10th Edition: GW's Target Demographic

[Helias_Tancred]

They target adults with the means to buy their fairly expensive hobby, especially educated professionals and/or professional trades folk who make the level of income to afford their products on a larger scale. I worked for GW. I Was told who the hobby is for and who it is not for. Teens and kids, unless they have parents with deep pockets, the hobby is not geared for in terms of being able to buy into. Some 16 or 17 year old, still in high school working 20 to 25 hours a week at McDonalds while paying for his car insurance (what Mom and Dad required for buying him a car), nah. I saw this as a former HS teacher, my students loved my models, but couldn't buy into it t their ages. 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by Eilio Tiberius

[Schurge]

So... A thought on teens being the target.

 

What got me into Warhammer was my dad bringing home a White Dwarf when I was 12 or 13 from an overseas deployment. I didn't end up owning any Warhammer until I was 17 or 18 when I bought Battle for Skull Pass with money from a summer job, but starting in college I spent a lot of money.

 

My parents didn't have Warhammer money... And my father had a middle class income.

 

White Dwarf as a marketing device worked though and I kept that interest for a long time until I could start buying my own stuff.

 

I am very clearly no longer part of the target audience... No desire to continue beating that horse.

[MegaVolt87]

6 hours ago, Schurge said:

So... A thought on teens being the target.

 

What got me into Warhammer was my dad bringing home a White Dwarf when I was 12 or 13 from an overseas deployment. I didn't end up owning any Warhammer until I was 17 or 18 when I bought Battle for Skull Pass with money from a summer job, but starting in college I spent a lot of money.

 

My parents didn't have Warhammer money... And my father had a middle class income.

 

White Dwarf as a marketing device worked though and I kept that interest for a long time until I could start buying my own stuff.

 

I am very clearly no longer part of the target audience... No desire to continue beating that horse.

 

I can somewhat relate to this. A few differences-

 

I had an older cousin who had 2nd Ed UM, was too young to "get it". Grabbed the WD instead of a Nintendo magazine (anti videogame parents, restricted screen time etc). Asked for cash for birthdays and Christmas, all straight to the LGS for warhammer to the last cent. I did cash jobs on holidays, much of that was on warhammer also. WD and a solid LGS with older guys that were hobby mentors, were my entry to the hobby. Though it was a different time back then, when parents were not fussed leaving kids with older high schoolers, uni student's etc unsupervised, because they are nerds, so it's ok - right ? 

[appiah4]

21 hours ago, Domhnall said:

D&D took off in popularity during 4th & 5th edition possibly because it was more streamlined and easy to get into than 3.5 (and subsequently pathfinder). I preferred pathfinder, but the group I had wanted to play 5th edition because it was far easier to play for a couple of hours every few weeks. 

This is not correct. There is no edition of D&D that is easier to play for a couple of hours every few weeks than OD&D.  5e is still a convoluted mess compared to the Basic Set D&D or even AD&D2e. 

 

5e gained so much traction because it hit the market at a time when the global pandemic happened: Online streaming of D&D games and people at home getting bored of being alone was basically lightning in a bottle.  And to think D&D was the only game that benefited is naive.  Infinity gained incredible popularity in the same period due to being very easy to play on TTS.  Other roleplaying games like Call of Cthulhu that have been around for almost 30 years became more popular than ever.

 

40K completely missed this bandwagon because GW still see themselves as a miniatures company in a world anyone can print a 95% exact copy of their models within 48 hours of release.  Yet at the same time, they are obviously two minds about it: They give you free rules but invalidate them with codices in a few months time, they release the rules online but do not support online play, etc.  I wouldn't be surprised if they turn out to be so tone deaf that they actually try to reinvent the wheel and publish their own VTT and try to sell models through its proprietary storefront.  Because they are that stupid.

 

What I'm trying to say is, 40K10 will not become a popular game because it is 'streamlined' like D&D5.  D&D5 was not a streamlined game, but it was a good game and what the market wanted at the time.  40K10 is a terrible game and (IMO) not what the market wants at the time.  I think GW fundamentally :cuss:ed themselves over, I think Leviathan is a terrible starter box, and I think come next few quarters we'll see GW hurting real bad and trying to 180 a lot of decisions.

 

As far as I'm concerned, they can :cuss: right off.  I'm done with them.

[gideon stargreave]

Purely anecdotally. When I got into the hobby in 2nd Ed, I had two fantasy armies and a hodgepodge of 40k I got through swaps and birthday money over a few years. The armies mostly came from GW sales back when they did them. I sometimes played ten games a week back then. I stopped playing sometime in 3rd for quit some time.

I came back in 6th ed and I was certainly spending the most of my hobby career due to a fancy job I had. my necromunda gang and mordheim warband probably cost more than some people’s armies considering I was buying clampacks to base each mini from and often a kit just to get a few bits. At the time neither of those games existed anymore but the manager at my local GW let us play once or twice considering we spent money on his minis anyway. That said I probably played 10 games total between 6th and 2016 when I moved countries. Since then I’ve been painting some of my oldhammer stuff and this year started work on a new blood angels project. It is slow, perhaps taking me a month to finish a five man unit, but these units often use five different kits in them. Nowadays I do not play at all. 
I suspect GW have different markets that the are targeting. They want kids who’ll spend once a twice a year, they want professionals who will spend often, and they want long term hobbyists who will spend forever. As one of those last ones nowadays, and as someone who does not play the game at all, I am not affected by any rules changes or lore changes or anything else. There are a lot of people like that from what I can tell from Instagram and the old blogosphere. When I do play (once or twice) with “invalidated” minis I have simply said to my opponent - oh that thing? It’s what dreadnoughts used to look like; or, this used to be a tank in the imperial guard, it doesn’t have rules in this edition so I’m using it as x or y, which do you think fits better?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that GW have removed minis and units and vehicles from the game since rogue trader, and players have always just used counts as rules or whatever, and GW have never cared how you worked that out. It probably shouldn’t be considered how you play the game when thinking about what their market is

[appiah4]

14 minutes ago, gideon stargreave said:

Purely anecdotally. When I got into the hobby in 2nd Ed, I had two fantasy armies and a hodgepodge of 40k I got through swaps and birthday money over a few years. The armies mostly came from GW sales back when they did them. I sometimes played ten games a week back then. I stopped playing sometime in 3rd for quit some time.

I came back in 6th ed and I was certainly spending the most of my hobby career due to a fancy job I had. my necromunda gang and mordheim warband probably cost more than some people’s armies considering I was buying clampacks to base each mini from and often a kit just to get a few bits. At the time neither of those games existed anymore but the manager at my local GW let us play once or twice considering we spent money on his minis anyway. That said I probably played 10 games total between 6th and 2016 when I moved countries. Since then I’ve been painting some of my oldhammer stuff and this year started work on a new blood angels project. It is slow, perhaps taking me a month to finish a five man unit, but these units often use five different kits in them. Nowadays I do not play at all. 
I suspect GW have different markets that the are targeting. They want kids who’ll spend once a twice a year, they want professionals who will spend often, and they want long term hobbyists who will spend forever. As one of those last ones nowadays, and as someone who does not play the game at all, I am not affected by any rules changes or lore changes or anything else. There are a lot of people like that from what I can tell from Instagram and the old blogosphere. When I do play (once or twice) with “invalidated” minis I have simply said to my opponent - oh that thing? It’s what dreadnoughts used to look like; or, this used to be a tank in the imperial guard, it doesn’t have rules in this edition so I’m using it as x or y, which do you think fits better?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that GW have removed minis and units and vehicles from the game since rogue trader, and players have always just used counts as rules or whatever, and GW have never cared how you worked that out. It probably shouldn’t be considered how you play the game when thinking about what their market is

Good luck getting that carefree attitude to work in a tournament or a GW store.

[Doghouse]

18 hours ago, Helycon said:

Which does require them to keep the current player base happy. A business plan of making losses for 10 years with the promise of making a profit in 10 isn't something a bank or investors will generally jump on 

 

 You'd probably be surprised actually. 

 

I work in the grim dark world of finance and we regularly create products with that in mind. One of our platforms is only now just making profits after a decade of calculated loses. Not sure if that would apply to GW when it was an old world retail business with walk in off the street stores but as a corporation with investors these kind of things are more common than you think and probably considered at a share holder level. If I were a gambling man I'd say the profitability of the IP is the long term concern in this respect rather than the models and games.

 

I could genuinely see a time off in the future when people look back and say when I was young GW used to make models.

[gideon stargreave]

17 hours ago, appiah4 said:

Good luck getting that carefree attitude to work in a tournament or a GW store.

Why wouldn’t that work in a GW or a tournament? I’ve seen plenty of counts as armies and so on. In any case, for me the Hobby is the hobby so to speak. I would be fine if I never played again if I only came across the type of player you’re implying lurk in every GW. In any case that’s not what this thread is about. to keep it on topic, do you think that players who complain or push back against counts as and old minis etc are GW’s target market? 

[Xenith]

23 hours ago, appiah4 said:

5e gained so much traction because it hit the market at a time when the global pandemic happened: 

 

40K completely missed this bandwagon

 

Off topic, but you're seriously misinformed - GW went bonkers during the pandemic, so many people returned to pick it up, and the pandemic fall out of returning and new players is what caused their soaring stock price and inability to supply enough models to keep up with demand that has persisted until this year. 

 

From that it stands to reason that the people who suddenly had a lot of free time during lockdowns, i.e. working people, are a significant part of the market. 

 

 

15 hours ago, Doghouse said:

You'd probably be surprised actually. 

 

Came to say this also  Investors do exactly that. Things like Twitter, Tesla etc have only just become, or never been profitable. It's taken massive government intervention to make tesla profitable after 17 years. 

[appiah4]

I think you completely missed my point; GW missed the bandwagon that was taking the game online.

[Redcomet]

9 minutes ago, appiah4 said:

I think you completely missed my point; GW missed the bandwagon that was taking the game online.

Not really. They want to sell miniatures and paints. 

[appiah4]

2 minutes ago, Redcomet said:

Not really. They want to sell miniatures and paints. 

Yeah, that's gonna last only so long.

[Orion]

5 minutes ago, appiah4 said:

Yeah, that's gonna last only so long.

The heat death of the universe?

 

Jokes aside, I don't think GW have reason to jump ship anytime soon.

There is a lot of benefits to selling plastic. Largest of which is lack of competition. 

[Akerkoke]

As a millennial in his late thirties i played 3rd-4th-5th editions, then basically stopped until now.

Got back with a bunch of friends (the same that started with me in 3rd edition), we're playing combat patrols and planning to expand to 1000 points, then 2000 and then play with the crusade rules.

Surely it is because of the relaxed mood of the games, with beers and popcorns and whatever, but I find the rules simple at a first glance but then more deep as you go on and play more games and learn better. We're having fun and that is sufficient for me, competitive may stay where it is and I won't miss it.

Of course if there are problems rulewise with competitive, they should be addressed and I'm glad they do a Metawatch

[Xenith]

5 hours ago, appiah4 said:

Yeah, that's gonna last only so long.

Yup, in the same way Fifa totally killed off the physical, in person version of football...and online D&D killed off the physical. 

 

There's also the Stranger Things effect over the past few years, where D&D has been an actively large part of a major cult TV series, which GW so far has not had, which presumably dragged in the interest of many teenagers and opened the minds of others. 

 

[sarabando]

On 7/24/2023 at 10:06 PM, Noserenda said:

They dont target teenagers to get parents credit cards, i mean, thats inherently dumb, parents have way less money than single/childless people on the whole :P 

No, the reason they target teenagers is because the ones they hook statistically come back time and time again over their lives and drop cash, they recognised lapsed players as an investment years ago and the more teens you expose, the more likely you are to get them on board.

Plus, lets be honest, 40k is like, peak Teenage interest fodder by its very nature :D 

yeah.... it wasnt solo teens i was ever told to go after when i worked at GW

[Noserenda]

2 hours ago, sarabando said:

yeah.... it wasnt solo teens i was ever told to go after when i worked at GW

When i worked there you were told to go after everyone who set foot in the store, or lingered too long just outside  :D Thats not the overall marketing strategy though 

[ThePenitentOne]

9th edition was a ruleset that made me feel like GW was going for everyone. The multiple ways to play allowed them to reach the broadest base of players in the history of the game.

 

10th doesn't do that; the focus is far narrower. Sure, Crusade has survived... But it isn't as divergent from the core game as it was when both points and PL coexisted. It will also be subject to the matched update churn now- I've already downloaded 3 sets of datacards, which is more updates than PL (and Crusade as a whole) got in two full editions of the game.

 

As GW focuses on a narrower band of the player base, their numbers will drop, but I don't know if it'll be enough to make much of a difference.

[Toxichobbit]

I've a decent amount of experience and knowledge about the business side of wargaming, so maybe I can help shed a bit of light on things. I spent the first 2/3 of my career working in the industry, worked in GW retail, owned & ran my own LGS, owned & ran my own commission painting service and can barely remember a time when my dining table wasn't covered in either a gaming board or half painted/assembled minis. Perhaps more importantly, I have quite a few friends in the industry. Some of them are creatives at GW (games developers, but not in the 40k team) and some are on the business side (senior management at head office). I have other friends in other game companies too, some of whom are founders of successful companies, that while not GW sized, are big enough to get licenses for franchises bigger & more mainstream than 40k. I've known a few other LGS owners over the years, so there's at least a little bit of perspective on the retail side beyond my own experience. I'm being purposely vague about this because I'm paranoid about over stepping boundaries and giving out some insider information that I shouldn't, so most of the time I keep my mouth shut, or on the rare occasions like this that I do talk about it, I just keep it really vague & generic. 

 

Also, small disclaimer. While I personally have a decent amount of experience in the business side of the industry and have a number of friends who are still pretty well connected & more knowledgeable than me, that doesn't mean that I know everything (far from it) or that what I'm saying is gospel truth. So please, treat this as just anecdotal experience and another data point. Hopefully it will give a bit more insight, but it's far from the whole picture.

 

I've seen the The Painting Phase interview with Tom Hibbard and what he says marries up with my experience pretty well (with some caveats, which I'll go into later). That said, there's a few things I'd like to expand upon:

 

Caveat; age of data - in the The Painting Phase interview Tom said he left GW in 2016. Funnily enough, that's the same year I left the industry and went back to university to re-train for a different sector. So we're both at least somewhat out of the loop. While I still have contacts in the industry and I'd guess Tom still knows people at GW, remember that my own personal experience is out-dated and Tom's might well be too. So when he was talking about GW's core demographic, I suspect he was talking about what GW's core demographic was. That's not necessarily what GW's core demographic is now, at least not entirely (more on that later)

 

1) GW & parents - the notion that parents are a core demographic is correct, at least from an in-store perspective. The vast majority of sales that were made while I worked in GW retail, while I ran an LGS and for other LGS owners that I knew, came from parents buying stuff for their kids/teenagers. This wasn't just for Christmas/birthdays either. A lot of parents viewed GW/LGS as childcare. Rather than taking their kid around the town while they went clothes shopping, met up with friends for a meal or went for a coffee etc, they'd drop them off at the store in the morning then pick them up late afternoon. And while there was no hard & fast rules for this, the parents did regularly buy product, both because the kids would badger their parents after spending all day playing games (getting new releases hyped up to them by the staff), and because lets face it, if you're going to use a store as surrogate childcare, you'd better also support their business lest they turn around and tell you that you can't keep doing it. And believe me, a lot of parents were more than happy to buy a box of Marines if it meant they could have a relaxing Saturday not looking after their kids - GW is expensive, but much cheaper than a babysitter. There was also a not-insignificant amount of pocket money sales from the kids themselves, although this was more prevalent in an LGS which has a wider variety of price points (CCG booster packs are pocket money black holes) than in GW, where pocket money won't go much further than paints & glue.

 

Caveat - both my LGS and the GW store I worked in were located in a town in the UK called Altrincham (I would hope that some of you recognise that name, given it's connection to GW's history ) which is quite an affluent area - obviously how much parents spend on their kids is going to vary from country to country and region to region.

 

2) Online retail - while my (and others) experience points to parents being a large demographic for GW in stores, buying online is now much more prevalent than it was 7 years ago. Not only have we become more of an online species, especially the younger generations, but we've all lived through a pandemic where you had no choice but to buy online and businesses either adapted to that or collapsed. For example, if I remember correctly online preview streams were unheard of before the pandemic, now they're a staple part of GW's marketing machine. Being completely honest, I have zero idea what the sales demographics are like for online sales. I'm not even sure games companies/LGS have a completely accurate idea, though they will be able to see a demographic they are unlikely to know additional information, like if that demographic is buying for themselves or for their kids. Without the face-to-face interaction, there can't be a conversation where as a staff member you'd find out this kind of information from the customer, both so you could tailor your current sales technique and plant the seeds for return visits to the store.

3) Core demograpics - notice the plural there. At least from people I've talked to about this, GW has multiple core demographics.

• One of them is kids and their parents, mentioned above.

• Another that overlaps with kids & parents is the wide end of the hobby funnel that Tom mentioned in the interview. A lot of GW products and a hell of a lot of GW retail training is targeting new people coming into the hobby. Obviously a large part of that is kids, as we all know how easy it is to get your mates interested in a new game while you're in school. But it's wider than that, the target goes beyond kids to anybody of any age who is interested. GW have correctly identified something that a lot of other games companies ignore, that while the lifeblood of the hobby is vets, that lifeblood will die off unless it's topped up constantly. In other words, new players are essential to keeping GW afloat. GW also identified that a large number of those new players won't stick around, but that's less of an issue than you might think because wargaming is a hobby that has a large initial cost but relatively small maintenance, so customer retention is less important* than getting new customers. GW's (IMO) reckless use of their IP when it comes to video games is also largely driven by new players - the more people are exposed to 40k, the more people will get into it and start buying models and paints. Video games are a great way get exposure for the IP to newcomers, which is partially why GW take a quantity over quality approach to them.

* "Less important" does not mean not important. GW 100% want to retain customers, preferably for life. They just recognise that it's not a realistic expectation to rely on people staying in the hobby and regularly spending as a business model, so put a large part of their focus on recruiting new customers.

• That said, long-term customers are also one of the core demographics, which has been demonstrated with (as another Frater pointed out) the amount of nostalgia hits GW have been doing over the last decade. While it's unlikely that us vets spend as much as new players, because a lot of the time we're just adding a few new models or replacing a few used up paints, we do still spend. And there are some of us who spend a lot. The concept of whales (hate that term) is not a new one. Last century, back when I first started working for GW we had a regular who didn't spend regularly, but when he did spend he spent enough to completely destroy the monthly forecast for the next year (back then GW retail would forecast monthly sales targets based on the figures from the same month the previous year). But, we vets are of more value to GW than our spending would suggest. Our other primary values to the company are two things, community and advertising. We keep the community alive, we are the ones that drive engagement over social media, we are the ones who create posts on Facebook, Instagram, TickyTocker, Reddit and forums like B&C, Warseer, DakkaDakka etc. We make up the large majority of influencers, writing articles, making YouTube videos and reviewing product. This all drives engagement which in turn drives sales. We get each other excited about new product, we look at other people's painted minis and get inspired to paint our own versions etc. All of this results in more sales. We are also the ones who drive hobby retention. While GW stores and video games (and more recently, YouTube) are recruitment tools, we vets are the main retention tool. All those new players who join via those channels won't stick around if there's no community, if their social media isn't being filled up with lore videos, painting tutorials, model photos etc. Like I said earlier, despite what a lot of people think, GW 100% knows we are the lifeblood of the hobby and they know we're the best advertising they could ever hope for. And we're only going to become even more important as GW's IPs become more mainstream, if things like Cavill's Amazon project take off.

• MCU - Ok, I'll admit this is an odd one, but bare with me, it'll (hopefully) make sense. Cinematic universes, and primarily the MCU have had a huge effect on entertainment over the last decade. This is mainly seen in film franchises, where it feels like (to my dismay) everybody now wants to develop their IP into a CU. While this is irrelevant to the majority of tabletop companies, GW are in an almost unique position in that they have a multimedia IP that is well established and growing exponentially - fertile ground for a future CU type of franchise. WCU, or more accurately just WU is almost certainly an idea that's been bandied about at GW HQ, because after all, which company doesn't want to be as successful as Disney? So fans of MCU and to a lesser extent DCEU, Universal Monsterverse and other similar franchises are considered as a potential core demographic. If Warhammer could become as big as Marvel is right now, with regular blockbuster films and all the paraphernalia that goes along with it, well then for GW the sky's the limit. Also, the gaming landscape is changing. GW have done a good job at staying relevant, although they've had some scares over the years. Video games have had a negative impact as they've become more mainstream. 3D printing is on the radar as a possible big threat. VR was considered an issue for a while and may become one again in the future. GW can stick to their tabletop model and risk becoming irrelevant as technology continues to evolve, or they can expand into a more multi-media focused business model. I believe the heart and soul of Warhammer will always be tabletop, but the future and especially it's growth will probably lie elsewhere. And those cinematic universes are often based on origin stories & groups of heroes/antiheroes fighting world ending threats. Notice how 40k has become more of a story than a setting in recent years? Notice how we're getting new threats with each edition and instead of the faceless masses of the Imperial war machine being mobalised to fight them, the lore is beginning to focus on the actions of named characters more? Notice how a team of super-heroes & super-villains (aka, Primarchs) is beginning to form in 40k*? Well, none of that is a coincidence. GW have seen the success of MCU and realised that if they handle it well, their IP is the perfect setting for a similar thing, while being a completely unknown and exciting IP to the majority of consumers. 

* This one also has some influence from the success of the Horus Heresy Black Library series, which proved that people really like Primarchs being active, & not just mythical demigods of yore. 

 

4) Black Library - this overlaps with long term players/hobby veterans. But Black Library is kind of it's own demographic. It aims to cater less to newer players and more to existing players, as they're the ones most likely to read books and engage heavily in the lore. So Black Library (and I think you can lump ForgeWorld in here, though for different reasons) have slightly different target demographics to other parts of the company.

 

5) Internal Inconsistencies - that's the politest way I can put it. I guess internal arguing would be more accurate, as I'm sure a lot of you have experienced within your own careers. Put simply, the idea of what the core demographic/s are will vary within GW. Different staff will have different opinions. Different departments will have different opinions (games development may have a very different idea of who they should be writing rules for than finance, for example). The core demographic/s that the company as a whole are targeting may change with leadership changes and shifts in workplace politics. That's not a dig at GW, it's common in many businesses. That said, GW have stayed fairly consistent over the years with new players being one of their core demographics, so I'd imagine that's why you hear it talked about most often within the community as a whole. I've also heard that internal communication in GW can be a bit choppy, so it's possible that two departments will have different ideas about what the core demographic/s are and not realise it, though that's just hearsay and not something I can confirm myself.

 

6) Other demographics - this post is far from exhaustive. I'm sure there's lots more demographics in GW that exist, for example I wouldn't be shocked if competitive/tournament players are seen as their own demographic. How important these are to GW or whether they're considered "core" is something I just don't know.

 

Like I said at the start, this isn't a definitive "this is how it is". It's just an attempt to give some insight into my own (and a few people I know) relevant experiences, both in GW and in the wargaming industry as a whole. It's not the whole picture, far from it. And things are massively more complex and nuanced than I could ever sum up in a post like this (even if I had all the knowledge to do so, which I don't). But hopefully it's an interesting read and gives you some idea of the demographics that GW is targeting.

 

TLDR: The Painting Phase interview and most opinions posted in this topic are/were accurate and relevant. Different opinions are not mutually exclusive, as the idea of GW's core demographic is a complex one and better described as core demographics,

 

 

 

[Ahzek451]

32 minutes ago, Toxichobbit said:

I'

• MCU - Ok, I'll admit this is an odd one, but bare with me, it'll (hopefully) make sense. Cinematic universes, and primarily the MCU have had a huge effect on entertainment over the last decade. This is mainly seen in film franchises, where it feels like (to my dismay) everybody now wants to develop their IP into a CU. While this is irrelevant to the majority of tabletop companies, GW are in an almost unique position in that they have a multimedia IP that is well established and growing exponentially - fertile ground for a future CU type of franchise. WCU, or more accurately just WU is almost certainly an idea that's been bandied about at GW HQ, because after all, which company doesn't want to be as successful as Disney? So fans of MCU and to a lesser extent DCEU, Universal Monsterverse and other similar franchises are considered as a potential core demographic. If Warhammer could become as big as Marvel is right now, with regular blockbuster films and all the paraphernalia that goes along with it, well then for GW the sky's the limit. Also, the gaming landscape is changing. GW have done a good job at staying relevant, although they've had some scares over the years. Video games have had a negative impact as they've become more mainstream. 3D printing is on the radar as a possible big threat. VR was considered an issue for a while and may become one again in the future. GW can stick to their tabletop model and risk becoming irrelevant as technology continues to evolve, or they can expand into a more multi-media focused business model. I believe the heart and soul of Warhammer will always be tabletop, but the future and especially it's growth will probably lie elsewhere. And those cinematic universes are often based on origin stories & groups of heroes/antiheroes fighting world ending threats. Notice how 40k has become more of a story than a setting in recent years? Notice how we're getting new threats with each edition and instead of the faceless masses of the Imperial war machine being mobalised to fight them, the lore is beginning to focus on the actions of named characters more? Notice how a team of super-heroes & super-villains (aka, Primarchs) is beginning to form in 40k*? Well, none of that is a coincidence. GW have seen the success of MCU and realised that if they handle it well, their IP is the perfect setting for a similar thing, while being a completely unknown and exciting IP to the majority of consumers. 

 

 

Well written and enlightening, thank you for that! 

I will pick at the way you describe the success of disney with the MCU as it is currently in that, would that be accurate considering the current downword spiral of Disney and burnout? I certainly hope that if the warhammer IP hits mainstream and mainstream media, GW learns from the same mistakes hollywood has been going through in recent times. Hitting mainstream is still reletively fertile ground for GW and I fear they may make some of the same mistakes. 

[Toxichobbit]

58 minutes ago, Ahzek451 said:

Well written and enlightening, thank you for that! 

I will pick at the way you describe the success of disney with the MCU as it is currently in that, would that be accurate considering the current downword spiral of Disney and burnout? I certainly hope that if the warhammer IP hits mainstream and mainstream media, GW learns from the same mistakes hollywood has been going through in recent times. Hitting mainstream is still reletively fertile ground for GW and I fear they may make some of the same mistakes. 

 

Yeah, the MCU is in a downturn at the moment, but it's had a good decade of being hugely successful before that, which is pretty aspirational for any franchise. And as much as I dislike MCU stuff, I will admit it's far from dead and GW imitating even some of it's success would be a huge boon for the company. I'm sure GW will make some of the same mistakes, things like that tend to repeat themselves. And I'm sure they'll make all new ones. It'll be interesting to see if they go in that direction.

[Rain]

I really doubt GW could get the kind of funding that movies of this type require to produce and market, but who knows. There are the Amazon show rumors floating about.

 

To be frank, I hope it doesn’t happen, as the “soul” of 40k is difficult to mainstream. It’s a quasi-parody of a dystopian police state, asking the question of “what if the theocratic space Nazis were the *good* guys, because everyone else was even worse?”

 

Turning it into “good guy in blue armor punches bad guy in black armor” kind of misses the point and fun of the setting, but it is what it is, I suppose.

[Noserenda]

Thanks @Toxichobbit as someone who had a similar but much, much less successful version of that career (Before going to sales for steady money)  thats much better put and informed than i can generally muster :D 

As for MCU burnout, im not sure thats exactly true, there was definitely too much too fast for a bit but generally the actually good superhero films are still doing great, its the second rate and dross that arent able to coast on their more successful siblings i think, that and general disruption in the industy plus streaming.

[KenaiPhoneix]

I kind of disagree with OP, this is a hobby and a game, having fun is the most important element and there is usually no fun in playing agains “that” sweaty guy that spend the whole week planning your army fall. The correct mind set is to have fun and take the game lightly, after all we are all a bunch of adults (on the most part) moving plastic armies and imaginating epic battles in our heads. The true crusade are the good memories we made along.

 

 

BUT, and I haven’t got too many matches of 10th but will believe OP, if the game is broken or it is easy exploitable even by unintended actions, then those good memories are not gonna be there. To be a fun game, it has to be fair, and this applies to any gaming stuff. I really hope they fix this edition with current editions now that everything is “on the net”.  Instead of letting us just play this until 11. Better if they maintain 10 for a long time, but that’s more difficult, they would never ignore the “hype sales” a new edition causes. 
 

About the demographic, the idea is to made a game more fun, it was incredible awkward and bad when you opponent spent 45 minutes in its phase while reading and explaining special rules/stratagems while you sit on you side with you phone or just doing nothing. Building an army was a pain, and too overcomplicated, this will take possible new players out. Streamline the rules and make the game more “fast” is a good call imo, better than just making you moves for 45 minutes and then waiting another 45 minutes is to play for 10 minutes, and wait for 10 minutes.

 

this will cal more people in, because life happens and after all this is an expensive game and not only on money but also on time. Some people see this with the leviathan online campaign, many people haven’t finished painting their armies and it was over. Usually having more money also equals to having less time to do more stuff because of other responsibilities, so making a game more fast and streamlined is a bless to many that wants to split the time in all of their hobbies. So I believe those changes are for us too. 
 

And for the “new blood” or teenagers, having phases that take 30 minutes or just requiring 1 hour of and over complicated army building (to have it somewhat competitive) is a death sentence. Kids these days have the attention span of a pigeon, if there is not an instant gratification they just drop it. There are some cases of teenagers that take the time for their hobbies, but overall the tendency is to just give everything in the less time possible. And this doesn’t apply only to tabletop games (that were always kind of niche) but also movies, shows, videos or video games. 

[Toxichobbit]

2 hours ago, Rain said:

I really doubt GW could get the kind of funding that movies of this type require to produce and market, but who knows. There are the Amazon show rumors floating about.

 

To be frank, I hope it doesn’t happen, as the “soul” of 40k is difficult to mainstream. It’s a quasi-parody of a dystopian police state, asking the question of “what if the theocratic space Nazis were the *good* guys, because everyone else was even worse?”

 

Turning it into “good guy in blue armor punches bad guy in black armor” kind of misses the point and fun of the setting, but it is what it is, I suppose.

 

At the moment, there's more chance of the Emperor revealing himself tomorrow to end all world problems and defeat Skynet before it activates, than GW getting the funding for a movie of MCU calibre. But, if things like the Amazon deal work out and are well done, then 40k could be a franchise that the big studies of the future see as something with potential. It certainly has very few equals when it comes to the breadth, depth and richness of it's lore. Plus the versatility of it's setting, it can house all kinds of genres without it feeling like you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. So maybe in the next decade or two we could start to see moves in the direction of the big screen.

 

And yeah, I agree. I don't think 40k would work for modern audiences as it exists now, and definitely not how it was originally envisioned. But I'm not too worried about that. I don't think 40k would work as a re-skinned version of the MCU no matter what changes you make to it, and I have faith that GW know that and won't try. The Warhammer IP might take the concept of a CU (if that survives, given how most of them have failed to have the impact that the MCU has) but it would need to be it's own thing, more akin to Aliens or Starship Troopers (a combination of sci-fi action/horror) than anything super-hero related. My comment about the current GW story advancing and focusing on major characters is, IMO more that GW see what the MCU has done and how their future might go, so they're making moves to appeal to the generation that grew up with the MCU and super heroes being mainstream. Kind of a "look, we have super heroes too" as the initial hook, but it's only really a skin deep concept, once you dig deeper there's very little similarities between the two franchises. Plus, I think by the time 40k becomes mainstream audiences tastes will have changed, We're still years away from anything being produced from the Amazon deal (if anything gets produced at all) and even if we do see an Amazon series, it'd be the first step on the road to disappointment bigger budget projects. I'd guess that super heroes will be on the decline by the time any Warhammer IP is big enough to be considered for a film, and something new will be becoming popular in cinemas - I'm sure GW would love that something to be a little bit grimmer and a little bit darker.

 

But, as interesting as talk of a possible future for Warhammer on the silver screen is, it's also off topic, so we should probably stop with this tangent (or make a separate topic).