GW: Horus Has His Sights on Bilbo
Get ready for the fat lady singing, because the days of Games Workshop and The Hobbit are coming to an end…
It seems crazy to think that Games Workshop has had the Tolkein Estate/New Line license for FIFTEEN YEARS – but it’s true.
Fellowship of the Ring came out with licensed GW product support way back in 2001!
Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Back then old timers remember the years of “split White Dwarfs” with one half being LotR material and the other half traditional GW fare.
Still GW raked in the cash with the first movies and what could possibly go wrong…
But all things fade and with the conclusion of the first Peter Jackson trilogy with The Return of the King in 2003, things starting to go south for Games Workshop’s financials – a malaise that extends to this day.
The Hobbit trilogy of 2012-2014 I think can be safely called a disappointment in retrospect. It sure looked to outsiders that by the second movie in the new trilogy, even GW was phoning it in – in regards to licensed product support.
Did Smaug even receive rules?
In any case it’s has been obvious that the time of Middle Earth in Nottingham was waning. Retailers say the products hardly ever move, and the range has been slowly fading into dust. Just take a look at the thin offerings on the GW online store and compare that the mighty range GW once produced for it in the heyday of the first trilogy.
That time is said to be very early 2016 (I would bet on January). Look for the quiet removal of all things Tolkien from GW, with a full throated replacement with Horus Heresy shouted from the rooftops.
Mr. Horus, please put down the bolter…*gulp*
And I say ABOUT DAMNED TIME!
There has been an active conversation about the long-term harm the LotR license did to GW. Some argue that the massive financial spike and plummet that followed was linked directly to the LotR license and rocked the normally steady boat of GW – from which they are still to recover. Others say that it was the introduction of Tolkein’s rich universe that split the studio’s attention, and fantasy community – and may have been THE SEED of WFB’s downward spiral.
The truth will be locked up in the accounting ledgers of Nottingham and probably never known, but after 15 years it will be good to have old GW back to focussing 100% on their own universes.
Maybe, just maybe, tossing the Hobbit overboard and embracing the Warmaster will be just what the doctor ordered to get GW’s ship back to safe, clear waters.
What do you think the LotR license’s long term effects on GW are?
It’s all going according to plan – bwahahahah!
