I saw it on Beasts of War.
The best point he made was actually about the pioneering company: I remember visiting the original Games Workshop store in London in the 1980's, and the excitement of the late 80's-early 90's when GW were doing great things at reasonable prices - they did discounts and army deals that were significantly cheaper than individual blisters or boxes. They had the bulk of the fantasy and sci-fi wargaming market (but none of the 'real world' wargaming, and that is a HUGE market and includes a more extended demographic who have considerable spending capacity).
Privateer Press and others like Mantic will take some of the sci-fi, fantasy and steam-punk genre fans. Then the LotR/The Hobbit mob have no option but to get GW or nothing for many of their Middle-earth purchases. 40K fans - GW or nothing.
But look at films like Gladiator, Centurion, The Eagle. Interest in ancient wargames is growing as films depicting those times are made to the highest standards - Warlord have just released Hail Caesar rules. And some of the real world minis fit quite comfortably into Middle-earth - like Gripping Beast's Saxons and Vikings. The best examples of the new kids on the block outsmarting the original architects are all those Asian economies like Japan, China and South Korea, who saw American and European technologies and developed them further, came up with better working methods and are now leading many of the technological advances themselves. A Game of Thrones is on HBO; FFG have several games set in Westeros and I could see 25/28mm battle games coming eventually. There are beautiful minis sculpted already but they are more like collectors pieces.
If GW want to rest on their laurels, that is their choice. But if I was them, I would want to take a very long hard look at the medium and long term future of the company. The same goes for many companies out there. I was looking at 15mm WW2 minis recently and found one new company turning out plastic tanks and infantry at about half the cost of the 3 major manufacturers who prefer resin and metal. The minis are rule independent - you could apply any of literally hundreds of WW2 skirmish or battle rules to minis from any company that caters for the era. All that competition makes for a better deal for us, the paying customer. After all, if we were not buying, none of these companies would exist.
I have not bought and GW minis for about a year now (not that I NEED to
)
{ PORTAL }
Print view
Top
