Games Workshop and the big ambition of a miniatures business

There are bunch of tabletop wargames, but Warhammer has the network effect going for it.

If you want to go the local hobby store and play a game, most other people are playing Warhammer, that’s what you play too.

You might prefer Bolt Action, but if nobody else in town has a Bolt Action army, it’s an uphill climb.

I recently attended a big Wargaming convention. While all sorts of games were present and being played, 40K has orders of magnitude more people playing it.

There was a time not long ago where there were some competitors like War machine getting close to GW markets are, but they've stumbled and GW has continued to do well. The number one thing is network effects. GW has their own stores, but even at non-GW stores it's the game you can probably find a community playing, so it's the game you'll probably get introduced to. Additionally while Warhammer 40k is the biggest GW game there is also Age of Sigmar in the fantasy space along with the Horus Heresy, The Old World, and Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game as well as some skirmish games like Necromunda, Warcry, Kill Team, and others many of the models used in the skirmish games can also be used in 40k/AoS making it easier to double dip.

Switching costs are high for this type of game. If you want to play something new you need to invest time and money into buying & painting new figures, learn a new set of rules, and convince your friends to do the same.

OTOH historical wargaming is even more niche, but because nothing’s tied to IP games are much more diverse, and the hobby’s backed by a healthy community of small businesses and individual creators.

Because of its lore. It is a huge collection of classic tropes, carefully put together, nothing will surprise you, you know all of its componentes from somewhere, religions, literature, history, etc. But the sum of all of them and the commitment to it it's quite remarkable.

They aren’t really dominant unless you so heavily restrict the space. The more popular “battlefield” simulation between armies are more abstract aka Risk, Chess, etc or video games like StarCraft.

Restrict things enough to basically describe 40k and sure they’re dominant, because you’re excluding most games.

There is, but others were more mismanaged or had more legal troubles which took lot of wind out of them. You need to consistently keep producing something to keep old players and pull enough new ones. Also GW managed to get good enough presence over others.

Because it is blessed by the Emperor of Mankind. Glory to the Emperor!

It's great fun, smile.

the lore and novels/audiobooks behind it are HUUUGE.

Its just a really REALLY well curated universe.

The dominance comes from the 40k lore, not the gameplay mechanics.

A few comments in this thread pointing to network effect and switching costs. I'd like to highlight a few other factors, notably the cohort effect. I'll also highlight where the alternatives are coming from.

I'm in a decade-old, Warhammer-centric WhatsApp group containing myself and four friends from back home, most of whom I've known since I was in more-or-less single digits. Despite rarely seeing them (I live thousands of miles away), they're some of my closest friends. We're all dudes in our early forties. It is by far and away my most active group, I reckon we average around 50-100 messages a day.

Given family commitments and distance from each other, we don't even play that often (maybe 1-2 times a year), but the conversation is endless. Sharing our work is a big thing -- there are individual peaks and troughs of productivity (actually building, painting) -- and the rest is obsessing over new releases, lore and "the meta"; alongside chit-chat about our lives, other games, politics or whatever.

The group and hobby is hugely important to all of us in different ways, largely as a respite from whatever bogs us down on a day-to-day basis: kids, intense jobs, difficult life stuff. It's a clean and pure and happy space for us.

I am not at all into Warhammer these days, more on that in a mo, but have a set of decent Ork and Tau models. They've all played on and off since they were kids, and I'd say their "brand loyalty" is fanatical. I've tried, oh so many times, to get them into other tabletop wargames, but they are not in the slightest bit interested. They loved it as kids, and they love it even more now it's their escape from their own.

Side-bar, the other big demographic that are into it are army folk. It's very popular on base, I hear. Another aging demographic playing at a formative period.

This is the generation that's spending the real cash on GW. The older age group weren't so into it in the nineties, they were all about Napoleonics and model trains. As our generation have grown into disposable income, GW have seen their audience double, with the big spenders actually now in that 35-50 zone, plus all the young-uns down the local store.

Add to this broadening of channels (computer games, looming IP monetisation) and you're seeing the picture of why the company is so successful.

Now the gap in the market and the key emerging trend: OMG 3D printing, I fucking love it. This is really blowing up right now, and is something I doubt GW will get into for various reasons -- it's seen as a threat, and the material is brittle and kinda toxic if not handled correctly.

But it's democratising production, and bringing a huge number of new, bedroom-based model-makers into the scene. There's this really vibrant and dynamic community based around sites like myminifactory, discord, paetreon. If you want my opinion on where the next big thing might come from, it'd be something like onepagerules.

It remains to be seen if it's going to completely disrupt their model, but I for one am all in. I've always preferred the creative side of "the hobby", and It's actually moved me away from gaming into dioramas. My non-materials (e.g., paint etc.) hobby spend now is all on STLs and a guy I know locally with a resin printer. I am however not fanatically loyal, the younger generation may not be quite so set in their ways either.

Aaaanyway. I think this -- underutilisation and Netflixisation aside -- is why we're hearing so much talk about IP at the moment. There's a lot going on in the models space, real competition for the first time in years, and this is where there's real opportunity for growth.

Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only money

Cynicism aside I don’t see it happening, let’s see how the tv series pans out but I really like their recent work - Space Marine I & II were excellent. I still play Dawn of War just for the vibes, and I hear the table top and RP games are also still good

I doubt GW would go into that direction.

Though I do believe they will continue to raise their prices to the point where you have sell a kidney for a combat patrol box.