Two words! More alcohol! You guys are better the more drunk you are! Jumped the shark? No. They jumped the freakin’ sharks with freakin’ laser beams on their head with some skulls. Here’s what I see. The old guard of designers that made the game good are gone and have been for years all we are left with is this corporate farce attempting to relive old glories they aren’t capable of achieving. They need to get people passionate about the game not the price point to stop this downward spiral.
I voted no, because while I do agree they are a hot mess at the moment, I don’t see them as in an irreversible decline. Literally every criticism you all leveled at them is fair, but with the right team leading them they could turn it around. It comes down to whoever said they are wasting their IP. They have all the tools at their disposal to DOMINATE if they got their heads out of their asses. Whether they ever will get their shit together…I’m not holding my breath. But I think that once they hit the bottom someone will take over/buy out the IP and start making decisions that actually make fucking sense.
I used to sort of fear the idea of Hasbro buying them out, but honestly at this point when they are charging $50 for supplement rules…how much goddamn worse can it get? Don’t answer that.
While I think that GW have jumped the shark, I also think it’s possible for them to un-jump it. It would take a lot of time and effort on their part to readdress the company’s direction, how they treat and deal with their customers, and deciding whether or not they’re actually a minis-first company.
There will always be the perpetual cynics, but I can see them winning back some old fans (and a bunch of new ones in the process) if they did. Sadly, the odds of that happening with a publicly-traded company are pretty slim unless there’s a massive drop off in sales.
Well of course they have! If you haven’t noticed every new GW release has at least one special character jumping off some piece of rubble. What are the odds we will see a Commisar jumping of a tank hatch?
Not only has GW jumped the shark but they’ve been trying to tell us all for the last few years!
GW jumped the shark. My reason for this is not the pricing, latest sculpts or an social media bullshit. Its their books and rules. They suck and I think they cannot fix them, even if they wanted. How should they fix their stuff? Declare dataslates for illegal? Stealth-Update their ebooks and drown their printed codices in pages of FAQ?
Either a lot of people will be unhappy with the rule or unhappy that their books are outdated. I simply see no good way for GW to get out of this. They will loose badly and for quite some time. Until they can allow to bring a new edition out, in 2-4 years.
You guys hit the nail on the head. GW has completely lost touch with their community and now their riding their Bebop truck as it plummets flaming into the ground. They seem to think that they can sit on their self-proclaimed laurels of “best miniatures producer”, and completely disregard that they have legitimate competition.
Their practice of hiking prices to combat loss of sales only works for so long, before you’re trying to sell an infantry box to one guy for $500. But GW seems content to get to that point before rethinking their long term business strategies.
I voted “yes” for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that the rules seem to be getting worse, not better, and it is in service to models and special rules that are being added without anyone wanting or needing them (as you all have said).
The question for me, though, is when do I stop watching Happy Days? I love my Empire army, and despite having a fairly large bunch of painted models, I have some cool plans for them (and my other armies). The “fuck it” moment just isn’t coming for me, even though I have lost all hope for the actual game and the company. It doesn’t seem like any of you have actually hit the “fuck it” moment either, and that’s is why we all keep voicing our frustration while still remaining invested. The real question seems to be “what would it take for you to reach your ‘fuck it’ moment.”
Ilan, do what a bunch of us have done here in NZ: take your Warhammer army and use it for Kings of War instead. Most armies cross over pretty easily, and the rest can be used as counts-as forces. I took my mid-sized Empire army and turned it into almost 3,000 points in KoW, much more that you’ll need for most games.
Oh, and the Kings of War rules and army lists are free.
I play half a dozen games a year, if that. Does that mean I’ve met that point? I think it does, even though I’ve kept my shit and occassionally bought new stuff.
But then I’m the kind of gamer games companies hate. I’ve got a lot of models already and I don’t have a lot of disposable cash these days.
GW is not declining in quality.
Many of the releases over the past couple of years have been really good (wraithblades, valkyries, vanguard marines, stalker tank, etc.) I also like the change back to larger codexes, and the GW youtube channel improved slightly (have you seen the knight painting tutorial?)
Sure plenty of GW’s recent actions have been colossally stupid (terrible Sisters of Battle release), several of the new models have been abominations, and many models aren’t being redone when they badly need it (warp spiders.)
GW basically sprays and prays with lots of releases, and enough of their shots hit the target to count. I was very happy with the inquisition codex, so I’ll just wait and see what happens with deathwatch, arbites, and genestealer cults.
To me it all boils down to their horrible handling of digital rules. While this could EASILY be GW’s salvation, their sales model, which is apparently to charge ever increasing prices for a product with almost no overhead cost to produce, as well as treating the rules much as video games have treated in-game purchases (i.e. paying extra for stuff that should have been included in the main game) is what is truly turning most people off. Either a person is pissed at their ridiculous digital pricing, or annoyed at the piecemeal nature of how they are releasing things now. Or both.
We as gamers bitch about everything that GW do, the internet gives us a mouth piece and forum to do this bitching which we never had back in the 90s (have been playing since 92), I think we as gamers are starting to reach a critical mass of whinging.
The reality is that GW are releasing miniatures faster than ever before and they are better quality than they have ever been (knight titans, new scions etc), some of the designs are not to some peoples liking but the miniatures are pretty much perfect these days and go together with almost no issues (compared to say the old land speeder plastic kit). This makes them the best miniature producer in the world and there is not another company within a mile of them on this side of things (privateer press/ spartan games are okay but they are light years behind GW in quality).
They are giving us more rules than ever before and more options than ever before, and lets be honest we wanted this, we asked them for more specific rules and things to tell our armies apart (mini dexes etc), I love that I can play a Sentinels of terra list or a Clan Raukaan list, or a Dark Angel list or a Blood Angel list when it comes to space marines because I remember a time when there really wasn’t anything different about all the space marines running around, just the way you painted them. Sure the current rule set is probably not the best set of rules they have produced but this is a living game, it will get moved into a new edition with new rules and fixes.
And I am really sorry but this has never been a game for comp players, yes you can play comp but the number of people who are in this game for the hobby aspect or the fluff side of things out number the comp players by a massive margin, comp players just seem to be the most vocal of the 40k gamers. I would prefer to see new models and dexes come out left, right and centre than have GW turn their time to trying to balance such a huge game for a whiny minority of comp players. I play regularly and it is a damn fun game between mates over a few beers, this is what it always has been and I hope it stays this way, the moment you take your little toy soldiers too seriously is the moment you need to put them down and take a break.
So no they haven’t put on their water skis and leather jackets and gone shark jumping at all, I think gamers as a group have done this by taking things a bit too seriously.
Jaded Gamercast 
Two words! More alcohol! You guys are better the more drunk you are! Jumped the shark? No. They jumped the freakin’ sharks with freakin’ laser beams on their head with some skulls. Here’s what I see. The old guard of designers that made the game good are gone and have been for years all we are left with is this corporate farce attempting to relive old glories they aren’t capable of achieving. They need to get people passionate about the game not the price point to stop this downward spiral.
I voted no, because while I do agree they are a hot mess at the moment, I don’t see them as in an irreversible decline. Literally every criticism you all leveled at them is fair, but with the right team leading them they could turn it around. It comes down to whoever said they are wasting their IP. They have all the tools at their disposal to DOMINATE if they got their heads out of their asses. Whether they ever will get their shit together…I’m not holding my breath. But I think that once they hit the bottom someone will take over/buy out the IP and start making decisions that actually make fucking sense.
I used to sort of fear the idea of Hasbro buying them out, but honestly at this point when they are charging $50 for supplement rules…how much goddamn worse can it get? Don’t answer that.
While I think that GW have jumped the shark, I also think it’s possible for them to un-jump it. It would take a lot of time and effort on their part to readdress the company’s direction, how they treat and deal with their customers, and deciding whether or not they’re actually a minis-first company.
There will always be the perpetual cynics, but I can see them winning back some old fans (and a bunch of new ones in the process) if they did. Sadly, the odds of that happening with a publicly-traded company are pretty slim unless there’s a massive drop off in sales.
Well of course they have! If you haven’t noticed every new GW release has at least one special character jumping off some piece of rubble. What are the odds we will see a Commisar jumping of a tank hatch?
Not only has GW jumped the shark but they’ve been trying to tell us all for the last few years!
GW jumped the shark. My reason for this is not the pricing, latest sculpts or an social media bullshit. Its their books and rules. They suck and I think they cannot fix them, even if they wanted. How should they fix their stuff? Declare dataslates for illegal? Stealth-Update their ebooks and drown their printed codices in pages of FAQ?
Either a lot of people will be unhappy with the rule or unhappy that their books are outdated. I simply see no good way for GW to get out of this. They will loose badly and for quite some time. Until they can allow to bring a new edition out, in 2-4 years.
You guys hit the nail on the head. GW has completely lost touch with their community and now their riding their Bebop truck as it plummets flaming into the ground. They seem to think that they can sit on their self-proclaimed laurels of “best miniatures producer”, and completely disregard that they have legitimate competition.
Their practice of hiking prices to combat loss of sales only works for so long, before you’re trying to sell an infantry box to one guy for $500. But GW seems content to get to that point before rethinking their long term business strategies.
I voted “yes” for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that the rules seem to be getting worse, not better, and it is in service to models and special rules that are being added without anyone wanting or needing them (as you all have said).
The question for me, though, is when do I stop watching Happy Days? I love my Empire army, and despite having a fairly large bunch of painted models, I have some cool plans for them (and my other armies). The “fuck it” moment just isn’t coming for me, even though I have lost all hope for the actual game and the company. It doesn’t seem like any of you have actually hit the “fuck it” moment either, and that’s is why we all keep voicing our frustration while still remaining invested. The real question seems to be “what would it take for you to reach your ‘fuck it’ moment.”
Ilan, do what a bunch of us have done here in NZ: take your Warhammer army and use it for Kings of War instead. Most armies cross over pretty easily, and the rest can be used as counts-as forces. I took my mid-sized Empire army and turned it into almost 3,000 points in KoW, much more that you’ll need for most games.
Oh, and the Kings of War rules and army lists are free.
I play half a dozen games a year, if that. Does that mean I’ve met that point? I think it does, even though I’ve kept my shit and occassionally bought new stuff.
But then I’m the kind of gamer games companies hate. I’ve got a lot of models already and I don’t have a lot of disposable cash these days.
GW is not declining in quality.
Many of the releases over the past couple of years have been really good (wraithblades, valkyries, vanguard marines, stalker tank, etc.) I also like the change back to larger codexes, and the GW youtube channel improved slightly (have you seen the knight painting tutorial?)
Sure plenty of GW’s recent actions have been colossally stupid (terrible Sisters of Battle release), several of the new models have been abominations, and many models aren’t being redone when they badly need it (warp spiders.)
GW basically sprays and prays with lots of releases, and enough of their shots hit the target to count. I was very happy with the inquisition codex, so I’ll just wait and see what happens with deathwatch, arbites, and genestealer cults.
To me it all boils down to their horrible handling of digital rules. While this could EASILY be GW’s salvation, their sales model, which is apparently to charge ever increasing prices for a product with almost no overhead cost to produce, as well as treating the rules much as video games have treated in-game purchases (i.e. paying extra for stuff that should have been included in the main game) is what is truly turning most people off. Either a person is pissed at their ridiculous digital pricing, or annoyed at the piecemeal nature of how they are releasing things now. Or both.
I voted no on the poll and here is why:
We as gamers bitch about everything that GW do, the internet gives us a mouth piece and forum to do this bitching which we never had back in the 90s (have been playing since 92), I think we as gamers are starting to reach a critical mass of whinging.
The reality is that GW are releasing miniatures faster than ever before and they are better quality than they have ever been (knight titans, new scions etc), some of the designs are not to some peoples liking but the miniatures are pretty much perfect these days and go together with almost no issues (compared to say the old land speeder plastic kit). This makes them the best miniature producer in the world and there is not another company within a mile of them on this side of things (privateer press/ spartan games are okay but they are light years behind GW in quality).
They are giving us more rules than ever before and more options than ever before, and lets be honest we wanted this, we asked them for more specific rules and things to tell our armies apart (mini dexes etc), I love that I can play a Sentinels of terra list or a Clan Raukaan list, or a Dark Angel list or a Blood Angel list when it comes to space marines because I remember a time when there really wasn’t anything different about all the space marines running around, just the way you painted them. Sure the current rule set is probably not the best set of rules they have produced but this is a living game, it will get moved into a new edition with new rules and fixes.
And I am really sorry but this has never been a game for comp players, yes you can play comp but the number of people who are in this game for the hobby aspect or the fluff side of things out number the comp players by a massive margin, comp players just seem to be the most vocal of the 40k gamers. I would prefer to see new models and dexes come out left, right and centre than have GW turn their time to trying to balance such a huge game for a whiny minority of comp players. I play regularly and it is a damn fun game between mates over a few beers, this is what it always has been and I hope it stays this way, the moment you take your little toy soldiers too seriously is the moment you need to put them down and take a break.
So no they haven’t put on their water skis and leather jackets and gone shark jumping at all, I think gamers as a group have done this by taking things a bit too seriously.
PS: Love the show