It really was that simple. Take it from someone who actually plays games on a daily basis.
There's rarely anything more you can say about gaming related things. You didn't play 7th, so your opinion is barely relevant. And it's always tainted by your over-arching negativity.
Disagreeing with you doesn't equate to negativity. If I didn't enjoy this hobby, I wouldn't be here
. You have a very strong interest to present the product positively at all times. There is, therefore, a strong element of partiality in everything you post and you're bound to present GW in as positive light as possible. As a result, I prefer to formulate my own views, based on my reading of topics and having been on this forum on a daily basis, viewing all the topics, even when I haven't been playing.
There should always be more choice. It's what moves the hobby on and stops gaming becoming stagnant.
One book per army? So would you prefer to pay for an updated Codex whenever new models were released, or just not rules for new models..?
Always having more of something leads to the law of diminishing returns coming into play. It's extremely difficult, and I would argue impossible, to add more elements of choice without also increasing the layers of complexity. This is actually one reason why the eighth edition rulebook and indices have been streamlined. As for stagnation, it depends on the edition of the game. Fifth edition stagnated very quickly, but sixth came and went so quickly, there was no chance for it to grow remotely stale. In addition, I've played wargames where the rules either do not change or only ever have minor updates, so there are different schools of thought on this.
My preferences are simple. I want fairness. The approach that GW adopted, on this occasion, simply isn't fair to those people who purchased the indices.
Finally, allow me to pose the crucial question to you again:
GW could have made all the index rules free. GW could have uploaded all the unit datasheets for free. That way, charging for the codices so soon after the release of the indices is a lot more reasonable. Your argument is that the profit margins on books are so small anyway, so if this is the case why didn't they upload free datasheets or make the rules for each index available for free?
I understand that you're reluctant to answer this, but I would like to hear your personal answer, rather than an echoing of the corporate line
.