This has all changed in 2016, they made a complete 180. They now run live streamed tournaments, provide tournament prizes, engage with their customers on Facebook, put out funny viral marketing videos, respond to leaks with more funny videos, have basically released most of the stuff people wanted but thought were just a pipe dream, and much more. Prizes are still very high but they are releasing many box sets that are discounted up to 50%.
Well its nice to know they actually have a dialogue with their customers after they drove me off with successive anti consumerist practices like no internet ordering of product, explosive price increases, and to top it off the cancelling of a game I had played for 20 years.
I told myself after paying $85 AUD (At the time the AUD was worth more than the USD) for the WHFB Warriors of Chaos army book I was done with the price gouging. It didn't help that 8th Ed just wasn't as good as 6th and 7th ed ( an argument could be made it wasn't even as good as 4th and 5th)
Because 8th was crap it didn't sell. The emphasis on big monster units and attrition rather than flanking and movement drove people who actually liked the one really strategic aspect of the game away. GW then decided "this ain't selling, fuck it burn it to the ground and replace it with a game where we own every phrase and concept".
Yes, I am still bitter. I went from a pretty devout fan boy to straight up despising GW over the course of about 4 years. Think EA and Activision suck? They don't hold a candle to GW.
Don't let this put you off trying the WH and 40K RPG's from Fantasy Flight, those games are pretty damn cool.
D&D on the other hand is pretty fun, you can get most of the rules for free if you want to try it 5th ed is actually fairly interesting with its emphasis on background and character identity, and while I do think WOTC does give it the short end of the stick compared to its other properties it still supports it pretty hard.