Skink
thegraymist
Member
- Messages
- 38
- Likes Received
- 6
- Trophy Points
- 8
GW has held an almost monopoly on the gaming community for a long time. They put wargaming on the map and made it mainstream (so I'm told). They have never needed to listen to their customers and it started off as fun and then evolved into a corporate monster.
I understand commercial interests, they have to make money, and they have to make big money for their shareholders. They aren't doing this for love - that's fair enough. I think the biggest issue is being stuck back in the mindset when they had a monoply. When they were the only decent wargame around (at least when I was 13). They just aren't anymore, there are a lot of good games arising, more miniature companies, even D&D has gone to miniatures and lets face it, more computer and console games too. As was said, raising prices while profits are falling and demand is dropping while competition in both tabletop wargaming and digital gaming is increasing seems counterintuitive to me.
They know their target market 12-16 year olds who give up the hobby after that (for girls and partying no doubt - not that I'm generalising or anything
). They don't care about the rest of us and what they don't reaslise is that older (possibly not much older) gamers influence the younger ones.
In addition, recently in Australia GW won a non-compete contract/agreement [I'm not sure what to call it] where unless you have a storefront you cannot sell GW products online. This caused a friend who runs a gaming store to remove GW products altogether. It will take some time to come into effect but that's GW lawyers bullying small retailers. It goes to show what the culture of the company is and if they don't change with the emerging markets and evolve with the gaming communities... well lets just say there's only so many times you can drop 20 million from your yearly revenue.
I even started buying the GW black spray and I was willing to pay slightly inflated prices because I knew it would be good. But when it reached $28 for something I could buy for less than half that, I had to look elsewhere.
I love the game and hope beyond hopes that they will change because they create great, engaging stories, high quality miniatures and the game is generally really good, but unless they get new management forcing a change of culture, 8th Ed might be our last edition (depending on how close 9th Ed is of course).
I understand commercial interests, they have to make money, and they have to make big money for their shareholders. They aren't doing this for love - that's fair enough. I think the biggest issue is being stuck back in the mindset when they had a monoply. When they were the only decent wargame around (at least when I was 13). They just aren't anymore, there are a lot of good games arising, more miniature companies, even D&D has gone to miniatures and lets face it, more computer and console games too. As was said, raising prices while profits are falling and demand is dropping while competition in both tabletop wargaming and digital gaming is increasing seems counterintuitive to me.
They know their target market 12-16 year olds who give up the hobby after that (for girls and partying no doubt - not that I'm generalising or anything
). They don't care about the rest of us and what they don't reaslise is that older (possibly not much older) gamers influence the younger ones.In addition, recently in Australia GW won a non-compete contract/agreement [I'm not sure what to call it] where unless you have a storefront you cannot sell GW products online. This caused a friend who runs a gaming store to remove GW products altogether. It will take some time to come into effect but that's GW lawyers bullying small retailers. It goes to show what the culture of the company is and if they don't change with the emerging markets and evolve with the gaming communities... well lets just say there's only so many times you can drop 20 million from your yearly revenue.
I even started buying the GW black spray and I was willing to pay slightly inflated prices because I knew it would be good. But when it reached $28 for something I could buy for less than half that, I had to look elsewhere.
I love the game and hope beyond hopes that they will change because they create great, engaging stories, high quality miniatures and the game is generally really good, but unless they get new management forcing a change of culture, 8th Ed might be our last edition (depending on how close 9th Ed is of course).
