The 40k rules puzzle me

[Deschenus Maximus]

So as a former 40k player who has embraced a lot of the non-40k GW offerings in the past few years, I keep asking myself why GW seems unable or unwilling to give 40k some actually good rules. 

 

It's a total mystery to me because they have proven they CAN write some pretty good rules:

• Adeptus Titanicus is just a fantastic Big Fighting Robot game that somehow perfectly straddles the line between the depth of classic Battletech and the speed of play of Alpha Strike. 
• Epic: Armageddon serves up some of the best Combined Arms gameplay around. Its current successor, Legions Imperialis, has a lot of balance issues and some clunkyness (looking at you, melee combat!) but is still heads and shoulders above 40k now that we finally got a real FAQ for it.
• Battlefleet Gothic still casts a long shadow over all space fleet combat games in spite of being out of print for nearly 15 years thanks to its awesome rules.
• While I haven't played it, Kill Team 3.0 seems really solid as well.

 

It's just 40k that continues to be hamstrung by legacy game mechanics (IGOUGO, most notably) and a lot of bloat (does every unit really need a special rule?).

 

Is this just due to GW risk aversion? Are they scared that moving away from the original rules might leave to player exodus? And if so, is this fear really justified?

[Schurge]

And, Warcry isn't the best strategy game in the world... but its fun. And Underworlds is both a good game and very fun. (AoS... has been heavily praised for its balance. I couldn't say its more fun than 40k.)

 

There are many people who are afraid of GW messing with the formula too heavily because they've spent so much money on the system... but at this point - especially considering squatting everything ala AoS isn't the only way to rebuild a game from the ground up - I wonder if those people are still the majority?

 

If you play this game long enough you realize that at the end of the day GW's conservatism rarely actually works in the game or our collections' favor.

Edited 23 minutes ago by Schurge

[The Yncarne]

better to just move on to a different system or accept it. I don't see GW making 40k a great game in my lifetime. I might settle for good enough again, someday.