These are 4 ways we think Games Workshop can improve and help their customers stay more involved in the hobby- by providing them with better value.
Sure it’s a bit of a stretch, but with the ongoing pandemic and people seemingly not as interested in the hobby due to a lack of events and releases, we think this would be a great time for GW to change for the better.
4 Ways Games Workshop Could Improve (but probably won’t)
Mainly, we’d like to see more value, in terms of both rules and minis. Let’s get into how they could make more money while providing customers with actual value rather than constant Fear Of Missing Out, content/product paywalls, and inventory shortages.
MTO
We know we’ve said this before, but to us, it seems like when GW under-produces these box sets, there is an easy fix. We know they can do it too because they’ve done it for Indomiotus and some of their exclusive mini releases over the past year.
If a new box set sells out almost immediately (most recently with Cursed City, but also Piety & Pain, and shadow & Pain for AoS) why not just offer it as an MTO release for the people who missed out that day? Sure would take a few months for those folks to get the product, but they would be guaranteed to get it.
Plus it clamps down on the rampant online scalping that has emerged due to GW’s low stock issues- all feels bads for consumers.
This not only helps the players, but also GW. They make more money on the releases, can just build the orders into their manufacturing down the road, but maybe more importantly keeps the focus on their (rumored) all-important same-quarter profits business model. For the players, they wouldn’t have to deal with scalpers and could guarantee they had the new stuff without the current hassles of new release hunting.
With how much hype they put into the releases, it seems strange they don’t do this for all the big box sets.
Points for Free
To us, there is nothing more annoying than having to pay for literally nothing other than points. That was the case for the last several years of Chapter Approved books. Obviously, the initial codex release would still have a cost, but any of the follow-up points should not- we already paid for this product once.
Now we like what they did with the last Grand Tournament Chapter Approved. Packaging new content i.e. missions and tournament rules into one release with 9th Edition points updates provides value without specifically charging us again for something we already paid for.
Plus in the MKI points updates at the end of the year, GW also provided us with value by releasing them online, and in a hard copy inside the last White Dwarf as well.
Putting out a new mission pack WITH points updates each year provides value that we think a lot of hobbyists can see. We want new updates and missions (just like Frontline Gaming did with the ITC), and if it’s official from GW in the same format as the 2020 book it’s a win-win in our minds.
Even the format of the book itself is a value with the spiral binding for heavy use, and an elastic strap to keep it all together and hold extra papers- it’s a tremendous win for players.
More Value in Kits
Longtime grip but in the age of 3d Printing and rapid prototyping, there seems to be little reason not to make this a reality technology-wise perhaps.
Just give us all the weapon options in the kits! It’s so annoying to have to convert, buy, or print out your bits for model kits. For example, the Scourges (but there are plenty of boxes just like this) only get one of every weapon option. Meaning you have four options to equip your minis. Just equip them terribly for a competitive game, convert your own weapons, buy the weapons, or print them yourselves. When you spend so much on a box, the value of the kit should be there- looking at you Chaos Havocs.
If GW just gave that initial value in their kits, there would be way less opportunity for 3d printing (piracy in this form) or even a market for 3rd party designers and sellers inspired by these shortfalls in GW’s products (not piracy).
The other route they could go with is to actually give the unit the options that come in the box like they recently did with some of the Death Guard units. Then you just get everything you can use, and by changing the rules, they acutlaly increased the value of the model kit.
Small Updates Like Charadon For Free
Look, we all love getting rules updates for our minis, but paying $60 for 4 pages of rules is just absurd (in our opinion). GW could still easily sell the book for people who want all the lore and missions (bundled with some paint guides perhaps), but for a few new relics, Stratagems, and whatnot, the price is crazy. The game should have some implied value of rules, and (again in our opinion) people would spend more on minis if they just could download rules updates like this for free.
Just think about it this way, if you have $100 to spend on GW stuff if you have to spend $60 on rules, what else can you even buy? A lot of the time, people just don’t spend that extra $40 because it’s actually difficult to find a product for some factions for that price or less.
Just like the points updates example above, if players got rules updates/additions for free, they could easily justify spending their whole hobby budget on new minis that just got updated rules (or points). Like this Death Guard Combat Patrol box that makes more sense with their new Chardon update.
GW could even put new rules inside of something like the Chapter Approved book as a form of “hard copy” update until their codex got a reprint, or 9th update provides value too. Chapter Approved actually started out as this very thing first in the early 90s and then in the early 2000s collecting White Dwarf 40k rules updates.
But paywalling 4 pages of rules for factions that just got a $50 codex release already, in a $60 book that’s essentially just some fluff and other paywalled rules sets- is terrible value.
These are just 4 ways we feel like Games Workshop could improve, ones that could make gamers feel better about spending money in hard times. Especially without tournaments and such, we think GW has a great opportunity to help people stay more involved in the hobby- by providing them with better value.
Do you think GW would ever do any of these- and if so which would you like to see them do?
Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group, and make sure you enter the latest monthly giveaway for FREE today!
About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls.
Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at Las Vegas Open, which attracts over 350 players from around the world.
Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the Adepticon 40k Team Tournament.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
