You're right, however; Out of 1000 randon chosen warhammer players there will be more players that plays 30k than Necromunda.
Care to back that up, or do you just have anecdotal evidence of your local community? Because while that might have been true in... say, 2016, prior to the resurrection of Necromunda and the death of Alan Bligh, that's a very bold claim to make.
So they have a way larger potential customer base for releasing a 30k boxed set with ZM floor tiles, ZM wall sections and a few 30k infantry sprues thrown in without any new special game rules or such (as in BoC and BoP boxes). Such a box could easily be priced for 150 USD and still be sold out. Also such a box would cost 0 USD in development (all sprues are already made for other boxed games). So from a business (and a customer demand perspective) its a no-brainer to do.
... you're surely joking, right? No cost in development? Asides from, I dunno, box art and deciding what to put in the box -- i.e., development -- your assertion that all sprues are already made assumes that these Zone Mortalis terrain pieces were designed in a vacuum, instead of for Necromunda, and just happened to be tossed into the Dark Uprising box. As for rules development costs, to use your own logic, "all [rules] are already made for other [publications.]"
But still they do this totally hollow-brained launches of releasing ZM tiles and walls for a Necromunda starter set with bunch of models only Necromunda players ask for and a separate boxed set of tiles as a "ZM terrain boxed set" implicitly aimed at 30k players (since FW released an updated Horus Heresy rule set for ZM same day these ZM tiles were released) but without wall section that only come in the massive all-out 'Munda box.
It's not implicitly aimed at 30k players. It's explicitly aimed at Necromunda players. The fact that Warhammer Community released an updated ruleset for Horus Heresy Zone Mortalis doesn't mean that these new tiles are implicitly targeted for 30k any more than them releasing AoS rules for the Shadespire and Warcry warbands means those are implicitly targeted for Age of Sigmar or 40k rules for the stuff in Blackstone Fortress implicitly means that things like the spindle drones and ambull are meant to be used in 40k first and foremost. Are they hedging their bets? Sure, and we would expect nothing less of them at this point. But please don't spew this bull
about implicit marketing and expect anyone to take you seriously.
In general, you seem to have this idea that that Games Workshop has a single studio that pumps out releases for a variety of games, and it would be possible for them to just swing a product release over to another game. Yet we know that's not the case: this is a Specialist Games studio project, and the people working on this produced it because it's for Necromunda. They didn't produce it because they needed a place to market a random terrain project that they had finished and thus tossed together some other models and some rules together to make a box, they sought to put out what they did.
A high school sophomore with below-average intelligence studying a "basics of business" course cold figure this one out.
Okay.
When it comes to do statistical statements and remarks, yes, I speak out of my experience of my community geographically limited to Sweden but also from my contact of the outside world within the online community in regards of Necromunda and 30k respectively. And no, it is not anecdotal from 2016 although I played Necromunda since 1998. again no, I have not made a social science study with applied mathematical statistics and presented in a thesis to back that up but I still find myself have sufficient experience of the two special game communities to make such a statement.
No I'm not joking when I state that the potential customer base for 30k is way larger than Necromunda. Why? The product range of 30k is much larger and worth way more in actual made revenue for GW compared to Necromunda. The investment to play 30k is larger, there are since 2014-2015 already thousands of players that have invested thousands of USD and hundreds of hours to collect and paint a 30k army (or several). The tournament scene anywhere on earth for 30k compared to Necromunda speaks for itself, and keep in mind that Necromunda have been around since around mid 90's. So yes, 30k scene is larger, worth way more in terms of business, with players with a strong purchase power (battle ready 30k army cost way more in time and money compared to a battle ready Munda gang) heavily invested. So yes, when it comes to looking at the potential business potential of a boxed set with ZM tiles, ZM walls and a few 30k infantry sprues the business potential is much larger if it is aimed towards 30k consumers compared to Necromunda consumers. You are more likely to consume ZM terrain if you play 30k than Necromunda, because ZM is a much appreciated and well settled special game feature in 30k globally compared to Necromunda.
So you are right, I should have said "near 0 USD" instead of "0 USD" when I mentioned the dev costs of such a box I spoke of. They would have to pay a Photoshop artist a few hours of work to make the box art. All the other content of such a box is already paid for in terms of development costs. Its just a matter of production costs. So the profit margin (more correctly the IBT) (revenue - costs (development, production, distribution)) for such a box would have been much higher compared to the new Munda box.
When you launch and call a certain gaming terrain product "Zone Mortalis tiles" and you launch a refreshed set of rules for it for 30k (keep in mind that the original ZM rules for 30k been around since HH black book one) then yes, you can argue it is implicitly aimed at 30k players/consumers although it comes also together with its separate vital components (ZM wall sections) only in a Necromunda starter box. The fact that the Necromunda starter box the tiles with wall sections comes in is explicitly aimed to Necromunda players doesn't rule out that the tiles box is implicitly aimed towards 30k players.
I'm aware that GW have several work groups, studios, teams that work with different product ranges. My point is that in this specific circumstance of much anticipated ZM tiles and wall sections among the 30k community being developed for Necromunda with measures that fit 30k rule set too and the fact that 30k infantry is already developed and in production since few years ago makes it a case of just swinging it in terms of packaging the following:
- Already developed plastic ZM tiles
- Already developed plastic ZM wall sections
- Already developed plastic 30k infantry
In a boxed set that will cost near zero in dev costs and still be sold out even if priced 100-150 USD range.
So no, I don't see that I'm bull:cussting.