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Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition rulebook: digital

7K views 25 replies 7 participants last post by  MDSW 
#1 ·
so the digital rulebook is available for pre order. I think this means that the 9th edition rumours for mid this year may be false and maybe we actually will see all army books get an 8th edition rule update.
 
#3 ·
There was a rumored discussion where a player asked a GW member whether it was worth purchasing the Digital Edition with 9th edition rumored to be just around the corner. The GW-guy assured him that it would be fine, and that GW wouldn't waste time/effort in developing this book just to have it be outdated within a few months.
I agree with the assessment that we are likely going to see all 8th edition armies revamped. There were rumors that particular armies were due to be dropped (WE, Brets, in particular) but with the rumored DE release that's also almost certainly untrue.

Faeit seems to have a bad habit of dredging any rumors found on the internet. Sure, if makes him the go-to for rumors, but it also causes panic throughout the community, and in the case of new army releases and things like the Digital, the decreased sales would do more harm than good (sure, you can blame GW's secrecy as well, and I do, but rumor-mills also need to be more responsible). Accuracy is guaranteed when you throw everything at the wall - something will certainly stick.
 
#4 ·
Faeit seems to have a bad habit of dredging any rumors found on the internet. rumor-mills also need to be more responsible. Accuracy is guaranteed when you throw everything at the wall - something will certainly stick.
this is something ive found about feait aswell. I think that he has good sources, but doesn't have the ability to filter and read between the lines properly. Others like Hastings and Avian are alot more reliable in that field i think.

still, it are rumours. And sometimes plans are there, but they change before set in motion. Maybe 9th for 2014 year was one of those (to be honest, i was pretty convinced it would come out this year xD).

are digital editions actually allowed at tournaments already? i saw a few last year that didnt allow them...
 
#5 ·
i think his sources are rubish. hes been harping on about 9th edition mid this year for a long time but this new pre order sugests otherwise. Which is what I've always suspected. Ever since the first hard cover army book I have assumed all would get one this edition, call it a gut feeling, and ive never wanted to believe 9th was coming this year.
 
#7 ·
I think it will allow GW to put out some updated books without having to spend an additional 85% more in capital to print and distribute the hardcopy book. So, it could be a nice, logical move and make many people happy and go a long way in balancing the game, rules and books for the first time EVER. Certainly tourny organizers will have to allow digital books when this becomes the way GW distributes the army books.

However, in playing devil's advocate, you could also say with no GW skin in the game, it would mean they have no major capital investment in the digital books, so switching at a moment's notice to 9th is actually easier to do.
 
#8 ·
I think it will allow GW to put out some updated books without having to spend an additional 85% more in capital to print and distribute the hardcopy book.
Curious. Where are you getting this number?
 
#10 ·
Black Library is a publishing company though right? Do they do the bindings and such in-house?

But yes, I definitely understand why they'd go digital. I think that the trend towards the limited edition Codexes and Armybooks is a sign of the future. Soon, they won't release a hardcopy of the book unless you pick up one of the 1,000 or so limited editions. That works just fine for me. If it keeps the cost of the eBooks down to a reasonable rate, I would rather spend $40 on 4 eBooks, and save the bigger $50+ purchases for the armies that I play regularly. Granted, I have everything in .pdf format and will continue to do so until that becomes entirely unfeasible (read: never) but I still support the releases for my main armies.

The way I see it, GW cost is prohibitive. I'm sure that they'll start cranking eBooks out for $40 eventually, but anything they can do to make the game less expensive is a huge bonus. They've got themselves in a vicious loop - GW minis are expensive, so more people buy from alternative sources or second hand, which cuts GW's profit margin, so they make the minis more expensive.
Especially with Fantasy, they need to realize that they're a mass-battles game, and they need to strive to compete with guys like Wargames Factory and Mantic, not guys like Avatars of War. Gw has the advantage of being one of -if not the- most widely played and recognized TTG companies in the world. How and why they aren't able to keep bringing new blood into the hobby is beyond me.
 
#14 ·
Black Library is a publishing company though right? Do they do the bindings and such in-house?

But yes, I definitely understand why they'd go digital. I think that the trend towards the limited edition Codexes and Armybooks is a sign of the future. Soon, they won't release a hardcopy of the book unless you pick up one of the 1,000 or so limited editions. That works just fine for me. If it keeps the cost of the eBooks down to a reasonable rate, I would rather spend $40 on 4 eBooks, and save the bigger $50+ purchases for the armies that I play regularly. Granted, I have everything in .pdf format and will continue to do so until that becomes entirely unfeasible (read: never) but I still support the releases for my main armies.

The way I see it, GW cost is prohibitive. I'm sure that they'll start cranking eBooks out for $40 eventually, but anything they can do to make the game less expensive is a huge bonus. They've got themselves in a vicious loop - GW minis are expensive, so more people buy from alternative sources or second hand, which cuts GW's profit margin, so they make the minis more expensive.
Especially with Fantasy, they need to realize that they're a mass-battles game, and they need to strive to compete with guys like Wargames Factory and Mantic, not guys like Avatars of War. Gw has the advantage of being one of -if not the- most widely played and recognized TTG companies in the world. How and why they aren't able to keep bringing new blood into the hobby is beyond me.
GW doesn't have its own in house presses, many publishers don't now as its so much cheaper to have it done elsewhere.

But I have to say, Captain, and MDSW, your musing is pretty much on the money.

IF they host their own servers which is highly likely then it would just be a leased bandwidth line which would work out to anything up to 20k per annum, but the revenue alone will repay that.

In terms of content, the tools initially are the same, so the development cycle would be no different to print. You'd really only differentiate with what digital (read multimedia) content is included, such as the pop up rule boxes or the photos that you can pan / zoom / rotate etc, or something like a video demonstration of a particular rule - where the video will explain a whole page of " if and buts" for example.

Once that's done, really its just a case of hit the publish to media button and boom there you go, with DRM thrown in you have the package wrapped up.

The digital releases also means that any new rules can be updated in the digi edition or revisions and additions made without the print costs. Physical print costs are going up, and to be frank Captain, the loss of paper would swell the coffers like you wouldn't believe.

As for new blood - really lets look at their exposure, its not that great really is it? It's not like they have a slot in the trailers ahead of the hobbit films or during the TV slots of their target audience? Yes there are the video game spin offs, but in reality the video game is insular in so far as its a great medium for promoting the game world or mythos, but will it make a guy drop his console to pick up a brush and dice? (that a thro it out there question as I have no empirical data for this one).

For all their faults, they're still here, and in a hobby market that's to be admired. But I do agree with you... how they can't manage to snare new blood is also absolutely beyond me.
 
#11 ·
I think that they just need to do what they did with the skaven:

Heres some cheap models (the clanrats in this case) that don't really come in all that much in the way of poses and options, but here's a more complicated kit (Stormvermin) for those of you who wish to do conversions and the like for your own special units or characters.

Just probably not the skaven, as they are actually so damn cheap it's silly in terms of points that you actually need the larger boxes to build an army to the same size as the others!
 
#15 ·
Interestingly, when I bought one of the Lord of the Rings products (can't remember if it was the videogame or the movies) there was a little insert in it advertising the GW LotR game. Likewise, I got into the hobby by seeing an ad in BoysLife Magazine, but that was back in the 90's when GW was a bit more "out there".

I haven't really seen any ads for any of these games though. Even Pokemon/YuGiOh card games don't advertise (unless you count the entire show as an ad) and both still have a large following. M:tG doesn't advertise at all that I've seen. I have seen one ad in a magazine (Game Informer, I think) for Dungeons and Dragons.
It's sort of difficult to run video ads for these games though - I mean, you could do videos like the current sneak-previews, or you could throw in full animation like the W:AR/DoW previews. The former is boring even for people in the community, and the latter gives almost zero indication as to what the game is really like. They're limited to running print-ads because then nobody really expects movement, and they expect to read descriptions of the game rather than have it narrated to them.

They rely almost entirely on walk-ins and word of mouth advertising. That works fine. I work in restaurants and they use the same tactic, except that everyone needs to eat. If you're hungry and see my restaurant, you might walk in. What is going to bring people out to a hobby store? Even worse, GW is closing their dedicated hobby centers and opening up RTs, which will be the death of them. Even if I'm curious what "The Toy Cave," "The Adventurer's Guild," "War and Pieces," or "Tap'n'Attack" is (to highlight the goofy names of stores in my area) when I walk in I'm introduced to wargaming. I could peruse the GW wall, but I'm also going to wander over to 'Flames of War', 'Kings of War', 'Mercs', 'Infinity', and 'WarmaHordes'. Considering that all of those games are cheaper, and most have a lower model count than GW games... the draw isn't towards GW. Worse yet, GW's ridiculous restrictions on their salesmen means that the owners of these stores would rather push the alternative games.

GW seems to try to correct for effect, rather than cause. It's like sighting in the scope on a rifle. Most people see that the gun is shooting to the right of the crosshair, so they adjust the scope and move the crosshairs. GW sees that the gun shoots to the right of the crosshairs and says "hey, just aim to the left a little bit".
:: GW sees that people are buying their goods through cheaper 3rd parties like Battlewagon. Instead of saying "hey, maybe our products are just 20-30% too expensive" they say, "nope, no more sales to Battlewagon!" and enrage a large portion of the community. They rely on word-of-mouth, and now you've got at least Battlewagon saying "nope, GW are a bunch of train-robbing schmucks".
:: GW sees that people are buying through their FLGS rather than through GW brick'n'mortars or the website, so rather than opening more brick and mortars in a wider range of locations, or offering better incentives on the site (free shipping on everything?) they just say "nope, can't buy Special Characters or half these units at your FLGS anymore - they're GW exclusive".
:: GW sees that people are buying from Mantic and other companies, and it's hurting their profits. So rather than changing their pricing/marketing to compete with those companies, they say "well, better make more money from the sales we do get" and increase the prices of their stuff even more, which just puts more pressure on their own loyalists.

I don't have a degree in business, management, finances, or marketing. I know GW doesn't like "unqualified" people like myself to comment on their strategies. But I do know this:
:: I own a 'digital' copy of every current Armybook, Expansion, and Rulebook that GW has released, and I didn't have to pay for any of them. If I did, I probably wouldn't have more than then core book, and my High Elf book.
:: My Empire army is outdated. I'm looking at selling all of my old models for dirt cheap, and rebuilding the army as a "Nippon Counts-as" using miniatures from Wargames Factory (25 Samurai for $20 is better than 10 Swordsmen for $22).
:: I just started in on a Dark Elf army for 8th edition and am buying almost everything from eBay using the "now old" metal minis. Not just because I like the look, but because occasionally I can find really good deals on them.
:: I have been playing a lot more 'unsupported' GW games, and nonGW games lately because it's easier to get people interested in them. My gaming group plays Warhammer. It consists of 5 people. If we play 'BloodBowl', we add another three people to that number because the game is in their price range. When we play boardgames like 'Axis and Allies' or 'Risk', the number skyrockets to at least a dozen people we can call on to play with.

So I might not have a degree, but I also don't have a lot of money. It's not impossible to play wargames on a shoe-string budget. It is impossible to play with GW on a shoe-string budget, however.
 
#16 ·
Well, Cap'n, for not having a Biz degree you are still spot on. The debate and debacle with GW has forever been their terrible treatment of the retailers that discount their product and GW insane insistance on being BOTH a wholesaler AND retailer (along with their miserable litigous treatment of sources that try to promote their IP, but that is another story...) Their business strategy seems recently to move more towards a retailer, where you will pay the full price to GW without the middleman - ergo, lower wholesale sales to other retail outlets.

Apple has the sales & marketing agreement with every outlet that sells their products that this is the price - do not discount it or you will be in trouble on carrying our products in the future. They want fair market play for all that sell Apple products - this is hard to control and less friendly for the consumer, but some see it as an admirable stance for the tiny mom & pop shops so they can compete with the giant discount stores. So, GW is not necessarily trying to do anything bad, but the alienation they are getting by pushing their elitist attitudes in a tiny market field (hobby) seem to create a more negative effect, than a positive financial effect, to those that look to but their products.

If the GW business model has changed over the years to forecast more revenue from the direct retail sales channel than from the wholesale market, that is fine. However, the insane price hikes over the years should not follow that business model. The figures below are not actual, but shows the point if the total sales from one year ($30m) did not change, but just the revenue/profit channel:

2008 - 33.3% retail @ $10m sales (50% profit) = $5m profit
66.6% wholesale @ $20m sales (25% profit) = $5m profit
2008 total profits = $10m

2014 - 66.6% retail @ $20m sales (50% profit) = $10m profit
33.3% wholesale @ $10m sales (25% profit) = $2.5m profit
2014 total profits = $12.5m

So if by moving to a retail-oriented business model they can still move the same amount of product, they will make more money. So why the price hikes to push them further from reasonable affordability? Well, there are lots of obvious reasons, but the biggest is lower sales and trying to make up for that fact by raising prices, moving to more retail/direct sales rather than wholesale distributors, closing down some GW stores, etc.

Simply put, GW is going digital to save money. I do not think they will charge proportionately less for a digital copy than what they are saving with no actual print costs.
 
#17 ·
Spot on MDSW.

Simply put, GW is going digital to save money. I do not think they will charge proportionately less for a digital copy than what they are saving with no actual print costs.
spot on. The medium is different but the price will remain the same as a printed work. There is also the advantage of delete stock or poor selling stock taking up warehouse space and so saving that expense and maximising that space also.

they're not the first, nor will they be the last but I wholly agree that perhaps in their case the apple model is the right one, whereby even indi's sell at their RRP as you say.
 
#19 ·
Guys guys!

I don't think you understand the rules of the internet!

You are supposed to disagree and throw rocks at eachother.


So i just noticed that the Ebook is the same price (38 eurobucks) everywhere. Which is a way to 'save' money for the people in the far corners of the globe. in Japan or Australia for example, the normal book still costs 50 bucks, where they can now buy a 38bucks digital copy. At least some people will be cheaper off.
 
#20 ·
Guys guys!

I don't think you understand the rules of the internet!

You are supposed to disagree and throw rocks at eachother.
I tend to take the business's side of things in these type of discussions, so there's plenty of disagreeing on my end. No need to throw rocks, though. ;)
 
#26 ·
They could keep the price as is, just go back to including 16-20 figs. Certainly that would take the sting out and probably not hurt GW financially as much as actually lowering the price of each box. But, if it is only pennies, then not much of a difference.
 
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