The community of Warhammer 40k began flourishing in 1987, after just months. The company and community writers would begin releasing material paving the way for Warhammer 40k as we know it. Since almost 1994 Game Workshop has taken on an anti-consumer policy. Attacking private content creators, who simply express their passion and love for the 40K universe. They hike prices when we protest too loudly, they re-release material in an attempt to appease us when we yell loudly enough to be heard. No. More. Game Workshop will hand out IPs to anyone, as long as there is some profit to gain. Uncaring if these developers or animators know anything about 40K besides it being a lucrative investment. While developers and animators who are passionate; who create material, asking for no profit, are stamped down, with Cease and Desist orders or absorbed in the company just to be placed in a closet. It. Is. Wrong. TTS and Astartes, two examples of being shut down and the other absorbed just to be tucked away in some forgotten forum of the Game Workshop Website. Miniatures exorbitantly priced just because they own the Miniture market. Yet, you buy and you can't even guarantee Quality Controlled product. I've had the pleasure of meeting a community so passionate about their Universe, some longer then decades, yet I feel like the company that should embrace their fanbase, doesn't. No more, if people can rise against Monopolies like Disney, then it's about time we have our turn.

We ask:

1. Reduce the number of "Direct exclusive models" and support the FLGS/independent retailers. Game Stores are where your community exists. It is not in their home, alone, painting. Most of the hobby may occur there, but it with the objective in mind that on the weekend they will travel down to their local friendly game store and set up across the table from someone and play a game. That is why they put all the hours into building and painting their army. Sure it may be fun to build and paint it, but for most of us it is a means to an end, not the end itself. Since the objective of collecting is to play a game, game store owners are going to promote games they can sell in their store. If majority of your product is exclusively available from your webstore, game store owners will not push your product as they lose potential sales. Without that push or those sales, their gaming community abandons GW games, and without the game they abandon GW/Citadel models. Additionally, there are far more independent retailers than GW stores, and they are more accessible to many players. Increasing presence there will not only promote your game, but it will actively compete againt other wargames available at these retailers, and potentially increase your market share while reducing your competitors.  

2. Competitively price your products. You have some room to charge a slight premium because of the quality of your miniatures. But since the ultimate objective is to play a game at the end of the week, players are going to financially invest in what they can better afford to accomplish this objective. All wargaming is a luxury market. If a player can get the same amount of game time for less with another game and have just as much, if not more fun, then that is where they will invest their dollars. This is a big factor as to why so much competition now exists whereas very little did before. A potential aide to this point would be to allow sales of bits, aftermarket 3rd party add-ons, and online purchases through 3rd party retailers. This all encourages throughput of your products, and for players to gather larger or more forces for their games. Don't think of it as loosing $15 to a 3rd party conversion kit, think of it as gaining the $45 for the box set I bought from GW to use said conversion kit. Sales for GW have only become worse over time with the policies that eliminate these possibilities. 

3. Change your website to be hobby and gaming driven with a webstore section as a single component of the whole. This used to be the way it was. Your website should not just be an online marketplace. Your site should be the one stop shop for painting, tactics, gaming communities, upcoming tournaments, etc. etc. The webstore should then be a feature that a player can access after reading a tactica article or a painting guide. Performance,  not just appearance, drives sales of models, so discussing the performance and ways to use particularly models in game can only benefit you by swaying consumers to purchase it. Beautiful photos and well painted models help, but a vast majority of your playerbase knows it cannot paint as well as your webstore and White Dwarf images, so they fail to be lured in by that trap. Develop a community rather than just a queue.  

4. Conduct market research and increase player involvement. With the advent of social media this is easier than ever. Rather than just having youtube videos for new releases, have discussions of in progress design concepts to allow hype to be generated and discussion to occur, then systematically feed this back into your development process. Release trial rules again and gather important commentary from the players to fine tune them. Furthermore understand your consumer base and what they need and want to continue collecting, converting, painting Citadel miniatures alongside GW games rather than just assuming another huge kit or wacky limited edition gaming aide is what they need to be fed. With a generation thriving off constant connectivity and insight into early product development in virtually every market, particularly the growing tech and video games industries which manage to steal potential hobbyists daily, a policy of secrecy and blind assumption only will accomplish an alienation of the consumer. Forge World is able to build massive hype by previewing models, sometimes years in advance. They also make great rules and provide experimental rules often. These have not hindered sales and only serve to please their customer base.

5. “Fan-films and animations – individuals must not create fan films or animations based on our settings and characters. These are only to be created under licence from Games Workshop.”  For many in the last 5 years, fan animations represent a vast Warhammer 40K outreach opportunity. It's has put a plethora of people in touch with the community. All for Games Workshop to create a incredibly anti-consumer and anti-playerbase policy in lieu of the upcoming Warhammer+. It's ridiculous and unacceptable that's creators are to either cease creating media, or to be hired and tucked away to the recesses of Games Workshop. Everyone should have an opportunity to create media that does no harm to profits and brings the existing community together and new people in.