A gaming success story: how Warhammer became one of Britain's biggest companies

12 pointsposted 11 hours ago
by GeoAtreides
(theguardian.com)

9 Comments

MentatOnMelange

10 hours ago

I used to play warhammer when I was younger and am honestly astounded gamesworkshop is still in business let alone one of Britain's biggest companies. At least in the 00s and 2010s, they were the epitome of a greedy corporation squeezing blood from a stone.

Sales were down? Increase the prices of everything. Something not selling well? Change the game rules to make that it more powerful (or conversely, hype it up constantly so people only realize it sucks after they buy it). And of course constant changes so it was likely any models you bought would eventually become uncompetitive due to new, flashier, more overpowered things released.

Basically every bad business practice we see now was Games Workshop's wheelhouse. And while this may come across as bashing on them, I'm psyched to hear the company is thriving because their games are immensely fun and its impressive they've avoided stagnating or run out of ideas. It gives me hope for the software industry because if an in-person, expensive niche hobby could survive through social media and the pandemic, tech can bounce back from the current enshitification and short-term profit seeking.

If you have the money and enjoy lots of lore/worldbuilding and complex strategy games, Warhammer is a fantastic hobby I'd recommend checking out

Ntrails

9 hours ago

> Something not selling well? Change the game rules to make that it more powerful

It probably didn't sell because it wasn't very good. So you re-balance it later and now it doesn't suck. Like, fundamentally keeping the "best" and "worst" models/armies/strategies from stagnating keeps the game interesting (and drives more sales... so depends how you look at it).

I don't think they've every been super good at balancing though, and that at least is a fair criticism - albeit a hard task given how time consuming playtesting is to get data.

MentatOnMelange

8 hours ago

I agree completely, the game would get boring if things didn't constantly change. It was more-so the way they'd go about it, not the general sales strategy. Perhaps I should have said overpowered, typically they'd intentionally overcorrect so a unit would go from too weak to way too strong.

It didn't help they had 2 very different philosophies in the creative/design department. For example if an army was getting a revamp, competitive players would pray Gav Thorpe wasn't in charge of it. Whereas other people loved how he made the game more fun and goofy.

toyg

6 hours ago

People love to shit on GW, but at the end of the day they keep buying their wares. Most drug addicts despise their dealers in a similar way.

alberto-m

9 hours ago

The article does not explain much about the “how”. Games Workshop was a small company that failed to grow for most of its history, then suddenly struck gold. Look at the stock quote: it fluctuated in the 400–800p band from 1996 to 2016, then soared for five years in a row, hitting 10'000p in 2020.

What happened in that crucial period? Did GW manage to spread its brand awareness to the mainstream public?

fakedang

8 hours ago

I think Henry Cavill was a big part of why it grew in popularity. As Henry Cavill's career and profile grew, he did not shy away from putting his favorite nerdy interests in front of the media spotlight, which included Warhammer. That obviously caught the imagination of the internet crowd who ran away with it to create all sorts of memes with Cavill as the God Emperor, or "Behold the Omnissiah!" memes. That naturally sparked the interest of a lot of bystanders, and credit where credit's due, Warhammer lore is deeply enthralling.

alberto-m

8 hours ago

Thanks, an interesting theory! I last played Warhammer (Fantasy) in the past century, we were a small circle of friends and I never heard the game mentioned by “non-nerds”, so it was quite surprising to me to find out some years ago that the Games Workshop Company has become one of Britain's “national champions”.

lovich

6 hours ago

Total War: Warhammer came out in 2016 and was a massively popular game that kicked off a franchise.

If I recall right that was when GW started seemingly letting pretty much every studio take a crack at making games with their IP. There was a lot of trash but the sheer number of games put out meant they kept having 1-2 a year that were popular.

xhkkffbf

8 hours ago

It don't mean to diminish Warhammer's success, but part of the reason why it's one of the "biggest companies" is because many of the other big companies have slowly disappeared. Britain used to have a viable ship building industry that employed huge amounts of people. It's gone. It can't compete. And the same story is repeated again and again. Companies like Morris Garage and Triumph used to compete on the world stage. No longer.

Again, I'm proud of the Warhammer folks. It's just the fact that it's one of the "biggest" makes me sad.