If you were in charge of GW now

[limburger 21683xp 1]

I wouldn’t call modern GW soulless … it might not have the same soul it had at the very beginning, but it definitely isn’t as cold as it used to be.

I’ve seen worse companies (in the videogame industry).
Heck … I’ve seen “indie” companies act like total *beeps*

@greyhunter88 : I think all of the companies you mention are chasing market share. It isn’t as obvious and as greedy as the likes of EA do, but it’s there. It may be hidden by the sometimes flashy personalities of their representatives.

I wouldn’t mind it if more people joined our community, provided they bring love for the hobby with them.
It doesn’t reduce the amount of fun I’m having and they may bring in new insights and shake things up.
Kind of how the Nintendo Wii brought in a new type of gamer.

Ain’t nothing wrong with ‘mass market’ product either, because it can makes the rest shine brighter.
The only thing that will do is emphasize that certain aspects of our hobby will remain a niche no matter what.

One could hate McDonalds equivalent in this industry for all eternity, but it won’t remove the fact that there are still places out there that create good products. Communities like OTT can be instrumental in making sure those diamonds shine when we can refrain from acting all elitist because someone dares to like a mass product by an ‘evil’ corporation.

//

I think there’s always the possibility that someone out there can find the trick that makes ‘mass combat fantasy’ more profitable. The Game of Thrones game “A song of fire and ice” could be such a product.

I doubt GW will manage it, because they’ve got successful main lines already.
I think they have too many things that are within their capability, but then we don’t know if their gnomes are working on anything in that area.
I suspect part of the problem is that their current products are 28mm Heroic.
A new scale would be too high risk. I suspect that this is what ‘Adeptus Titanicus’ has the scale of titans it has, because they can use their current design & production tech.

[mecha82Participant 10037xp 0]

In every matter there is always different extremes. In this case there are also those that defend corporations like they own something to those corporations like we often see with video game industry when there are those defending company like Bethesda for releasing buggy and clitchy games and with tabletop industry we have seen people defending GW and dismissing everyone who dares to criticize them as just haters. So really pointing fingers at others doesn’t get us any were considering how niche hobby this really is. After all GW might be big dog but they are big dog in small industry.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 5]

@greyhunter the difference between GW and “the worst Blumhouse movie” of course is that GW’s profits sank massively bottoming out in, I think, 2015.  The evidence that they’re doing something right is not the profits they are making as much as it is the growth they have seen in profits in the last 2-3 years.  They have increased sales massively, so that is evidence that they are doing something right.  They are either winning back old customers, winning new customers or both and they are doing so by selling people something that they want to buy.  If that isn’t doing something right then I really don’t know what is.  And omparing GW’s sales to Corvus Belli or Privateer Press is also an invalid comparison. All three comps have to make enough money to cover their costs, one of which is wages. GW’s wage bill would be, somewhere between 50 and 100 times that of Corvus Belli for example. Overall GW’s costs are higher too so they are absolutely required to sell vastly more stock than either Corvus Belli or Privateer Press to remain solvent

I also wasn’t aware that anyone has said categorically that GW’s product is better or worse than anyone else, neither in terms of rules or models, that’s really your own personal preference.

As for marketing to the largest number, D&D 4 failed because it made massive changes to win over new customers – always a risk as we also saw with Age of Sigmar.  However the difference between the two is that Age of Sigmar was still trying to market, however ineptly, to the same market – wargamers.  D&D 4 tried to win over video gamers and that’s where it lost most of its following.  GW is a large business and they have to sell products in certain volumes in order to survive and that means, simply, that they won’t waste time or resources on products that won’t make a decent return.  And given that the question was “what would you do if you were in charge of Games Workshop”,  I would say that adequately explains why the discussion is so focused on the things GW are likely to do (or not) and has not been about small, indy companies.   But it’s not about selling to the largest audience but pleasing the largest share of a specific audience.  If it were about selling to the largest audience all businesses would be selling food or energy – things that every person needs rather than things that some people want.  Thankfully that’s not the way economics works.

I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect, after 4 years, that maybe some of the butthurt about cancelling WFB would have eased off by now (seriously folks, get some canesten for that).  Most people get over the death of a loved one quicker than that.  Invading a discussion about the direction you would like to see with a load of piss and wind about how Age of Sigmar is the worst decision ever is, in all honesty, likely to attract the contempt it deserves.  You totally have every right to feel any way you want about Warhammer Fantasy Battle or anything else, but air that opinion in public and it’s only reasonable to expect people to give you their thoughts on that, including but not limited to being told to get over it.  Telling people to basically get over it will have precisely zero impact on GW or their sales.  It may or may not cause someone to reassess their opinion, it may or may not cause them to think twice about where they voice it in future.  I don’t really mind either way.  The worst that happens is nothing changes and the same people with the same tired complaints continue to be unhappy.  The best that happens is some of might heed the advice and move on to new and dare I say better games and actually find some happiness.

[limburger 21683xp 3]

I think when in charge of a business you need to be practical, so any ‘fun’ projects need to be limited unless you are literally printing money … and even then you need to be careful, as the market is fickle.

Things tend to go wrong real fast when too many resources are wasted on a product that has very little chance of ever being successful.

That being said … it isn’t a bad idea to spend a limited budget on a ‘hobby’ project as a company. You’re going to need lots of R&D to (play)test new ideas anyway, so one more isn’t going to break the company.

It also wouldn’t be the first time a project failed after a change in management either due to lack of focus (because of ‘not my idea’) or sabotage (if the new management are a bunch of *beeps* ) or a change in vision/strategy (cancel any IP that isn’t in-house development).

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

speaking purely as someone who works for a living, when I compare my job to that of writing games or designing miniatures for a living, don’t nearly all of GW’s projects count as “fun”?

That aside, GW does sort of have a “hobby” department; specialist games.  Sure, we’re yet to see them take a risk on something new rather than something nostalgic, but they’re still “side projects” in the grand scheme of things.

[limburger 21683xp 2]

@onlyonepinman : I’d argue that being forced to be creative isn’t quite as ‘fun’ as it might appear to outsiders. It’s still a job like any other.

The ‘specialist games deparment’ is more like a corporate trick to separate ‘risky’ products from their main lines when needed. A ‘safe space’ for experiments as it were. However that doesn’t quite explain why ‘speed freaks’ was not a ‘specialist games’ products.

[mecha82Participant 10037xp 1]

Usually when something becomes work it stops being fun. I can image it being same for people working on tabletop game industry as well as those working on video game industry. I think that people just want to image that working around they hobby could be fun in order to dream someday making it they job.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 1]

I disagree with you there @mecha82  We have a phrase here in England that goes like this.  Find a way to get paid for doing something you enjoy and you will never work again.  I don’t think anything stops being fun just because it’s also your job.

@limburger I don’t think anyone at GW – or any other company – is being forced to be creative in any way other than they need to provide some kind of tangible output to get paid.  I suspect most people working in the games industry are doing so because they enjoy it.  Speedfreeks wasn’t a specialist game because it was just a miniatures bundle.  It’s not planned to get long term support, just a limited run in order to sell a lot of Ork vehicles.

[limburger 21683xp 1]

I guess “forced” is a bit harsh. It just seems weird to be creative on command as it were.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

I think people who go to work for GW know what they’re getting into and I suspect they get quite a lot of job satisfaction from it, especially the creative teams.

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