eldar and Necrons, who are arguably the most overpowered armies in the game so far, and the Sisters of Battle, who are given the opposite treatment to the rest of the Imperium. And don't forget the Necron Royal Court where one char can have 2+ saves with re-rolls and another can become a C'tan at any given moment. And they have Reanimation Protocols on top of that.
More about
Games Workshop Real Estate section, the site most of the hobbists probably have never ever visited yet may allow you to see GW plans and beliefs. Dead. Another infamous thing GW does is to chop off more and more pages from their website, until nothing seems to remain except their store's new releases page.
And also the Investors Relations, for knowing how they handle the business.
I sent two e-mails to GW. They were both about the prices, one was in my name, one pretending to an investor. To one they didn't respond, to the other they just bullshitted me- try it for yourself.
It is a well kept secret that the Board of Directors of GW are in the same situation as the God-Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40,000. Their defiled corpse-bodies lay dormant upon their Publishing Thrones, maintaining only the smallest semblance of life due to the constant influx of money. It is unknown what would happen if the Board of Directors were allowed to truly die. Some say Games Workshop would collapse in on itself, ceasing the production of all that is good and expensive. Perhaps Games Workshop would be free from the necrotic collar of the Directors' irresistible will, and the company would be free to explore new areas, such as advancing the story of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, or reviving older "specialist" games like Space Hulk and Blood Bowl.(as of November 11, 2015 Games Workshop has announced the creation of a new division called call the Specialist Product Design Studio which is to bring back Blood Bowl, Epic Armageddon, Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic and 'much much more!'. They are also breathing life back into The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit. When this was first announced, it was assumed as a hoax but was confirmed my multiple GW managers around the world.)
Much to the embarassment of the entire rest of the industry, they are the biggest single seller of military miniatures. But these are not scale mini-chures, so modelling neckbeards ignore them and get back to folding 1:35 scale photo-etched hydrogen molecules for their dioramas.
Games Workshop also has a ridiculous hard-on for heavily armored armies, their version of Space Marines (who are also heavily armored) and Empires. Regarding the latter, the go-to human faction in Warhammer Fantasy is simply called the Empire. The other playable human army in Fantasy, Bretonnia (named after Britannia, the ancient title for Roman Britain; a faction based on a mixture of medieval English and French pseudo-history), is currently being neglected by GW. The non-playable human FOR COMMUNISM faction that gets the most attention from GW in WHFB fluff is the EMPIRE (note the pattern) of Cathay (it's ruled by an Emperor and based on ancient China). As for 40k, nearly everyone knows how much favoritism the Imperium gets from GW. We also have the Tau EMPIRE, the Necron EMPIRE, the ancient Eldar EMPIRE, and even Ork EMPIRES (despite the fact that Orks live in tribal "Might Makes Right" societies and also have no concept of elections or hereditary leadership aside from stealing the name of the last ork in charge).
In Warhammer Fantasy GW has designed WF's map to resemble the real world, and have shamelessly made Britain the High Elves (come on, Ulthuan is Atlantis; the WHFB equivalent of Britain is Albion, a land of swamps and tribemen) Then again, North America is Naggaroth (Showing GW had a sense of humour at some point). Not sure what they are trying to say by locating the Wood Elves where Switzerland would be though.
Things GW should do if it wants to survive
- GW understandably is a for-profit business. GW should strive to grow its sales, improve its market share, and try to grow the size of the market itself. Such a strategy would be forward looking, and consistent with the company mission statement to do what it's doing forever. The current strategy of price-gouging is obviously reducing sales, losing market share, and turning away potential future sex partners in the market. The existing customer-base is shrinking from being priced out. Prospective new customers are repelled by the pricing. From a basic financial standpoint, GW needs to commit to growing future sales, even before diving into the minutia of issues below. Fix the pricing.
- Ensure that the wants and needs of the share holders do not overrule the needs of the customer.
- Fire the whole management staff, their obsession with the bottom line is slowly destroying the company.
- Allow the setting to progress and change, even if this involves killing off special characters. As wide and encompassing the 40k universe is, the cracks are growing increasingly apparent with time. (These changes to the setting need not affect the crunch; for example, in the present day point of the Warhammer Fantasy timeline half of the Vampire Counts special characters and half of the Orcs & Goblins characters are as dead as they can be, but you can still use them in the Games. See also the Lord of the Rings models such as Éorl, Gil-galad and Isildur).
- We now have that for Fantasy with The End Times.
- Get over their fucking hard-on for Space Marines and 16th century HRE expies. And every army should get an update in each edition, lest any of them be left behind.
- Do a proper update for the Sisters of Battle.
- Encourage players to build their own armies with cool themes and feature these armies in books and White Dwarf; allowing Games Workshop to save money and at the same time let the players feel like they contributed in some way to the overall fluff.
- They finally did that with their new magazine "Warhammer Visions." (Yep. And that was doubtlessly an excellent decision on their part. Let's hope to see more of that.)
- Stop trying to monopolize things like terrain and game boards. It was a lot more fun and interesting when GW encouraged people to make their own stuff from scratch, but now they seem to think everyone has to have a Citadel Realm of Battle board and use only the plastic terrain kits that are sold at GW. This pisses off all us proper gamers who like to make things that look unique and original. Also, they really should stop selling those stupidly overpriced movement trays for Warhammer, they're cheaper and easier to make using sheets of plasticard and trimmed down sprues! Also, everyone knows "Green Stuff" is "Kneadatite" or simply "Modeling Putty," and that every other hardware company in existence sells it more cheaply than GW does.
- Many players remember the days when paper scenery was included free with issues of White Dwarf and both that and plastic scenery was included with starter sets.
- Stop charging ridiculous prices for cheap and nasty tools with the Citadel brand on them. The £20 novelty flamer airbrush is inferior in every meaningful way to a £5 Silverline. The Citadel Razor Saw with a fixed, low-quality blade costs more than a decent razor saw with interchangeable blades (hell, some places will hook you up with a Tamiya saw with two blades for £10). The "Citadel Hobby Vice" is utterly useless. People do not automatically come to GW for every single thing the hobby requires because they realise GW's idea of service is sticking its dick in their wallet and fucking their credit card to death.
- Cut the production costs, thus reducing prices of their products. This is a good business decision as it would increase volume while retaining profit margins. Lowering prices increases accessibility while also increasing demand, and when you have more customers buying shit at worst you suffer minimal profit loss if you decrease the prices by the right amount.
- Good news, they cut production costs. Bad news, they did NOT pass on the savings to you, the consumer.
- Start advertising. Without the infamous "In the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium there is only WAR!" ad we never would have the term "grimdark". Also promote Warhammer Fantasy more. Without it there would have never been a Warhammer 40k in the first place.
- They're trying that with video games and movies. Now if only the movies could give a non-Creator's-Pet-faction some time in the limelight.
- Support independent retailers. They started as one, after all.
- GW won't support independent retailers. Games Workshop see them as competition to squash if they grow for fear that they'll take GW's customers. Given the state of the Imperium, Games Workshop should learn their lesson.
- Hire more competent writers for both the fluff and the crunch then get rid of the incompetent (and downright Spiritual) ones (with the recent departure of Ward from GW; though I don't hate him as a person we wish he'd left before he did all the damage he's done such as Spiritual Liege and Newcrons). GW itself may not care much about tournaments, but the players certainly do- and consistently poor Codices and updates have driven off quite a few of these competitive players. And it says a LOT that their best fluff writer
- Try to take examples from their competition like Privateer Press and put both the rules and fluff on their site along with selling Codices/Army Books (dunno if this would be good or bad). Also put all their games into indefinite Beta Testing and take in feedbacks from players in order to rapidly update rules and units in order to make them both fun AND competitive (though probably it will put a lot of strain on them in both physical/mental and financial areas).
- But for the people who love good Nid codices; FIRE THE CRUDDACE! He had already destroyed the Tyranids (For the mean time), tried to crush the Space Wolves, most likely hobbled the Dark Eldar and fucked over the 7th edition, making almost no difference to the 6th edition. He is so bad that even Matt Ward's fluff work is starting to look like that of a higher quality in comparison. Although to be fair, considering that Ward made a good High Elves army book and invented a neat Eldar Special Rule, maybe overtime the Cruddace would overcome his Imperial Guard boner and improve on a change.
In Summary
It is the 3rd Millennium. For more than a hundred months Games Workshop has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Nottingham. It is the foremost of wargames by the will of the neckbeards, and master of a million tabletops by the might of their inexhaustible wallets. It is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with business strategies from the early Industrial Revolution Age. It is the Carrion Lord of the wargaming scene for whom a thousand veteran players are sacrificed every day, so that it may never truly die.
Yet even in its deathless state, GW continues its eternal vigilance. Mighty battleforce starter-sets cross the online-store-infested miasma of the internet, the only route between distant countries, their way lit by a draconian retail trade-agreement, the legal manifestation of the GW's will. Vast armies of lawyers give battle in GW's name on uncounted websites. Greatest amongst its soldiers are the Guardians of the IP, the Legal Team, bio-engineered super-assholes. Their comrades in arms are legion: the writing team and countless untested rulebooks, the ever vigilant redshirts, and the writers of White Dwarf, to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from other games, their own incompetence, Based Chinaman - and worse.
To support Games Workshop in such times is to spend untold billions. It is to support the cruelest and most dickish company imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of sales discounts and Warhammer Fantasy Battle, for so much has been dropped, never to be re-published again. Forget the promise of cheaper digital content and caring about the fanbase, for in the GW HQ there is only profit-seeking, Space Marines and Sigmarines. There is no fun amongst the hobby shops, only an eternity of raging and spending, and the laughter of former employees who left GW to join better companies.
And then suddenly...
It was not expected, we couldn't have known, since the resignation of supreme leader Tom Kirby there has started to appear a pattern, sporadic reports of real discounts at Forgeworld and Black Library, and then, in the last days of 2015 it has been revealed that major changes are coming, the sudden resurrection of specialist games, Games Workshop releasing starter sets with real saving, all around the internet neckbeards are discussing and watching, wondering what's going on, perhaps the new guy in charge has decided is time to take some contingencies for the inevitable demise of tabletop gaming with the ever increasing development in 3D printing and the emergence of new alternatives. It seems like the boxes are a replacement for the old Battleforce packs, and while you don't get as many units as the old box, they are cheaper and usually come with a good mix of units to start a small army.
And now, there's an official (as in hosted and ran by the almighty GeeDubs themselves) Blood Bowl tournament going on at Warhammer World on May 21st. Truly these are strange times. Now GW also appears to be preparing to starting selling their product in toy stores (Toys-R-Us Etc.) as well as producing various Warhammer Merchandise such as pillows and journals (For Some Reason). Also now they've made a 40k starter set with simplified rules and all the paint you need to assemble the models. Clearly the sky is falling. (Also they've started making conversion tutorials and stuff, for some reason) 6