Metalhandkerchief said:
I don't believe there is a flaw in my assumption, as all previous chairmen I know of of Games Workshop have been outspoken players of one or several of their games, before current CEO Tom Kirby.
The rest of your argument confuses me as it is random and I can't tell who you are talking to and why.
Most of the current GW upper management were imported from Boots the Chemist. They have no understanding of or interest in the game as anything other than a mover of product through stores.
The example I gave is an illustration of this, it betrays a failure to understand one of the core pillars of pretty much all of the games GW sell, which is that hero units are significant to gameplay, so
everyone needs them, but because they are individual no-one needs
many of them. Stop selling them in stores and you raise the barrier to entry of the game, so you'll reduce uptake.
I'm speaking here as someone who has friends who are either former or current members of the GW design studio, (my regular tabletop gaming buddy is a former editor of White Dwarf), so this isn't just internet conspiracy theory here.
Personally, I can see the current crop of upper management moving to prepaints at some point, and when that happens it's all over, the hobby lock-in is gone (many people stay with the hobby because of the effort required to collect, build, and paint models). Maybe not as quickly and spectacularly as when Rackham did the same thing, but within a couple of years the fad value will be exhausted and the old guard players won't want the new prepaints, and it will be over.
