Thanks so much for watching! I know I said you're probably not the best control group for this... but here's the Strawpoll of WHERE DID YOU DISCOVER WARGAMING? Be honest! strawpoll.com/kjn18ox3jyQ
I got in to Tabletop Wargaming by the usual route; my Dad went to school with Phil Barker, and so I used to get sent along to Phil's flat to play weekly games, the usual. 😄👍
My first experience was GW. I bought the 40k Rogue Trader book and the box set that contained 30 marine minis from my local comic book shop. I was 16... I can't imagine a 16 year old buying a core book and a starter box with their own money nowadays.
I really enjoy the not-bombastic, relaxed style of chat in these videos. So much content that tries to be a GW haruspex is both over the top (in both directions, positive and negative) and largely people wishlisting instead of actually engaging in analysis. Good work.
I just printed a 3000 point empire army for old world. Not because I hate GW, or don't want to support them (I bought both tomb kings and bretonnian boxes) but because they simply arent available. Everything is sold out everywhere. I don't have a local store, so I have to go online. And ebay is a whole barrel of hell no right now, so printing was my only real feasible option. Now I have an army, and my two sons have armies, and we can all play together.
I'm going exactly the same route with both my Empire and Skaven armies (OPR Patreon here) and no matter what those GW shills say, it IS a lot cheaper than buying the minis, print fails and all 🙂
""Its a bloodbath'' is an appropriate description of the tabletop wargaming marketplace. Games Workshop sits on their throne of skulls laughing at the competition. I can hear them yelling with glee ''Blood for the Blood God!''
I’m an Old. My first wargame was Squad Leader (and Car Wars). My first miniature game was FASA’s Star Trek starship combat for their RPG. My first GW game was Blood Bowl. I’ve loved and been irritated with GW, but I’ve never been disappointed with the quality of their miniatures or art - sometimes their rulesets or marketing decisions. I’m glad that Corvus Belli is the company it is. Is Mantic good to work with as a retailer? I’ve communicated with them as a customer and I like them. I like what they’ve tried to do. I hope they have a Corvus Belli - like level of success. I really liked this series of conversations. Thank you
When it comes to wargaming and monopoly, hobbyists have a part to play in this too. You have to fight and advocate for the games you want to see played/supported. If everyone just flocks to GW, because they're the 800 pound gorilla in the room, nothing's going to change. We have to double down on other games and intellectual property and give them our support. GW doesn't just monopolize the industry, it monopolizes our options. Not all of us are interested in what GW does. There's a universe of other possibilities out there.
The problem is unless the player base in an area has the location, the focus to play and keep playing and a store willing to now financially take that leap then that isn't a hill you are trying to climb. That is a cliff.
I've seen several people get burned going down this road. Dumping thousands into a game to promote it and then having buckets of value-less product to show for it. It's definitely a risk.
I'm not interested in "fighting" for anything like that. This is just a hobby. I just want to paint and play and relax. I'm never going to play a game that I can't find opponents for relatively easily. I think most people are like me.
It is very much a micro skirmish, with games being around 5 minis per side. However, there is so customization to keep things fresh, and the theme and tone of the game are spot on. @@ZeeLobby
@@euansmith3699 that's awesome. Have definitely dove into smaller skirmish games lately as my painting free time has diminished. Might have to add relicblade to our Bushido rotation
I suspect that this is partly a generational thing, and that younger gamers get into wargaming by being exposed to Warhammer content online - mostly lore. Then they filter into the Warhammer ecosystem, and then a tiny proportion move into the wider wargamer world for all the other companies to try and gobble up. Whether that constitutes a monopoly or not is largely immaterial, so much as the effect is still the same. The "Warhammer Hobby" seems like it's on a totally different plane from the wargaming one. Just looking at youtube, doing a video focused on warhammer can gets 10s of thousands of views, while creating content for any other will struggle to grow beyond a thousand. And funnily, even within warhammer the further you go from lore and closer to the tabletop the less views you're likely to get. It's really interesting because on the face of it the RPG market is pretty comparable, with Dungeons & Dragons being by far the largest tabletop RPG in the space, but Wizards of the Coast were never able to quite tighten their grip on the larger RPG hobby like GW did to wargaming, and now there's a thriving independent RPG market. Obviously there's plenty of wargames, but it's more of a struggle to survive, especially when so many people who buy miniatures are just doing so because they like the Warhammer IP. If Games Workshop left the wargaming space tomorrow, then I'd worry that the audience size would get lower, though games like Bolt Action, Infinity and Battletech give me hope that the hobby could still thrive and that game stores could survive.
I will preface this by saying that I love my local store and I really want them to be successful, but I miss the variety they used to have. Through that store I discovered Flames of War, Wild West Exodus, Legion, and my favorite game, Dust 1947 (sigh). 40K has always been the game I played the most over the years, but I loved going to the shop and seeing what else was out there and possibly discovering a new game. Now, the shop is mostly 40K with a small selection of Team Yankee (not interested, no Sherman tanks). It’s still a great shop, and they usually have what I need for my World Eaters and other Chaos forces, but I really miss seeing a wider selection of what the hobby has to offer.
And I wonder what that means for the discovery of OTHER new things by folks new to the ecosystem? How will they see alternatives if they only place they can find them is online and that has to fight the algorithmic vortex?
I think OPR is probably an intersting take as a "warhammer adjacent" game and almost how their miniature agnostic approach to their game system has ,at least from an outside perspective, has been successful for them.
Asmodee is also in the unfortunate position of being owned by the Embracer Group which went on a buying spree (dozens of videogame studios, Dark Horse Comics, the Lord of the Rings IP) and is now slashing costs (and jobs) left and right.
Ive really enjoyed these past 2 videos on the business side of the industry. Please consider producing more of them. Honestly sometimes the business is even more interesting than the games.
Games workshop is the huge tree growing over your garden, it gets most of the sun but not all of it, it is not the only thing growing in your garden but it is the largest.
The owner of one of my local shops is huge into Battletech so the wall of models is pretty equal parts Battletech, Warhammer, and D&D. The other wall has boardgames and then of course the massive section of Magic. The other shop is mostly Magic with some Warhammer sprinkled in. It's always interesting to see how the shop is influenced by the owners interests, and of course what makes money.
That's a great shout - the 600lbs gorilla is as much Magic as it is GW, particularly as there's a significant crossover between the two communities. The problem/issue is, for a fantastic game/system - once youve collected everything - why else do you need to buy more? There's this argument that games aren't 'dead' if not developed - the counter argument is the shelf space argument.
I got into 40k way back in the late 90s as my time at school was coming to an end. I never really played it, but I collected it instead, i have since gotten away from the GW factory and i am full on frostgrave and stargrave. I find frostgrave and stargrave just so simple to play which is great!
I was a roleplayer first - D&D. I was huge into the Forgotten Realms books. A store was opening in a neighbouring small town and Ed Greenwood (who also lives locally to my home town) was going to be at the opening to sign books. So I went. The store was small but there were all kinds of boxes along one wall of 2nd edition 40k that caught my eye. Imperial guardsmen, blood angels; dark angels; a chaplain on a bike. I had never seen anything like that before. At the back of the store was a small table and two guys were playing: Eldar versus marines. I was intrigued. I went back a few times when I could and watched people play and got to know them. I wanted in. The guy running the store was happy to hear of my interest but told me to wait a couple months as 3rd edition was going to drop. So over the next couple months I kept going back to meet with the community and the day 3rd dropped I was the third customer to buy the starter. He even gave me a discount.
@@euansmith3699 Yeah, it was quite helpful really. The store owners were a wife and husband team and actually cared about the customers while the store was operational.
There needs to be a Pepsi to Games Workshop's Coke. GW is a pseudo monopoly and they need one large competitor along with all the small games in the market.
I have a pretty clear memory of my local game store back in the early 2000s having almost equal portions GW and Rackham on their walls. Admittedly, this was in France, and as you know that didn't last very long nor did it end well for Rackham... Had that company not been so eager and overreaching, maybe it could have found a way to survive and prosper the same way Corvus Belli has. Oh well... Thanks for another fascinating conversation!
Rackham Confrontation/Ragnarok was THE BEST fantasy setting in my view. What GW have failed to do with Warhammer, Rackham achieved. Artistically it was on another level, the mini sculpts are yet to be outdone for fantasy minis - I STILL haven't seen fantasy miniatures as good as Confrontation. The game system was it's own and had a great future. They threw away their main strength - the artistry, when they went rubber, pre painted, pre made minis and come with the pants AT-43 as their sci-fi setting. They abandoned their strength and tried to compete with GW's 40K. If the two had both stayed around we'd have a great sci fi setting and a great fantasy setting. I don't think anyine will do a better fantasy setting than Rackham. Warmachine/Hordes is really great... but not quite strict fantasy...
Its good slop though. There really isn't another IP out that that just hits right. I love Battletech and I really wanna like Mantics Deadzone stuff but they dont' quite have that magic for that GW has. Which is annoying cos i kinda don't wanna like GW haha. I resisted for ages gettign into Killteam and figured it would be too complicated and its not, its actually quite easy to play and easy to get into. And i struggle with getting into games. I;d love to try Infinity but that game feels like its tournement only and not for casual. I can't even understand whats happening in battle reports. So i would love good slop from else where but thats nobody else doing it for me.
@@kudosbudo gw took my favorite setting And threw it in the trashcan and is now trying to sell it again at a price hike with few new models. I'll take opr and make my own settings
My LGS has definitely gone through a lot of cycles similar to what Chris talks about with non-GW wargames. Hordesmachine, Dropzone, Flames of War, Infinity, Warlord Games and Mantic have all come and gone from the shop, the current non-GW bits are the various Star Wars games and Crisis protocol. They stock BattleTech in as much as they get most new releases and then let it sell out but they seldom reorder the beginner products. That said the space occupied by GW has also shrunk in there in the last 5 years in favour of board games. Most of their gaming space is just CCGs these days, it's hard to get a table for a wargame so my BattleTech group has basically moved to a function room in a pub, and someone there has opened an account with a distributor to order in for us.
That's so interesting. The Battletech thing in particular. I'm guessing you're in the UK which would mean you're also the most saturated per square mile with GW having their own direct to market retail chain. I wonder what the influence of that has had on market saturation.
@@GuerrillaMiniatureGames I'm in Ireland rather than the UK, when I got into the hobby in the late 80s there were basically two places to get minis games in Dublin - the Virgin Megastore that stocked GW alongside a lot of RPGs, boardgames and a small selection of other minis (I lusted after their boxes of the Aliens minis from Leading Edge but could never afford them!); and a model shop that expanded out into GW (and briefly Kryomek if you remember that), then Magic cards right before the CCG boom hit and then dropped all gaming product by about 1997. When I was a kid reading White Dwarf I longed for a GW shop for the fun events that got advertised and access to the full line of minis, but I had given up on 40K by the time GW opened their first store in Dublin in the late 90s. They opened a second one in a shopping centre on the outskirts of the city by 2002 but that one closed after a few years (and from the stories I've heard from friends who worded there, was a pretty wild place!). The only other GW shop on the island is in Belfast which despite Data's prediction in Star Trek for 2024 is still in a different country to the Republic. These days in Dublin there's GW, two decently-sized indie stored (my LGS which is literally one road over from GW, and one out in the suburbs but fairly easily accessible), and a handful of toy stores who have some GW stuff as part of the model kit and/or board game selection. That one model shop is still around, I get a lot of hobby supplies there. Outside of Dublin, there's a handful of gaming stores scattered around the country that tend to come and go. The Gathering in Limerick is the oldest game store in the country, there was a point when there was no non-GW games store in Dublin and you'd get your stuff from them at conventions when they'd bring up a trade stand.
I love how Krymek scaled their vehicles and buildings to fit in to their standard blister packaging. You can have any tank you want, as long as it is a cube. 😍@@lorcannagle
i am really enjoying this series. my first introduction to wargaming was through my dad, he was playing epic in the early 90s, and here i am around 30 years later building my 10th? army.
Monopoly has roughly 2 meanings. One is the coercive monopoly and the other is a natural or pseudo-monopoly. Some things are a bit of both. GW is a pseudo-monopoly who is threatening to become a coercive monopoly if they run everyone else out of business to the point nobody can even hope to compete. It really sucks from my perspective. Because I don't want to reinforce a monopoly, but I also don't want to keep investing in games that are going to die. When they released Star Wars Shatterpoint instead of focusing on Legjon that was my last straw. If even something as big as Star Wars refuses to try take on GW sustainably I have to be out.
Shatterpoint should have been named Breaking Point. Imperial Assault > Legion > Shatterpoint. There is only so many times they can expect their core fans to buy and paint the same characters.
I just realized this is true for me, too. Buuut... if you were playing back in the 80s, they're very different. Skirmish vs Army really. I mean, as a teen in the 80s, assembling a 12 mech company was a serious undertaking, the overwhelming majority of games were lance vs Lance. FASA Battletech was wargaming lite. Awesome fun, and I loved diving into their lore (and I still enjoy their universe). Catalyst is doing good things w/ it, imo.
Super Video! Nobody mentioned GW's desire to take everything direct and have mounted campaigns to incentivize this buying behavior. Jordansorcery did an amazing interview with a former CEO that discussed this strategy. It reminds me of the Oracle of the mini wargaming industry. They feel their fair share of the hobby spend is 100%
I've seen more than a few FLGSs go through cycles of which game ranges they stock - GW games tend to be the only constants. What's interesting though is that when asked why a specific system is no longer stocked it's a variant of the same response "not selling". Getting people into other game systems has always been difficult, there's more than a few who are GW products only and see other rule systems/models as inferior, even disdainfully so.
I think people tend to overestimate the size of Games Workshop. The closest comparison that comes to mind is LEGO, but there's a massive difference. Games Workshop generates about $600 million in revenue, while LEGO brings in around $9.5 billion. In that sense, Games Workshop is like a pimple-it likes to think it's bigger than it really is compared to giants like LEGO.
It's not wall space, it's mind space. People only have room for one brand. It's why Google, it's why Facebook, it's why Apple. You get one company that does a thing. People don't look for alternatives unless things have gone really WRONG. Name I've heard of? Must be good. Weird thing with a strange name? (looking at you AoS), nah, looks like a knock-off.
There's an interesting question out of that...how many new game systems do we really need to have fun on a specific setting ? If there's already one that is popular, it's certainly easier to roll with the wave than trying to go against it.
Great analysis guys. I would say besides Infinity, another company that takes a steady approach is Parabellum. They have been steadily building Conquest with new factions, new units and consistent rules updates for 5 years now. Even though it is a rank and flank, I don't think Old World coming back displaces it, because PB have completely different objectives to GW. Old World is more going to displace things like Warhammer Armies Project or 9th Age, which are 100% targeted at former Fantasy players. Those are the 'remora' systems you mention, which absolutely do suffer/stagnate when GW revives a main product line. It is also important to remember that GW have been here before twice. The first time was in 7th, where they made a lot of money but alienated the player base. Then they reset with 8th, brought many back in, then proceeded to bloat the game in 9th and repeat the exact same mistakes. 10th they have managed to recreate the cycle inside a single edition. They aren't too big to fail, but they are of an economy of scale that crashing and burning for an edition doesn't end them, it just stagnates them. Smaller companies do not have that scale, and so a single bad edition generally ends them. Or also, as you both point out, sometimes it just doesn't catch on and people lose interest. Overall I would say the future is very bright. GW stores have not been a hub for anyone for some time now, the internet makes it easy to discover new systems (word of mouth is still the #1 way new people get recruited, not shops), and there are several other minnows that do not emulate GW but cater to other niches. 3D printing also sidesteps the 'buy in' issue IMO. It has actually never been easier than now to make and spread your own wargame, but the trap is to try to become another GW.
Time for a "Wall Space" skirmish game; with figure ranges battling for space on the shelves. I'd love to find out what RPG Corvus Belli was playing, and was it "Pendragon" but with a cyberpunk skin.
Corvus Belli are a fantastic company, everyone at my FLGS who's played infinity - everyone loves the game, has mad respect for the company, and that's going a long way to their new releases. 3 of us have pre-ordered Warcrow, like you said, you know what to expect
Hey just wanted to say love both your guys channels, I was a snot nosed brat at your gw's long ago and can definitely contribute your guys enthusiasm for getting me so deep in hobby. I live up north now and Conquest is going strong I think Parabellum is definitely a company to watch
Hi Colin! They’re in that same lane as CB I think. Definitely have a plan they’re sticking too. They just need fifteen steady more years to solidify and really build up!
My entry point with miniatures was actually MageKnight from Wizkids and then I jumped into the LOTR from GW when I had the money for it, but quickly jumped out to Confrontation and have been playing indepent games ever since but have always kept an eye out for GW because that's all everybody else will talk about
My local FLGS is right around the corner from a GW store, and yet their shelf space for miniatures is 80% GW with the very limited selection of other games tucked away in the far corner. I bought a box of Stargrave Mercenaries a good while ago and asked for the newer Scavengers box, and I was told it would be in stock "at some point." Six months later and still not in stock. It's sad.
Mantic all the way. A game like Kings of War takes 1-1,5h to play. All armies in the same book(s) and one common upgrade of rules and armies per year (Clash of Kings). A game won´t take the whole evening. You could use a chess clock to actually balance the time.
Interesting discussion. From this it seems apparent to me that a hobby company has to grow into something like GW. Brute force with money and existing IP doesn’t do it because the lore has to be grown for the game, as does the game. So, rather tha Asmodee stepping in a comany like Corvus Belli or Mantic (although they have some GW DNA) plus decades of growth. Even then, I don’t think GW leaves enough air in the room for those companies to properly rival GW.
It's hilarious to me that I get that highschool mentality, and how I go with it, and how I have no desire for it. Yes, I play KT, Old World, LI, 40K, and Warcry, and yet all I want to play is Warcaster and Warmachine. Because those to me are qualitatively more fun systems of play. But I can't get a game. So I make good with KT for skirmish, and Old World for large games.
Warhammer stores seem to survive in UK small towns even when other retailers are closing down:not just hobby and comic stores, but electronics, independent cafe's, ironmongers and such all closing down and there's like a Greggs and a Warhammer store. So it's quite remarkable in that sense.
I think it’s interesting because of how much Bolt Action has taken off here in the Midwest that they weren’t brought up. Anecdotally it’s starting to steal space from some of Warhammer Specialist games. Conquest has unbelievable miniatures, just little adoption here
I started w Warmachine, and avoided GW for 8-9 years due to the rep of their games and players. Underworlds and Warcry convinced me to give them a try, and Warcry is now my most played game, but I still keep an eye out for non GW stuff to buy and play. Fascinating to hear the side discussion on Corvus Belli, I just havent found local players to try Infinity out.
I have a hard time seeing how GW can't be described as a monopoly. Yes, there are other companies in the market, but they essentially live and die by GW's whims. It's akin to Microsoft in the late 90's, where it leveraged its vast monopoly power in operating systems and office suites to push internet explorer and try to kill netscape. The courts came down on them for that, and something similar needs to happen to GW. One thing I think most people miss, is that the minis wargaming industry is a little bit like social media, and the massive network effect they benefit from. In the same way, the ability to find opponents creates a massive incentive for players to stay within GW's walled garden. It means very few games will ever even have a chance to get going in the first place, and one business mistake will usually prove so massively damaging (Warmahordes, perhaps Malifaux more recently) that that company will likely never recover, whereas GWs sheer size and network effect gives it a lot of leeway to make mistakes, as when they got out of specialist games in the first place.
GW competes with other ways people can spend their hobby time and money. Video games, card games, beer, etc etc. Which are much larger. If GW didn’t exist, the market as a whole would be smaller (like it was before GW and when GW has waned over time) and in many ways there would be fewer opportunities for others. People are kidding themselves that these niche games would be mass market otherwise.
I really wish things like Infinity, Dropfleet, and Conquest had either been around or better advertised when I was first starting out with the hobby. Because while I find GWs products (largely) entertaining enough those other games are what I find interesting and more enjoyable but it's a real struggle to get most people out of their sunken cost fallacy arguments for sticking soley with GW games.
Another difference between big licensed IP’s and GW is the ability to personalize your forces / teams. I don’t think anyone is writing 1-5k word backgrounds or stories about their crisis protocol minis.
I would argue GW lead the market they created , before WHFB and 40K the market almost did not exist , historics were the starting point but were not attarctive to the market GW stumbled upon. If anything GW have created the space other games can live in, without GW orientated stores even less people would have a space to play other games. GW have done an stunning job of optmising an IP that is unique and limitless. But they are a monster for sure.
GW appears to have taken a cue out of the Grocery Store business. For the past 50+ years in the USA, space on shelves are bought and paid for by the product manufactures of the company. Their is fierce competition in the soft drinks, chips and the Cereal aisle (to name 3) over how much shelf space you have to display and on which shelf (low medium or high) your products are displayed at. You will also notice from time to time that a certain company's shelf space shrinks or grows from quarter to quarter. Sometimes it is bought and paid for directly, in other instances it might be that Coke for instance will sell the product at a deeper discount then Pepsi so that they can have a more premium location in the soft drink aisle. Also end caps in grocery stores (those locations at the end of an aisle) are often bought by one company or another. Such as Coke wants to move X amount of volume for this quarter. So they make a deal with the grocery store that they will sell the Coke products at this price point and in return the Grocery store has to display it prominently on an end cap. GW based on this interview are using similar tactics to eat up real estate within a FLGS The more prominent and wider your product is displayed, the more likely you are going to capture that market share from your casual or new shopper. Oh and if you ever wonder why Grocery Stores move stuff around in a Grocery store. It is 2 fold. One because some companies have paid for more shelf space and the current aisle they are located on cannot contain said shelf space. The second reason is the Grocery store will move things around to force the shopper to walk up and down additional aisles in the hopes that the shopper will discover something new and purchase that product. Per various studies and papers this rearrangement apparently has driven additional sales that exceed the cost and effort of moving and rearranging all the shelves.
These videos are fantastic. I love.the conversational aspect, makes for great listening on the road or on a walk. I love your reviews but they aren't as easily consumable while I'm mowing the lawn.
I’ve even had GW games be monopolistic over themselves. What I mean by this is that at some stores and hobby clubs I’ve been like do you want to play X GW game to people there and they are like you can try but people here mostly play Y GW game (mostly 40K)
Got into Conquest last year and love it. I think supporting other "indie" studios is important for diversity's sake. But it is tough to get the word out when Warhammer is the only thing most people know.
GW model designs have the perfect ratio. It’s cartoony yet serious, it’s eye catching but not complex, it’s bland yet easy to make cool with a simple color swap. The lore is the cherry on top.
You started touching on it towards the end, but the scariest problem with monopoly's is when they start buying the competition. We as a society have done a terrible job of stopping this happening in other industries. GW is doing a lot of things that aren't good for customers, but at least they aren't buying the competition...yet.
To compete with GW you have to rival their miniature quality. I see it with my kids I tried most popular games with them but nothing drives their interest more than cool minis. Even if the game itself is objectively better.
Atomic mass games had a real chance with me and my sons because we liked the rules for marvel CP but they did one important thing wrong which is the pricing. If I can get one Hulk for the same price of a whole kill team the choice is very obvious to us.
A mate tried to get me into the Star Wars games and my reasons for not jumping in are the exact reasons you gave. The game and it's lore and story are limited by the IP on the outset. We would never get an interesting story arc or character that has not already happened. It's a set up to a big let down.
In the early 2000s, we were selling lots of games. We sold GW, of course, but we had tons of sales of the D&D prepainted minis blind boxes, same for Star Wars, all of the Clix games, Reaper's metals were the choice of RPG players, Old Glory for 15mm and 25mm Napoleonics. At the same time, we had D&D Third edition which was going strong along with the third party publishers that made five times as much as WotC did. We had a wall of Battletech metal blisters, Jovian and Heavy Gear, Micro Armour, etc. Battlefront Miniatures was just launching Flames of War. We bought their launch line and it was shipped from New Zealand. When it arrived, every single blister had popped off during shipping, probably from the temperature and pressure changes during shipping. We had to sit down with some of our WWII players to ID each tank body, tread and turret and reassemble each card, packing the tanks into small zip top bags and staple them to the cards. It was a rough start, but the game sold crazy well. It seems that today, it is much more difficult to launch a new game, then to sustain interest, especially without an established IP. Would Crisis Protocol have lasted without Marvel? Would Legion stay as long without Star Wars? Can you launch successful popular games without an IP now?
Historicals/WWII are in a way IP. For small hobby as tabletop mini gaming, it seems to need IP to get the mass of players needed to sustain a game, with downside of long-term health of the game. Or find small niches in the industry like Infinity as they mentioned. And the internet has given much more choice for people to find their niches in the hobby. Though it probably hasn't scaled down well to the local level.
IP is becoming more and more necessary for companies and investors to fund big projects. It gets people through the door. See cinema as another example. Unfortunately is it very limiting to creativity.
That last question was really interesting, because I don't think that the majority of Games Workshop players would just migrate to other systems if GW stopped. I think the majority of GW's players and collectors are there because of the lore, the quality of the mini's for painting and that somehow, against all societal odds, it's "cool". I think the handful of people who play historicals and the more niche games would continue to do so, (as they always have); you might get a handful of players looking for new systems? but I'd be surprised if there would be as many opportunities for other businesses as it might at first appear.
I will say it amused me that the answer to the question "are they a monopoly" seemed to be "no... but there's nothing to be done." As an American thats giving me too big to fail flashbacks.
It's the subtle difference between a Monopoly and a Monopolistic Market. GW doesn't have any interest in acquiring or driving out of business their competitors, because they're not REALLY competitors, they're an undermarket that ultimately emulates them.
Yeah, but you can recognize that they react to other companys. For example release of KoW 3rd and announcement of ToW. Or same naming for expansions for Blackstone Fortress: Escalation which had the same name as Deadzone expansion Escalation. Personally I think that they have an issue with Mantic especially since if you start with it you tend to stay there. On the on hand for the prices (I am sure that the starter prices for ToW which are comparable to KoW mega armies is an indicator for that) and on the other because you find the more casual and competitive sector since the rules feel like a friendly wargaming entry point for board gamers.
I think a situation like GW is multi-faceted as you discuss. But it is interesting to see the other individuals out there making cool miniatures where 20-30 years ago they could never realize their vision of a Marine, now with the 3D space people who mess around on weekends can make their vision and then make a physical model of that is amazing and you can say derivative and stolen and basically the same. But GW has their range and can't or won't flesh out aspect and then an individual makes their vision, and offers it up which could not be realized. Now I think the space is evolving.
It's very much like the convention artists market. You can buy huge drawings of your favourite Marvel/DC/Image character or crossovers or things you can't do in the actual brand because of IP ownership, etc. I honestly think the existance of off-brand second hand marketplaces being able to even EXIST to sell things is proof alone that at the very least it's a Monopolistic Marketplace. There are competitors but they will never reach a commensurate size and are all emulating the dominant brand.
Wargaming in the late 80's and early 90s in north Texas and south Oklahoma conventions was dominated by a variety of games with historical having the lion share of all gaming tables. GW had to share space and compete with the remaining Sci-Fi , Fantasy and board games at these conventions. GW games were no where near the dominant force back then that they are today. As to the remaining tables that were not part of the vendor/dealer hall that did not contain wargames or board games..they were dominated by TSR AD&D with a smattering of other RPGS tables. As to introduction into the hobby. Well I played Chainmail as the first ever miniature wargame. Followed by some d6 and d8 miniature wargames that were popular in Texas and Oklahoma the time and whose name I have long since forgotten. As well as 2nd edition WHFB which back then was a vast improvement over the d6 and d8 fantasy wargames where most of the armies had a very similar mechanic and play style.
There was almost always a Historical wargame that involved the Alamo at these conventions. As a matter of fact I recall it being such a popular game that at some conventions they had more then one slot you could sign up for compared to Fantasy wargames where you would be lucky if there were 2 slots over the course of the whole convention that ran from Friday - Sunday.
I’m a businessman, salesperson, and hobby nerd. I would love to try and make the business plan to run a profitable FLGS without GW or possibly even MTG.
Thinking about this further, the effort is that GW is the only company that actively engages in sales. It’s about finding PROSPECTIVE customers and aggressively pursuing them. No other company is doing this in the market. It’s all very passive. I think far too many FLGS die because they can’t get out from behind the counter and find new customers and get them into the store. I’ve heard mediocre reports about trade practices of the big players. If you can make more profitability selling non-GW ; albeit spend more work making that consumer base yourself - too many go the route of GW. Want to sell more bolt action and Mantic? Get out to every school in a 10km radius and sell it to the kids.
Battletech Mercenaries Kickstarter recently raised over $7.5 million with a $50k goal. In the top 20 of highest backed Kickstarter ever. Seems like this would indicate its popularity and should sell well at retail.
It is selling great in retail! So much so that they keep running out of supply. They also have distro through Barnes and Noble and Target which is a HUGE visibility boost for them. That said, they still only have less than twenty full-time staff that aren’t contractors or contributors and they aren’t the IP Owners so it’s a very different market position. The actual owners of Battletech are Topps Trading Cards who have very different interests and are just getting licensing fees.
Let's be honest, Ash. You are one of a few channels out there that gives a LOT of your time and attention to non-GW stuff. A large part of the issue that other companies run into is simply demand. GW throws stuff at influencers all the time, and they all know that painting that model or making an unboxing is just gonna being in more money than covering Infinity or Malifaux or anything else. With social media being full of Games Workshop stuff, that is what most people are exposed to so that is what they end up asking for. Stores simply cannot afford to stock stuff that might not sell, and GW has willing partners in ensuring that not many people are asking for stuff. Personally I think you are an absolute hero for trying to shine a light on as many games as you do, I'm sure it's an oasis in the desert to a lot of the companies and product you feature. I don't really want to shit on Games Workshop here, they produce very slick products and market them incredibly well. Ultimately, they were doing this dance before the vast majority of other companies out there but they could probably afford to slow down their release cycle enough so that they were not struggling to meet their own inflated demand.
Just came back to this video to make sure I quoted you correctly in my comments on another video. That concept of an anchor product is so accurate and is an apt model for the conversation if D&D is a monopoly that Dungeon Craft is posting today.
The irony is D&D can’t be an anchor any more. Only its off-brand supplements can be. The margin of sale for retailers is so razor thin there’s no point even selling it. You’re basically doing so at cost.
Love and appreciate this sir and chat style podcast. Question you mentioned PPs attempt at counter culture marketing. I’d love a bit of a deep dive into that concept. Were they doomed to lose people back to GW? Was their community base only going to be there as long as GW did bad business practices? Was PP ever an “heir” to the kingdom or were they merely a prince pending to be king
It means you have to ‘be’ that thing that attracted them forever. Every time they grew and had to make any kind of choice that went against that marketing it became a problem for them with those customers. We’re actually going to do a future episode on ‘brands’ in the near future. :)
As to Infinity, they are a great company, I got involved a year ago and a great game, and great support, free app for army building of all factions and free rules app. The miniatures are sometimes frustrating as you cannot find a certain mini but you can easily substitute another mini that catches your fancy.
Disagre Infinity is just not fun, The models are a mess to glue , they release very slow and not what people want and the community is like a cult were you cant speak even the slightest critic.
I trash their miniatures all the time to my group. The older sculpts are great looking but the execution for assembly is garbage. Siocast/unicool or whatever it is called alternative is great. They are a small company with limited runs. I get that and accept it. The miniatures are getting better but I don't think they have the market share or the money to invest in plastics for their stuff, yet. @@liquiddude9855
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when (or if) the Amazon 40k show starring Henry Cavil comes out. Is going to be even more of a gaming juggernaut with a new fan base? 🤔
Part of it is also that GW's two historical main lines of 40k and WFB are so good IP wise. WFB is classic fantasy tropes combined with a world very similar to ours, and as a result things like the Tomb Kings and Lizardmen feel very real and have a lot of depth compared to other fantasy races, and the Germanic Empire also feels very lived in. 40k is also an incredible IP - one of the BIG unsung virtues is that you have official Chapters of SM that people can collect, but also people can create their own chapters and the universe is big enough to accomadate them. That allows for gamers who want to paint by the numbers and also ones who want to be creative to both get something from the hobby. I also think that having 'Chaos' as the villain is such an integral part of the settings, as it gives them so much psychological depth compared to standard 'evil dark lords'.
The whole "dead game" psychology is really interesting. You're absolutely right. The rules and models still exist; the game is still just as fun with friends... but it's "dead," so there' something off-putting about it. I think for me, if no one is talking about it, then I can't feel like I'm "engaging in hobby" by watching videos, or keeping up with new rules and models. I think it reminds me more of the fact that I don't have the time to actually play as much as I'd like, and playing the game takes a lot more work to find people and set aside time for it. "Living games" are much easier to passively engage... I hope that makes sense.
I'll never forget years ago my buddy Andrew telling me there are no "dead" games, only "complete" games. That really struck a chord with me flipping my whole perspective to seeing something I enjoyed as over and done with, to seeing at as something where I didn't have to keep up with grind and changes and could just enjoy it for what it was.
A few fanboy tried to tell me that Bushido was a dead game just because it wasnt played anymore in the small town I'm in. Year on year Gct are still producing new wave minis, Bushido is still only on a second edition and are trading worldwide. Still present at ukgamesexpo every year and holds their yearly championship. In other words this guy was a tool 😅
That's such an intresting take Atragon... I think there's something really essential in the experience you're describing. For a lot of people wanting to get to BE engaged by it through other media is a REALLY BIG DEAL. That feeling of being part of something or that there's movement and experiences out there can be really motivating and I think what you're describing is a super common phenomenon.
That's absolutely a factor, I think. A lot of people get bored or frustrated with GW, move to the new hotness and then move back the GW to play with a wider base of people
@@GuerrillaMiniatureGamesInterestingly with GW you can do that "passive engagement" even with their "dead games", there is or at least was more people playing and creating content for old editions of Warhammer Fantasy than for most non GW actively produced miniature games. It will be interesting to see if they manage to capture all of that with the Old World or not. So far it seems not, mostly yes, but not all. GW is so big that from the top 50 miniature games played they probably occupy most of the top 20 and that includes games they haven’t produced in decades!
I was a D&D kid. Playing, we had little standees, or tokens from board games, and then one kid brings a super cool (for that time) Elf. Go with one of the friends to a Magic tourney at a store. Guys playing in the back on this big table with terrain, lots of minis, but these were sci fi and had guns. Watched them for the entire game. They talked to me, and told me there were novels and the store sold the minis. Looked at the minis and found a single box of dudes cost as much as a video game! Well, can't afford that. But while sitting in a bookstore (free daycare for my mom on errands basically), saw the warhammer symbol. Started reading a book about a female dwarf and her hold fighting back orcs and goblins. Kept reading novels from there. Then there was Shadow of the Horned Rat. Then Dawn of War. Then, finally about 2016 I had the money from a new job to buy into minis and armies. So RPGs that use minis for pieces, exposure at a store, to side products, to actual involvement. I have at this point sunk over $20k into GW products. Long burn, but they made their money off me
The discussion about asmodee is an interesting one. But we have to consider that those miniature games (legion/mcp/shatterpoint) are only a small focus of asmodee. AMG is a very small wing of asmodee trying to juggle 4 games. As someone who was in that scene it definitely seems like they are getting to the point where the logistics is getting to hard to handle for the size. Its very different to GW where the entire focus of the company is behind miniature gaming.
Historical minis are hand in hand with licensed IP miniature games. You have a hard design space. A Tiger tank will always be a Tiger tank. Sure, you can make a different set of rules or make it in a different scale, but it's still a Tiger tank. An Imperial Stormtrooper will just be... a Stormtrooper. Once you've made everything... there's nothing more to make. That's why GW has this unique position to have an IP that's very well fleshed out that also can expand practically any direction they want it to. Corvus Belli had a phenomenal product line of Ancient Miniature starter boxes to play DBA back in the day. But the rules they didn't own, so when those rules changed editions and it made their products out of dates as army sizes and composition changed, eventually they changed course to full send into Infinity.
But this is also a fun to look at other Historical companies out there right now. Warlord, GHQ, Atlantic, even Wargamer (Poland). They're all trying to find a niche product to create something nobody else has in a setting (human written history) that has a hard cap of possibilities.
YES. Such a good observation. And your customer base is SO keyed into that fact that they'll judge anything you make by how much you know about the period and setting. Great observation.
I hope you enjoy the next couple, I think they’re definitely something where we explore the space you guys are operating in! I’d be happy to have you on as well to talk about your corner of the marketplace!
GW was not how I got into the hobby directly, first thing was playing D&D in 1980 (oh man I'm old) and then found the Ral Partha adventurer proper 'do not eat these' lead figures box. A few years of miniature collecting followed before the first edition of WFB came along but we'd been playing little skirmish games before that. I guess it's because of my age that GW didn't exist as the big thing - had I been born 10 years later it would have been very different I guess. Anyway, another great video, thanks!
I dont think Chris ever answered exactly how much of his wall is Asmodee. If I had to guess his answer was going ot be less than 20%? To answer your question @GuerrillaMiniatureGames ...for my sons and I...we came in through the specialty miniature boardgames first. I got Bloodrage and the first Zombiecide. I even bought some paints and painted them. We were like "This is pretty cool...the minatures etc....whats this Warhammer stuff....". We came into it right when the first Kill Team starter came out. I got talked into buying it and painting up the Tyranids etc. Now we have moved into actual 40k....as well as back into Kill Team recently.
28:05 - Other companies (run by MBAs who don't game) are setting themselves up for failure doing this. They don't understand they're not GW, and tabletop gaming isn't other markets. FFG really ran afoul of this when they kept increasing prices but then also instituted MAP, and got Amazon to go along with it. I've seen people wonder why Star Wars Armada died and no one ever seems to mention that they started MAP and a year later the game was dead, funny that. No 50% off on Amazon and suddenly the game died. It's not that big prices can't work for skirmish games if they really look awesome (Crisis Protocal vs. D&D Onslaught) but your product is walking a high wire and it can't slip. Bad quarter of releases, bad rules update, people getting bored, bad movies, they can't survive that stuff. Meanwhile Warhammer is walking along a 2x4 on the living room carpet and can survive darn near anything.
Dragon, and White Dwarf were originally industry wide gaming magazines, then each of the respective owners excluded the rest of the industry. Essentially placed blinders on thier consumers. Then, the owners of the hobby shops, took the easy route and carried only gamesworkshop products, and magic cards and D&D, Essentially creating a self strengthening cycle.
Loved the conversation. I love Warhammer, it was my first tabletop miniatures game and my friends and I got into WHFB because we played a lot of Warcraft 2 and 3. I have to agree though, that MCP is probably the best game I've ever played, and it feels exactly like what you're playing, I hope Atomic Mass keeps doing awesome with this game.
Thanks so much for watching! I know I said you're probably not the best control group for this... but here's the Strawpoll of WHERE DID YOU DISCOVER WARGAMING? Be honest!
strawpoll.com/kjn18ox3jyQ
I got in to Tabletop Wargaming by the usual route; my Dad went to school with Phil Barker, and so I used to get sent along to Phil's flat to play weekly games, the usual. 😄👍
@@euansmith3699 Yes... the most common of origin stories hahahahaha
My first experience was GW. I bought the 40k Rogue Trader book and the box set that contained 30 marine minis from my local comic book shop. I was 16... I can't imagine a 16 year old buying a core book and a starter box with their own money nowadays.
back in 94 there were not many alternatives to GW. Looking at some classmate white dwarf sold it to me. I was already into RPGs
Neither
I have never played 40k or AoS, my entree was through Frostgrave. Long live miniature agnostics.
I love that! And a modern game system too so that's fairly recent!
One of GWs best moves was convincing people that their hobby was Warhammer and not Wargaming.
Also the worst move.
Best move for them, worst move for the hobby at large ☹️
Warhammer 40K is the call of duty of wargaming.
I really enjoy the not-bombastic, relaxed style of chat in these videos. So much content that tries to be a GW haruspex is both over the top (in both directions, positive and negative) and largely people wishlisting instead of actually engaging in analysis. Good work.
Thank you!
I just printed a 3000 point empire army for old world. Not because I hate GW, or don't want to support them (I bought both tomb kings and bretonnian boxes) but because they simply arent available. Everything is sold out everywhere. I don't have a local store, so I have to go online. And ebay is a whole barrel of hell no right now, so printing was my only real feasible option. Now I have an army, and my two sons have armies, and we can all play together.
You and your sons have armies and you didn't have to cash in their college loans to get them!
@@turtlecheese8 exactly! I had to blow a hundred bucks on 2 bottles of resin, and probably 100 more on files... but hey, not too bad
I'm going exactly the same route with both my Empire and Skaven armies (OPR Patreon here) and no matter what those GW shills say, it IS a lot cheaper than buying the minis, print fails and all 🙂
I'd love to see a GMG - Tabletop Minions crossover event discussion this same topic.
Well there's a good chance that might happen!
@@GuerrillaMiniatureGames I will mention it to him at gama
@@GuerrillaMiniatureGamesthat would be awsome
It took me a while to click the Tabletop Minions is Uncle Atom.
""Its a bloodbath'' is an appropriate description of the tabletop wargaming marketplace. Games Workshop sits on their throne of skulls laughing at the competition. I can hear them yelling with glee ''Blood for the Blood God!''
I’m an Old. My first wargame was Squad Leader (and Car Wars). My first miniature game was FASA’s Star Trek starship combat for their RPG. My first GW game was Blood Bowl. I’ve loved and been irritated with GW, but I’ve never been disappointed with the quality of their miniatures or art - sometimes their rulesets or marketing decisions.
I’m glad that Corvus Belli is the company it is. Is Mantic good to work with as a retailer? I’ve communicated with them as a customer and I like them. I like what they’ve tried to do. I hope they have a Corvus Belli - like level of success.
I really liked this series of conversations. Thank you
When it comes to wargaming and monopoly, hobbyists have a part to play in this too. You have to fight and advocate for the games you want to see played/supported. If everyone just flocks to GW, because they're the 800 pound gorilla in the room, nothing's going to change. We have to double down on other games and intellectual property and give them our support. GW doesn't just monopolize the industry, it monopolizes our options. Not all of us are interested in what GW does. There's a universe of other possibilities out there.
Yup, there are Infinity of options.
I wouldn't call monopoly a wargame. It's just a board game.
The problem is unless the player base in an area has the location, the focus to play and keep playing and a store willing to now financially take that leap then that isn't a hill you are trying to climb. That is a cliff.
I've seen several people get burned going down this road. Dumping thousands into a game to promote it and then having buckets of value-less product to show for it. It's definitely a risk.
I'm not interested in "fighting" for anything like that. This is just a hobby. I just want to paint and play and relax. I'm never going to play a game that I can't find opponents for relatively easily. I think most people are like me.
46:56 "Well, I'm not going to build a big company; so. I'm just going to do this one thing I like, and make it." Sean Sutter has entered the chat 😍👍
The benchmark by which all other independent designers are judged.
Relicblade? Any good?
The best@@ZeeLobby
It is very much a micro skirmish, with games being around 5 minis per side. However, there is so customization to keep things fresh, and the theme and tone of the game are spot on. @@ZeeLobby
@@euansmith3699 that's awesome. Have definitely dove into smaller skirmish games lately as my painting free time has diminished. Might have to add relicblade to our Bushido rotation
I suspect that this is partly a generational thing, and that younger gamers get into wargaming by being exposed to Warhammer content online - mostly lore. Then they filter into the Warhammer ecosystem, and then a tiny proportion move into the wider wargamer world for all the other companies to try and gobble up.
Whether that constitutes a monopoly or not is largely immaterial, so much as the effect is still the same. The "Warhammer Hobby" seems like it's on a totally different plane from the wargaming one. Just looking at youtube, doing a video focused on warhammer can gets 10s of thousands of views, while creating content for any other will struggle to grow beyond a thousand. And funnily, even within warhammer the further you go from lore and closer to the tabletop the less views you're likely to get.
It's really interesting because on the face of it the RPG market is pretty comparable, with Dungeons & Dragons being by far the largest tabletop RPG in the space, but Wizards of the Coast were never able to quite tighten their grip on the larger RPG hobby like GW did to wargaming, and now there's a thriving independent RPG market. Obviously there's plenty of wargames, but it's more of a struggle to survive, especially when so many people who buy miniatures are just doing so because they like the Warhammer IP.
If Games Workshop left the wargaming space tomorrow, then I'd worry that the audience size would get lower, though games like Bolt Action, Infinity and Battletech give me hope that the hobby could still thrive and that game stores could survive.
Oh no, Ash has opened the Interweb Gates, and summoned the Sass Queen from her fitful slumber!
It is always great to hear from the Ulster Sybil.
Gw great miniatures worst rules(40k mostly)
Same for Kill Team, AoS and ToW. Tried the games and they were just not good or fun.
I can't even play 40k anymore after playing Infinity - Horus Heresy is fine though!
I will preface this by saying that I love my local store and I really want them to be successful, but I miss the variety they used to have. Through that store I discovered Flames of War, Wild West Exodus, Legion, and my favorite game, Dust 1947 (sigh). 40K has always been the game I played the most over the years, but I loved going to the shop and seeing what else was out there and possibly discovering a new game. Now, the shop is mostly 40K with a small selection of Team Yankee (not interested, no Sherman tanks). It’s still a great shop, and they usually have what I need for my World Eaters and other Chaos forces, but I really miss seeing a wider selection of what the hobby has to offer.
And I wonder what that means for the discovery of OTHER new things by folks new to the ecosystem? How will they see alternatives if they only place they can find them is online and that has to fight the algorithmic vortex?
I think OPR is probably an intersting take as a "warhammer adjacent" game and almost how their miniature agnostic approach to their game system has ,at least from an outside perspective, has been successful for them.
Asmodee is also in the unfortunate position of being owned by the Embracer Group which went on a buying spree (dozens of videogame studios, Dark Horse Comics, the Lord of the Rings IP) and is now slashing costs (and jobs) left and right.
Battletech and Rafm historical/Fantasy minatures. Early 90’s. First time being introduced to minatures.
Ive really enjoyed these past 2 videos on the business side of the industry. Please consider producing more of them. Honestly sometimes the business is even more interesting than the games.
Games workshop is the huge tree growing over your garden, it gets most of the sun but not all of it, it is not the only thing growing in your garden but it is the largest.
Great analogy.
The owner of one of my local shops is huge into Battletech so the wall of models is pretty equal parts Battletech, Warhammer, and D&D. The other wall has boardgames and then of course the massive section of Magic. The other shop is mostly Magic with some Warhammer sprinkled in. It's always interesting to see how the shop is influenced by the owners interests, and of course what makes money.
That's a great shout - the 600lbs gorilla is as much Magic as it is GW, particularly as there's a significant crossover between the two communities.
The problem/issue is, for a fantastic game/system - once youve collected everything - why else do you need to buy more? There's this argument that games aren't 'dead' if not developed - the counter argument is the shelf space argument.
I got into 40k way back in the late 90s as my time at school was coming to an end. I never really played it, but I collected it instead, i have since gotten away from the GW factory and i am full on frostgrave and stargrave. I find frostgrave and stargrave just so simple to play which is great!
I was a roleplayer first - D&D. I was huge into the Forgotten Realms books. A store was opening in a neighbouring small town and Ed Greenwood (who also lives locally to my home town) was going to be at the opening to sign books. So I went.
The store was small but there were all kinds of boxes along one wall of 2nd edition 40k that caught my eye. Imperial guardsmen, blood angels; dark angels; a chaplain on a bike. I had never seen anything like that before.
At the back of the store was a small table and two guys were playing: Eldar versus marines. I was intrigued.
I went back a few times when I could and watched people play and got to know them. I wanted in. The guy running the store was happy to hear of my interest but told me to wait a couple months as 3rd edition was going to drop. So over the next couple months I kept going back to meet with the community and the day 3rd dropped I was the third customer to buy the starter. He even gave me a discount.
Great to hear you were given a heads-up about 3rd Edition. There's a store owner who know how to keep a prospective customer hooked.
@@euansmith3699 Yeah, it was quite helpful really. The store owners were a wife and husband team and actually cared about the customers while the store was operational.
There needs to be a Pepsi to Games Workshop's Coke. GW is a pseudo monopoly and they need one large competitor along with all the small games in the market.
I have a pretty clear memory of my local game store back in the early 2000s having almost equal portions GW and Rackham on their walls. Admittedly, this was in France, and as you know that didn't last very long nor did it end well for Rackham... Had that company not been so eager and overreaching, maybe it could have found a way to survive and prosper the same way Corvus Belli has. Oh well... Thanks for another fascinating conversation!
Rackham Confrontation/Ragnarok was THE BEST fantasy setting in my view. What GW have failed to do with Warhammer, Rackham achieved.
Artistically it was on another level, the mini sculpts are yet to be outdone for fantasy minis - I STILL haven't seen fantasy miniatures as good as Confrontation. The game system was it's own and had a great future.
They threw away their main strength - the artistry, when they went rubber, pre painted, pre made minis and come with the pants AT-43 as their sci-fi setting.
They abandoned their strength and tried to compete with GW's 40K.
If the two had both stayed around we'd have a great sci fi setting and a great fantasy setting.
I don't think anyine will do a better fantasy setting than Rackham. Warmachine/Hordes is really great... but not quite strict fantasy...
The advent of 3d printing and games like OPR have totally democratized wargaming. Its just some gamers refuse to stop eating GW slop
Its good slop though. There really isn't another IP out that that just hits right. I love Battletech and I really wanna like Mantics Deadzone stuff but they dont' quite have that magic for that GW has. Which is annoying cos i kinda don't wanna like GW haha. I resisted for ages gettign into Killteam and figured it would be too complicated and its not, its actually quite easy to play and easy to get into. And i struggle with getting into games. I;d love to try Infinity but that game feels like its tournement only and not for casual. I can't even understand whats happening in battle reports.
So i would love good slop from else where but thats nobody else doing it for me.
@@kudosbudo gw took my favorite setting And threw it in the trashcan and is now trying to sell it again at a price hike with few new models.
I'll take opr and make my own settings
My LGS has definitely gone through a lot of cycles similar to what Chris talks about with non-GW wargames. Hordesmachine, Dropzone, Flames of War, Infinity, Warlord Games and Mantic have all come and gone from the shop, the current non-GW bits are the various Star Wars games and Crisis protocol. They stock BattleTech in as much as they get most new releases and then let it sell out but they seldom reorder the beginner products. That said the space occupied by GW has also shrunk in there in the last 5 years in favour of board games. Most of their gaming space is just CCGs these days, it's hard to get a table for a wargame so my BattleTech group has basically moved to a function room in a pub, and someone there has opened an account with a distributor to order in for us.
That's so interesting. The Battletech thing in particular. I'm guessing you're in the UK which would mean you're also the most saturated per square mile with GW having their own direct to market retail chain. I wonder what the influence of that has had on market saturation.
@@GuerrillaMiniatureGames I'm in Ireland rather than the UK, when I got into the hobby in the late 80s there were basically two places to get minis games in Dublin - the Virgin Megastore that stocked GW alongside a lot of RPGs, boardgames and a small selection of other minis (I lusted after their boxes of the Aliens minis from Leading Edge but could never afford them!); and a model shop that expanded out into GW (and briefly Kryomek if you remember that), then Magic cards right before the CCG boom hit and then dropped all gaming product by about 1997.
When I was a kid reading White Dwarf I longed for a GW shop for the fun events that got advertised and access to the full line of minis, but I had given up on 40K by the time GW opened their first store in Dublin in the late 90s. They opened a second one in a shopping centre on the outskirts of the city by 2002 but that one closed after a few years (and from the stories I've heard from friends who worded there, was a pretty wild place!). The only other GW shop on the island is in Belfast which despite Data's prediction in Star Trek for 2024 is still in a different country to the Republic.
These days in Dublin there's GW, two decently-sized indie stored (my LGS which is literally one road over from GW, and one out in the suburbs but fairly easily accessible), and a handful of toy stores who have some GW stuff as part of the model kit and/or board game selection. That one model shop is still around, I get a lot of hobby supplies there.
Outside of Dublin, there's a handful of gaming stores scattered around the country that tend to come and go. The Gathering in Limerick is the oldest game store in the country, there was a point when there was no non-GW games store in Dublin and you'd get your stuff from them at conventions when they'd bring up a trade stand.
I love how Krymek scaled their vehicles and buildings to fit in to their standard blister packaging. You can have any tank you want, as long as it is a cube. 😍@@lorcannagle
@@euansmith3699 i think I still have a couple of those in a box somewhere, plus one of their mechs.
Oh, I'd forgotten about their mechs. The legs kept falling off mine; but I think that was more my failing than the company's 😍@@lorcannagle
i am really enjoying this series. my first introduction to wargaming was through my dad, he was playing epic in the early 90s, and here i am around 30 years later building my 10th? army.
Monopoly has roughly 2 meanings. One is the coercive monopoly and the other is a natural or pseudo-monopoly. Some things are a bit of both. GW is a pseudo-monopoly who is threatening to become a coercive monopoly if they run everyone else out of business to the point nobody can even hope to compete.
It really sucks from my perspective. Because I don't want to reinforce a monopoly, but I also don't want to keep investing in games that are going to die. When they released Star Wars Shatterpoint instead of focusing on Legjon that was my last straw. If even something as big as Star Wars refuses to try take on GW sustainably I have to be out.
Shatterpoint should have been named Breaking Point. Imperial Assault > Legion > Shatterpoint. There is only so many times they can expect their core fans to buy and paint the same characters.
I actually answered that GW was my first exposure. But that isn't true. I actually got involved in war gaming and battletech and pre battletech days
I just realized this is true for me, too. Buuut... if you were playing back in the 80s, they're very different. Skirmish vs Army really.
I mean, as a teen in the 80s, assembling a 12 mech company was a serious undertaking, the overwhelming majority of games were lance vs Lance.
FASA Battletech was wargaming lite. Awesome fun, and I loved diving into their lore (and I still enjoy their universe). Catalyst is doing good things w/ it, imo.
Super Video! Nobody mentioned GW's desire to take everything direct and have mounted campaigns to incentivize this buying behavior. Jordansorcery did an amazing interview with a former CEO that discussed this strategy. It reminds me of the Oracle of the mini wargaming industry. They feel their fair share of the hobby spend is 100%
I've seen more than a few FLGSs go through cycles of which game ranges they stock - GW games tend to be the only constants. What's interesting though is that when asked why a specific system is no longer stocked it's a variant of the same response "not selling".
Getting people into other game systems has always been difficult, there's more than a few who are GW products only and see other rule systems/models as inferior, even disdainfully so.
I think people tend to overestimate the size of Games Workshop. The closest comparison that comes to mind is LEGO, but there's a massive difference. Games Workshop generates about $600 million in revenue, while LEGO brings in around $9.5 billion. In that sense, Games Workshop is like a pimple-it likes to think it's bigger than it really is compared to giants like LEGO.
I got into everything thru a new Warhammer store built in my city. Never knew what it was before a few months ago
It's not wall space, it's mind space. People only have room for one brand. It's why Google, it's why Facebook, it's why Apple. You get one company that does a thing. People don't look for alternatives unless things have gone really WRONG. Name I've heard of? Must be good. Weird thing with a strange name? (looking at you AoS), nah, looks like a knock-off.
There's an interesting question out of that...how many new game systems do we really need to have fun on a specific setting ? If there's already one that is popular, it's certainly easier to roll with the wave than trying to go against it.
Great analysis guys. I would say besides Infinity, another company that takes a steady approach is Parabellum. They have been steadily building Conquest with new factions, new units and consistent rules updates for 5 years now. Even though it is a rank and flank, I don't think Old World coming back displaces it, because PB have completely different objectives to GW. Old World is more going to displace things like Warhammer Armies Project or 9th Age, which are 100% targeted at former Fantasy players. Those are the 'remora' systems you mention, which absolutely do suffer/stagnate when GW revives a main product line.
It is also important to remember that GW have been here before twice. The first time was in 7th, where they made a lot of money but alienated the player base. Then they reset with 8th, brought many back in, then proceeded to bloat the game in 9th and repeat the exact same mistakes. 10th they have managed to recreate the cycle inside a single edition. They aren't too big to fail, but they are of an economy of scale that crashing and burning for an edition doesn't end them, it just stagnates them. Smaller companies do not have that scale, and so a single bad edition generally ends them. Or also, as you both point out, sometimes it just doesn't catch on and people lose interest.
Overall I would say the future is very bright. GW stores have not been a hub for anyone for some time now, the internet makes it easy to discover new systems (word of mouth is still the #1 way new people get recruited, not shops), and there are several other minnows that do not emulate GW but cater to other niches. 3D printing also sidesteps the 'buy in' issue IMO. It has actually never been easier than now to make and spread your own wargame, but the trap is to try to become another GW.
Time for a "Wall Space" skirmish game; with figure ranges battling for space on the shelves.
I'd love to find out what RPG Corvus Belli was playing, and was it "Pendragon" but with a cyberpunk skin.
We'll call the game BLOODBATH.
It was!
Corvus Belli are a fantastic company, everyone at my FLGS who's played infinity - everyone loves the game, has mad respect for the company, and that's going a long way to their new releases. 3 of us have pre-ordered Warcrow, like you said, you know what to expect
Great conversation, very insightful stuff.
Thanks for listening! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Hey just wanted to say love both your guys channels, I was a snot nosed brat at your gw's long ago and can definitely contribute your guys enthusiasm for getting me so deep in hobby. I live up north now and Conquest is going strong I think Parabellum is definitely a company to watch
Hi Colin!
They’re in that same lane as CB I think. Definitely have a plan they’re sticking too. They just need fifteen steady more years to solidify and really build up!
My entry point with miniatures was actually MageKnight from Wizkids and then I jumped into the LOTR from GW when I had the money for it, but quickly jumped out to Confrontation and have been playing indepent games ever since but have always kept an eye out for GW because that's all everybody else will talk about
My local FLGS is right around the corner from a GW store, and yet their shelf space for miniatures is 80% GW with the very limited selection of other games tucked away in the far corner. I bought a box of Stargrave Mercenaries a good while ago and asked for the newer Scavengers box, and I was told it would be in stock "at some point." Six months later and still not in stock. It's sad.
Mantic all the way. A game like Kings of War takes 1-1,5h to play. All armies in the same book(s) and one common upgrade of rules and armies per year (Clash of Kings). A game won´t take the whole evening. You could use a chess clock to actually balance the time.
Interesting discussion.
From this it seems apparent to me that a hobby company has to grow into something like GW.
Brute force with money and existing IP doesn’t do it because the lore has to be grown for the game, as does the game.
So, rather tha Asmodee stepping in a comany like Corvus Belli or Mantic (although they have some GW DNA) plus decades of growth.
Even then, I don’t think GW leaves enough air in the room for those companies to properly rival GW.
It's hilarious to me that I get that highschool mentality, and how I go with it, and how I have no desire for it. Yes, I play KT, Old World, LI, 40K, and Warcry, and yet all I want to play is Warcaster and Warmachine. Because those to me are qualitatively more fun systems of play. But I can't get a game. So I make good with KT for skirmish, and Old World for large games.
Warhammer stores seem to survive in UK small towns even when other retailers are closing down:not just hobby and comic stores, but electronics, independent cafe's, ironmongers and such all closing down and there's like a Greggs and a Warhammer store. So it's quite remarkable in that sense.
I think it’s interesting because of how much Bolt Action has taken off here in the Midwest that they weren’t brought up. Anecdotally it’s starting to steal space from some of Warhammer Specialist games.
Conquest has unbelievable miniatures, just little adoption here
I started w Warmachine, and avoided GW for 8-9 years due to the rep of their games and players. Underworlds and Warcry convinced me to give them a try, and Warcry is now my most played game, but I still keep an eye out for non GW stuff to buy and play. Fascinating to hear the side discussion on Corvus Belli, I just havent found local players to try Infinity out.
I have a hard time seeing how GW can't be described as a monopoly. Yes, there are other companies in the market, but they essentially live and die by GW's whims. It's akin to Microsoft in the late 90's, where it leveraged its vast monopoly power in operating systems and office suites to push internet explorer and try to kill netscape. The courts came down on them for that, and something similar needs to happen to GW. One thing I think most people miss, is that the minis wargaming industry is a little bit like social media, and the massive network effect they benefit from. In the same way, the ability to find opponents creates a massive incentive for players to stay within GW's walled garden. It means very few games will ever even have a chance to get going in the first place, and one business mistake will usually prove so massively damaging (Warmahordes, perhaps Malifaux more recently) that that company will likely never recover, whereas GWs sheer size and network effect gives it a lot of leeway to make mistakes, as when they got out of specialist games in the first place.
GW competes with other ways people can spend their hobby time and money. Video games, card games, beer, etc etc. Which are much larger. If GW didn’t exist, the market as a whole would be smaller (like it was before GW and when GW has waned over time) and in many ways there would be fewer opportunities for others. People are kidding themselves that these niche games would be mass market otherwise.
I really wish things like Infinity, Dropfleet, and Conquest had either been around or better advertised when I was first starting out with the hobby. Because while I find GWs products (largely) entertaining enough those other games are what I find interesting and more enjoyable but it's a real struggle to get most people out of their sunken cost fallacy arguments for sticking soley with GW games.
Another difference between big licensed IP’s and GW is the ability to personalize your forces / teams. I don’t think anyone is writing 1-5k word backgrounds or stories about their crisis protocol minis.
I would argue GW lead the market they created , before WHFB and 40K the market almost did not exist , historics were the starting point but were not attarctive to the market GW stumbled upon. If anything GW have created the space other games can live in, without GW orientated stores even less people would have a space to play other games. GW have done an stunning job of optmising an IP that is unique and limitless. But they are a monster for sure.
GW appears to have taken a cue out of the Grocery Store business.
For the past 50+ years in the USA, space on shelves are bought and paid for by the product manufactures of the company.
Their is fierce competition in the soft drinks, chips and the Cereal aisle (to name 3) over how much shelf space you have to display and on which shelf (low medium or high) your products are displayed at.
You will also notice from time to time that a certain company's shelf space shrinks or grows from quarter to quarter.
Sometimes it is bought and paid for directly, in other instances it might be that Coke for instance will sell the product at a deeper discount then Pepsi so that they can have a more premium location in the soft drink aisle.
Also end caps in grocery stores (those locations at the end of an aisle) are often bought by one company or another. Such as Coke wants to move X amount of volume for this quarter.
So they make a deal with the grocery store that they will sell the Coke products at this price point and in return the Grocery store has to display it prominently on an end cap.
GW based on this interview are using similar tactics to eat up real estate within a FLGS
The more prominent and wider your product is displayed, the more likely you are going to capture that market share from your casual or new shopper.
Oh and if you ever wonder why Grocery Stores move stuff around in a Grocery store.
It is 2 fold.
One because some companies have paid for more shelf space and the current aisle they are located on cannot contain said shelf space.
The second reason is the Grocery store will move things around to force the shopper to walk up and down additional aisles in the hopes that the shopper will discover something new and purchase that product. Per various studies and papers this rearrangement apparently has driven additional sales that exceed the cost and effort of moving and rearranging all the shelves.
These videos are fantastic. I love.the conversational aspect, makes for great listening on the road or on a walk.
I love your reviews but they aren't as easily consumable while I'm mowing the lawn.
I’ve even had GW games be monopolistic over themselves. What I mean by this is that at some stores and hobby clubs I’ve been like do you want to play X GW game to people there and they are like you can try but people here mostly play Y GW game (mostly 40K)
Got into Conquest last year and love it. I think supporting other "indie" studios is important for diversity's sake. But it is tough to get the word out when Warhammer is the only thing most people know.
I'm loving Conquest to. In my area the Conquest player base is slowly growing, but we will see how ToW affects that growth.
GW model designs have the perfect ratio. It’s cartoony yet serious, it’s eye catching but not complex, it’s bland yet easy to make cool with a simple color swap. The lore is the cherry on top.
You started touching on it towards the end, but the scariest problem with monopoly's is when they start buying the competition. We as a society have done a terrible job of stopping this happening in other industries. GW is doing a lot of things that aren't good for customers, but at least they aren't buying the competition...yet.
To compete with GW you have to rival their miniature quality. I see it with my kids I tried most popular games with them but nothing drives their interest more than cool minis. Even if the game itself is objectively better.
Atomic mass games had a real chance with me and my sons because we liked the rules for marvel CP but they did one important thing wrong which is the pricing. If I can get one Hulk for the same price of a whole kill team the choice is very obvious to us.
Only 5 games ? How cute. I dont think gamestores matter that much today. Most games are sold online and play with friends.
I do wish privateer press did better. I loved 2nd edition and changed to it from 40k until everything went under for some reason.
I’m mad at RUclips for not recommending this sooner. Shame on you algorithm.
A mate tried to get me into the Star Wars games and my reasons for not jumping in are the exact reasons you gave. The game and it's lore and story are limited by the IP on the outset. We would never get an interesting story arc or character that has not already happened. It's a set up to a big let down.
Big problem is if stores want to sell other games they need to host events as they do for Warhammer. My old store did this and WarMachine boomed.
In the early 2000s, we were selling lots of games. We sold GW, of course, but we had tons of sales of the D&D prepainted minis blind boxes, same for Star Wars, all of the Clix games, Reaper's metals were the choice of RPG players, Old Glory for 15mm and 25mm Napoleonics. At the same time, we had D&D Third edition which was going strong along with the third party publishers that made five times as much as WotC did. We had a wall of Battletech metal blisters, Jovian and Heavy Gear, Micro Armour, etc.
Battlefront Miniatures was just launching Flames of War. We bought their launch line and it was shipped from New Zealand. When it arrived, every single blister had popped off during shipping, probably from the temperature and pressure changes during shipping. We had to sit down with some of our WWII players to ID each tank body, tread and turret and reassemble each card, packing the tanks into small zip top bags and staple them to the cards. It was a rough start, but the game sold crazy well.
It seems that today, it is much more difficult to launch a new game, then to sustain interest, especially without an established IP. Would Crisis Protocol have lasted without Marvel? Would Legion stay as long without Star Wars? Can you launch successful popular games without an IP now?
Historicals/WWII are in a way IP. For small hobby as tabletop mini gaming, it seems to need IP to get the mass of players needed to sustain a game, with downside of long-term health of the game. Or find small niches in the industry like Infinity as they mentioned. And the internet has given much more choice for people to find their niches in the hobby. Though it probably hasn't scaled down well to the local level.
IP is becoming more and more necessary for companies and investors to fund big projects. It gets people through the door. See cinema as another example. Unfortunately is it very limiting to creativity.
That last question was really interesting, because I don't think that the majority of Games Workshop players would just migrate to other systems if GW stopped. I think the majority of GW's players and collectors are there because of the lore, the quality of the mini's for painting and that somehow, against all societal odds, it's "cool". I think the handful of people who play historicals and the more niche games would continue to do so, (as they always have); you might get a handful of players looking for new systems? but I'd be surprised if there would be as many opportunities for other businesses as it might at first appear.
I will say it amused me that the answer to the question "are they a monopoly" seemed to be "no... but there's nothing to be done."
As an American thats giving me too big to fail flashbacks.
It's the subtle difference between a Monopoly and a Monopolistic Market. GW doesn't have any interest in acquiring or driving out of business their competitors, because they're not REALLY competitors, they're an undermarket that ultimately emulates them.
Yeah, but you can recognize that they react to other companys.
For example release of KoW 3rd and announcement of ToW. Or same naming for expansions for Blackstone Fortress: Escalation which had the same name as Deadzone expansion Escalation.
Personally I think that they have an issue with Mantic especially since if you start with it you tend to stay there. On the on hand for the prices (I am sure that the starter prices for ToW which are comparable to KoW mega armies is an indicator for that) and on the other because you find the more casual and competitive sector since the rules feel like a friendly wargaming entry point for board gamers.
Chainmail from Forgotten Realms 25 to 99 level models AD&D
I think a situation like GW is multi-faceted as you discuss. But it is interesting to see the other individuals out there making cool miniatures where 20-30 years ago they could never realize their vision of a Marine, now with the 3D space people who mess around on weekends can make their vision and then make a physical model of that is amazing and you can say derivative and stolen and basically the same. But GW has their range and can't or won't flesh out aspect and then an individual makes their vision, and offers it up which could not be realized. Now I think the space is evolving.
It's very much like the convention artists market. You can buy huge drawings of your favourite Marvel/DC/Image character or crossovers or things you can't do in the actual brand because of IP ownership, etc. I honestly think the existance of off-brand second hand marketplaces being able to even EXIST to sell things is proof alone that at the very least it's a Monopolistic Marketplace. There are competitors but they will never reach a commensurate size and are all emulating the dominant brand.
mcp used to just be better than kill team, now its better than 10th ed.
God just give me a good Halo miniature game, and support it! 😂
Didnt expect to see Chris here! Lords of war is a really great local hobby store would recommend stopping by if you are in the GTA.
I buy Warhammer to play One Page Rules!
Wargaming in the late 80's and early 90s in north Texas and south Oklahoma conventions was dominated by a variety of games with historical having the lion share of all gaming tables.
GW had to share space and compete with the remaining Sci-Fi , Fantasy and board games at these conventions.
GW games were no where near the dominant force back then that they are today.
As to the remaining tables that were not part of the vendor/dealer hall that did not contain wargames or board games..they were dominated by TSR AD&D with a smattering of other RPGS tables.
As to introduction into the hobby.
Well I played Chainmail as the first ever miniature wargame.
Followed by some d6 and d8 miniature wargames that were popular in Texas and Oklahoma the time and whose name I have long since forgotten.
As well as 2nd edition WHFB which back then was a vast improvement over the d6 and d8 fantasy wargames where most of the armies had a very similar mechanic and play style.
There was almost always a Historical wargame that involved the Alamo at these conventions. As a matter of fact I recall it being such a popular game that at some conventions they had more then one slot you could sign up for compared to Fantasy wargames where you would be lucky if there were 2 slots over the course of the whole convention that ran from Friday - Sunday.
I’m a businessman, salesperson, and hobby nerd.
I would love to try and make the business plan to run a profitable FLGS without GW or possibly even MTG.
Thinking about this further, the effort is that GW is the only company that actively engages in sales.
It’s about finding PROSPECTIVE customers and aggressively pursuing them.
No other company is doing this in the market. It’s all very passive. I think far too many FLGS die because they can’t get out from behind the counter and find new customers and get them into the store.
I’ve heard mediocre reports about trade practices of the big players. If you can make more profitability selling non-GW ; albeit spend more work making that consumer base yourself - too many go the route of GW.
Want to sell more bolt action and Mantic? Get out to every school in a 10km radius and sell it to the kids.
Battletech Mercenaries Kickstarter recently raised over $7.5 million with a $50k goal. In the top 20 of highest backed Kickstarter ever. Seems like this would indicate its popularity and should sell well at retail.
It is selling great in retail! So much so that they keep running out of supply. They also have distro through Barnes and Noble and Target which is a HUGE visibility boost for them. That said, they still only have less than twenty full-time staff that aren’t contractors or contributors and they aren’t the IP Owners so it’s a very different market position. The actual owners of Battletech are Topps Trading Cards who have very different interests and are just getting licensing fees.
Let's be honest, Ash. You are one of a few channels out there that gives a LOT of your time and attention to non-GW stuff. A large part of the issue that other companies run into is simply demand. GW throws stuff at influencers all the time, and they all know that painting that model or making an unboxing is just gonna being in more money than covering Infinity or Malifaux or anything else. With social media being full of Games Workshop stuff, that is what most people are exposed to so that is what they end up asking for.
Stores simply cannot afford to stock stuff that might not sell, and GW has willing partners in ensuring that not many people are asking for stuff. Personally I think you are an absolute hero for trying to shine a light on as many games as you do, I'm sure it's an oasis in the desert to a lot of the companies and product you feature.
I don't really want to shit on Games Workshop here, they produce very slick products and market them incredibly well. Ultimately, they were doing this dance before the vast majority of other companies out there but they could probably afford to slow down their release cycle enough so that they were not struggling to meet their own inflated demand.
Just came back to this video to make sure I quoted you correctly in my comments on another video. That concept of an anchor product is so accurate and is an apt model for the conversation if D&D is a monopoly that Dungeon Craft is posting today.
The irony is D&D can’t be an anchor any more. Only its off-brand supplements can be. The margin of sale for retailers is so razor thin there’s no point even selling it. You’re basically doing so at cost.
Love and appreciate this sir and chat style podcast.
Question you mentioned PPs attempt at counter culture marketing. I’d love a bit of a deep dive into that concept. Were they doomed to lose people back to GW? Was their community base only going to be there as long as GW did bad business practices? Was PP ever an “heir” to the kingdom or were they merely a prince pending to be king
It means you have to ‘be’ that thing that attracted them forever. Every time they grew and had to make any kind of choice that went against that marketing it became a problem for them with those customers.
We’re actually going to do a future episode on ‘brands’ in the near future. :)
Goodness this was ferreting. True, but depressing.
As to Infinity, they are a great company, I got involved a year ago and a great game, and great support, free app for army building of all factions and free rules app. The miniatures are sometimes frustrating as you cannot find a certain mini but you can easily substitute another mini that catches your fancy.
Disagre Infinity is just not fun, The models are a mess to glue , they release very slow and not what people want and the community is like a cult were you cant speak even the slightest critic.
I trash their miniatures all the time to my group. The older sculpts are great looking but the execution for assembly is garbage. Siocast/unicool or whatever it is called alternative is great. They are a small company with limited runs. I get that and accept it. The miniatures are getting better but I don't think they have the market share or the money to invest in plastics for their stuff, yet. @@liquiddude9855
Pretty sure flames of war and bolt action (the 2 biggest historical games) were written by ex GW staffers… that part of why it’s so similar
Bolt action was written by one of the original creators of warhammer. World lord games has tons of original GW members
An interesting question could be - if someone created the best wargame could they be the size of GW in 40 years time?
Not unless the infrastructure existed to get it noticed and in hand.
These aren't my typical style of videos but I'm loving them.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when (or if) the Amazon 40k show starring Henry Cavil comes out. Is going to be even more of a gaming juggernaut with a new fan base? 🤔
If it really flops it might have a chilling effect...
RUclips algorithm help.
This video is very informative and scary lol
Part of it is also that GW's two historical main lines of 40k and WFB are so good IP wise.
WFB is classic fantasy tropes combined with a world very similar to ours, and as a result things like the Tomb Kings and Lizardmen feel very real and have a lot of depth compared to other fantasy races, and the Germanic Empire also feels very lived in.
40k is also an incredible IP - one of the BIG unsung virtues is that you have official Chapters of SM that people can collect, but also people can create their own chapters and the universe is big enough to accomadate them. That allows for gamers who want to paint by the numbers and also ones who want to be creative to both get something from the hobby.
I also think that having 'Chaos' as the villain is such an integral part of the settings, as it gives them so much psychological depth compared to standard 'evil dark lords'.
Im showing my age... when i think of Warhammer, I think- oh its like Battletech with space marines.
Or; isn’t that an Unseen version of a Tomahawk???
One episode closer to the 3d printer episode.
The whole "dead game" psychology is really interesting. You're absolutely right. The rules and models still exist; the game is still just as fun with friends... but it's "dead," so there' something off-putting about it. I think for me, if no one is talking about it, then I can't feel like I'm "engaging in hobby" by watching videos, or keeping up with new rules and models. I think it reminds me more of the fact that I don't have the time to actually play as much as I'd like, and playing the game takes a lot more work to find people and set aside time for it. "Living games" are much easier to passively engage... I hope that makes sense.
I'll never forget years ago my buddy Andrew telling me there are no "dead" games, only "complete" games. That really struck a chord with me flipping my whole perspective to seeing something I enjoyed as over and done with, to seeing at as something where I didn't have to keep up with grind and changes and could just enjoy it for what it was.
A few fanboy tried to tell me that Bushido was a dead game just because it wasnt played anymore in the small town I'm in.
Year on year Gct are still producing new wave minis, Bushido is still only on a second edition and are trading worldwide.
Still present at ukgamesexpo every year and holds their yearly championship.
In other words this guy was a tool 😅
That's such an intresting take Atragon... I think there's something really essential in the experience you're describing. For a lot of people wanting to get to BE engaged by it through other media is a REALLY BIG DEAL. That feeling of being part of something or that there's movement and experiences out there can be really motivating and I think what you're describing is a super common phenomenon.
That's absolutely a factor, I think. A lot of people get bored or frustrated with GW, move to the new hotness and then move back the GW to play with a wider base of people
@@GuerrillaMiniatureGamesInterestingly with GW you can do that "passive engagement" even with their "dead games", there is or at least was more people playing and creating content for old editions of Warhammer Fantasy than for most non GW actively produced miniature games. It will be interesting to see if they manage to capture all of that with the Old World or not. So far it seems not, mostly yes, but not all.
GW is so big that from the top 50 miniature games played they probably occupy most of the top 20 and that includes games they haven’t produced in decades!
I was a D&D kid. Playing, we had little standees, or tokens from board games, and then one kid brings a super cool (for that time) Elf.
Go with one of the friends to a Magic tourney at a store. Guys playing in the back on this big table with terrain, lots of minis, but these were sci fi and had guns. Watched them for the entire game. They talked to me, and told me there were novels and the store sold the minis.
Looked at the minis and found a single box of dudes cost as much as a video game! Well, can't afford that. But while sitting in a bookstore (free daycare for my mom on errands basically), saw the warhammer symbol. Started reading a book about a female dwarf and her hold fighting back orcs and goblins. Kept reading novels from there.
Then there was Shadow of the Horned Rat. Then Dawn of War. Then, finally about 2016 I had the money from a new job to buy into minis and armies.
So RPGs that use minis for pieces, exposure at a store, to side products, to actual involvement. I have at this point sunk over $20k into GW products. Long burn, but they made their money off me
The discussion about asmodee is an interesting one. But we have to consider that those miniature games (legion/mcp/shatterpoint) are only a small focus of asmodee. AMG is a very small wing of asmodee trying to juggle 4 games. As someone who was in that scene it definitely seems like they are getting to the point where the logistics is getting to hard to handle for the size. Its very different to GW where the entire focus of the company is behind miniature gaming.
Historical minis are hand in hand with licensed IP miniature games. You have a hard design space. A Tiger tank will always be a Tiger tank. Sure, you can make a different set of rules or make it in a different scale, but it's still a Tiger tank. An Imperial Stormtrooper will just be... a Stormtrooper. Once you've made everything... there's nothing more to make. That's why GW has this unique position to have an IP that's very well fleshed out that also can expand practically any direction they want it to.
Corvus Belli had a phenomenal product line of Ancient Miniature starter boxes to play DBA back in the day. But the rules they didn't own, so when those rules changed editions and it made their products out of dates as army sizes and composition changed, eventually they changed course to full send into Infinity.
But this is also a fun to look at other Historical companies out there right now. Warlord, GHQ, Atlantic, even Wargamer (Poland). They're all trying to find a niche product to create something nobody else has in a setting (human written history) that has a hard cap of possibilities.
YES. Such a good observation. And your customer base is SO keyed into that fact that they'll judge anything you make by how much you know about the period and setting. Great observation.
I totally forgot corvus belli used to make historical figures, and really good ones at that. I own some of their celts.
Fascinating discussion. Thank you.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Also your model line is going from strength to strength! Well done!
@@GuerrillaMiniatureGames thank you! We're trying! Really enjoyed the conversation and it's given me quite a bit to think about!
I hope you enjoy the next couple, I think they’re definitely something where we explore the space you guys are operating in! I’d be happy to have you on as well to talk about your corner of the marketplace!
GW was not how I got into the hobby directly, first thing was playing D&D in 1980 (oh man I'm old) and then found the Ral Partha adventurer proper 'do not eat these' lead figures box. A few years of miniature collecting followed before the first edition of WFB came along but we'd been playing little skirmish games before that. I guess it's because of my age that GW didn't exist as the big thing - had I been born 10 years later it would have been very different I guess. Anyway, another great video, thanks!
I dont think Chris ever answered exactly how much of his wall is Asmodee. If I had to guess his answer was going ot be less than 20%?
To answer your question @GuerrillaMiniatureGames ...for my sons and I...we came in through the specialty miniature boardgames first. I got Bloodrage and the first Zombiecide. I even bought some paints and painted them. We were like "This is pretty cool...the minatures etc....whats this Warhammer stuff....". We came into it right when the first Kill Team starter came out. I got talked into buying it and painting up the Tyranids etc. Now we have moved into actual 40k....as well as back into Kill Team recently.
28:05 - Other companies (run by MBAs who don't game) are setting themselves up for failure doing this. They don't understand they're not GW, and tabletop gaming isn't other markets. FFG really ran afoul of this when they kept increasing prices but then also instituted MAP, and got Amazon to go along with it. I've seen people wonder why Star Wars Armada died and no one ever seems to mention that they started MAP and a year later the game was dead, funny that. No 50% off on Amazon and suddenly the game died. It's not that big prices can't work for skirmish games if they really look awesome (Crisis Protocal vs. D&D Onslaught) but your product is walking a high wire and it can't slip. Bad quarter of releases, bad rules update, people getting bored, bad movies, they can't survive that stuff. Meanwhile Warhammer is walking along a 2x4 on the living room carpet and can survive darn near anything.
Great discussion.
Dragon, and White Dwarf were originally industry wide gaming magazines, then each of the respective owners excluded the rest of the industry. Essentially placed blinders on thier consumers. Then, the owners of the hobby shops, took the easy route and carried only gamesworkshop products, and magic cards and D&D, Essentially creating a self strengthening cycle.
Loved the conversation. I love Warhammer, it was my first tabletop miniatures game and my friends and I got into WHFB because we played a lot of Warcraft 2 and 3. I have to agree though, that MCP is probably the best game I've ever played, and it feels exactly like what you're playing, I hope Atomic Mass keeps doing awesome with this game.