Quote from: Erik BoielleIn the eyes of armchair quaterbacks, Games Workshop has now been self destructing for as long as I can remember.

My thought exactly.  Back in 1989-90, an acquaintence of mine was working for GW's North American operations out of Vancouver B.C.  He had a falling out with them and described almost the same situation that we read about in the quote.  Granted, he didn't predict their imminent doom, but here we are, almost 20 years later, and GW is still trying to kill itself despite their success.

!i!

At least in Germany, they are expanding. And loosened some of their rules: You are allowed to play with unpainted or partially painted minis now.

EDIT: But Confrontation is big here, really big. Gives them some trouble.

Quote from: SettembriniEDIT: But Confrontation is big here, really big. Gives them some trouble.

Are we discussing the German national character here, or is there a competing minis game I'm not familiar with?

!i!

Confrontation is a minis game by Rackham, a french firm. Very nice sculpts.

Take a look:

http://www.rackham-store.com/boutique_us/liste_rayons.cfm?code_lg=lg_us

My next big purchase will be oodles of AT-43 pre-painted sci-fi minis.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaAre we discussing the German national character here, or is there a competing minis game I'm not familiar with?

!i!

Hyuck hyuck hyuck.

Don't get me wrong.  I love Germans.  Really.  And their rather...direct...nature is one of the very things that endears them to me.

Oh, and Rackham.  Right.  I was more familiar with AT-43 for some reason, not Confrontation.

!i!

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Hyuck hyuck hyuck.

Got a chuckle out of that one myself.

Meanwhile, two inconsequential observations from the greatest minis ignorant in gaming (me):

1) GW have been dead to me ever since what they did to White Dwarf.

2) Holy SHIT, Rackham minis are AWESOME. Why do they not rule teh world yet? I hadn't heard of them until last year when they published some Dragon mini or other, and I was thinking, "why do people salivate over the WOTC dragons? This is the shit!"

If I were 15 again and had unlimited funds, Rackham and Privateer would pwn me.

PS: That should actually read: "If I were 15 again, had unlimited funds, could paint my way out of a wet paperbag, wouldn't suck at wargaming and weren't a sore loser..."

Rackham minis doesn't rule the world yet because their figures look like they were sculpted by Rob Liefield when he was too drunk to stand.  Some of us, lots of us prefer realistically proportioned and posed minis.  Even GW has come a long way towards more realistic figures in recent years.  The heads and hands stayed the same size but the figures got taller

I think Rackham are moving to prepainted plastics for confrontation as well as AT-43.

I gotta say, I think that this could be intersting. I know I'd have been much better off with prepainted minis in my youth - I can paint now (decently enough), but I sucked a lot and played with unpainted minis most of the time.

I wanna see what The Shop will do.

Is that the actual game board the figures are standing on?

http://www.rackham-store.com/boutique_us/fiche_produit.cfm?type=748&ref=ATSET01&code_lg=lg_us&pag=1&num=48

Oh man... and they ARE pre-painted. Once again I thank the good lord for my utter lack of wargaming skillz.

Too bad DP9 is dead. A Tribe 8 minis game by Rackham--even I would buy that.

I was reading the IHT Thursday and the business pages mentioned that GW had had another profits warning and was noting that investors were starting to abandon the company.

I have to admit, I hadn't known it was sufficiently big to merit that kind of coverage, but the coverage was far from positive.

I can't speak as to why, and Erik is correct that historically they have performed well, but they've had some serious profit warnings for a while now and personally I would short their stock rather than hold it.

@Erik:

Sure, GW bashing is mostly Swine-talk. And they are succesful for a reason. But even as a house and promotional magazine, White Dwarfs quality is totally ridiculous these days. The battles don´t match the rules. The paintings aren´t up to say, 2003. There´s nothing inspiring in them, not even inspiring to buy more stuff.

And they stopped making fucking FAQs.

I´d say:  GW should go back to the quality of shrewd business savvyness of the nineties. Right now, they steer themselves into trouble. Because they aren´t investing into the market they used to. They are losing their Mojo, the exact Mojo that made them immune to Swine-Talk in former years.

@Confrontation: The minis are way too "french-weird" for me, as the GW minis are way too "british-fascist-porn" for me (nowadays, that is. When I was fourteen...).

The above mentioned article reminds me strikingly of TSR in its late days.

GW has done all kinds of boneheaded moves over the years, and while some of this article could be put aside as the rantings of a disgruntled employee, the article also omitted the biggest flaw (from a business perspective) that GW committed: Its trying to be both a retailer and a wholesaler.

Likewise, from the pov of the RPG world, they're massive dicks for having failed to support the WFRP2e game in any way. Had GW backed them up, WFRP2e might have become a really serious competitor to D&D, especially in Europe. But they refused to even sell it in their GW stores.  I mean, that's fucked up: You cannot buy the Warhammer RPG in Games Workshop Stores!

RPGPundit

Especially as they could even sell more minis via the RPG. Long-term customer relation via Sourcebooks and novels and personal history. It could smash D&D in Europe, be the D&D here, if done shrewdly. But the recent GW seems to lack vision and shrewdness.
And the recent Edition of WHFRP wouldn´t lend itself well to it either, I´d argue.