I stumbled upon a series of video's on Youtube where fan's generally talk about the current financial situation of Games-Workshop, their gripes with the company and do they think the company will be around in the next few years. I've tried to do some more research into this and gathered a few opinions, so no here are my own.
My thoughts:
Games-Workshop has basically told us that they are miniature production focused, only making the best miniatures and that anything else is secondary. It makes sense given how freely they've become with selling their gaming licences, though I don't think their view is entirely good. So let's start by focusing on their focused on, the miniatures.
Are the miniatures good? Well, yes. For the most part, many of the miniatures are nice to look at and now that they are removing Finecast, the miniatures produced are now lacking the production damage. Not all are good, a few can easily be found in the Fantasy Chaos Warriors section (Forsaken, Slaughterbrute, etc) and they can't/won't produce really any female models beyond Elves/Eldar and Sisters of Battle. It becomes more of a problem when you take price into account, which brings us to the next question: Are they worth the price they're charged for? Yes and No. OK, best to give some examples here. So for single miniatures (like those of the HQ/Lords/Heroes) that are on foot, I feel a price around $26-$28AU is an acceptable price. These miniatures are going to be a standout and tend to have more detail then a rank-and-file, so I can accept that (mounted models should cost between $5 - $15AU more depending on the mount). Core and Troop packs should be priced on a suitable size unit within the $40-$50AU (though given that you need lots of these guys now days means I'd prefer they be cheaper or that they put more in the unit box). Special/Elite/Fast choice options are harder to price, but I would prefer they only cost slightly more then the Core/Troop options. Rares I guess should cost slightly more then special, but unless it's a massive monster they shouldn't go beyond the $70AU mark. As it stands, I feel that some models are over priced for what you get. I will throw in the rulebooks/armybooks/codexes in too. A price rise of $40AU plus was not asked for, nor did we ask for hardback covers (and those who did ask for hardback never asked for a $40AU plus increase). Again, I don't like the current pricing.
They only sell miniatures because of their games, so things like the Lore and rules are important. For me I feel Lore is important, given that the more interesting and diverse, the more people will want to paint and convert models to work with it. Rules are good, but for me the only thing I want them to really fix is to make up their mind when it comes to what can be in a unit (see Rat-Ogre unit who many Packmasters? problem in my army list post below). I do agree that people do want to make it a competitive game, but it was also suggested that a simple list of limitations for competitions could be added and that's that problem is resolved. Again, rules don't need to change much and one can add new miniatures in through rules that are on par with similar models in the slot and Lore that has them in through discovery or through magical/scientific advancement.
Their product isn't very inviting for new customers too and again, this is mostly due to pricing. One such video pointed out that most games are 2,000pts +, there aren't (or poorly done) rules for smaller games and that there isn't any starter sets for armies themselves and I have to agree. A set containing a Hero and two Core/HQ and two Troop options (minimum option to play a game) would be great. As it stands the main rules cost between $100-$140AU and the armybook/codex costs $83AU so just getting the rules just to play your chosen army is very expensive, so a starter set of say $60-$65AU makes it more affordable entry, better if they through in one of those two rule books in a simpler (no lore, pics) form. If you want people to keep purchasing your products, you need to get them into the products first.
I also agree that they need to bring back the specialist games. You already have the rules, just make a few changes that fans have fixed/added to make the game more balanced and start selling. If the models are made similar to your main games, then you will sell more. I also thought this is, bring back the old White Dwarf. This new weekly version (along with the disastrous Warhammer Visions) just doesn't have the good stuff we use to collect them for.
For me, there's nothing wrong with a company making a profit, but understanding the customers wants is also very important. I feel Games-Workshop can pull through, but I feel there may be a serious over hall may need to occur in order to achieve this. Don't get me wrong, I've said multiple times that I love the product, I love the Lore and would love for it to continue, but in these current times of financial struggles, something must give and we may not like what could happen.
I'm sure there's more, but I'll update it later when I have more time to reflect on this.
No comments:
Post a Comment