Hi Everyone, http://investor.games-workshop.com/2014/11/11/appointment-of-ceo/ What are your thoughts on this news? Good, bad, indifferent? Not much has been said, really. But he starts 1/01/2015. Is it time to rejoice yet?
Well, it looks like they are at least pulling someone who has been with the company for a long time. I'm really glad they aren't pulling the kind of crap that some other industries do where they hire a CEO from a food company to head up a video game company because the guy has gotten results before. So, we'll see. Best thing I can think of them doing is focusing on the game, rather than on the models. People are more willing to buy the models if the game itself is fun. If they continue to treat themselves as a model company first and don't treat themselves as a game company, like they are currently doing, then they are going to continue to fail.
I'm with you there. Hopefully, being that this new guy was operations manager for a while may actually have some form of understanding on what the community says. Hopefully. At the very least, this guy has been around for a long enough time to be able to tell what is important. Fingers crossed!
ooh, this is a tricky one for me. the models are the nearly the entire reason I play WHFB (and 40K when I used to play that)..... but yes, I also want the game to be fun and playable. personally I would rather play an ok game with awesome models than an awesome game with ok models when it comes to Warhammer. reason being..... there are already tons of plenty-good war and strategy games out there with cardboard, wooden, and/or pre-assembled plastic components for very reasonable prices. I play Warhammer because I want a heavy, immersive wargame... which for me relies first and foremost on super-awesome models. but, yeah..... at the same time I want the game to be playable (and even good). so for me it's a difficult balance if you're assuming that it's a spectrum with modeling on one side and gaming on the other.
That's a good point. My fear is that fantasy will become the same as 40k in that it is less complex which means less effort on GW's part. Other than the fact that 40k is 100% skirmish. I like fantasy because it is more complex and requires thinking. But also, i like the artistic side of things. I don't think GW's models will ever become less awesome. They've already set a standard
I am not sure this will change the direction of the company. As COO in the past, this guy was most likely part of the planning and strategy team for the direction of GW. Since he was involved at a high level of making the company what it is today, we may not see a lot of changes. Plus, the announcement says that the current CEO is not really retiring, but taking up a non-executive chairman position. So, he is not really going away, just maybe not quite as involved as before. Still around in an advisory role. I do like the minis for Warhammer and spend more time painting than playing. But I also want the game to be fun. I stopped playing 40K because it is not as much fun now as it used to be in older editions (in my opinion), and I would hate to see Warhammer strategy made too simple. Learning how the strategy works is part of the fun in learning and playing the game.
The main reason I would like them to focus more on the game than on merely being a seller of plastic models is that people are more likely to buy more models if they like the game than if they just think the models are cool. I have a lot of fun painting and converting my models. My ogres are a major point of pride for me (go check them out here if you've never seen them: http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=27944.0). However, if it were not for the game, I would have no reason to ever build more than a couple models. If I just wanted to build and paint models, then I wouldn't build an army. I would look at all of the available models and make just the ones that look cool. Instead of a great army of lawyer ogres, I would have a carnosaur and maybe a stonehorn. Basically, the big fancy monsters. I never would have purchased skinks. I never would have bothered with regular ogres. I never would have painted a single gnoblar. Essentially, the game makes me want to buy models, rather than the models making me want to play the game. If they focused more on making the game as much fun as possible, I would want to buy more models. We'll see what they do. I thought that Raffazza did a good write up of things that the new CEO would focus on: http://raffazza.blogspot.co.uk/
Good link there lawgnome. It's the truth that a CEO's only job is to make the shareholders happy. I truly hope that the direction does become err'd to the side of community as it once was. Value the customers and they'll value you. One thing I don't agree with is the statement that the "tournament player" is the minority in consumer base. The only reason folks buy, build and paint warhammer models is so they can play the game against other people. The "tournament player" would be, in my opinion, closer to 80-90% of the consumers. Whether it be to play locally at games stores, residential game rooms or at GW stores. I can see that if the game becomes less complex and "wargaming for dummies", then the only way they would make shareholders money would be making big, expensive models. Regardless of how pretty they might be, it will turn into monsterhammer and become "He Who Has The Biggest Monster Wins". Awful.
"Games workshop is in the business of selling minatures" Tom Kirby "Games workshop is in the business of fixing Tom Kirby's mistakes right now" new CEO