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.

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.

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

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.