Ok, so I've been back on the plastic crack for around 18 months now and I still love building, painting and playing Warhammer 40k. Don't think that will ever change, however, recent events have made me look closer at my dealer and I didn't like what I started to see.
Paints:
It wasn't till I bought a batch of Vallejo paints that I realised how bad GW's paint were. Initially, I thought it was because my paints were old, like 10years+ old but then I bought some new pots of the same colours to top up my stock and found no difference in the quality. On the plus side, they can really last if you don't use em and look after them.
Lets be clear though, my issue isn't with the paint so much as it is with the design of the pots and a quick Google about this issue will show you that I'm not on my own. When you start using other brands you really do notice the issues with them.
You would think a business that has been around since the 80's and has changed the design of it's pots 3 or 4 times (off the top of my head) would actually have a design that really works. Instead, they have a design that keeps you coming back for more. Why? Those big open pots of 'painting from the pot' encouragement. I didn't realise how much paint I was actually wasting, even with a wet palette, when using the GW pots and how much it dries out if you paint directly from the pot. Yes, I know painting from the pot is a big "no!no!" but sometimes I'm lazy lol. Fortunately, Vallejo paints encourage me not to! lol
Businesses and products can have differences, it's what makes the economy go round. So what's the problem? Well I guess my issue with it all is that GW clearly doesn't listen to their customer fan base. As I previously said, a quick Google search came back with a flood of posts and articles around this subject so if they did listen, they would certainly know about this issue. The only conclusion I can draw from this, is that GW want it this way for whatever reason, perhaps to get you (and particularly people starting out) to buy more pots quicker than you would with other brands.
Space Marines:
It's all about the Space Marines and some Necrons (but mainly Space Marines). Really GW, there are other factions in your game that hasn't seen any much needed attention in many many years. Obviously, Space Marines are the cash cow.
#PaintingWarhammer:
This one has always baffled me. A quick search on Instagram brought back 1.7 million results for the hashtag #PaintingWarhammer. Yes, I know you need to tag @WarhammerOfficial as well now but really? GW can't be a little proactive in showing off what their customer base does with their products? There are some old products on the GW website that have no customer photos along side them and then there are others which have loads. Guess it's just down to flavour of the month.
Armies On Parade:
Armies On Parade moved online this year due to the pandemic so here was an ideal opportunity to reach out to what is a MASSIVE community and encourage more people to get involved and also show some appreciation to it's fan base.
Instead, the first part of the hour long Twitch event was spent showing of the works of their own staff. Was this really necessary? All power to the guys that did these great pieces of work, they are fantastic and I don't mind saying that I would love to be as talented and on this level but isn't this about your fan base? Shouldn't this have been about engaging with your customers?
The whole thing (even with covid in mind) was poorly done. It should have been an ideal time to make a better online presentation of it all. Even if it is only for one year, it wouldn't be too much trouble to knock up a webpage to display all the thousands of entries you've received to at least give some recognition. I can say this because I'm a web application developer by trade, this isn't a coding issue, just a bandwidth issue. They have armiesonparade.com so it's not like they don't have a place to put it but even this domain wasn't well advertised, I simply stumbled across it whilst writing this.
The physical stores:
I quickly stopped using the local GW Store for one simple reason. They never had what I wanted in stock. They were helpful enough and willing to order whatever I wanted but let's face facts; it's much easier and cheaper to order from an independent stockist online so why would I bother to order via the store?
The App:
This is the biggest head scratcher of them all, so poorly rolled out I'm amazed it's still available. Don't get me wrong, I actually wondered from the start (when I began playing again), why GW didn't have an app of it's own for 40k. With so many rules around the game and the building of armies it was screaming for an app.
When it finally came out I was excited to see what it had to offer and the answer was, not much. The contents of books I had to pay for initially anyways, the core rules which were free online already (and initially linked to a google drive pdf!) and the main part of it, the BattleForge option, was not available.
After a massive delay it was added. Slow and full of bugs.
The age of pencils is over according to the release statement. News Flash for you GW, it was over about 20/25years ago, nice to see you're finally catching up. Really can't see me paying a monthly sub of that price for something I'll rarely use when I need to buy the book anyways. Personally don't see the point of the book if I just use the app and vice versa. I'm sure the army builder will be really handy for creating your armies but I'd rather do it manually or use a 'certain piece of freeware'.
At £3.99 a month and twice as much as the AoS version, what are you really getting for your money? Honestly, just a different way of doing something you've already shelled out cash for. Their subscription model is clearly set up to avoid the charges that come with adding the app to both Google Play and the Apple App Store. You have to wonder if the Wh40k app will disappear like the recent Fortnite game did at some point in the future?
The simple answer to all this would have to been to make the app a mobile responsive web application so it wouldn't need to go up on either Google Play or the Apple App Store. One code base. I really don't see what the advantage is over it being an app, if your offline, you can't log into the app anyways so it can't be for the offline capabilities. With it's response times, I'm pretty sure it's calling an external data source for the info.
Does your IT Director actually have any experience with this kind of thing or is he just a mate from down the pub who can code a bit of HTML?
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