This is possibly one of the most thoughtful and truthful articles I have ever read on this subject, perhaps because I agree with everything written here on an emotional level, I have been in this hobby for over half my life Idon’t want to see GW slide further away from us, I love the hobby and I’m sick of ragging on the company for generally cocking up the hobby I love. I feel there is coming a point where my love-hate relationship will become toxic.
Please read this Im linking this here in the hopes that it will get some of the folks that come here thinking.
Is the Imperium a metaphor for the Games Workshop?
If you agree ,please re-post this on your blog or wherever , my ultimate hope is that someone at GW might , just maybe possibly see this , connect the dots and make some small move towards positive change.
It has got me thinking, so if I can find time in my stupidly tight painting schedule I intend to to a response article on the thoughts and feeling his article has triggered.
I hope you are all good folks ,
Laters, pain-tin to do ….
Damn that is an epically good article (and long too :D).
Basically perfectly sums up the GWS situation. I mean I love my eldar (well I can’t play them – so DE for now) but they really are just driving the business into the ground.
What is sad is that most consumers could tell them how to fix their problems, its all basic common sense, and they are blindly forging away in the wrong direction.
Yeah, pretty much , a few of us could tell them in 20 mins what we want and how to fix things, ultimately they would MAKE MORE MONEY ?!?!?
It does boggle the mind
you should follow the comment thread on there too , some good stuff filtering through.
Heya, thanks for the link. I didn’t expect it to hint such a raw nerve with people. Clearly its too long for some and for others its expressing a view that they just don’t agree with and that’s fine!!! Not everyone can agree and hell I’ll freely admit I’m probably in the minority but I was asked by some people to post how I really feel about the GW.
Honestly I think there is a large games workshop employee presence on the web who always disagree with any kind of criticism of the company.
I mean some of the stuff I hear trying to defend GWS is just utter garbage, and yet it appears all over the net.
GWS certainly don’t seem to want to protect their image in any legitimate ways, but getting staff to defend their company online? Would not be suprising.
The legitimate people trying to defend GWS…. do they realise how much better the hobby could be with a little input and feedback from players. Not to mention how many more people would be playing, making the whole gaming system far more enjoyable.
I think there is a real elitest attitude to a small percentage of players, the “if you can’t afford it, shove off” kind of deal, which is really sad since the game succeeds and fails on its community.
Plus the people like that seem to be the ones who don’t actually last long, they buy several armies, rub them in peoples faces then disappear quickly.
The simple fact is that GW has proactively and decisively crushed most of the affordable alternative games which have come out in the last 15 years. Anyone remember Warzone or Chronopia?
In a hobby with a real lack of competition within the hobby, with the notable exception of Privateer Press, GW has the ability to determine price point. Not the market. I know many will argue that ‘if you can’t afford it and no one buys it, then GW will lower the price’. This would be true in a large open, mulch-competitor venue, not the insular micro-world that is Sci-Fi 28mm table-top gaming. It is not much different than gas for you car. Everyone who is affected pays the price. Some will argue, ‘then don’t drive’. But you already have the car and have a lot of time invested in maintenance over the past 20 years. Sell your car, regardless about how much you enjoy driving and take public transportation (play a video game). I am lucky that I already have more GW models than I can build, paint and play with for the next 20 years. This is just my 2 cents.
It’s the price point thing that bugs me, how many people have been priced out before they ever started ? Wages have not really risen in over ten years, once apon atime things could be bought for pocket money, its always been expensive, but some units cost what you could buy an army for (beasts/court) I’m not sure GW has any focus on customer service, feedback and retention at all.
Did you know fiat own ferrari, why is that ? Same reason Vdub owns a bunch of higher end marques…
Am sad as all posts like this and above should largely not exist, rewind to the mid to late 90’s and there was none of this, my local GW was always rammed on weekends and holidays and had a group of mostly cool cats for staff. Interestingly the cabnets were much better back then and were a point of pride for any given store, stores were almost kinda rated by the quality of the models therein.
I must say the models these days are mostly excellent, the plastics go from strength to strength, island of blood was possibly the best boxed game of all time (imo) in terms of what came in the box, however as the models improve the rules and background get worse, 8th edition is sadly hammered shite.
I think i’m rambling so I’ll stop there, will do an article at some point.
Well here i am again. Your Blog has just so much to offer, Even though i did not totally agree with what FG sad. I too would love to see more contact between costumers and buissnes, even though i really can’t complain. My stormanager(i come from Germany) is going to GD UK and he’ll hopefully bring me back a tantalus, now that is costumer Service 😉 but i know, that its Not like that everywhere, but on the topic of contact, aren’t the FAQ and erratas done in some Forum or so? I remember that some folks have been meantiond in them, but i could be wrong.
On anorher topic, that i read, i think in the comments was the prices in NewZ and AUS. Thats pretty hard, can’t argue with that.
Anyhow, to come back to the Imperium and GW, i think it fitts quite well, even thou i think that you, FG, have the eyes of a traitor, just seeing bad in everything that is GW.
I Read your article about dreadfleet and there i was confirmed, as i think some things where just to over the top. But thats stuff for an article, for a blog.
And as i think, i’m some sort of an imperial preacher, wondering around in the outer reaches where you meat strange xenos, the tainted of chaos or just some Lost souls, i should start debating with them, to show them therer errors and to find mine.
(well and to do some modelling and painting and tactics and… XD )
So, thanks to Frontlinie Gamer and Sorrowshard, im starting a blog(soon)
*oh No!* – screams the World Wide Web
@Crazy_Irish, I don’t want the world to agree with me. I was hoping for some people coming back with well reasoned rebuttals and I’m sure some will. I’m NOT a GW hater, I love much of the stuff they do, the place my opinions are coming from is a sad frustrated place. I’m actually meeting up with Sorrowshard soon (we kinda know each other) so I’m hoping to chat with him some more about hobby stuff!!! Cheers for taking the time to read it.
Great article. The metaphor could also be used in looser terms: GW = grimdark. In the game setting, grimdark means there basically is no hope for anything better. Nobody seems to be having a good time in any part of the Imperium. Everyone is basically expected to die for the Emperor.
And that’s what upsets the GW fanbase. Have they given us hope for something better? I don’t think so. Yes, the models keep getting better, but at a cost that I can no longer convince new players (fully employed adults) to try the game. And where are the iPhone apps, the living rule sets, and the cover art that matches what you can find on DeviantArt?
Is there hope for the future? Yes, because as your article states, the competition is there now. Long live competition!
I didn’t think you for a GW hater, ist’s just that a broken heart can let you see things a little different, as does feeling good about it (love/GW) lets you overlook things, that others, like you, do see.
And i didn’t get the Impression, that you wanted to teach the world, i just think that there are enough lads out there making a good point, about sertain things that go wrong in this buissenes, and i hardly see anyone moderat around, taking up the debat AND showing the community, that not all the raging is nessessary.
The debate is nessessary, but there have to be poeple on both sides and so far i have not found a blogger that jumped into the trenches to disscuss the claims made against GW. I’m hopfully one of them.
I hop this does not sound like a decleration of war XD it really isn’t. I just would like to add my views to the disscussion, as i think they could be usefull.
@Crazy_Irish not at all, I’ve just posted on my blog a way forward for the GW, my way forward if you will. Mybe its all crazy pie in the sky nonsense but its what I think they should do now because I really do think the two main sides of the Games Workshop are throttling each other right now. They need to be run as two separate businesses and stop all this incest and nepotism its not healthy for either business function. I have myself written articles defending GW. Ironically about the move to Finecast before it happened and secondly about the decision to block European traders shipping to Aus and NZD… although it wasn’t too vigorous I just tried to see it from their point of view. Send me a link when you get your blog up and running and I’ll subscribe.
maybe I’m missing soehmting, but it clearly looks like the first guy fumbles for a card key in his right pocket, takes it out and swipes it. Then they just stroll in. Why not just check the security computer to see who came in then? Was it a stolen key or is this an inside job?Neither of these guys look like the guy in the iSight photo, though that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. They could have given it away or sold it. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but soehmting is fishy here.