(Video)Games Workshop

[Dog Pants]

After a bit of a chat with Joose this morning about it, I've been thinking of the various Games Workshop videogames which are and have been. I remember the Amiga version of Space Hulk, which White Dwarf hyped up the ying-yang and turned out to be a dog. Popular opinion has it that GW are terrified of videogames taking people away from their hobby, understandably so because they surely are, and so for a long time they were steadfastly against it. A long run of flops probably didn't help. Lets take a look;

HeroQuest (1991) - Pretty close replica of the board game, and enjoyable for it.
Space Crusade (1992) - As above, pretty much a direct remake of the board game and almost as good.
Space Hulk (1993) - Tried to make it a Hired Guns / Eye of the Beholder style first-person tile based game. It was just as hard as the board game, and not a lot of fun because of it.
HeroQuest II: Legacy of Sorasil (1994)
Blood Bowl (1995)
Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels (1995)
Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat (1995) - An RTS very much like the Total War games, with RPG elements. Actually pretty advanced for its day, but suffered from being bastard hard.
Final Liberation (1997) - An isometric turn based strategy game based on the Epic rules. It wasn't bad, but suffered from being too hard (again) and too narrow in scope.
Warhammer: Dark Omen (1998) - An RTS in the same vein as Shadow of the Horned Rat. Also not bad, but suffered from the same problems.
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate (1998)
Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War (1999)
Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (2003) - An average-at-best console conversion third person shooter.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (2004) -The first Warhammer-based game to get a good reception, no coincidence that it's the first one made by THQ. It was pretty much the tried and tested Company of Heroes with WH40K units.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Winter Assault (2005)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade (2006)
Warhammer: Mark of Chaos (2006)
Warhammer: Battle March (2008)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm (2008)
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (2008) - A brave attempt at an MMO with some good ideas, unfortunately wasn't up to the challenge of drawing players from World of Warcraft.
Blood Bowl (2009) - An exact replica of the board game with decent customisation options and campaign modes, but a terrible UI.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (2009) - Another fine RTS by THQ.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising (2010)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution (2011)
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (2011) - Like Fire Warrior, another action console conversion. Received mixed reception on PC.

Looking at that list you can see that there are more misses than hits in there. Even the good games didn't get much of a response from gamers, the universally successful THQ games and their expansions aside. It's hardly surprising that GW are reluctant to sign up to videogame conversions of their tabletop games, since the only money-spinners have been games first and Warhammer second. The thing is though, the games which have been faithful reproductions have actually been pretty good games. I still play Heroquest every now and then when I find a modern conversion. The rules and gameplay have been so well tested and balanced over the years that most of the work is already done. Blood Bowl is, in my opinion, a great game in both formats, and I think Necromunda could easily be done in the same formula for equally good results. I haven't played them, but I could easily see the same applying to Battlefleet Gothic and Man O War. They're small potatoes though even in their original board game format. The big boys are the wargames.

Back to our little chat, Joose and I both agreed that the rise of the acceptance of microtransactions would allow a videogame version of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 to succeed. Games Workshop have always been successful due to the (admittedly notoriously cynical) drip-feed of new units and rules into their games, and a small outlay plus microtransactions system would translate pretty well. Say £20 for a starter pack with a handful of units of your race of choice and some AI battles, with more units available as DLC and little microtransaction customisation options. Or alternatively a model more like League of Legends - the basic game free with one basic unit of Orcs/Marines/Eldar, extra units available for in game or real currency, and customisation options (equivalent of model conversions and new skins) available as microtransactions. It doesn't sound like a moneyspinner on paper, but it sure works for LoL. Games Workshop would never make this though, because they don't want to take people away from the tabletop hobby. I don't think it would. You can't substitute the feel of actual miniatures and scenery, or the satisfaction of building and painting an army. I'd suggest there are twice as many people out there who would like to play but don't have the time, space, or interested friends to play the tabletop version as there are those who play it. These people, like me, would be very interested in such an online version. Even people who do play the tabletop version are probably big enough fans to buy a videogame version with the same rules in order to play distant friends, or when there just isn't time for a real game. The bonus for GW is that you can almost guarantee that anyone who plays the miniature game would want an exact replica in the virtual game. That way they get to sell the same product to the same person twice. Maybe they've considered it, maybe they've found reasons not to that we've not realised here, but it seems a real shame that we'll probably never see it.

[Joose]

It seems like such an obviously good idea to me that there just must be some aspect of it that we haven't considered. Like you say, I don't think it would take people away from their tabletop games. But even if it did, would that matter? If they took the less risky looking pricing model, and just directly mimicked the model for the tabletop game, then any lost sales on the tabletop would be made up for by increased sales online. They would be in competition with themselves, it wouldn't really matter whether I bought my squad of Space Marines physically or digitally as long as I was buying a squad of space marines and paying GW for it. Hell, as there would be no manufacturing costs as such, they could make the digital versions much cheaper and still make more money per sale. They could use it as a promotional thing too: Buy physical models, get codes to unlock stuff online. Visit a games day for the launch of some new title, get a code to unlock a unique unit/skin. It works for WoW and Blizzcon, or the WoW trading card game. It works for Magic: The Gathering. An online game that also encourages people into your highstreet store? Seems like a Fuck Yes to me.

Maybe its just that microtransactions are still a relatively new thing. An online Warhammer would be financially stupid for them without microtransactions, and its only recently that having them in games doesn't cause gamers to do a little mouthsick. It could just be that GW have not yet caught up to the idea. I hope so, because it would be awesome.

[buzzmong]

I hope they don't make a Necromunda game, I was rather fancying having a crack at making that myself in the future.

[HereComesPete]

I hope they don't make a Necromunder game, I was rather fancying having a crack at making that myself in the future.

Hopefully by then you'll be able to spell it properly.

[buzzmong]

[HereComesPete]

I would hazard at their making a game where they pull in money similar to their physical operation would involve a significant contract change with THQ. They have shown to be able to make good GW stuff, but under licence. Which I would imagine currently boils down to - money to and fro and we'll let you edit our creative teams work so you can then put an official badge on it. But undoubtedly THQ are reaping the most from that particular deal.

So really you would have to get a games dev to relinquish control of a significant portion of their revenue if you wanted microtransactions money to go to GW. Or they could somehow bring it in house, which means it could well be shit.

[FatherJack]

I've played a bunch of those, starting with Space Crusade on the C64, which I loved, but I'd be unlikely to ever consider giving them money for their tabletop stuff. I would play them, but not buy figurines - apart from them being quite expensive, I am far too cack-handed to be able to paint them. So, with me at least, they're not losing any sales by making more games, just gaining them.

I'm don't think the microtransaction approach would work with me either, as I'd either buy just the base game or wait for a 'complete' version later on, but I'm not desperately impressed with the drip-feed approach they currently use in their game releases. I appreciate I'm not very knowledgeable about the lore as if I'm a fan, it's only of the games I have. I liked the Dawn of War games on release, but after I played Dark Crusade and discovered the robot skeletons it made all the other releases irrelavant, and I won't be buying any Dawn of War II expansions until they are included and playable in a campaign. Them adding extra Human or Eldar races just looks to me as money-grabbing, as I just see them as lazy reskins.

[Dog Pants]

I've turned this into a blog post; http://www.geekinpublic.com/?p=308

[Anery]

One of the good things about DoWII was the last stand co-op multiplayer arena mode, I can see this working very well as a DOTA game too, although people will cry over the fact that it is not canon (space marines work with nobody, yadda yadda, fuck off nobhead) but I think DOTA games are being done to death this year.
A Necromunda MMO would be ace (in my mind) but probably not very popular or well executed, but could work as a turn based RPG like Armoured Princess.