Games Workshop

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Games Workshop used to be good. See Beakie, Rogue Trader and Talisman.

Games Workshop's typical meeting board

They started out making shit that you could use in other publishers games, and printing American RPGs up in jolly olde Angleterre. Soon they made a wargame and a few board games and people began to take them seriously as something other than a magazine publisher.

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It is a well kept secret that the Board of Directors of GW are in the same situation as the God-Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40,000. Their defiled corpse-bodies lay dormant upon their Publishing Thrones, maintaining only the smallest semblance of life due to the constant influx of money. It is unknown what would happen if the Board of Directors were allowed to truly die. Some say Games Workshop would collapse in on itself, ceasing the production of all that is good and expensive. Perhaps Games Workshop would be free from the necrotic collar of the Directors' irresistible will, and the company would be free to explore new areas, such as advancing the story of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, or reviving older "specialist" games like Space Hulk and Blood Bowl.

History

The Age of Munchkins

After the awesomeness of Rogue Trader at the dawn of time, Games Workshop came out with Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000, the latter normally called Second Edition. Both systems were built around small units of infantry supporting ridiculously munchkinized special characters with complicated rules and wargear and appropriately pricey lead models, but at this stage Games Workshop actually cared somewhat about customers; models were made in plastic or wallet-friendly, Roman-Empire-collapsing lead, game sets included servicable army lists and collections of miniatures, and paints were provided in 20ml pots, later 17.5ml. This switch was perhaps the first sign of the next age.

At some point it was determined that the stock army lists weren't enough, and so Army Books (for Warhammer) and Codex Books (for 40K) began to come out, each bringing new models and rules into the game. The last round of these for 40K (Codex: Tyranids in particular) tended to make the army ridiculously overpowered and make everyone else want a new Codex to rectify the balance. Perhaps the ultimate example of Second Edition philosophy was the last book, Codex: Assassins, which consisted of nothing but four hideously powerful special characters.

One notable aspect of this period was that Games Workshop hated trees, and would thus include several million cards in every boxed set if given the slightest provocation. Some entire games (Doom of the Eldar, Battle for Armageddon, Horus Heresy) came out in this period which consisted of nothing but a board and lots of high-density card counters to lose down the back of the sofa or inside the dog.

The Age of Stealing Your Money

Sometime in the run-up to Third Edition it was decided that models should switch from toddler-murdering lead to safe, pointy pewter (or "white metal" as GW insisted on calling it). This led to a 25% cross-board increase in all metal mini costs, even those ordered through Citadel's back catalog. At this point, it seems, something clicked in the heads of GW's management; they had just made a ton more money without actually doing anything. Perhaps they could do that again.

Third Edition 40K and the new Warhammer soon came around, both reducing the dominance of single munchkin characters in favour of large armies, conveniantly meaning players had to buy far more models. Then along came the fucking screw-tops, and proof that any pretense of caring about the customer had been cast aside.

The "problem" with the older paintpot designs was they actually kept paint usable for a long time; while the fliptops suffered from shit hinges and opening tabs which would both break after about four uses, they were good for years of storage. Obviously this was no good to GW, and so a new pot was designed which would gunk up its own thread and either glue itself shut forever or prevent an airtight seal forming after a couple of uses. Apparently not realising that any other company existed that made model paints, GW also raised the price of these new and terrible things. It was also around this point that photographs of the 'Eavy Metal studio started to vanish from the pages of White Dwarf (along with all other content that could be considered useful for anything at all) since they kept forgetting to hide all their non-Citadel gear for photoshoots, even though everyone had known for years that the painters didn't "mix Snot Green with a little Chaos Black" to get a shade that was in Tamiya or Vallejo's stock range.

Prices began to ramp up ridiculously as GW realised they could charge whatever the hell they liked and people would still pay; while GW was never particularly cheap, their chunky kits ended up in the same price bracket as top-quality scale miniatures by other companies; today, a Citadel Leman Russ (a 95-part kit entirely in plastic) costs about the same as a Dragon M1A2 Abrams (an 817-part multimedia kit including 98 in etched brass and a turned metal gun barrel). At some point, someone remembered that back in Second Edition days they actually had people willing to pay for gigantically expensive, limited-edition lead Thunderhawk Gunships. To hit this niche of "people with more money than sense," Forge World was created; all you had to do was get mom and dad to sign that second mortgage and stop being so damn selfish and a 40K scale Titan would be yours.

The Fall of Warhammer

It's finally fucking happened. As of May 11th, 2011, Games-Workshop's new terms of use restricts sales of all of their products to the European Union, although there are a couple of countries (such as Norway and Switzerland) that are geographically within Europe but not in the EU that can still be sold to. Obviously, this means that GW's english-speaking customers outside the EU - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the US, as well as customers in other countries who are fans of their products can no longer obtain them through FLGS or online wholesalers (Actually, I think this is incorrect. I believe it just means they can't order online from outside their country but needs reference). (It IS incorrect. It only applies to online stores. FLGS can continue to buy and sell GW products at their normal prices).

So enjoy spending 30-80 dollars on shipping for your order, which can no longer have free shipping for bulk, since you're now ordering international - if you can even order the fucking things at all in your region. Oh, and they spiked the prices another 10-15% for most models.

Additionally, all metal models are being discontinued, to be replaced with much more expensive Resin kits. Unlike the Polystyrene kits, the Resin kits are loaded with carcinogens. And they are actually much, much cheaper to produce than the pewter models because plastic is a hell of a lot cheaper than metal. And they also break fairly easily so that all the little ten year old Smurf players have to buy new ones when they snap them in half. So essentially, Games Workshop not only ruined the quality of their models, they jacked up the prices and made it nearly impossible for anyone outside EU to obtain it. Kinda like going from fine French wine to your corner-store cheap beer.....and the beer is more expensive than the wine. Yes, we're also wondering how much more retarded GW can get.

Because Games-Workshop fucking hates you, about the only way this could be made worse is if GW decided to forcefully shove a RAPEX onto your dick each and every time you placed an order, and even that's debatable.

Games Workshop have sat pretty at the top of the miniature wargames shit-heap for many years and have abused this position to increase their own profits. However, fortunately for the long suffering gamer alternatives are emerging. Privateer Press for example produce the games Warmachine and Hordes and offers cheaper models and starter sets. In the market for wargames Privateer is rapidly emerging as a viable challenger to GW's monopoly.

Also worthy of note is Mantic Games who produce Kings of War, a fantasy battle game in a similar vein to Warhammer. The rules system was even written by former GW man Alessio Cavatore and its fast, fluid and a lot more fun than Warhammer. The company is pioneering the use of plastic-resin alloy (or 'restic') as a cost effective alternative to pewter. Oh, and equivalent plastic models cost about HALF what GW charge (e.g. GW High Elf Spearmem (16 models) - £20, Mantic Games Elf Spearmen (20 models) - £13.99).

One can only hope that these new upstarts will beat down GWs monopolistic hold on the wargame market.

to do

add moar shit

LOWER THEIR FUCKING PRICES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH ABOUT THAT...HAAHAHA FAGGOT

Stop trying to monopolise things like terrain and game boards. It was a lot more fun and interesting when GW encouraged people to make their own stuff from scratch, but now they seem to think everyone has to have a Citadel Realm of Battle board and use only the plastic terrain kits that are sold at GW. This pisses off all us proper gamers who like to make things that look unique and orginal. Also, they really should stop selling those stupidly overpriced movement trays for warhammer, theyre cheaper and easier to make using sheets of plasticard and trimmed down sprues! Also, everyone knows "Green Stuff" is "Kneadatite" and that every other company in existence sells it more cheaply than GW does.

Stop charging ridiculous prices for cheap and nasty tools with the Citadel brand on them. The £20 novelty flamer airbrush is inferior in every meaningful way to a £5 Silverline. The Citadel Razor Saw with a fixed, low-quality blade costs more than a decent razor saw with interchangable blades (hell, some places will hook you up with a Tamiya saw with two blades for £10). The "Citadel Hobby Vice" is utterly useless. People do not automatically come to GW for every single thing the hobby requires because they realise GW's idea of service is sticking its dick in their wallet and fucking their credit card to death.

UPDATE OLDER ARMIES LIKE NECRONS AND SISTERS OF BATTLE INSTEAD OF JUST CONSTANTLY UPDATING ALL THE SPACE MARINES FOR CHRISSAKE- YOU'D HAVE MORE PEOPLE BUYING MORE ARMIES MAKING YOU MORE WEALTHY. I MEAN GODDAMN, HOW MANY FLAVORS OF SMURFS CAN PEOPLE POSSIBLY WANT? INCREASINGLY FEW IF THE SALES FIGURES HAVE BEEN ANY FUCKING INDICATION. MAYBE GAMES-WORKSHOP JUST HATES MONEY.

Cut the production costs and therefore prices of their products. This is a good business decision as it would increase volume while retaining profit margins.

MOAR PLASTIC MODELS!!!!

KICK MATT WARD IN THE BALLS AND KICK HIM HARD

In conclusion, FUCK YOU GAMES WORKSHOP!!!

See Also

• Rage
• Casting
• Heresy
• C.S. Goto
• Matthew Ward
• Black Library
• Citadel Miniatures
• Forge World