So my last post was on specialist games and was calling out to players to join in on them.
Today I am saying why I think GW needs to pick their game back up and support these games.
You are selling a hobby not a product. REMEMBER THAT. You must still make some money off SG games, just not the great heaps you do off core games. Remember though that your business isn't about just throwing models out there. Leave that to Airfix and the like. What you are selling is a whole hobby. If I am a 40k player, I am not likely to go out and play Lord of the Rings. I am how ever likely to pick up BFG, EPIC, and the like because it is a part of the hobby I have participated in.
As a veteran gamer I am also less and less likely to start new armies. Once you have a few, and for some people just one, you don't need much more from that game system. Instead you want a new game system. As different as each army in 40k is, it is still 40k. But with lack of support for SG, veteran go to your competitors and play Warmachine, FoW, and the like. I admit, that is part of why I got Warmachine. No one plays the Specialist Games, so I found a new game they did play.
You already made great marketing moves getting me to want endless 40k with Apocalypse and Planetstrike. Now get you avid buyers to want even more related products. If I play SM, I probably would want an SM Epic or BFG force as a continuation of my collection in my hobby.
Games Workshop, what you do best is Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. Stick to those universes. Expand them. And hype up the Specialist Games. They died off before the blogosphere came about. I bet that fan community and the blogs could easily now get plenty of attention back to them.
The Lord of the Rings craze is over. Those movies are done. And you have limited content and scope you can produce. Tolkien made a great world. But that is the problem. It has been made, as in it is finished with production. You guys are still MAKING a world which is what is so great about your HOBBY, not product. So keep MAKING these universes. Keep supporting the HOBBY. Don't try and force products down my throat. I stopped getting White Dwarf when it became more adds for your models than actual hobby content.
Specialist Games are essentially the root ideals of the company. Make cool models for cool games people want to play. Unfortunately it seems that today that is a lost ideal and it is just about a bottom dollar.
But it shouldn't be. It should be about a hobby.
Please don't send a cease and desist letter...
