Evil has a name, and it's called capitalism.

Capitalism is the driving force powering modern day Earth. It's everywhere you go, in all walks of life, and cannot be stopped.
Money is the root to all evil, greed is power, power comes from having money, women times square equals time, and time is money - therefore, women are evil.

The main attribute of capitalism is a lack of fair play.

This shouldn't be news to anyone. Business, both large and small, need to make money to make product.

You know this already, but like a good economist, I waffle on about things that don't matter, simply so I can sell my product (words) to you at a high price (time), but go about it in a way (humor) that makes you want to recommend my product to a new market (your social circuit). This is where GW's latest plan fails.

When you're setup to push literal tons of inexpensive to produce product, it's in your best interest to - you know - sell as much of it as possible, in as short amount a time, to as wide an audience as you can find, while making sickeningly ridiculous profits in the process. Sickriculous profits. Jewgold.

What not to do:

1) price your product too high for casual purchase. If your target market has 15 pounds in their pocket, you want to be priced at 15. More, and the purchase auomatically becomes something you have to think about. This is bad. You want the consumer to be lulled into a false sense of security - not have him worrying about his purchasing power.


2) go from an expensive material to the cheapest one, while increasing prices. I don't need to explain this, do I?

3) act 'evil.' All business is evil, but you shouldn't act like it. It makes people not want to buy your product, even if they've got cash. This is why phonelines were invented, and forums. Not because business cares about you, but because it makes them seem less evil. You know, like they're trying to sell 'an experience,' and not simply there to push chinese 5 cent figures down your throat, for the nice markup of 8 dollars a piece.


4) secrecy. People don't like this, at all. Real secrecy isn't 'secret.' You simply won't know that Apple are working on the iphone 6, because such outerwordly things don't concern you. You will, however, be told that there're all these new aps, gadgets, and a really cool feature you just gotta have on their way, and Apple'll tell you this a long, long time before it hits, to build interest, generate PREORDER SALES, and to appear even less 'evil.' Secrecy kills preorders. It kills interest, and makes your prey creatu- your target audience weary. "Should I buy these black beach 2000 galaxy warriors, or wait and see if they're gonna come out with white thunder 2060 galaxy express warriors next month? Hmmm. I think I'll hold onto my 15 pounds for now."



Even if you were living under a rock right up until ten minutes ago, it's obvious GW doesn't know anything about businessa. Right? No.

This is capitalism. Plans that make sense aren't paranoid enough to make money. GW's plan is focused on making money in the short-term, from little kids using their pocketmoney to purchase a handful of things, and dropping out in short order. Secondary income is delivered by the die-hards, who're always so very quick to argue that they hate the company, hate the games, hate Mat Ward, and are gonna stop 'soon! I just gotta get all these dark eldar fixed, man!' In other words, the addicts.

That's all fair and good, but what if you've alienated the secondary market with excessive evil (battered housewives can only take so much abuse), and your primary doesn't have enough cash to buy your product? Well, then you're in trouble, and have to increase prices further. If you don't, you won't be able to pay for your loss-making line of stores (that only sell your very own product, so should by tradition sell at a much, much lower price than all the other stores that push your product), your shitty hobby mag that's really a collection of glossy ads, big expenses paid to the heads of your top-heavy organization for 'being such great leaders in these turbulent times,' and so on.
Now we're doing a churn and burn. These always end badly.

Basically, GW's on a decline, and has been since the LoTR bubble burst. There's less people coming in, few new players buying merchandise outside the second-hand market, trade is rife, books are always torrented before purchase, and, in general, people are hostile to the company itself.

So how does this all concern me?
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'll tell you. It doesn't concern me one bit, for I stopped buying from GW itself years ago. Last year's price rise killed my desire to get new merch, and what comes in's from trades and second-hand.
Now that the evilness is at critical mass, my motivation to purchase GW branded things is at an all-time low.

However...
This doesn't affect my enjoyment of the games. GW putting up prices, restricting trade, releasing terrible resin casts, or what have you, means nothing to me, for it doesn't change the value of my collection.
I can still play with all my lovely toys. Should I need parts, I can ebay for them, or trade at a club.
Basically, the only thing that changed is I now want nothing to do with GW itself, but warhams grimdark is still my favorite game.

All you gamegirls and nerdboys out there.
You don't have to sell your stuff. The game didn't magically get worse just because GW failed - again.
No, warmahordes isn't the answer, and if you want a cheap game, with flowing rules, actual balance, or a sense of fariness, you certainly don't want to go from GW to GW-lite.

Rather, the answer is to keep doing what you were always doing, but making changes to the way you spend your money. Instead of paying tons for overpriced plastic at a store (web or otherwise), take your cash to ebay, or the local club. If you want GW to hurt, you buy second-hand. This way, you ensure that GW itself makes 0% profit from your purchases.

PS: I still don't rate warmahordes. Keep it out of the comments, lest the son of Khorne above eats your skull.

The moral of the story? Capitalism is never fair, but the lack of fairness goes both ways.