Ok, so it's a Russian KV tank that's been tricked out with heaps of 40K-like detail. Cool!
It makes me want to ask GW, and everyone else, some questions though.
- Is there any 40K player, past or present, that doesn't understand exactly which faction this tank was designed to go with?
- Does changing the name of the 40K faction that this tank is intended to go with make any difference to the players who will buy this model the moment they see it?
- Why isn't GW co-opting this threat by offering (for a piece of the action) to cast and/or distribute this tank to 40K players themselves?
It's much better to profit off of a revolution than to cower in fear of it.
It's Sisters of Battle, right?
ReplyDeleteI mean, it screams "Purifying Flames of the Ecclesiarchy" dunnit?
DeleteNeeds more skulls to me real GW though. Maybe more Peaked arches and spikes, too.
DeleteIt appears to have a suspension, which immediately makes it better than every tank model GW has ever released.
DeleteThere could be some mileage in the basic elements as well. A transport expansion for the hull for example, and a set of crab legs and various barrels, or a sponson adaptor, to convert the turret into a walker - maybe a tripod? - for red planet dunes and so on.
ReplyDeleteOn point no. 3, maybe the centre will be rolled into making that kind of offer.
ReplyDeleteIt is just possible to imagine a time at which the store network is rolled up, many more indies won't sell the products and large numbers of communities have dropped below the optimal size and vanished, and as a result sales go low enough that plastic ceases to seem worthwhile. If no new owner wants to, can or is given a chance to reverse that, and the love for the setting holds up, the owner of the core IP could then just limit themselves to managing the licensing of it, alongside video games etc. An OGL-style licence is harder to imagine.
But then, when smaller producers are making minis like this anyway, and presumably getting increasingly better known over time, how many would feel it worth jumping through hoops to do so for that single core IP more officially?
GW needs to be rolling out initiative like this now, not when they're on the verge of death. Being able to market a garage product under the Warhammer brand still has value now. But after a few more years of declining sales, it won't.
DeleteGW has already used that design as the Ragnarok Heavy Tank from the Baran Seigemasters in Epic.
ReplyDeleteWhat's even weirder is why GW hasn't hired Sandwyrm as CEO yet.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't want the job. One cranky yankee outsider cannot remake a fundamentally broken corporate culture.
DeleteBesides, looking at the analytics, we haven't had any visitors from Nottingham since 2011. I think it's safe to say that nobody there even knows or remembers who we are.
Maybe we could convince Notch (the minecraft guy) that he needs to buy out GW with his Microsoft payout and try a new hobby?
It is not worth GW's time to even worry about these people. GW and Forgeworld can generate more designs than they have capacity to produce. They do not need to produce other people designs. Each additional design with GW involvement will sell more than without it and each of those sales cuts into the super high margin plastic kits which cost more to get to the store than to make once the first 10,000 are sold.
ReplyDeleteThey should have learned from the Chapter House issues that the small producers are just that where they spent more on lawyers than Chapter House sold threw out its history.
I would bet the opposite EC. That GW's in-house mold-making and casting facilities lie idle at least half the time, and that it's the lack of shelf space in their stores (and the understaffed design department) that limit the amount of new product they can push out the door from a manufacturing standpoint.
DeleteBut whether or not they actually do the model production for such licensees, they could open up a centralized store (Amazon-like), that could be a one-stop shop for all of the weird and wonderful designs that the community and its garage industries can come up with. 30% off the top as a royalty (Apple-style), and all of those community producers would line up for approval to be listed in that store under a Warhammer brand.
No ChaperHouse itself is not a threat, but a couple of thousand ChaperHouses are. Which is why GW went after them so heavily. They're trying to avoid the death of a thousand cuts, but instead they should be co-opting that trend and turning it into a new revenue stream and idea generator. Such a system would also allow them to buy-out the most successful designs and produce 'em themselves. Just seeing what community designs are trending could be invaluable.
Or they could at least use their excess manufacturing capacity to produce miniatures for 3rd parties or new lines. If I were GW, I'd be tempted to pump out cheap minis for Flames of War and WarMachine. Which is exactly the kind of brilliant dick-move that Microsoft would have made in its heyday.
If I was in charge, I would lease "IP" licenses to the "Garage" shops. For a small fee (kept cheep intentionally) and a check to make sure the product meets certain quality and (for lack of better word) fluff standards, you let these people (some of them quite talented) produce and sell item that really only enhance your core products.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
DeleteI know, it clearly fits well into the Tyranid range, but I could see GW selling ALL their manufacturing to try and do what you suggest, hating it, buying it back at a loss, and going under months later!
ReplyDeleteI don't get you. Why would they sell off their existing manufacturing arm to start pilot programs that might cost them half a million?
DeleteGW has essentially no debt load. They could finance such a move easily if they wanted to.
Colour and style design from Vostroyan's tank perhaps?
ReplyDeleteI remember the Russian KV design has been used by a GW staff for this Vostroyan's Astra Militarum army. My favourite IG army.