Kirby is stepping down as CEO (and will remain chairman, "if the board will have [him]") in January.
Games Workshop has had a really good year.
If your measure of 'good' is the current financial year's numbers, you may not agree. But if your measure is the long-term survivability of a great cash generating business that still has a lot of potential growth, then you will agree.
I don't know if stepping down is a great thing for him. This reads like a " Things are going to be really bad, but don't worry in the future we will has money".
CHAIRMAN’S PREAMBLE
Games Workshop has had a really good year.
If your measure of 'good' is the current financial year's numbers, you may not agree. But if your measure is the long-term
survivability of a great cash generating business that still has a lot of potential growth, then you will agree.
Having taken on the conversion of our stores to a one man format with all the concomitant complexity of staff changes and new
sites and new lease negotiations – a long job not quite finished – we decided to re-arrange the management of our sales channels
from a country-based system to a central one. This meant removing four european headquarters, consolidating all trade (third
party) sales personnel at our Nottingham base, creating a new continental european grouping of our retail stores, and recruiting
new management for these divisions whilst flattening the structure by removing all middle management. At the same time we
changed leadership of our retail chain in the north american area, and gave birth to our new web store after many months’ labour.
All this has significantly de-risked the business. We have far fewer key personnel to replace if need be, and a much lower cost base
(£2 million p.a. less). It has cost, in total, around £4.5 million to accomplish. The new web store allows us to sell online more
efficiently. It cost around £4 million.
This augurs well for our long term health and cash flow.
What is really remarkable, however, is that it was all accomplished in five months. The levels of complexity handled by our 'back-
office' staff – personnel, IT and accounts – are beyond my descriptive abilities. And yet it was co-operatively done with precision,
efficiency and calmness at a ferocious speed.
We all owe these people a big vote of thanks. They have saved the company millions.
Working with people like this is why it is a pleasure to work here.
°
In the technological world we occupy there is constant debate over who 'innovates' and who merely copies. We have, this last year,
spent an indecent amount of your money trying to stop someone stealing our ideas and images. It is a very difficult thing to do
when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another. Our experience has probably
been typical of most – far too much money spent on far too little gain. The argument is that we have to do this or we will, bit by bit,
lose everything that we hold dear, everything that keeps the business going. Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?
Last year I published the secret that I believe is at the heart of what makes this business great. Steve Jobs once did the same over at
heavily litigating Apple. He said they ignored everything that did not lead to 'insanely great products' and that was what made them
great. None of the people Apple are suing are trying to do that, so why sue?
I said, ‘we recruit for attitude and not for skill’. It is what makes us great. It is those people who design the miniatures; those people
who make them and those people who sell them; those people who transformed our business systems in five short months. I have
been deluged with two comments about that statement, neither of which was: 'you fool, you just gave away the crown jewels'.
Why doesn't everyone do it? Ask them.
°
Because no one seems able to grasp the essential simplicity of what we do there has always been the search for the Achilles heel,
the one thing that Kirby and his cronies have overlooked. These are legion. I run through the list from time to time when someone
says that computer games will be the death of us – they are so much more realistic now! – again. This year it is 3-D printing. Pretty
soon everyone will be printing their own miniatures and where will we be then, eh?
We know quite a lot about 3-D printers, having been at the forefront of the technology for many years. We know of what we speak.
One day 3-D printers will be affordable (agreed), they are now, they will be able to produce fantastic detail (the affordable ones
won't) and they will do it faster than one miniature per day (no, they won't, look it up). So we may get to the time when someone
can make a poorly detailed miniature at home and have enough for an army in less than a year. That pre-supposes that 3-D
scanning technology will be affordable and good enough (don't bet the mortgage on that one) and that everyone will be happy to
have nothing but copies of old miniatures.
All of our great new miniatures come from Citadel. It is possible that one day we will sell them direct via 3-D printers to grateful
hobbyists around the world. That will not happen in the next few years (or, in City-speak, 'forever') but if and when it does it will
just mean that we can cut yet more cost out of the supply chain and be making good margins selling Citadel 3-D printers.
At the heart of the delusion is the notion that designing and making miniatures is easy. It isn't.
°On the first of January next year I will be stepping down as CEO of Games Workshop. I intend staying on as non-executive Chairman
(if the board will have me), so those of you who want to see an end to these preambles (rhymes with rambles), don't get your
hopes up just yet.
The board has prepared a job specification for CEO, and the consequential advertisement. The ad. will be published the day after
our AGM (September 18th). If you apply, we require that you write a letter saying why you want the job. No letter, no interview.
The interviews will take place on November 7th and will be at Nottingham. An announcement will be made the following week. We
have not decided what will happen if no suitable candidate is found but I suspect my wife will be livid.
Let me dilate about this letter. Last year I wrote here about our recruitment process, and shortly afterwards we recruited a new
non-executive director (NXD) using the method described. We got a great (not good, great) new board member. She is still
surprised that I did not read her CV (exasperated would be a more accurate word) but there was no need. Her letter told us what
kind of person she was: sincere, open-minded, a learner, excited at the opportunity. The interview told us she had all the qualities
needed. It mattered not one jot what her CV said. Appointing NXDs because of their careers rather than who they are is at the
heart of the rot in the corporate world.
Tom Kirby
Chairman and acting CEO
28 July 2014
- Profits are going to be down because he focuses on long term, not short term. This means the upcoming financial report is going to be bad.
- They cut a ton of expenses by consolidating, etc. yet profits are still down.
- They spent 4 million pounds on the travesty that is their new website. ROFL.
- Someone's bitter about the Chapter House suite and how much money they wasted on that.
- Bad Steve Jobs/Apple comparison
- Justification of a poor decision on why they don't hire talent, but attitude.
- Them there 3D printers are a fad, just like VHS and CDs. If they do become something, we'll sell our own. People will buy it, just like our paints and brushes, at 10x the price of one you can buy at Home Depot.
- I'm quitting because the company is in such shoddy shape, that only I can step down to not make it an utter disaster. Don't fret though, I'll still be on the board.
- Send us a mail via postage if you want to be CEO. Email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, hell the internet itself is a fad, so send us a mail.
In the technological world we occupy there is constant debate over who 'innovates' and who merely copies. We have, this last year, spent an indecent amount of your money trying to stop someone stealing our ideas and images.
I think he doesn't realize that institutional investors (who own the bulk of GW stock) know that what he's saying is empty platitudes and contrary to established results of the case... ah well, let's not let truth get in the way.
The board has prepared a job specification for CEO
Ousted?
Appointing NXDs because of their careers rather than who they are is at the heart of the rot in the corporate world.
Wow, this guy is criminally insane. It's like saying, "I know that the right thing is to hire people who have established themselves as hard-working, successful professionals but I prefer to ignore that because...well, I know better than anybody else."
He does liken himself to Steve Jobs after all... wow.
If your measure of 'good' is the current financial year's numbers, you may not agree. But if your measure is the long-term survivability of a great cash generating business that still has a lot of potential growth, then you will agree.
Allow me to translate:
"Games Workshop isn't bankrupt yet.
This year's numbers are not good, but at least we're not bankrupt. A few years ago, measured in constant currency, we had 50 percent more annual revenue than we have now. We can totally do that again. Please believe me. And, for the love of God, don't dump your stocks."
Am I right in thinking that there is no mention of any real sales growth, they just saved money by sacking people and closing everything down?
I have to saw that the blind arrogance of the man is amazing. Apparently it's tha fault of the US legal system that they have spent so much money on legal fees. Why couldn't you just let them have their own way... shame on the US legal system!
Lets stick our heads in the sand over 3d shall we? That worked oh so well for the music & film industry... "if we ignore it it will go away"
His first paragraph and statement literally reads like
" If you weren't so fething stupid, you'd see that even though we're tanking our sales, in the future we'll be better so you're an idiot for not investing"
Then he goes on to call people out ( LOOK IT UP)
Then goes on to white wash a event that ultimately cost them a huge amount of money, the lawsuit.
Then goes on to say that, we know all about 3D printing better than you, so shut up about 3D printing.
kronk wrote: From that pre-amble, I'm expecting a drop in revenue from 2013. Significant, perhaps.
I think the preamble doesn't predict that. It does predict a lot of large one-time costs that may make the financials less than spectacular though.
Exactly, but said differently. He's laying out all of the expenses (mostly one-offs) for the year now, because the profits aren't going to be spectacular. Either trying to soften the blow that is coming, or just make excuses for it.
Hollismason wrote: How do you spend 8 million dollars on a website. Someone explain that to me.
The only answer I can come up with is that his cousin runs a web development company, or they've rolled a lot of extra expenses into the IT bill to try and make them look better (like the CHS case legal fees or something).
It is stuff like this, and let's face it, it isn't the first time we've had total mind fethery from Kirby in a report, which is a matter of public record, that causes me to regard anyone who argues so hard in defence of GW with such disbelief.
Isn't that a masterclass in 'how not to write a preamble to a financial report'?
"If your measure of 'good' is the current financial year's numbers, you may not agree [that GW have had a good year]". Well, the year's numbers are kind of the point, are they not?
Yet again, it highlights how stupid GW's legal policies are as well. "We have, this last year, spent an indecent amount of your money trying to stop someone stealing our ideas and images." Well if the amount of money is that 'indecent' then just don't bother. I really can't see how not pursuing cases like Chapterhouse could do more harm to GW's sales than GW do to their own sales by stupid pricing, lack of availability and generally poor practices.
I guess there's a chance it's a fake designed specifically to prevent snooping around? But I don't know. I updated the OP to reflect the fact that this looks to be legit, in case it turns out to be fake.
Hollismason wrote: How do you spend 8 million dollars on a website. Someone explain that to me.
Several semi-legitimate ways:
- Servers and infrastructure because you refuse to host externally
- Software package and licensing
- Heavy customization of software package because you think your special
- Paying for developers, graphics, etc.
- Program manager
- Changing your mind constantly causing rework
- Decommissioning of the old website
- Training on new system
And several tricky accounting ways:
- Billing any time for anyone mildly associated to the website to the program, even though they would be doing something else most of the time
- Billing anything associated with the website to the new program instead of the old one, even if it was really the old one's fault
- Not subtracting out the typical fees with running the website anyway if you had done nothing. Claim 4MM when you spend 3MM each year anyway.
infinite_array wrote: "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another. "
Translation: The legal system didn't let us win, therefore the entire system must be gak.
Good lord.
I've suddenly had an insight into what is driving the 40K rules development.
Kirby: "These rules are gak, I didn't win! Change them, minion!"
kronk wrote: From that pre-amble, I'm expecting a drop in revenue from 2013. Significant, perhaps.
I think the preamble doesn't predict that. It does predict a lot of large one-time costs that may make the financials less than spectacular though.
Exactly, but said differently. He's laying out all of the expenses (mostly one-offs) for the year now, because the profits aren't going to be spectacular. Either trying to soften the blow that is coming, or just make excuses for it.
I may have been arguing an incorrect point. I think Sales will be flat or up, but it will look really bad because of the expenditures. I probably shouldn't have contested your point since I think you may be saying something similar.
Yeah, I think you and I are saying about the same thing. I think flat sales (or slightly down), but negative year on year profits due to the expenditures (and/or slightly down sales).
Hollismason wrote: How do you spend 8 million dollars on a website. Someone explain that to me.
When you contract an IT company to come in and build a system for you, you spec up what you want and that forms part of the contract. Anything you ask for outside that scope requires you to pay for the consultant's time to implement.
Scope documents are incredibly important when initiating an outside developer to do an IT project for you.
£4m seems like a hell of a lot for what they got, in comparison to what similar-sized companies I've worked at have paid.
When you hire based on "attitude" over talent, you're basically saying subservience is more vital to the company than creativity. Kirby just wants to be told snow is black, he doesn't value innovation, merely mindless obedience.
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky." - Tom Kirby
Gonna reserve judgment til I see the whole report. It's fun to whip ourselves up into a froth over this stuff, but I want to see facts and data.
That said, I agree with kronk and petre's predictions. Sales are probably going to be about the same, but they are going to look worse given higher expenses.
But I will disagree to an extent on the aversion to "hiring attitude over talent" in some circumstances. It obviously depends on the nature of the individual job and so is not a good blanket statement, but generally it is far easier to train skills than it is to train personality. But that is just my two cents on that.
Davor wrote: Is this real? It seems no so professional.
Honestly, not sure. It could be a fake designed to prevent snooping around; on another forum someone said they found the link by changing the date. The question is if GW is that smart? I would think that an actual fake document would be a lot worse. This seems like it could be true.
Nvs wrote: Well after the Obama Care website, this one was a bargain!
I can believe the Obamacare website at $120MM more than I can the GW website at $6MM. Obamacare at least had to integrate with a ton of companies and had the government's fingers in it. GW is one small company with no government interference. As someone who does this sort of thing for a global company with lots of back end systems to complicate the system, GW got hosed on this website or self inflicted it.
The irony is they managed to spend all that money on a custom website, only to end up with something so generic it makes grey look exciting.
Basically they could have spent a fraction as much on an off the shelf solution, to have got something that looked the same and had the same functionality if not more.
Davor wrote: Is this real? It seems no so professional.
Well, it is published by GW...
They could have a honeypot to trick people who go looking for it before it's ready. I mean, I've heard of that happening. Question is if GW would know to do that. If it's fake, they're likely laughing at how gullible/stupid the internet must be.
Does anyone remember the last Chairman's Preamble? Was it written in this same conversational style?
In the technological world we occupy there is constant debate over who 'innovates' and who merely copies. We have, this last year,
spent an indecent amount of your money trying to stop someone stealing our ideas and images. It is a very difficult thing to do
when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another. Our experience has probably
been typical of most – far too much money spent on far too little gain. The argument is that we have to do this or we will, bit by bit,
lose everything that we hold dear, everything that keeps the business going. Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?
Last year I published the secret that I believe is at the heart of what makes this business great. Steve Jobs once did the same over at
heavily litigating Apple. He said they ignored everything that did not lead to 'insanely great products' and that was what made them
great. None of the people Apple are suing are trying to do that, so why sue?
I said, ‘we recruit for attitude and not for skill’. It is what makes us great. It is those people who design the miniatures; those people
who make them and those people who sell them; those people who transformed our business systems in five short months. I have
been deluged with two comments about that statement, neither of which was: 'you fool, you just gave away the crown jewels'.
Why doesn't everyone do it? Ask them.
BTW: WilmerHale is handling the GW v CHS appeal, and is the same firm that is representing Apple in the Apple v Samsung litigation. So Kirby comparing GW's litigation efforts to those of Apple is hardly apropos. And Apple has also won its cases against Samsung thus far.
Rather than bemoaning the American legal system, perhaps Mr. Kirby should have a thought about whether GW's case against CHS was manifestly unjust on its face. It is quite unprecedented for three major law firms to represent a profit-making company pro-bono in civil litigation. Do you think these firms have done it for the lols?
Davor wrote: Is this real? It seems no so professional.
Well, it is published by GW...
They could have a honeypot to trick people who go looking for it before it's ready. I mean, I've heard of that happening. Question is if GW would know to do that. If it's fake, they're likely laughing at how gullible/stupid the internet must be.
Does anyone remember the last Chairman's Preamble? Was it written in this same conversational style?
Maybe I didn't explain myself so well. (If it is genuinely published by GW) it was a snipe at GW's usual unprofessional publishing of their rules etc.
You can see the folder for each year. Clicking on 2014 shows the months, then the links for the documents uploaded in that folder. Chairman's preamble was uploaded today, along with 2 other documents.
The 2014 document reads with the same level of crazy as the 2013 document. I'll go with legit.
kronk wrote: Yeah, I think you and I are saying about the same thing. I think flat sales (or slightly down), but negative year on year revenue due to the expenditures (and/or slightly down sales).
I might be needlessly pedanting all over your post, but revenue wouldn't be affected by expenditure, only profit and net profit at that.
Because no one seems able to grasp the essential simplicity of what we do there has always been the search for the Achilles heel, the one thing that Kirby and his cronies have overlooked. These are legion. I run through the list from time to time when someone says that computer games will be the death of us – they are so much more realistic now! – again. This year it is 3-D printing. Pretty soon everyone will be printing their own miniatures and where will we be then, eh?
We know quite a lot about 3-D printers, having been at the forefront of the technology for many years. We know of what we speak. One day 3-D printers will be affordable (agreed), they are now, they will be able to produce fantastic detail (the affordable ones won't) and they will do it faster than one miniature per day (no, they won't, look it up). So we may get to the time when someone can make a poorly detailed miniature at home and have enough for an army in less than a year. That pre-supposes that 3-D scanning technology will be affordable and good enough (don't bet the mortgage on that one) and that everyone will be happy to have nothing but copies of old miniatures.
All of our great new miniatures come from Citadel. It is possible that one day we will sell them direct via 3-D printers to grateful hobbyists around the world. That will not happen in the next few years (or, in City-speak, 'forever') but if and when it does it will just mean that we can cut yet more cost out of the supply chain and be making good margins selling Citadel 3-D printers.
He doesn't know what he's talking about here. Citadel 3-D printers? I'm guessing he means re-branded other companies printers, because there's absolutely no way they'll be able to make and support reliable printers- that's a whole separate business.
As for having models to print, that is still an issue, but there will be more and more alternatives as things progress. I downloaded the below model free from turbosquid and printed it this past weekend. I believe I could print about a half dozen of them in a day, if I wanted. Yes, there's a long way to go, and this part works well because it's a bust and not much cleanup is required on the surfaces that matter. But still... the fact that he is so off the mark on this statement means I can't trust the rest, either.
This was printed on a Form1+. A B9 Creator can achieve similar results. Both are about $3K, but that will drop in the future.
It's never going to truly replace cheap cast parts, but it's just the fact that he is exaggerating things in his favor, when these things do already exist!
You can see the folder for each year. Clicking on 2014 shows the months, then the links for the documents uploaded in that folder. Chairman's preamble was uploaded today, along with 2 other documents.
The 2014 document reads with the same level of crazy as the 2013 document. I'll go with legit.
Davor wrote: Is this real? It seems no so professional.
Honestly, not sure. It could be a fake designed to prevent snooping around; on another forum someone said they found the link by changing the date. The question is if GW is that smart? I would think that an actual fake document would be a lot worse. This seems like it could be true.
Yeah. I just took the URL of previous reports and substituted in 2014 and 07 and got a directory.
I'm going to assume its genuine and not a spoof. Some of Kirby's rambling are difficult to credit. Assuming then it's genuine, it's all bluster and misdirection. He seems proud of spending an 'indecent' amount of money on protecting their IP. It's a funny thing to parade around the fact you've wasted money on a legal case demonstrating that you don't own many of the things your business is based on. As much as he says they need to protect these things for themselves, anyone with any sense can see that it's an admission of how vulnerable they are.
Maybe they have to be open about the Chapterhouse case costs because it's big enough that they cant hide it any more on the report. As are their other costs. £4 on that website, what a waste. How's White Dwarf or Warhammer Visions doing, that shaping up to be a hole to piss money down too? As much as he dresses up the restructuring, cutting staff to the bone with one man stores and axing regional offices, that they did this at 'ferocious' speed reads to me as 'panic'. It's clear they they are doing all these things to prevent losses in the short term.
Then he wastes half a page rambling about the threat of 3D printers a decade away, and then says they'll be rubbish and slow anyway. Firstly, all technology accelerates in quality, similar dismissive attitudes were common towards home computing or the internet and look where we are now. Who knows how 3D printing technology will improve. You won't be printing a single crude figure per day in ten years I'm sure.
Then, the 3D printer stuff is just nonsense. GW are losing market share right now to their multiple competitors, Warmaching, Infinity, X-Wing, all of them that fill game shops. It's not printers and computer games in ten years time, but other games and miniature manufacturers that are the threat right now. He says nothing about that and instead parades that they as good as lost a hugely expensive legal case to third party they claim was impinging on their profits.
infinite_array wrote: "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another. "
Translation: The legal system didn't let us win, therefore the entire system must be gak.
Good lord.
I've just watched the Hatfields & McCoys mini-series for the first time. Is he referencing the hog thieving from that?
he uses the phrase 'Kirby and his cronies'. He does read DakkaDakka
As are their other costs. £4 on that website, what a waste. How's White Dwarf or Warhammer Visions doing, that shaping up to be a hole to piss money down too? As much as he dresses up the restructuring, cutting staff to the bone with one man stores and axing regional offices, that they did this at 'ferocious' speed reads to me as 'panic'. It's clear they they are doing all these things to prevent losses in the short term.
.
Best.
Typo.
Ever.
Or is that how much it looks like they spent on it?
kronk wrote: Yeah, I think you and I are saying about the same thing. I think flat sales (or slightly down), but negative year on year revenue due to the expenditures (and/or slightly down sales).
I might be needlessly pedanting all over your post, but revenue wouldn't be affected by expenditure, only profit and net profit at that.
No, you're right. Kronk has the dumb. I meant Profit.
I honestly thought 7th would make their numbers (at least appear to) look fine. Hmm...
Barfolomew wrote: - Profits are going to be down because he focuses on long term, not short term. This means the upcoming financial report is going to be bad.
That's basically the opposite of how GW operates. They're not just about short-term, but the extreme short term. If they're changing horses mid-race (again), then that's something significant and shows things might be a bit more rotten in the state of Nottingham than first thought.
This really does sound like trying to propaganda spin everything to be good to deflect the fact it's going to be dire. Kind of like WW2 propaganda saying that the German army was doing great while it was getting its butt kicked. Just something about that, reading between the lines perhaps, seems to indicate things are really bad.
Maybe they have to be open about the Chapterhouse case costs because it's big enough that they cant hide it any more on the report. As are their other costs. £4 on that website, what a waste. How's White Dwarf or Warhammer Visions doing, that shaping up to be a hole to piss money down too? As much as he dresses up the restructuring, cutting staff to the bone with one man stores and axing regional offices, that they did this at 'ferocious' speed reads to me as 'panic'. It's clear they they are doing all these things to prevent losses in the short term.
Azreal13 wrote: It is stuff like this, and let's face it, it isn't the first time we've had total mind fethery from Kirby in a report, which is a matter of public record, that causes me to regard anyone who argues so hard in defence of GW with such disbelief.
But Az, can't'cha hear the hooves'a thundering? Can you not see the glint of the polished white armour on the horizon, as these grand Knights rush forward to defend King Kirby and all the crazy stuff he's saying? If they're not already here they certainly will be soon.
Paradigm wrote: "If your measure of 'good' is the current financial year's numbers, you may not agree [that GW have had a good year]". Well, the year's numbers are kind of the point, are they not?
Pay no attention to the lack of gold behind the curtain!
Azreal13 wrote: It is stuff like this, and let's face it, it isn't the first time we've had total mind fethery from Kirby in a report, which is a matter of public record, that causes me to regard anyone who argues so hard in defence of GW with such disbelief.
But Az, can't'cha hear the hooves'a thundering? Can you not see the glint of the polished white armour on the horizon, as these grant Knights rush forward to defend King Kirby and all the crazy stuff he's saying? If they're not already here they will certainly be here soon.
Azreal13 wrote: It is stuff like this, and let's face it, it isn't the first time we've had total mind fethery from Kirby in a report, which is a matter of public record, that causes me to regard anyone who argues so hard in defence of GW with such disbelief.
But Az, can't'cha hear the hooves'a thundering? Can you not see the glint of the polished white armour on the horizon, as these grant Knights rush forward to defend King Kirby and all the crazy stuff he's saying? If they're not already here they will certainly be here soon.
You know their MO. We won't see so much as a silvered tip for a few days, and then someone will jump on something that nobody actually said and strawman the feth out of it.
Azreal13 wrote: It is stuff like this, and let's face it, it isn't the first time we've had total mind fethery from Kirby in a report, which is a matter of public record, that causes me to regard anyone who argues so hard in defence of GW with such disbelief.
But Az, can't'cha hear the hooves'a thundering? Can you not see the glint of the polished white armour on the horizon, as these grant Knights rush forward to defend King Kirby and all the crazy stuff he's saying? If they're not already here they will certainly be here soon.
I'm not so sure this time. I mean, I usually am one who prefers to not take much of a stand (strong enough opinions on both sides here at Dakka anyway), but even I am a bit concerned at this. That said, I'm holding my judgment until I see two things:
1 - The numbers themselves. The preamble can set a tone, and serve as a test of one's communication skills (or lake thereof) but it is not quite the meat of the report.
2 - What their plan is for the future. This is the big one.
I'm withholding judgment til I see that, good and bad.
Hollismason wrote: I thought a pound was 2 dollars? Of course I only know the currency exchange from 1993.
Oh, I see. It's about 1.6 conversion rate, so 4 million British Pound Moneys is ~$6.4 million in 'Merica!
Man, I remember when I first started seeing my missus, I would go to the ATM, get 500 bucks out, and it would cost me about 247 quid. I miss those days...
And then I moved over here, get all my currency changed, its only at 1.60
I now live here, and we are going back for three weeks of drinking (visiting my mates) in September, and apparently it is climbing again!
It will be just my luck if its back down to 2 for 1 now that I am earning dollars.
Jeebus. I hope it's a fake just because reading that was actually painful. It's probably not though. Maybe we'll get lucky and the new CEO (as if Kirby is actually going to hire one that won't be a toady) will straighten things out.
Grimtuff wrote: Just to remind everyone of the madness from last year.
How about other games like Pokémon or role-playing games? (Who can remember them, now?).
And to comment on this, I want to point out that at San Diego Comic-Con, arguably the single biggest pop-culture convention on the planet, has the following companies represented:
Privateer Press (Warmachine/Hordes)
Wizards (D&D Next! or 5th or whatever they're calling it this week)
Fantasy Flight Games (X-Wing & the Star Wars RPGs)
Topps/Catalyst Game Laps (BattleTech)
Where are GW, the supposed industry leader? Who can remember RPG's? A lot of people, it appears, given they're at Comic Con, GW, and you're not.
Grimtuff wrote: Just to remind everyone of the madness from last year.
How about other games like Pokémon or role-playing games? (Who can remember them, now?).
And to comment on this, I want to point out that at San Diego Comic-Con, arguably the single biggest pop-culture convention on the planet, has the following companies represented:
Privateer Press (Warmachine/Hordes)
Wizards (D&D Next! or 5th or whatever they're calling it this week)
Fantasy Flight Games (X-Wing & the Star Wars RPGs)
Topps/Catalyst Game Laps (BattleTech)
Where are GW, the supposed industry leader? Who can remember RPG's? A lot of people, it appears, given they're at Comic Con and you're not.
This has to be a satire surely? You couldn't write this better if you tried.
My only thought after reading that was "Jesus Christ riding a bicycle", because really there is no other way to put it..
I would probably expect the worst come the financial report. If there was even the slightest bit of upward turn there, it's the norm to trumpet it from the roof-tops in releases such as these.
The 3D printer stuff... I mean, just replace 3D printer with any of the other things GW gets so unbelievably wrong:
Marketing
Promotion
Communication
Barrier to Entry
The Internet
Social Media
... and on, and on, and on, and on...
He sounds like a proponent of HD-DVD combined with that Iraqui "information" minister.
"There are no Warjacks in Nottingham! The valiant (and trade-markable) Astra Militarum are solidly holding the invaders back! 3D printers, like the Internet, social media, Pokemon and RPGs before it, is a fad!"
Pacific wrote: This has to be a satire surely? You couldn't write this better if you tried.
My only thought after reading that was "Jesus Christ riding a bicycle", because really there is no other way to put it..
I would probably expect the worst come the financial report. If there was even the slightest bit of upward turn there, it's the norm to trumpet it from the roof-tops in releases such as these.
I agree.
I'll be shocked if it's real. It reads like something someone here would post up mocking them.
Man, when I'm this torn on whether or not it's a satirical piece, that is not good at all.
If it's true, then it doesn't look good at all for GW. My feeling is that most of things they've done this year have hurt their long term prospects. I was sort of expecting the release of Knights and 7th edition to cover the hurt this year, and was expecting to see it mentioned in this preamble. The fact that it's not there might suggest that I was overly optimistic about that!
What a bizarre and unprofessional document. I can understand people thinking it's fake, but Kirby's other output has been so weird I don't think it is.
It doesn't say anything realistic about 2014 being a good year though and given that these figures will contain a month of sales for the new edition of GW's flagship game I suspect that the numbers will be at best 'disappointing'. It would appear that this year is make or break time given that there are no more crutches left for GW to lean on and now that Kirby appears to be gone maybe, just maybe someone competent will take charge.
Well that and he goes on to imply that it wasn't neccessary to do this at all.
The argument is that we have to do this or we will, bit by bit, lose everything that we hold dear, everything that keeps the business going. Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?
The man who thinks we've forgotten about Pokemon and is CEO of a company that thinks Social Media is something to run away from, and not embrace. That's who.
Hollismason wrote: Well that and he goes on to imply that it wasn't neccessary to do this at all.
The argument is that we have to do this or we will, bit by bit, lose everything that we hold dear, everything that keeps the business going. Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?
Hollismason wrote: Well that and he goes on to imply that it wasn't neccessary to do this at all.
The argument is that we have to do this or we will, bit by bit, lose everything that we hold dear, everything that keeps the business going. Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?
Who writes that in a letter to investors?
A raging madman that finally has to face his very own complete incompetence and burns all bridges behind him.
Hollismason wrote: Well that and he goes on to imply that it wasn't neccessary to do this at all.
The argument is that we have to do this or we will, bit by bit, lose everything that we hold dear, everything that keeps the business going. Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?
Who writes that in a letter to investors?
A man who is fresh out of feths to give? Or who possibly was born without any to begin with? Face it, if Kirby cared about what anyone else thought about... well, anything at all, he would run that company a heck of a lot differently.
"If you consider a successful business one that 'makes money', you're gonna be super disappointed. BUT! If you consider a company that's failed to deliver growth for several years despite the soon-to-be-former CEO's empty promises of potential growth for half a decade or more to be a good investment, have I got an opportunity for you!"
That fact that he spins everything related to their results isn't really a problem IMO. It's his job.
I think the general writing style in these missives is obviously strange, and could be dialed back about 50% and still achieve the goal of sounding breezy but direct. It seems fairly clear that he writes those himself and doesn't let his communications people edit them much. And I don't think that's a generally positive trait for a CEO.
So who else is writing them a letter for the CEO job? *raises hand*
mattyrm wrote: I am truly stunned at the 4 million mark for the website, how is that even possible?
I know nothing about web design and the costs involved, so someone please explain why is this bad?
A good mate of mine does web design and search optimization and gak for a living, hes Google certified and all that bollocks.
Anyways, he said he makes a cheap gakky website for like 500 bucks, and a fully designed, all singing all dancing, original art and sounds and buttons and videos and all of that gak website for between 5 and 8 grand.
Now, I know that for a big company like GW, with a massive inventory and all kind of complex gak it is obviously going to be much higher, as require much more effort, but do you see what I'm saying? If one bloke who does it really well and professionally for say, 8 grand, you would presume it would cost some sort of derivative of that amount.
So, lets be generous and say it would take not just one bloke, but twenty, surely you are still talking under a million bucks right?
If I had been asked for a best guess before reading that, seriously Id have basically times my mates figure by twenty or something, so Id have said like.. between 200-300 grand. I certainly wouldn't have got near a million, and feth me, 4 baffles me completely, because surely you could hire twenty pros to work on it full time for 6 months, and still not get anywhere near that figure.
I see they're even applying the "attitude is more important than skills" approach to the CEO's position. Therefore I expect the next in the job will essentially be a Kirby clone. Maybe in a few years they could make one with a 3D printer!
I'm not sure he does "know of what he speaks" when it comes to 3D printing. One moment he's saying they have been "at the forefront of the technology for many years," the next he&s dismissing them as inconsequential. Has he confused 3D printing with CAD?
The whole section about 3D printers seems like a smokescreen. Maybe he would be better off spending less time pretending to be an ostrich and more time thinking about real problems such as a shrinking customer base, complaints about pricing, the growth of competitors, failure to use social media (or do any kind of marketing of the core games or promotion of licenced products), etc...
kronk wrote: From that pre-amble, I'm expecting a drop in revenue from 2013. Significant, perhaps.
I think the preamble doesn't predict that. It does predict a lot of large one-time costs that may make the financials less than spectacular though.
Exactly, but said differently. He's laying out all of the expenses (mostly one-offs) for the year now, because the profits aren't going to be spectacular. Either trying to soften the blow that is coming, or just make excuses for it.
This would be the third straight reporting period with decreased profits if that were the case. Not quite a causation of one-off expenditures. It's excuses, plain and simple, with perhaps a little creative accounting thrown in to make the "one-off" expenditures seem to be more detrimental than they were. Almost $7 million for THAT website....indeed!
The telling data will be the sales numbers. They just had two subsequent periods of decreased sales figures. If the third period also shows a decrease in sales, they are in big trouble. You have to remember they rolled out a bunch of new product including a core rulebook that every player needed in order to keep up with the game as well as all new codices from the most popular armies out there. A decrease in sales after all of there roll outs is truly catastrophic.
The 2013-14 annual report is up on the investor relations section of the GW website. But, no content is available right now. Did they remove the preamble? Seems odd to have a link to nothing.
The 2013-14 annual report is up on the investor relations section of the GW website. But, no content is available right now. Did they remove the preamble? Seems odd to have a link to nothing.
They didn't bother to block the downloads folder of the website so if you direct address it, you can reach it.
mattyrm wrote: I am truly stunned at the 4 million mark for the website, how is that even possible?
I know nothing about web design and the costs involved, so someone please explain why is this bad?
Because they paid an obscene amount of money to make a website that is worse than the one the already had. Yeah, I'm sure it costs money to deal with the security and bug fixing required to run a business website with that much money going through it, but the design aspect is just embarrassingly bad. They completely removed all the content (blog posts, painting guides, etc) that might get people to visit the website regularly and be in a position to impulse buy something, and replaced it with an adequate online store that nobody will ever visit unless they are buying a product. And aesthetically it's a mess, way too much empty space, too much scrolling to see all of the information, etc. Granted, some of this is due to the "modern" tablet-friendly style that is (sadly) popular right now, but GW's version of it is just badly executed.
In short, if I didn't know how much GW paid for it I would have assumed that it was designed by someone's friend for as cheaply as possible. The fact that someone actually paid millions of dollars for this is just unbelievable.
There are people in the world who make those sorts of sites for pocket change in about a month.
How GW manages to fail this badly, I cannot fathom.
Simple.
Here's a transcript from GW's home office.
Kirby - So, apparently we need a new webzone.
Aid - Web site.
Kirby - Whatever
Programmer - How much do you know of web design?
Kirby - As little as possible. It's just a fad these fangled youngsters are going through. The world will wise up to the one man store principle any day now.
Programmer - I see.... How's your Facebook page going?
Kirby - Don't need one.
Programmer - Excellent. Okay, what if I gave you the figure of...say....four million pounds?
Kirby - I don't like it. That sounds like too much.
Programmer - No, actually its a bargain! I'll finish it in a month, which is twice as fast as anyone else will offer you. Trust me, it's a steal.
Kirby - Excellent!
(Programmer goes off and finds an old "web store" program from the late '90's he still had lying around and laughs menacingly to the camera.)
The 2013-14 annual report is up on the investor relations section of the GW website. But, no content is available right now. Did they remove the preamble? Seems odd to have a link to nothing.
They didn't bother to block the downloads folder of the website so if you direct address it, you can reach it.
That is very telling. How does one do such a thing?
...... Its products may come from a fantasy world of orcs and elves, but Games Workshop’s results are firmly grounded in reality and disarmingly honest.
Posting preliminary figures today, chairman and acting chief executive Tom Kirby uses his introduction to inform the market of his aim to “continue to make the best fantasy miniatures in the world and sell them at a profit”.
And how does he plan to do this? “We run a tight ship, and do our damnedest to get more sales,” he says. “Everything else is just whistling Dixie.”
Games Workshop (LSE: GAW.L - news) , which makes and sells fantasy games such as Warhammer and Lord of the Rings and model figures with which to play them, posted pre-tax profits of £19.5m for the 53 weeks to June 3 2012. But royalty income from licences sold to computer games companies fell £2.5m to £1.0m.
“We expected a significant decline,” says Mr Kirby, who says the traditional computer games industry has been “changed utterly and permanently” by the arrival of smartphones and iPads.
“We switched as fast as we could,” he confesses. “But [we] were limited by the constraints of the deals we already had in place.”
Games Workshop may have adapted but Mr Kirby hasn't quite kept up, referring to one new product as "Warhammer Quest for iOS (Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) stuff). Buy it now! Good fun."
He also goes back to basics as runs through the company's performance. "Sales," Mr Kirby explains, "is all the money we take in and we quantify by counting it."
Such ideas are not "mysterious", he admits.
On the subject of overheads, he is equally pithy: "With overheads we try to have them not grow at all. Easy to say. Hard to do."
Mr Kirby also tells investors in the London-listed business to take next year’s capital investment numbers “with a pinch of salt”.
“We think it many be £9.3m,” he says, before referencing the 19th century German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke. “But remember that, as von Moltke said, ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy’.”
However, he says the biggest threat to the company is internal its own staff. This is why Mr Kirby will only hire employees who understand that Games Workshop’s business ethic is modelled on inventor Thomas Edison’s methodology.
Mr Kirby explains the modus operandi: “After 10,000 attempts to make an incandescent lightbulb, [Edison (Milan: EDNR.MI - news) ] was asked about the 9,999 failures. ‘They weren’t failures, he said. I now know 9,999 ways it won’t work’.”
But if Games Workshop’s factory burns down, the company is “well insured”. In fact, says Mr Kirby, it could be back into full-scale production “within 12 months”.
Mr Kirby has a policy of never giving interviews or speaking to the press, leaving his “CEO’s Commentary” to do the talking for him.
He is part of a tradition of plain-speaking business leaders that includes Andrew Perloff, the outspoken chairman of Panther Securities (LSE: PNS.L - news) , whose bi-annual “ramblings” have become more of a media event than the financial performance of his property investment company.
I do remember talking to someone I know who is into the whole corporate website / webstore design universe.
I do believe he said that GW looks like they are using the Top Of The Range, the dogs b****cks , most expensive, backup of your backupped backups webstore and the price he quoted was in the £4 million region.
Needless to say, I wasn't convinced but then again... Well, it wouldn't be the first time someone didn't get value for money out of an IT project.
The more that I read it the more astounded I am that someone that tone deaf was conducting this orchestra.
His comments on litigation were bizarre. Truly bizarre. So much was wrong with his stated views that it requires too much time and effort to even address them.
The same can be said of his view of technology, but I'll give it a short summation.
He states that affordable 3-D won't be able to produce high quality products quickly. This in and of itself is short sighted to the point of blindness and merely repeats the sentiments of a buggy whip manufacturer's opinion of the automobile. Which he strangely follows up with a commitment to produce 3-D printers when they do surpass his pronouncements.
Need to get my kickstarter approved for airfare to Nottingham for my interview as CEO. Everyone that backs gets a free sprue of the best GW product. No components will be on the sprue though , is that attitude enough for Kirby, o do I need to go in and sit on their side of the table during the interview?
I don't know how tax codes work in the UK but I used to work for a company that had a similar one-off insane outlay of cash, but it didn't hurt the company's stock price in the long run.
Essentially the company I worked for had a product fail and it cost them over $100M to fix the issues and win back consumer confidence. In this case it looks like Kirby is using investor speak to allay fears.
If I had to wager what we'll see I think it will be an increase in sales, lower operating costs but an overall loss due to the reshuffling and website cost.
Kirby is right that there's always going to be people who don't want to print their own miniatures. What he fails to mention is that this means GW will be catering to a diminishing customer base in an increasingly competitive market.
Already 3D printing technology has made it possible for new miniatures companies to spring up overnight. It is also already getting to the point where small companies can afford to buy their own high quality 3D printer.
We are a ways off from consumers printing their own miniatures on a regular basis, but the technology has advanced to the point of opening up the market, which is where a big chunk of GW's revenue has arguably gone.
Auswin wrote: I don't know how tax codes work in the UK but I used to work for a company that had a similar one-off insane outlay of cash, but it didn't hurt the company's stock price in the long run.
Essentially the company I worked for had a product fail and it cost them over $100M to fix the issues and win back consumer confidence. In this case it looks like Kirby is using investor speak to allay fears.
If I had to wager what we'll see I think it will be an increase in sales, lower operating costs but an overall loss due to the reshuffling and website cost.
You've got it. It's the sales that will be the key metric. Especially since they have cut operating expenses down to the bone, streamlined their distribution down to a single line and created a website that will be utilized for years.
Sigvatr wrote: GW have cornered themselves. The only cut they can still make is closing down the retail stores completely.
And that won't work for them either because they pissed off all of the independent retailers. They basically have their back to a river after having burned all of their boats or for a more known saying, they've crossed the Rubicon.
-it's stupid piece of writing. Of course it is, Kirby's a corporate guy. Corporate propaganda pieces are always stupid and trying to spin everything in best possible light and often end up sounding hilarious. No exceptions. Did you see the letter with which Elop fired thousands of people from Microsoft? Kirby has NOTHING on Elop when it comes to stupid corporate language.
-Kirby's stepping down as CEO. Totally expected, AIUI Kirby doing the double chairs thing was always going to be somewhat temporary. Of course there is a caveat that he hints that he will continue if no suitable candidate is found, AND he will still continue as Chairman of the Board. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
-Steve Jobs comparison was surprisingly (though maybe unintentionally) adept in that Apple was and is extremely militant in using legal challenges to hunt down any actors, no matter how small, which it saw as a threat, including Apple fan sites and blogs. Hmm, sound familiar?
-GW website costed £4 million is somehow "OMG". I fail to see why. Sure it's not particularly GREAT site but exorbitant amount of money spent to seemingly crappy result is common enough in the world of corporate websites. Finnish State Railroads spent three years and 15 million euros for this site. It crashed within 3 hours of its induction...
mattyrm wrote: I am truly stunned at the 4 million mark for the website, how is that even possible?
I know nothing about web design and the costs involved, so someone please explain why is this bad?
A good mate of mine does web design and search optimization and gak for a living, hes Google certified and all that bollocks.
Anyways, he said he makes a cheap gakky website for like 500 bucks, and a fully designed, all singing all dancing, original art and sounds and buttons and videos and all of that gak website for between 5 and 8 grand.
Now, I know that for a big company like GW, with a massive inventory and all kind of complex gak it is obviously going to be much higher, as require much more effort, but do you see what I'm saying? If one bloke who does it really well and professionally for say, 8 grand, you would presume it would cost some sort of derivative of that amount.
So, lets be generous and say it would take not just one bloke, but twenty, surely you are still talking under a million bucks right?
If I had been asked for a best guess before reading that, seriously Id have basically times my mates figure by twenty or something, so Id have said like.. between 200-300 grand. I certainly wouldn't have got near a million, and feth me, 4 baffles me completely, because surely you could hire twenty pros to work on it full time for 6 months, and still not get anywhere near that figure.
That's for the webpage that you see...
What we don't see, is the "supply chain" side of the business. Essentially the IT infrastructure to support the inventory / accounting side of the business. Maybe that got updated along with the new website?
-it's stupid piece of writing. Of course it is, Kirby's a corporate guy. Corporate propaganda pieces are always stupid and trying to spin everything in best possible light and often end up sounding hilarious. No exceptions. Did you see the letter with which Elop fired thousands of people from Microsoft? Kirby has NOTHING on Elop when it comes to stupid corporate language.
-Kirby's stepping down as CEO. Totally expected, AIUI Kirby doing the double chairs thing was always going to be somewhat temporary. Of course there is a caveat that he hints that he will continue if no suitable candidate is found, AND he will still continue as Chairman of the Board. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
-Steve Jobs comparison was surprisingly (though maybe unintentionally) adept in that Apple was and is extremely militant in using legal challenges to hunt down any actors, no matter how small, which it saw as a threat, including Apple fan sites and blogs. Hmm, sound familiar?
-GW website costed £4 million is somehow "OMG". I fail to see why. Sure it's not particularly GREAT site but exorbitant amount of money spent to seemingly crappy result is common enough in the world of corporate websites. Finnish State Railroads spent three years and 15 million euros for this site. It crashed within 3 hours of its induction...
The big deal is that this points to troubles being bigger than anticipated. Taken individually, sure, no big deal. Added together and it starts to paint a hazy, but unpleasant picture.
weeble1000 wrote: Kirby is right that there's always going to be people who don't want to print their own miniatures. What he fails to mention is that this means GW will be catering to a diminishing customer base in an increasingly competitive market.
Already 3D printing technology has made it possible for new miniatures companies to spring up overnight. It is also already getting to the point where small companies can afford to buy their own high quality 3D printer.
We are a ways off from consumers printing their own miniatures on a regular basis, but the technology has advanced to the point of opening up the market, which is where a big chunk of GW's revenue has arguably gone.
He also didn't mention the true brilliance of a 3-D printer. The manufacture of templates.
An individual or company can utilize a 3-D printer to make the original as a whole or in it's constituent parts on a sprue for casting purposes. Then these small companies or individuals can make an immeasurable amount of silicon molds that have a great deal of detail .
The superior product (detail) of GW argument is only true for a small slice of their customer base. As the majority of the people that I see buying the lions share of their product don't utilize the superior quality very well at all. Unpainted models, unbased models, 3 colors of paint only, mold lines everywhere, poorly glued.
It's great that they're claiming Rolex quality demands a Rolex price...too bad that their main customers are mechanics and just need a Fossil.
-it's stupid piece of writing. Of course it is, Kirby's a corporate guy. Corporate propaganda pieces are always stupid and trying to spin everything in best possible light and often end up sounding hilarious. No exceptions. Did you see the letter with which Elop fired thousands of people from Microsoft? Kirby has NOTHING on Elop when it comes to stupid corporate language.
-Kirby's stepping down as CEO. Totally expected, AIUI Kirby doing the double chairs thing was always going to be somewhat temporary. Of course there is a caveat that he hints that he will continue if no suitable candidate is found, AND he will still continue as Chairman of the Board. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
-Steve Jobs comparison was surprisingly (though maybe unintentionally) adept in that Apple was and is extremely militant in using legal challenges to hunt down any actors, no matter how small, which it saw as a threat, including Apple fan sites and blogs. Hmm, sound familiar?
-GW website costed £4 million is somehow "OMG". I fail to see why. Sure it's not particularly GREAT site but exorbitant amount of money spent to seemingly crappy result is common enough in the world of corporate websites. Finnish State Railroads spent three years and 15 million euros for this site. It crashed within 3 hours of its induction...
And the cavalry has arrived!
It's bad because reading between the lines it seems to hint that the report is going to be very bad and Kirby is spouting corporate propaganda to assuage the stockholders that it's nothing to panic over. It doesn't come across as a confident CEO talking about growth, it seems more like "That wasn't a UFO, it was just a weather balloon! Nothing to see here!" BS so you don't have people rioting.
Read what he's not saying, not what he is saying: There's no tone of confidence there to me; it reads more like someone grasping at straws so they don't get torn to shreds.
-Steve Jobs comparison was surprisingly (though maybe unintentionally) adept in that Apple was and is extremely militant in using legal challenges to hunt down any actors, no matter how small, which it saw as a threat, including Apple fan sites and blogs. Hmm, sound familiar?
What I took away from the Steve Jobs portion was "We're not going to pursue litigation anymore, unless it's an innovator in the field."
It's bad because reading between the lines it seems to hint that the report is going to be very bad and Kirby is spouting corporate propaganda to assuage the stockholders that it's nothing to panic over. It doesn't come across as a confident CEO talking about growth, it seems more like "That wasn't a UFO, it was just a weather balloon! Nothing to see here!" BS so you don't have people rioting.
That's what I said, didn't I?
The point is that pretty much every CEO in the world will attempt to spin negative performances with lingo like this. Kirby did exact same thing last year.
What I took away from the Steve Jobs portion was "We're not going to pursue litigation anymore, unless it's an innovator in the field."
I've always thought that Kirby sees Jobs as some sort of paragon to be followed, and sure enough, there are many similarities between Apple's and GW's strategies.
Which is not necessarily a good thing.
Has this been authenticated yet? I doubt its real, but in the off chance that it is, wow. If this guy is representative of GW's leadership as a whole, then this company is most certainly doomed. From the content to the attitude and delivery - it reeks of willful ignorance and downright terrible management. If your business starts losing money, or net declines - you figure out why. You don't decide why.
That being said, no way this is real. It would be a death rattle, the start of agonal breaths. Broadcast for anyone to see.
It's bad because reading between the lines it seems to hint that the report is going to be very bad and Kirby is spouting corporate propaganda to assuage the stockholders that it's nothing to panic over. It doesn't come across as a confident CEO talking about growth, it seems more like "That wasn't a UFO, it was just a weather balloon! Nothing to see here!" BS so you don't have people rioting.
That's what I said, didn't I?
The point is that pretty much every CEO in the world will attempt to spin negative performances with lingo like this. Kirby did exact same thing last year.
What I took away from the Steve Jobs portion was "We're not going to pursue litigation anymore, unless it's an innovator in the field."
I've always thought that Kirby sees Jobs as some sort of paragon to be followed, and sure enough, there are many similarities between Apple's and GW's strategies.
Which is not necessarily a good thing.
Indeed. Basing your companies business model of CENTURIES OLD PRODUCT retailing and manufacturing business that innovates by a fraction of a percentage at a glacial pace on a business model where paradigm shifts occur daily is not the best way to go. You can buy a phone with more computing power than a computer from 10 years ago, they sell carved trinkets that do the same thing a child used them for in Ancient Rome.
sand.zzz wrote: Has this been authenticated yet? I doubt its real, but in the off chance that it is, wow. If this guy is representative of GW's leadership as a whole, then this company is most certainly doomed. From the content to the attitude and delivery - it reeks of willful ignorance and downright terrible management. If your business starts losing money, or net declines - you figure out why. You don't decide why.
That being said, no way this is real. It would be a death rattle, the start of agonal breaths. Broadcast for anyone to see.
sand.zzz wrote: Has this been authenticated yet? I doubt its real, but in the off chance that it is, wow. If this guy is representative of GW's leadership as a whole, then this company is most certainly doomed. From the content to the attitude and delivery - it reeks of willful ignorance and downright terrible management. If your business starts losing money, or net declines - you figure out why. You don't decide why.
That being said, no way this is real. It would be a death rattle, the start of agonal breaths. Broadcast for anyone to see.
No confirmation either way, but it IS hosted on their website, in a folder alongside a document for the annual general meeting and a proxy form (because they didn't disable showing the directory listing). So if it's fake, then it's deliberate and GW doesn't seem like they'd be smart enough to pull a stunt like that on the off chance that someone is going to go hunting through their investors website looking for the report a day early, and hope that they stumble upon it.
sand.zzz wrote: Has this been authenticated yet? I doubt its real, but in the off chance that it is, wow. If this guy is representative of GW's leadership as a whole, then this company is most certainly doomed. From the content to the attitude and delivery - it reeks of willful ignorance and downright terrible management. If your business starts losing money, or net declines - you figure out why. You don't decide why.
That being said, no way this is real. It would be a death rattle, the start of agonal breaths. Broadcast for anyone to see.
Just look at the address bar. That's GW's investor webpage. Don't believe me go to GW site scroll to the bottom and click on Investor relations. They've scrubbed this from their page but you can still input the address and find it. As of now.
The delivery makes the content seem even worse. Which was likely the exact opposite of his intention. lol.
Run your boutique hobby business like a corporate chain restaurant, and watch it burn to the ground. All the while completely oblivious as to why.
**I never put much weight in the GW going under doom and gloomers, but its hard to have any faith in them if you look too close. I'm gonna stick to the hobby and try my best to ignore this kind of stuff. Its a lot less fun than painting, modeling, and rolling dice.
Does this mean that Kirby can walk away scot free from this? Surely there must be some investors out there who are starting to smell a rat? It would be interesting to get the opinion of a professional on this. Would a blind test have them spitting out their tea/coffee or would they say it's the norm?
The document is hosted on the GW investor relations website. It has the byline of the CEO. The annual report is due in the next three days. If this is a joke or fake the timing is very bad.
That said, if GW read the reactions of people here I wonder if they may quickly rewrite it before official release.
Wolfstan wrote: Does this mean that Kirby can walk away scot free from this? Surely there must be some investors out there who are starting to smell a rat? It would be interesting to get the opinion of a professional on this. Would a blind test have them spitting out their tea/coffee or would they say it's the norm?
What do you mean by "walk away scot free"? He's resigning. No more job. What more penalties do you want - criminal ones? He's done nothing illegal.
Kilkrazy wrote: The document is hosted on the GW investor relations website. It has the byline of the CEO. The annual report is due in the next three days. If this is a joke or fake the timing is very bad.
That said, if GW read the reactions of people here I wonder if they may quickly rewrite it before official release.
I guess that will be the test Although even if they did I could see "Kirby and his cronies" being arrogant enough to dismiss what we say.
Does anyone else picture this being written on shaky hands after downing a bottle of Bourbon and all the while contemplating eating the business end of a revolver?
Sounds like a guy who's unable to grasp just how hard he fethed up and instead is drunkenly grasping at straws placing blame anywhere but with himself. CHS hog stealing? kind of like the pot and kettle, GW built their entire company on swiping the hogs from others to breed their own frankenhog, yet are surprised when others do the same to them. Can't build your castles and moats on sand and expect them to stay around long.
Faster more affordable printers being a fad? They may not be there now, but they will be and most importantly they are a threat to your dinosaur business model now because they allow start up companies to produce models that rival the quality of GW's at an affordable price. It doesn't require the average consumer to have a printer to do it themselves, they will buy resin/metal/printed copies from producers because their quality will be just as good or better then GW's and without GW being able to provide "the best miniatures in the world" they won't be able to dominate the market and command the high prices like they have been doing. Technology just like evolution is a bitch, you get old and slow and you get left behind.
The internet and printing technology has given power to anyone that can learn how to use it and it's closed that gap that used to exist between the big companies and start ups, not completely but enough that it poses a major threat to any company that isn't on top of their game, which GW hasn't been for a quite a while. Despite the fierce bolster and bravado there is indeed a chink in Smaug's armor.
Wolfstan wrote: Does this mean that Kirby can walk away scot free from this? Surely there must be some investors out there who are starting to smell a rat? It would be interesting to get the opinion of a professional on this. Would a blind test have them spitting out their tea/coffee or would they say it's the norm?
What do you mean by "walk away scot free"? He's resigning. No more job. What more penalties do you want - criminal ones? He's done nothing illegal.
Well he's still going to be Chairman, just not CEO, assuming the board votes for him, which IIRC he was before the previous CEO (Wells?) resigned. In fact, he wasn't supposed to be both, he was "interim CEO".
Deduct shares? Breach of contract for being stupid, incompetent? I don't know!?! Something for crying out loud! :-) The guy has managed to BS the company in to a bad place.
They could of been in a position that was good for both sides. Steady income for the investor's and a good scene for the gamers. Nothing is perfect but regular releases, a strong ruleset and a good tourney scene would of helped big time.
Who would want to be GW CEO to begin with? It's a company that has less and less sales, is forced to cut costs on all ends, has a terrible reputation and has been driven by a man with his very own "vision". And it's a niche market. I would never want to be CEO of such a company.
Wolfstan wrote: Does this mean that Kirby can walk away scot free from this? Surely there must be some investors out there who are starting to smell a rat? It would be interesting to get the opinion of a professional on this. Would a blind test have them spitting out their tea/coffee or would they say it's the norm?
What do you mean by "walk away scot free"? He's resigning. No more job. What more penalties do you want - criminal ones? He's done nothing illegal.
Well he's still going to be Chairman, just not CEO, assuming the board votes for him, which IIRC he was before the previous CEO (Wells?) resigned. In fact, he wasn't supposed to be both, he was "interim CEO".
In theory, but there's no guarantee the board will vote to keep him.
Regardless, what more do people want? Seriously - while I don't think the man deserves the job he currently holds, he's done nothing illegal.
Given that Kirby holds about 8% of the shares, and is the longest running board member with 20 years experience of the business, it would be difficult to justify not keeping him on in some capacity.
Wolfstan wrote:Deduct shares? Breach of contract for being stupid, incompetent? I don't know!?! Something for crying out loud! :-) The guy has managed to BS the company in to a bad place.
They could of been in a position that was good for both sides. Steady income for the investor's and a good scene for the gamers. Nothing is perfect but regular releases, a strong ruleset and a good tourney scene would of helped big time.
The board supported all of his decisions. So it wasn't just "the guy".
They can't take his shares away. There's likely nothing in his contract about not being stupid or incompetent...
Sigvatr wrote:Who would want to be GW CEO to begin with? It's a company that has less and less sales, is forced to cut costs on all ends, has a terrible reputation and has been driven by a man with his very own "vision". And it's a niche market. I would never want to be CEO of such a company.
I would. I think it could be brought back, but it'll have some dark years and sacrifices made. I'd love to take that challenge.
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Kilkrazy wrote: Given that Kirby holds about 8% of the shares, and is the longest running board member with 20 years experience of the business, it would be difficult to justify not keeping him on in some capacity.
Depending on the outcome of this report, sure.
But that's the point, isn't it? We all assumed Kirby would be sticking around till the end. If this isn't the end, is he being politely asked to step down?
A) Would be savvy enough to realize the problems (i.e. is not one of Kirby's cronies elevated to the position)
B) Decides it's worth fixing instead of doing what Kirby did and just coast along until the end
I think it could either be really good or really bad. If it's more of the same then it will be the demise of GW, if they learn what went wrong and try to fix it (assuming they can fix things like pissing off the independents), then things could turn around.
Sigvatr wrote: Who would want to be GW CEO to begin with? It's a company that has less and less sales, is forced to cut costs on all ends, has a terrible reputation and has been driven by a man with his very own "vision". And it's a niche market. I would never want to be CEO of such a company.
rigeld2 wrote: But that's the point, isn't it? We all assumed Kirby would be sticking around till the end. If this isn't the end, is he being politely asked to step down?
That's another thing. It could be one of those "We'll let you resign gracefully" situations, which is almost always covered up by corporate marketing to put a positive spin on it because "We outed our CEO" rarely looks good.
I guess the answer will be if he remains Chairman. If yes, then it's likely him choosing to step down for some reason or another (possibly with pressure), if he's removed (bought out? IDK how it works) then he was removed.
Kilkrazy wrote: Given that Kirby holds about 8% of the shares, and is the longest running board member with 20 years experience of the business, it would be difficult to justify not keeping him on in some capacity.
Depending on the outcome of this report, sure. But that's the point, isn't it? We all assumed Kirby would be sticking around till the end. If this isn't the end, is he being politely asked to step down?
Assumptions, assumptions.
Kirby is 63, he has made a ton of money from GW and, if he believes in the company, he thinks he will make a ton more from dividends and eventually selling his shares, not to mention his salary as Chairman will be considerable and he will also have collected a substantial pension fund over the past 20 years which he can cash in next year for 100% tax free cash. He may just want to kick back and enjoy his money.
MWHistorian wrote: I hope the new CEO understands that the internet exists for more that direct sales.
I wonder... was all of that nonsense policy from Kirby? Could a new CEO actually turn the ship around and rekindle relationships with retailers, allow them to sell online at a discount, bring back the bitz, etc?
If I were CEO I'd push for reestablishing a relationship with independents, I'd bring back the Mail Order Trolls, empower the design studio, etc. Of course that's as someone who knows the game. It's very unlikely that the new CEO will be familiar with that.
Wolfstan wrote: Deduct shares? Breach of contract for being stupid, incompetent? I don't know!?! Something for crying out loud! :-) The guy has managed to BS the company in to a bad place.
Deduct? Breach of contract for being stupid? I guess you are not terribly familiar with how corporate worldoperates
loki old fart wrote: Sounds like he needs someone to carry the can. When it all goes tits up.
Winner!
Kirby still thinks he will be on the board at some level. As mentioned else where, most of these statements are fairly well thought out, so his attempt to be humble means he'll still be on the board, probably as chairman. The current board members have been there for a long time and thus will continue to bow down to Lord Kirby.
Anyone who comes in will have a huge, uphill battle to fight against the current player base, FLGS and the board themselves. Also, as the board hires the CEO, chances are it will be a person who sucks up to them and tells them what they want to hear. I'm sure they will find someone who thinks they can turn things around with their current business model and is highly motivated. My guess is the new CEO will go direct sales only, no FLGS sales. When GW collapses, he'll get blamed, while the rest of the board pulls the eject button and sells out to someone.
Maybe I'll mail Brian D. Goldner's bio to GW. He should be the next CEO of GW anyway.
sand.zzz wrote: Has this been authenticated yet? I doubt its real, but in the off chance that it is, wow. If this guy is representative of GW's leadership as a whole, then this company is most certainly doomed. From the content to the attitude and delivery - it reeks of willful ignorance and downright terrible management. If your business starts losing money, or net declines - you figure out why. You don't decide why.
But you *obviously* do that behind closed doors and not in an annual report. The point is to project confidence in the future of your business, not fall on your sword and watch share prices plummet even farther. Kirby's personal style may be odd and hyperbolic, but any CEO would be trying to find silver linings in the clouds of a poor annual report.
Regarding their CEO hiring process, note that he doesn't say they won't be using executive search firms or focusing on internal candidates. It's a little odd to me that he already identified a single day to interview all candidates, and that he announced that the choice will be decided one week later. What if a dream candidate has something important going on that day? CEOs can't call in sick or just skip important functions in their current positions. Also, wouldn't you want to spend at least a full day with each candidate before handing them the keys? It could be that this will happen before November, but I tend to think it means that they have their person already, and that he or she may be internal.
Now, it's more than a little strange to say that the resume doesn't matter. Obviously it does, so why say otherwise? But then maybe he's laying groundwork because the chosen one has a lighter resume than you'd expect. Kirby may come across like a rambling madman at times in these things, but we shouldn't assume that the things he says aren't deliberate.
Absolutionis wrote: If this somehow ends up being fake, then it comes to question why it exists on the official GW investors site. It's damaging either way.
$6.8m website, 3D smokescreen/rambling, more cost cutting, more attitude over skills and amazing (but typical) arrogance... Even with all this I don't think its fake. The other two files uploaded the same day (proxy form and annual meeting notice) sure look legit.
As far as sales numbers go I think this preamble is preparing investors for a goodly drop in revenue, perhaps as high as 10%.
Perhaps we should have a pool or set up a poll: revenue up, flat, down 5%, down 10%...
MWHistorian wrote: I hope the new CEO understands that the internet exists for more that direct sales.
I wonder... was all of that nonsense policy from Kirby? Could a new CEO actually turn the ship around and rekindle relationships with retailers, allow them to sell online at a discount, bring back the bitz, etc?
Despite the immense amount of ill-feeling that GW have managed to generate in their former fans and supporters, there is IMO still the potential for a renaissance.
I think a lot of things GW did over the past five+ years were stupid, but not everything. I wouldn't bring bitz back, not in the form they were at any rate, but sprue frames of spare parts could easily be sold. I think one man shops are a stupid idea considering the sampling and support that new recruits need. Reversing that is simply a matter of recruiting and training more staff, and reconnecting with veterans, clubs and independents.
A lot of people believe that part of GW's problem is a strong yes man culture -- group think -- around Kirby, that prevents the company from taking the steps we regard as important for reconnecting with the "community" and restoring the company to health.
From that angle, a new guy who broke free of the supposed Kirby kulture could I think turn things around pretty quickly.
Size doesn't necessarily matter, or rather growth for its own sake is not necessarily a goal worth pursuing.
If GW can throw off £16 million cash profit from a £130 million turnover they can continue for ever at that level. It is a good business.
The problem is that their sales seem to be falling, and profits fall faster than sales because of fixed costs, so pretty quickly they would be into big losses if they could not stabilize the position.
Kirby is 63, he has made a ton of money from GW and, if he believes in the company, he thinks he will make a ton more from dividends and eventually selling his shares, not to mention his salary as Chairman will be considerable and he will also have collected a substantial pension fund over the past 20 years which he can cash in next year for 100% tax free cash. He may just want to kick back and enjoy his money.
But the question is - why now? Why time it - perfectly - with a poor annual report? Why not "cash out" on the upswing?
Well hopefully Goge Vandire *ahem* I mean Kirby's next position as non executive chairman will be somewhere in a cellar chained to a water heater. With any luck, art really will imitate life and our "Sebastion Thor" has simply yet to take to the stage.
paulson games wrote: Does anyone else picture this being written on shaky hands after downing a bottle of Bourbon and all the while contemplating eating the business end of a revolver?
Paulson, as someone who was wrongly and unnecessarily involved in the beginning of the legal proceedings mentioned in the preamble, can you (within the terms of your settlement and/or NDA) confirm or deny that someone stole GW's hog? I suspect the UK legal system is better set up to deal with Grand Fish and Chips Theft than the subsequent post-colonial system we have here.
The 2013-14 annual report is up on the investor relations section of the GW website. But, no content is available right now. Did they remove the preamble? Seems odd to have a link to nothing.
They didn't bother to block the downloads folder of the website so if you direct address it, you can reach it.
The internet is hard... so many tubes! I really hope that preamble is the final correct one and not a pancake 40k edition style fake. That would be entertaining. Man... I just realized that I'm focusing way too much on the food references and must be very hungry.
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agnosto wrote: Maybe he's ready to cash-in and move to Spain. Isn't that where people from the UK retire? Kind of like the UK version of Florida isn't it?
Is that a Cuban joke? If that is indeed the case, someone should warn Corvus Belli to make sure he doesn't screw their pooch as well. I'd include avatars of war but their already following the Kirby model of management.
agnosto wrote: Maybe he's ready to cash-in and move to Spain. Isn't that where people from the UK retire? Kind of like the UK version of Florida isn't it?
It has the sun and sea plus reciprocal pension and health care arrangements. Good food and wine too!
You can get from London to Barcelona by train in about 9 hours.
mattyrm wrote: I am truly stunned at the 4 million mark for the website, how is that even possible?
I know nothing about web design and the costs involved, so someone please explain why is this bad?
Because they paid an obscene amount of money to make a website that is worse than the one the already had. Yeah, I'm sure it costs money to deal with the security and bug fixing required to run a business website with that much money going through it, but the design aspect is just embarrassingly bad. They completely removed all the content (blog posts, painting guides, etc) that might get people to visit the website regularly and be in a position to impulse buy something, and replaced it with an adequate online store that nobody will ever visit unless they are buying a product. And aesthetically it's a mess, way too much empty space, too much scrolling to see all of the information, etc. Granted, some of this is due to the "modern" tablet-friendly style that is (sadly) popular right now, but GW's version of it is just badly executed.
In short, if I didn't know how much GW paid for it I would have assumed that it was designed by someone's friend for as cheaply as possible. The fact that someone actually paid millions of dollars for this is just unbelievable.
Now now Peregrine, that's not quite fair.......plenty of people also visit the GW site to check the 360 pics of models before they go and buy them on ebay
Seriously though, I will refrain from activating Smug Mode until after we see the actual numbers, but if as some in this thread have been saying this is actually the way corporations usually communicate with their investors, ie like a passive-aggressive teenager, I think I may have figured out why we had that whole "global economic collapse" thing.
We know quite a lot about 3-D printers, having been at the forefront of the technology for many years. We know of what we speak. One day 3-D printers will be affordable (agreed), they are now, they will be able to produce fantastic detail (the affordable ones won't) and they will do it faster than one miniature per day (no, they won't, look it up).
Wow, he actually just went used the internet argument logic of "No you're wrong, do your research"
Opening - immediately tells you that they've probably operated at a loss this year, with perhaps net profitability on licencing. On the whole, the entire top two sections are not fooling anyone - GW have done poorly, this is the Chairman-cum-acting CEO telling people not to sell.
The second section I can only assume is meant to say "we've reduced our overall liability and lowered overheads to sustain profit". What it comes across as is "we've had a massive restructuring, gotten rid of many experienced staff and wasted a collosal amount of money". Any investor worth their salt will see that he's essentially doing what all businesses do when they start to sink - cut costs across the board, restructure and see if the company becomes sustainable. The "allows us to sell more efficiently" garb is of no use whatsoever to any analyst unless they provide proof that they're gotten a higher than expected number of sales through their online retail. Overall, this section is utterly dreadful and blatant damage control.
The final part of the top section has him thanking his staff. Not unusual really, but fairly farcical to say they've saved millions when you've just admitted you spend £4 million on a webstore and reduced staff numbers. Again, this reads badly.
In the second part, he compares GW to the technological sector. Either he's assuming investors are just throwing money at companies showing signs of growth (unfortunately not uncommon) or that they're morons. Either way, this entire part isn't really worth discussing from a business point of view - it shows the Chairman has some vague idea of how he wants the company to function and GW have lost some IP battles. On the whole, this part wouldn't overly concern me as an investor; GW are still the market leader and have previously shown good profits, so it's not accurate to judge his management over this report.
The third part, again, wouldn't actually worry me too much. It's poorly written (much like the entire preamble frankly) but it shows they have market awareness. Agree or disagree, there's evidence of plans for the future here which is a promising sign. The blasé concerns me but other than that, it's not too bad. The ending however, is a red flag. By saying designing miniatures isn't easy, you're implying that you currently have both the best designers and that your competitors (who you've admitted have sued you for your IP) are not concerning enough to play a major part in future plans. It's very self focussed and whilst that's not bad in a report where you're about to post record profits, it's going to look extremely stupid if (and most likely, when) you post bad results for the past year.
The final part is, in my opinion, the one that Tom Kirby hangs himself with. He immediately slips up in the first line - he announces he'll be stepping down. If investors have researched the company (they will have) and know the CEO track record (they will) then he's essentially just saying "I won't be breaking the law by holding the CEO and Chairman position simultaneously after the maximum possible time". To investors this reads "we didn't look very hard for a CEO and are going to have to push anyone through the door". This is just dreadful practice and a guaranteed way to lose faith in the company - I'm expecting big sales of GW shares tomorrow.
On a side note, it's almost hilarious how he says he'll continue on as Chairman (he says if the board lets him, but that's really just tact - they will) to write the preambles, then two sentences later make a typo. He also goes on to describe how he hired an NXD without checking references, knowing her previous employment or skill set. That... I've not seen such an idiotic thing to admit to investors since I saw a company say they'd made a loss because the CEO had defrauded them. At best, people ignore it. At worst, people view you as incompetent in a report where you're posting poor performance, dismising competition and firing employees you've spent money on training. Just awful.
On the whole, things look bad. I don't think GW is done for, but if they don't drop a huge amount in stock price tomorrow and have more restructuring, I'd be astonished. One of the worst preambles I've ever read, and that's being kind.
One thing is obvious. Someone at GW has made a huge error.
I don't know if it was Kirby with his fanatical ravings, some oversight committee for not vetting his ravings before publishing, or the IT team for publishing a lunatics ravings without permission. But they have at least tried to remove the evidence.
First by removing the content from the link, but leaving the link up and the underlying upload as available.
Then by removing the link but leaving the underlying upload as available.
Someone obviously thought that this bit of info provided some very bad optics.
Yodhrin wrote: Seriously though, I will refrain from activating Smug Mode until after we see the actual numbers, but if as some in this thread have been saying this is actually the way corporations usually communicate with their investors, ie like a passive-aggressive teenager, I think I may have figured out why we had that whole "global economic collapse" thing.
I don't think anyone in the thread has said that, if you actually read the posts.
Well he's still going to be Chairman, just not CEO, assuming the board votes for him, which IIRC he was before the previous CEO (Wells?) resigned. In fact, he wasn't supposed to be both, he was "interim CEO".
In theory, but there's no guarantee the board will vote to keep him.
Regardless, what more do people want? Seriously - while I don't think the man deserves the job he currently holds, he's done nothing illegal.
Re-electing Kirby as chairman wasn't on the meeting agenda, FYI, for what that's worth.
This preamble reads like a point by point response to accusations that have been thrown at Kirby by the board and investors over the past few months. He is still the Chairman (as of now), so he is allowed to write his preamble. Seems pretty obvious to me that Kirby used this as an opportunity to tell the shareholders that they can take their complaints and stuff it. He's basically saying that although the board/shareholders are bitching about the company's finances, he will be proven right in the end.
In this context, the fact that the Chapterhouse case takes up a full third of this preamble is a huge deal. "Indecent amount of [our] money" sounds like words that have been thrown at Kirby's face more than a few times. He's not even trying to justify the expense. Seriously, imagine how someone must have reacted to finding out that in the context of these massive cost cutting measures GW spent $250,000.00 on printing copies just for the trial! God knows what the full bill is. It is probably in the 7 figures. And unlike an expensive website, there's no way to justify that expense. Kirby doesn't even try.
And here's the kicker...GW is still involved in that litigation with no hope of escape except at the sufferance of Chapterhouse Studios, who has two of the most highly regarded IP firms in the world working for free. GW is staring down the barrel of several hundred thousand dollars to argue the appeal, a possible new trial, and the potential for millions of dollars in court awarded attorney's fees.
I'm not surprised Kirby is getting fired. GW's general counsel got the ax two months after the trial and that apparently wasn't enough to save Kirby's neck. Now that Kirby's head is on the chopping block, I expect to see the heads of the other members of GW's "Intellectual Property Protection Group" roll as well, namely Alan Roy Merrett and Andrew Jones. When the bottom guy gets fired and the top guy gets fired, the people in between aren't long for the world.
Yodhrin wrote: Seriously though, I will refrain from activating Smug Mode until after we see the actual numbers, but if as some in this thread have been saying this is actually the way corporations usually communicate with their investors, ie like a passive-aggressive teenager, I think I may have figured out why we had that whole "global economic collapse" thing.
I don't think anyone in the thread has said that, if you actually read the posts.
I have. Guys like Elop, and probably Kirby, are what's currently wrong with capitalism. There is no accountability anymore for the CEO's, corporate boards and other higher-ups. If your company does well, it's because of your genius and you reap huge bonuses. If it doesn't, well, you spin the facts around, there is nobody who challenges your assertations and you cash large amounts of money anyways.
And here's the kicker...GW is still involved in that litigation with no hope of escape except at the sufferance of Chapterhouse Studios, who has two of the most highly regarded IP firms in the world working for free. GW is staring down the barrel of several hundred thousand dollars to argue the appeal, a possible new trial, and the potential for millions of dollars in court awarded attorney's fees.
I thought that US doesn't have that system, court awarding the attorney fees?
And here's the kicker...GW is still involved in that litigation with no hope of escape except at the sufferance of Chapterhouse Studios, who has two of the most highly regarded IP firms in the world working for free. GW is staring down the barrel of several hundred thousand dollars to argue the appeal, a possible new trial, and the potential for millions of dollars in court awarded attorney's fees.
I thought that US doesn't have that system, court awarding the attorney fees?
MWHistorian wrote: I hope the new CEO understands that the internet exists for more that direct sales.
The comments about internet sellers being 'parasites' and harmful to the hobby on account of not providing gaming space (which came at the same time as GW were starting to ramp up their closure of battle bunkers in favour of one-man stores in back streets) came from Mark Wells when he was in the position, rather than from Kirby. So I suspect that it's an entrenched corporate idea rather than just Kirby's personal opinion.
So given the repeated statements about hiring people based on their ability to toe the company line rather than having any actual skills or experience in the position, I would not expect the new CEO to think any differently.
rigeld2 wrote: (weeble, you messed that quote up - not offended, just pointing out)
Yea, I know. I'm on my iPhone. The whole quote was really long, and I tried to cut it down, and obviously failed using the tiny sliver of text box visible above my keyboard. I'll fix it later tonight.
MWHistorian wrote: I hope the new CEO understands that the internet exists for more that direct sales.
The comments about internet sellers being 'parasites' and harmful to the hobby on account of not providing gaming space (which came at the same time as GW were starting to ramp up their closure of battle bunkers in favour of one-man stores in back streets) came from Mark Wells when he was in the position, rather than from Kirby. So I suspect that it's an entrenched corporate idea rather than just Kirby's personal opinion.
Nearly all companies, in fact, hate Internet. Even those whose business revolves around it, or takes place entirely within it. It is just too uncontrollable. Even companies like Google and Facebook are in constant conflict with the Netizens.
What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
And here's the kicker...GW is still involved in that litigation with no hope of escape except at the sufferance of Chapterhouse Studios, who has two of the most highly regarded IP firms in the world working for free. GW is staring down the barrel of several hundred thousand dollars to argue the appeal, a possible new trial, and the potential for millions of dollars in court awarded attorney's fees.
I thought that US doesn't have that system, court awarding the attorney fees?
In civil cases it can be done.
Quite correct. The prevailing party is usually entitled to costs, but you can recover fees in a variety of ways, including based on being the prevailing party (I think, though IANAL and I haven't read the relevant section of the FRCP in a while). There's also various torts in which attorney fees are recoverable, such as malicious litigation, tortious interference, abuse of process, and such like. In the best/worst case, there could be an outcome in which CHS prevails in the appeal and motions for costs and fees or follows up with a subsequent lawsuit to recover damages. I'm not making a comment on likelihood, other than to say that statutes exist through which a party in such a situation could recover fees. Thus it is within the realm of possibility.
Well he's still going to be Chairman, just not CEO, assuming the board votes for him, which IIRC he was before the previous CEO (Wells?) resigned. In fact, he wasn't supposed to be both, he was "interim CEO".
In theory, but there's no guarantee the board will vote to keep him.
Regardless, what more do people want? Seriously - while I don't think the man deserves the job he currently holds, he's done nothing illegal.
Re-electing Kirby as chairman wasn't on the meeting agenda, FYI, for what that's worth.
This preamble reads like a point by point response to accusations that have been thrown at Kirby by the board and investors over the past few months. He is still the Chairman (as of now), so he is allowed to write his preamble. Seems pretty obvious to me that Kirby used this as an opportunity to tell the shareholders that they can take their complaints and stuff it. He's basically saying that although the board/shareholders are bitching about the company's finances, he will be proven right in the end.
In this context, the fact that the Chapterhouse case takes up a full third of this preamble is a huge deal. "Indecent amount of [our] money" sounds like words that have been thrown at Kirby's face more than a few times. He's not even trying to justify the expense. Seriously, imagine how someone must have reacted to finding out that in the context of these massive cost cutting measures GW spent $250,000.00 on printing copies just for the trial! God knows what the full bill is. It is probably in the 7 figures. And unlike an expensive website, there's no way to justify that expense. Kirby doesn't even try.
And here's the kicker...GW is still involved in that litigation with no hope of escape except at the sufferance of Chapterhouse Studios, who has two of the most highly regarded IP firms in the world working for free. GW is staring down the barrel of several hundred thousand dollars to argue the appeal, a possible new trial, and the potential for millions of dollars in court awarded attorney's fees.
I'm not surprised Kirby is getting fired. GW's general counsel got the ax two months after the trial and that apparently wasn't enough to save Kirby's neck. Now that Kirby's head is on the chopping block, I expect to see the heads of the other members of GW's "Intellectual Property Protection Group" roll as well, namely Alan Roy Merrett and Andrew Jones. When the bottom guy gets fired and the top guy gets fired, the people in between aren't long for the world.
Nice post!
timd wrote: What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
timd wrote: What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
To my eyes it just looks like a dig on the American legal system, though that could just be jingoistic of me. Kirby could be referring to the courts in general and making a comment on the laws being bad at protecting nebulous concepts like "piles of skulls." See, the law views creative expression as a form of property; a hog, so to speak. In order to do this the law draws finite (if somewhat elastic) boundaries around individual acts of creative expression, much like patent law acts like a deed to a piece of property, laying out the boundaries that separates one invention from another and from the general pool of human wisdom and experience.
In the case of creative expression, the law does this by defining your "hog" as something called "protected expression," i.e. that (and only that) which is unique to a work of artistic expression that actually exists in material form; a "tangible medium of expression." In short, your hog is only your hog, not all hogs, or all hogs of one kind, or one part of all hogs. You only get your specific hog, we'll call her Bessie.
Thus, when you sue someone for unfairly appropriating Bessie, you've got to be able to describe Bessie, show proof that you own Bessie, and demonstrate that the defendant took Bessie. It isn't enough to say that you are a hog farmer and the plaintiff is also a hog farmer. It isn't enough to say that it was your idea to breed hogs like Bessie, or that the defendant took his ideas about hog raising from watching you raise up Bessie.
For a company that repeatedly tried to protect ideas, and I mean that literally - Alan Merrett literally testified that GW was asserting an idea against CHS, I expect that having to go through a justice systems that regards ideas as ownable as imaginary hogs was very frustrating.
Seeing this preamble, makes me wonder if the perrys thought this was the best time to go. Because staying with GW wasn't a long term option. Take the golden handshake and run.
I don't understand where the suggestion comes that Kirby is getting fired. Original communicea said that Kirby will be an 'acting CEO', and he has always used that title. It also said that the Board will be seeking new CEO in due course. He announced his withdrawal from the job five months early - it is of course possible that the Board is unhappy with the job he has done, but usually such thing manifests with quicker withdrawal schedule.
MWHistorian wrote: I hope the new CEO understands that the internet exists for more that direct sales.
I wonder... was all of that nonsense policy from Kirby? Could a new CEO actually turn the ship around and rekindle relationships with retailers, allow them to sell online at a discount, bring back the bitz, etc?
Despite the immense amount of ill-feeling that GW have managed to generate in their former fans and supporters, there is IMO still the potential for a renaissance.
I think a lot of things GW did over the past five+ years were stupid, but not everything. I wouldn't bring bitz back, not in the form they were at any rate, but sprue frames of spare parts could easily be sold. I think one man shops are a stupid idea considering the sampling and support that new recruits need. Reversing that is simply a matter of recruiting and training more staff, and reconnecting with veterans, clubs and independents.
A lot of people believe that part of GW's problem is a strong yes man culture -- group think -- around Kirby, that prevents the company from taking the steps we regard as important for reconnecting with the "community" and restoring the company to health.
From that angle, a new guy who broke free of the supposed Kirby kulture could I think turn things around pretty quickly.
I agree completely. People are quick to forgive if its sincere, and I think a smart and motivated bloke could do wonders for GWs rep, lets just hope it actually happens one day before its too late.
mattyrm wrote: I am truly stunned at the 4 million mark for the website, how is that even possible?
I know nothing about web design and the costs involved, so someone please explain why is this bad?
A good mate of mine does web design and search optimization and gak for a living, hes Google certified and all that bollocks.
Anyways, he said he makes a cheap gakky website for like 500 bucks, and a fully designed, all singing all dancing, original art and sounds and buttons and videos and all of that gak website for between 5 and 8 grand.
Now, I know that for a big company like GW, with a massive inventory and all kind of complex gak it is obviously going to be much higher, as require much more effort, but do you see what I'm saying? If one bloke who does it really well and professionally for say, 8 grand, you would presume it would cost some sort of derivative of that amount.
So, lets be generous and say it would take not just one bloke, but twenty, surely you are still talking under a million bucks right?
If I had been asked for a best guess before reading that, seriously Id have basically times my mates figure by twenty or something, so Id have said like.. between 200-300 grand. I certainly wouldn't have got near a million, and feth me, 4 baffles me completely, because surely you could hire twenty pros to work on it full time for 6 months, and still not get anywhere near that figure.
That's for the webpage that you see...
What we don't see, is the "supply chain" side of the business. Essentially the IT infrastructure to support the inventory / accounting side of the business. Maybe that got updated along with the new website?
Oh yeah of course,but you know what Im saying right? It just sounds crazy. Like the infrastructure to support the inventory and accounting abslutely has to have already been in place, because their old website was still a functioning store. I could understand if they were massively expanding and going from something along the lines of a blog or something, all the way to a proper functioning store along the lines of Amazon, but they were already hosting images and selling things, so surely almost all of the legwork was already in place?
As I said, even if it wasnt, I would estimate like, 250k tops for a full redseign, and then maybe the same again twice over for new innovations, and I still wouldnt be at a million quid, I genuinely don't understand it me.
Is it a wise idea to have a 'dig on the American legal system' in an official communication, especially when GW is actively involved in various things with it right now?
Well he's still going to be Chairman, just not CEO, assuming the board votes for him, which IIRC he was before the previous CEO (Wells?) resigned. In fact, he wasn't supposed to be both, he was "interim CEO".
In theory, but there's no guarantee the board will vote to keep him.
Regardless, what more do people want? Seriously - while I don't think the man deserves the job he currently holds, he's done nothing illegal.
Re-electing Kirby as chairman wasn't on the meeting agenda, FYI, for what that's worth.
This preamble reads like a point by point response to accusations that have been thrown at Kirby by the board and investors over the past few months. He is still the Chairman (as of now), so he is allowed to write his preamble. Seems pretty obvious to me that Kirby used this as an opportunity to tell the shareholders that they can take their complaints and stuff it. He's basically saying that although the board/shareholders are bitching about the company's finances, he will be proven right in the end.
In this context, the fact that the Chapterhouse case takes up a full third of this preamble is a huge deal. "Indecent amount of [our] money" sounds like words that have been thrown at Kirby's face more than a few times. He's not even trying to justify the expense. Seriously, imagine how someone must have reacted to finding out that in the context of these massive cost cutting measures GW spent $250,000.00 on printing copies just for the trial! God knows what the full bill is. It is probably in the 7 figures. And unlike an expensive website, there's no way to justify that expense. Kirby doesn't even try.
And here's the kicker...GW is still involved in that litigation with no hope of escape except at the sufferance of Chapterhouse Studios, who has two of the most highly regarded IP firms in the world working for free. GW is staring down the barrel of several hundred thousand dollars to argue the appeal, a possible new trial, and the potential for millions of dollars in court awarded attorney's fees.
I'm not surprised Kirby is getting fired. GW's general counsel got the ax two months after the trial and that apparently wasn't enough to save Kirby's neck. Now that Kirby's head is on the chopping block, I expect to see the heads of the other members of GW's "Intellectual Property Protection Group" roll as well, namely Alan Roy Merrett and Andrew Jones. When the bottom guy gets fired and the top guy gets fired, the people in between aren't long for the world.
Hahaha. I still can't believe they thought they could win.
But nice post.
I have nothing to offer other than a criticism of GW, which is that I would probably run a better company than Kirby. By I don't know, following the attics of other companies, and read over history of the company and find ways to boost profit and ensure the company is good standing with its community and shareholders.
He certainly sounds like a bitter man right now. Referring to your board and yourself as cronies, even when mocking investors that disagree with you, is pretty bad form. I'm guessing the annual report is going to be cringe worthy.
What was a bit shocking however, was his direct reference to complaints levied against him. How did he know of those complaints (Cronies, obscene amount of money against CHS, mocking the legal system, etc. etc.). Either, he reads forums or the board has dressed him down--either way, interesting.
Good for 40k players he's moving on, hope he becomes a wall flower if the board keeps him.
I'm going to tell my hospital CEO next physician we hire for the clinic--we should just read a letter and discard their CV. I'm sure he would react just fine
timd wrote: What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
To my eyes it just looks like a dig on the American legal system, though that could just be jingoistic of me. Kirby could be referring to the courts in general and making a comment on the laws being bad at protecting nebulous concepts like "piles of skulls." See, the law views creative expression as a form of property; a hog, so to speak. In order to do this the law draws finite (if somewhat elastic) boundaries around individual acts of creative expression, much like patent law acts like a deed to a piece of property, laying out the boundaries that separates one invention from another and from the general pool of human wisdom and experience.
In the case of creative expression, the law does this by defining your "hog" as something called "protected expression," i.e. that (and only that) which is unique to a work of artistic expression that actually exists in material form; a "tangible medium of expression." In short, your hog is only your hog, not all hogs, or all hogs of one kind, or one part of all hogs. You only get your specific hog, we'll call her Bessie.
Thus, when you sue someone for unfairly appropriating Bessie, you've got to be able to describe Bessie, show proof that you own Bessie, and demonstrate that the defendant took Bessie. It isn't enough to say that you are a hog farmer and the plaintiff is also a hog farmer. It isn't enough to say that it was your idea to breed hogs like Bessie, or that the defendant took his ideas about hog raising from watching you raise up Bessie.
For a company that repeatedly tried to protect ideas, and I mean that literally - Alan Merrett literally testified that GW was asserting an idea against CHS, I expect that having to go through a justice systems that regards ideas as ownable as imaginary hogs was very frustrating.
What it fails to recognize though is that if it were tried under the utterly refined laws of the UK - it would have been tossed out on its ear (Lucas v Ainsworth).
Automatically Appended Next Post: BTW - if this is a hoax (that someone managed to hack into GW's website and load onto their server) it is pretty thorough. They remembered to change the name of the PDF author to Rachel Tongue - the secretary for GW and PDF author of most of GW's releases.
Translation-
We did really badly when it came to making you money, but we will make you money in the future, honestly...
We spent loads of your money, but we will make you money in the future, honestly...
We spent loads of your money trying to sue people who were making a little bit of money on things that helped to sell our products.
There is new technology out there but we're not worried about it and nor should you be, come and join us as we bury our heads in the sand, put our fingers in our ears and go 'NAH NAH NAH NAH'
I'm stepping down as CEO, but I'll have a background job for the same (or probably more) pay, but as its background I can't be blamed or sued when the whole thing goes tits up...
I'd thought he was having a go at the legal profession in general - implying perhaps that the legal system can't keep up with how fast things move in the digital age (which would be ironic given Kirby's cluelessness in that area) or more likely "we lost, therefore it sucks." But if he's specifically bashing the US system, it just makes him look even more unprofessional.
paulson games wrote: Does anyone else picture this being written on shaky hands after downing a bottle of Bourbon and all the while contemplating eating the business end of a revolver?
Paulson, as someone who was wrongly and unnecessarily involved in the beginning of the legal proceedings mentioned in the preamble, can you (within the terms of your settlement and/or NDA) confirm or deny that someone stole GW's hog? I suspect the UK legal system is better set up to deal with Grand Fish and Chips Theft than the subsequent post-colonial system we have here.
I'm not a legal expert or judge so nothing I say is anything beyond personal opinion
The problem as I see it is that Kirby and GW legal don't fully understand what is and isn't protectable within their IP. They seem to be under the impression that every word and object they add into a story belongs to them, which couldn't be further from the truth. IN the lawsuit they expressed that they owned things/terms like rail gun, or grenade launcher, which is simply insane given that those are real world items that predate GW by decades, or in some cases centuries (like halberd, wtf?)
It makes very little sense to draw a hard line in the sand and defend it at all costs when you have no idea what the legal foundation for such battles actually is.
Many of the visual elements that 40k has been created from are heavily influenced from very obvious sources, star wars, judge dredd,etc. (and namely in regards to Dredd/2000AD they used some of the same artists to work on the 40k books so the style and design tends to blur together) Certain specific combination or arrangements of those items may be protectable, but underlying ideas are not. They cannot claim to own the rights to all oversized shoulder pads for example, yet many of the legal claims were attempting just that.
I think the core issue that is facing GW is that they have lost grip on their understanding on what 40k actually is. Both in terms of what their IP actually entails and also how they relate to their customer and creative community. They are out of touch with almost everything they do and the further they get away from understanding their own products the worse the internal collapse is going to be. You can't drive sales when you don't understand the product or understand what your customers want. They built their walls up so high that it's cut them off from everything and it's cut them off from their customers and the creativity spark that's essential to keeping a hobby based business alive. In short ever since they went public they've lost the heart and soul of the company, it's taken time for it to erode away but I think we're finally seeing the fall out from GW losing their way. (and their war being waged against their own customers)
timd wrote: What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
To my eyes it just looks like a dig on the American legal system, though that could just be jingoistic of me. Kirby could be referring to the courts in general and making a comment on the laws being bad at protecting nebulous concepts like "piles of skulls." See, the law views creative expression as a form of property; a hog, so to speak. In order to do this the law draws finite (if somewhat elastic) boundaries around individual acts of creative expression, much like patent law acts like a deed to a piece of property, laying out the boundaries that separates one invention from another and from the general pool of human wisdom and experience.
In the case of creative expression, the law does this by defining your "hog" as something called "protected expression," i.e. that (and only that) which is unique to a work of artistic expression that actually exists in material form; a "tangible medium of expression." In short, your hog is only your hog, not all hogs, or all hogs of one kind, or one part of all hogs. You only get your specific hog, we'll call her Bessie.
Thus, when you sue someone for unfairly appropriating Bessie, you've got to be able to describe Bessie, show proof that you own Bessie, and demonstrate that the defendant took Bessie. It isn't enough to say that you are a hog farmer and the plaintiff is also a hog farmer. It isn't enough to say that it was your idea to breed hogs like Bessie, or that the defendant took his ideas about hog raising from watching you raise up Bessie.
For a company that repeatedly tried to protect ideas, and I mean that literally - Alan Merrett literally testified that GW was asserting an idea against CHS, I expect that having to go through a justice systems that regards ideas as ownable as imaginary hogs was very frustrating.
What it fails to recognize though is that if it were tried under the utterly refined laws of the UK - it would have been tossed out on its ear (Lucas v Ainsworth).
Automatically Appended Next Post: BTW - if this is a hoax (that someone managed to hack into GW's website and load onto their server) it is pretty thorough. They remembered to change the name of the PDF author to Rachel Tongue - the secretary for GW and PDF author of most of GW's releases.
The Supreme Court ruled that the stormtrooper helmets were film props, not models or art. Doesn't really relate to the chapterhouse case.
paulson games wrote: Does anyone else picture this being written on shaky hands after downing a bottle of Bourbon and all the while contemplating eating the business end of a revolver?
Paulson, as someone who was wrongly and unnecessarily involved in the beginning of the legal proceedings mentioned in the preamble, can you (within the terms of your settlement and/or NDA) confirm or deny that someone stole GW's hog? I suspect the UK legal system is better set up to deal with Grand Fish and Chips Theft than the subsequent post-colonial system we have here.
I'm not a legal expert or judge so nothing I say is anything beyond personal opinion
The problem as I see it is that Kirby and GW legal don't fully understand what is and isn't protectable within their IP. They seem to be under the impression that every word and object they add into a story belongs to them, which couldn't be further from the truth. IN the lawsuit they expressed that they owned things/terms like rail gun, or grenade launcher, which is simply insane given that those are real world items that predate GW by decades, or in some cases centuries (like halberd, wtf?)
It makes very little sense to draw a hard line in the sand and defend it at all costs when you have no idea what the legal foundation for such battles actually is.
Many of the visual elements that 40k has been created from are heavily influenced from very obvious sources, star wars, judge dredd,etc. (and namely in regards to Dredd/2000AD they used some of the same artists to work on the 40k books so the style and design tends to blur together) Certain specific combination or arrangements of those items may be protectable, but underlying ideas are not. They cannot claim to own the rights to all oversized shoulder pads for example, yet many of the legal claims were attempting just that.
I think the core issue that is facing GW is that they have lost grip on their understanding on what 40k actually is. Both in terms of what their IP actually entails and also how they relate to their customer and creative community. They are out of touch with almost everything they do and the further they get away from understanding their own products the worse the internal collapse is going to be. You can't drive sales when you don't understand the product or understand what your customers want. They built their walls up so high that it's cut them off from everything and it's cut them off from their customers and the creativity spark that's essential to keeping a hobby based business alive. In short ever since they went public they've lost the heart and soul of the company, it's taken time for it to erode away but I think we're finally seeing the fall out from GW losing their way. (and their war being waged against their own customers)
I think that is something that the company is trying to understand but falls flat quite often.
Reading it again, it seems like there are a lot of half finished thoughts and other issues with this - so much so that this might be a draft copy that someone was supposed to edit and return to Kirby as opposed to publish to the website (good thing they work with such precision and efficiency). In particular - even the most basic of word processing programs will catch errors like not capitalizing "North American" and "European".
The rest is standard fair from GW. Who remembers RPGs and CCGs? Well, everyone (anecdotal for certain - but just for giggles use the Google Trend tool to compare any and all GW related searches to something like Dungeons and Dragons, Pokémon, Magic the Gathering...). Internet retailers being bad for business because they don't support the community - enter GW's one man stores with no gaming, limited hours and GW's new and improved internet store. 3D printers... I can just imagine what the "Citadel 3D Printer" will print like based on any number of the other efforts GW has made to do anything other than miniatures...
timd wrote: What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
To my eyes it just looks like a dig on the American legal system, though that could just be jingoistic of me. Kirby could be referring to the courts in general and making a comment on the laws being bad at protecting nebulous concepts like "piles of skulls." See, the law views creative expression as a form of property; a hog, so to speak. In order to do this the law draws finite (if somewhat elastic) boundaries around individual acts of creative expression, much like patent law acts like a deed to a piece of property, laying out the boundaries that separates one invention from another and from the general pool of human wisdom and experience.
In the case of creative expression, the law does this by defining your "hog" as something called "protected expression," i.e. that (and only that) which is unique to a work of artistic expression that actually exists in material form; a "tangible medium of expression." In short, your hog is only your hog, not all hogs, or all hogs of one kind, or one part of all hogs. You only get your specific hog, we'll call her Bessie.
Thus, when you sue someone for unfairly appropriating Bessie, you've got to be able to describe Bessie, show proof that you own Bessie, and demonstrate that the defendant took Bessie. It isn't enough to say that you are a hog farmer and the plaintiff is also a hog farmer. It isn't enough to say that it was your idea to breed hogs like Bessie, or that the defendant took his ideas about hog raising from watching you raise up Bessie.
For a company that repeatedly tried to protect ideas, and I mean that literally - Alan Merrett literally testified that GW was asserting an idea against CHS, I expect that having to go through a justice systems that regards ideas as ownable as imaginary hogs was very frustrating.
What it fails to recognize though is that if it were tried under the utterly refined laws of the UK - it would have been tossed out on its ear (Lucas v Ainsworth).
Automatically Appended Next Post: BTW - if this is a hoax (that someone managed to hack into GW's website and load onto their server) it is pretty thorough. They remembered to change the name of the PDF author to Rachel Tongue - the secretary for GW and PDF author of most of GW's releases.
The Supreme Court ruled that the stormtrooper helmets were film props, not models or art. Doesn't really relate to the chapterhouse case.
Actually what they found was not that they were props - but toys. Their primary purpose is for play as opposed to art for the sake of art. Further, they are a design under UK law and are time limited as such. The design right for probably 95% of GW's catalog has expired. For further clarification, refer to Justice Mann's findings on his determination of what is art. For further information on design rights - refer to the IPO.
-it's stupid piece of writing. Of course it is, Kirby's a corporate guy. Corporate propaganda pieces are always stupid and trying to spin everything in best possible light and often end up sounding hilarious. No exceptions. Did you see the letter with which Elop fired thousands of people from Microsoft? Kirby has NOTHING on Elop when it comes to stupid corporate language.
-Kirby's stepping down as CEO. Totally expected, AIUI Kirby doing the double chairs thing was always going to be somewhat temporary. Of course there is a caveat that he hints that he will continue if no suitable candidate is found, AND he will still continue as Chairman of the Board. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
-Steve Jobs comparison was surprisingly (though maybe unintentionally) adept in that Apple was and is extremely militant in using legal challenges to hunt down any actors, no matter how small, which it saw as a threat, including Apple fan sites and blogs. Hmm, sound familiar?
-GW website costed £4 million is somehow "OMG". I fail to see why. Sure it's not particularly GREAT site but exorbitant amount of money spent to seemingly crappy result is common enough in the world of corporate websites. Finnish State Railroads spent three years and 15 million euros for this site. It crashed within 3 hours of its induction...
Azreal13 wrote: It is stuff like this, and let's face it, it isn't the first time we've had total mind fethery from Kirby in a report, which is a matter of public record, that causes me to regard anyone who argues so hard in defence of GW with such disbelief.
But Az, can't'cha hear the hooves'a thundering? Can you not see the glint of the polished white armour on the horizon, as these grant Knights rush forward to defend King Kirby and all the crazy stuff he's saying? If they're not already here they will certainly be here soon.
You know their MO. We won't see so much as a silvered tip for a few days, and then someone will jump on something that nobody actually said and strawman the feth out of it.
timd wrote: What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
To my eyes it just looks like a dig on the American legal system, though that could just be jingoistic of me. Kirby could be referring to the courts in general and making a comment on the laws being bad at protecting nebulous concepts like "piles of skulls." See, the law views creative expression as a form of property; a hog, so to speak. In order to do this the law draws finite (if somewhat elastic) boundaries around individual acts of creative expression, much like patent law acts like a deed to a piece of property, laying out the boundaries that separates one invention from another and from the general pool of human wisdom and experience.
In the case of creative expression, the law does this by defining your "hog" as something called "protected expression," i.e. that (and only that) which is unique to a work of artistic expression that actually exists in material form; a "tangible medium of expression." In short, your hog is only your hog, not all hogs, or all hogs of one kind, or one part of all hogs. You only get your specific hog, we'll call her Bessie.
Thus, when you sue someone for unfairly appropriating Bessie, you've got to be able to describe Bessie, show proof that you own Bessie, and demonstrate that the defendant took Bessie. It isn't enough to say that you are a hog farmer and the plaintiff is also a hog farmer. It isn't enough to say that it was your idea to breed hogs like Bessie, or that the defendant took his ideas about hog raising from watching you raise up Bessie.
For a company that repeatedly tried to protect ideas, and I mean that literally - Alan Merrett literally testified that GW was asserting an idea against CHS, I expect that having to go through a justice systems that regards ideas as ownable as imaginary hogs was very frustrating.
What it fails to recognize though is that if it were tried under the utterly refined laws of the UK - it would have been tossed out on its ear (Lucas v Ainsworth).
Automatically Appended Next Post: BTW - if this is a hoax (that someone managed to hack into GW's website and load onto their server) it is pretty thorough. They remembered to change the name of the PDF author to Rachel Tongue - the secretary for GW and PDF author of most of GW's releases.
The Supreme Court ruled that the stormtrooper helmets were film props, not models or art. Doesn't really relate to the chapterhouse case.
My recollection is that the Court rules in what they werent (sculpture) not what they were, but I only took a passing interest.
timd wrote: What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
To my eyes it just looks like a dig on the American legal system, though that could just be jingoistic of me. Kirby could be referring to the courts in general and making a comment on the laws being bad at protecting nebulous concepts like "piles of skulls." See, the law views creative expression as a form of property; a hog, so to speak. In order to do this the law draws finite (if somewhat elastic) boundaries around individual acts of creative expression, much like patent law acts like a deed to a piece of property, laying out the boundaries that separates one invention from another and from the general pool of human wisdom and experience.
In the case of creative expression, the law does this by defining your "hog" as something called "protected expression," i.e. that (and only that) which is unique to a work of artistic expression that actually exists in material form; a "tangible medium of expression." In short, your hog is only your hog, not all hogs, or all hogs of one kind, or one part of all hogs. You only get your specific hog, we'll call her Bessie.
Thus, when you sue someone for unfairly appropriating Bessie, you've got to be able to describe Bessie, show proof that you own Bessie, and demonstrate that the defendant took Bessie. It isn't enough to say that you are a hog farmer and the plaintiff is also a hog farmer. It isn't enough to say that it was your idea to breed hogs like Bessie, or that the defendant took his ideas about hog raising from watching you raise up Bessie.
For a company that repeatedly tried to protect ideas, and I mean that literally - Alan Merrett literally testified that GW was asserting an idea against CHS, I expect that having to go through a justice systems that regards ideas as ownable as imaginary hogs was very frustrating.
What it fails to recognize though is that if it were tried under the utterly refined laws of the UK - it would have been tossed out on its ear (Lucas v Ainsworth).
Automatically Appended Next Post: BTW - if this is a hoax (that someone managed to hack into GW's website and load onto their server) it is pretty thorough. They remembered to change the name of the PDF author to Rachel Tongue - the secretary for GW and PDF author of most of GW's releases.
The Supreme Court ruled that the stormtrooper helmets were film props, not models or art. Doesn't really relate to the chapterhouse case.
Actually what they found was not that they were props - but toys. Their primary purpose is for play as opposed to art for the sake of art. Further, they are a design under UK law and are time limited as such. The design right for probably 95% of GW's catalog has expired. For further clarification, refer to Justice Mann's findings on his determination of what is art. For further information on design rights - refer to the IPO.
Just googled/read the court ruling myself and you are correct. My apologies.
Backfire wrote: Nearly all companies, in fact, hate Internet. Even those whose business revolves around it, or takes place entirely within it. It is just too uncontrollable. Even companies like Google and Facebook are in constant conflict with the Netizens.
Sure. but most of them are also realising that it's here to stay, and are making an effort to find ways to make it work for them.
For a company that (according to statements from their own CEO and Chairman) relies almost entirely on word of mouth to sell their product to not use social networking, remove all content from their website and actively try to suppress discussion of upcoming product is just mind-boggling.
Wait, they spent HOW MUCH on a single WEBSITE!?!? I, or any member of my class could have bashed that heap of gak together within a day for far far less than they paid for that.
Finally atleast we are seeing Kirby step down though. About bloody time.
Finally atleast we are seeing Kirby step down though. About bloody time.
That really isn't a change. He has been the non-executive Chairman a couple of times - never changes anything. He hand selects his CEO and whoever he chooses gets the spot. The rest of the board are stooges and don't care enough to go against him (if they even had the spine to to begin with...though likely not...since they were hand selected by him as well).
Wonder if this preamble will clear up any of the confusion in Kirby hand picking his directors and them being stooges...sorry, kronies...to Kirby (if they won't take his own words for it - the chances for reasoned discourse are lost).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
KommissarKarl wrote: Does anyone have any idea when the actual financials will be in?
Tomorrow:
Upcoming events
•29 July 2014 – Announcement of full year results
paulson games wrote: Does anyone else picture this being written on shaky hands after downing a bottle of Bourbon and all the while contemplating eating the business end of a revolver?
Paulson, as someone who was wrongly and unnecessarily involved in the beginning of the legal proceedings mentioned in the preamble, can you (within the terms of your settlement and/or NDA) confirm or deny that someone stole GW's hog? I suspect the UK legal system is better set up to deal with Grand Fish and Chips Theft than the subsequent post-colonial system we have here.
I don't care about that. I want to know his opinion on 3d printers and how he is planning for it.
Laemos wrote: Am I the only one who sees this more like a wish list than a legit memo from Kirby?
Pretty much, yeah, as it is from the GW website, and the document was authored by the GW secretary. The odds of it being fake, frankly, the odds of it EVER being fake, are essentially zero.
"It mattered not one jot what her CV said. Appointing NXDs because of their careers rather than who they are is at the heart of the rot in the corporate world." - Tom Kirby
Sean_OBrien wrote: BTW - if this is a hoax (that someone managed to hack into GW's website and load onto their server) it is pretty thorough. They remembered to change the name of the PDF author to Rachel Tongue - the secretary for GW and PDF author of most of GW's releases.
I went to GW's site and figured, hmm, maybe they'd put the report in a directory a bit before they put up a entry with a link so I took a look at how they organized their directory, found you could indeed access their directories as they made them public and found the three files when I put in the current year and month as directories.
When i first read what I found there, i was like... no... this can't be real. Then I looked at the other files and read the previous year's preamble and though it wasn't really that out of character for Kirby.
So I posted it on Warseer and it got reposted here. It's been fun watching other people react I too was incredulous at first. It was just so super villian monolgue, that I barely believed it was real.
Sean_OBrien wrote:
BTW - if this is a hoax (that someone managed to hack into GW's website and load onto their server) it is pretty thorough. They remembered to change the name of the PDF author to Rachel Tongue - the secretary for GW and PDF author of most of GW's releases.
I went to GW's site and figured, hmm, maybe they'd put the report in a directory a bit before they put up a entry with a link so I took a look at how they organized their directory, found you could indeed access their directories as they made them public and found the three files when I put in the current year and month as directories.
When i first read what I found there, i was like... no... this can't be real. Then I looked at the other files and read the previous year's preamble and though it wasn't really that out of character for Kirby.
So I posted it on Warseer and it got reposted here. It's been fun watching other people react I too was incredulous at first. It was just so super villian monolgue, that I barely believed it was real.
timd wrote: What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
To my eyes it just looks like a dig on the American legal system, though that could just be jingoistic of me. Kirby could be referring to the courts in general and making a comment on the laws being bad at protecting nebulous concepts like "piles of skulls." See, the law views creative expression as a form of property; a hog, so to speak. In order to do this the law draws finite (if somewhat elastic) boundaries around individual acts of creative expression, much like patent law acts like a deed to a piece of property, laying out the boundaries that separates one invention from another and from the general pool of human wisdom and experience.
In the case of creative expression, the law does this by defining your "hog" as something called "protected expression," i.e. that (and only that) which is unique to a work of artistic expression that actually exists in material form; a "tangible medium of expression." In short, your hog is only your hog, not all hogs, or all hogs of one kind, or one part of all hogs. You only get your specific hog, we'll call her Bessie.
Thus, when you sue someone for unfairly appropriating Bessie, you've got to be able to describe Bessie, show proof that you own Bessie, and demonstrate that the defendant took Bessie. It isn't enough to say that you are a hog farmer and the plaintiff is also a hog farmer. It isn't enough to say that it was your idea to breed hogs like Bessie, or that the defendant took his ideas about hog raising from watching you raise up Bessie.
For a company that repeatedly tried to protect ideas, and I mean that literally - Alan Merrett literally testified that GW was asserting an idea against CHS, I expect that having to go through a justice systems that regards ideas as ownable as imaginary hogs was very frustrating.
What it fails to recognize though is that if it were tried under the utterly refined laws of the UK - it would have been tossed out on its ear (Lucas v Ainsworth).
Automatically Appended Next Post: BTW - if this is a hoax (that someone managed to hack into GW's website and load onto their server) it is pretty thorough. They remembered to change the name of the PDF author to Rachel Tongue - the secretary for GW and PDF author of most of GW's releases.
The Supreme Court ruled that the stormtrooper helmets were film props, not models or art. Doesn't really relate to the chapterhouse case.
It does when a preeminent authority on UK copyright law, who advises the government about how to write their laws, opines pro bono that under the lucasfilm decision, GW's manufactured products would likely be considered "toys" and therefore not protected by copyright in the UK. You can read his published report if you like.
timd wrote: What I want to hear is Weeble's analysis and commentary on "It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another."
To my eyes it just looks like a dig on the American legal system, though that could just be jingoistic of me. Kirby could be referring to the courts in general and making a comment on the laws being bad at protecting nebulous concepts like "piles of skulls." See, the law views creative expression as a form of property; a hog, so to speak. In order to do this the law draws finite (if somewhat elastic) boundaries around individual acts of creative expression, much like patent law acts like a deed to a piece of property, laying out the boundaries that separates one invention from another and from the general pool of human wisdom and experience.
In the case of creative expression, the law does this by defining your "hog" as something called "protected expression," i.e. that (and only that) which is unique to a work of artistic expression that actually exists in material form; a "tangible medium of expression." In short, your hog is only your hog, not all hogs, or all hogs of one kind, or one part of all hogs. You only get your specific hog, we'll call her Bessie.
Thus, when you sue someone for unfairly appropriating Bessie, you've got to be able to describe Bessie, show proof that you own Bessie, and demonstrate that the defendant took Bessie. It isn't enough to say that you are a hog farmer and the plaintiff is also a hog farmer. It isn't enough to say that it was your idea to breed hogs like Bessie, or that the defendant took his ideas about hog raising from watching you raise up Bessie.
For a company that repeatedly tried to protect ideas, and I mean that literally - Alan Merrett literally testified that GW was asserting an idea against CHS, I expect that having to go through a justice systems that regards ideas as ownable as imaginary hogs was very frustrating.
What it fails to recognize though is that if it were tried under the utterly refined laws of the UK - it would have been tossed out on its ear (Lucas v Ainsworth).
Automatically Appended Next Post: BTW - if this is a hoax (that someone managed to hack into GW's website and load onto their server) it is pretty thorough. They remembered to change the name of the PDF author to Rachel Tongue - the secretary for GW and PDF author of most of GW's releases.
The Supreme Court ruled that the stormtrooper helmets were film props, not models or art. Doesn't really relate to the chapterhouse case.
It does when a preeminent authority on UK copyright law, who advises the government about how to write their laws, opines pro bono that under the lucasfilm decision, GW's manufactured products would likely be considered "toys" and therefore not protected by copyright in the UK. You can read his published report if you like.
UK courts do not like it when companies try to feed them bs
I wouldn't be suprised at all if there were holes in GW's sites. BL had an open FTP server sitting somewhere with a bunch of audiobooks a while back.
How could this be when they spend millions of pounds on their creation?
Security for the website wouldve added another $250,000,000 to the price tag. Which they couldn't fit into the budget due to litigous pursuits. GW corporate has an expensive hobby too! See, we aren't so different after all.
I wouldn't be suprised at all if there were holes in GW's sites. BL had an open FTP server sitting somewhere with a bunch of audiobooks a while back.
How could this be when they spend millions of pounds on their creation?
Security for the website wouldve added another $250,000,000 to the price tag. Which they couldn't fit into the budget due to litigous pursuits. GW corporate has an expensive hobby too! See, we aren't so different after all.
Amazingly a simple htaccess file would solve it in a heartbeat - something that any 1st year computer science dropouts could tell them...but they all have crap attitudes, so GW won't talk to them. Total cost - might as well be free...created in Notepad using high tech copy/paste techniques and uploaded to the root directory using any old FTP program.
I won't even bill them for my consulting fee for that free little tidbit of information...wonder how long it will take them to implement it.
I almost feel bad for Kirby for saying this, but this made my day brighter. He has done little good for the hobby or company and I have been looking forward to a change in their management. Although, of course, it is too early to say, this could end up turning around GW, if they hire someone competent. Imagine a return to the golden years of GW... *drools slightly*
Soggy Kittenz wrote: I almost feel bad for Kirby for saying this, but this made my day brighter. He has done little good for the hobby or company and I have been looking forward to a change in their management. Although, of course, it is too early to say, this could end up turning around GW, if they hire someone competent. Imagine a return to the golden years of GW... *drools slightly*
Credit where it is due, if it wasn't for Kirby, GW may have disappeared a long time ago. His greatest crimes are overstaying his welcome, not moving with the times and failing to acknowledge he isn't Steve fethin Jobs
I wouldn't be suprised at all if there were holes in GW's sites. BL had an open FTP server sitting somewhere with a bunch of audiobooks a while back.
How could this be when they spend millions of pounds on their creation?
Security for the website wouldve added another $250,000,000 to the price tag. Which they couldn't fit into the budget due to litigous pursuits. GW corporate has an expensive hobby too! See, we aren't so different after all.
Amazingly a simple htaccess file would solve it in a heartbeat - something that any 1st year computer science dropouts could tell them...but they all have crap attitudes, so GW won't talk to them. Total cost - might as well be free...created in Notepad using high tech copy/paste techniques and uploaded to the root directory using any old FTP program.
I won't even bill them for my consulting fee for that free little tidbit of information...wonder how long it will take them to implement it.
When the "attitude before skills" approach bites you in the arse.
So I have been thinking about this after reading it a few times earlier this morning. The thing that sticks in my mind the most is how unprofessional it seems. Comments or any piece of writing from other large companies etc etc are all incredibly well written and thought out etc.
But this seems like its written very unprofessionally and somewhat without the right kind of thought behind it.
I think this preamble was written by a crazy person. It's random...bizarre and incoherent in several places. If my boss wrote something like this my resume would be out immediately. Honest to God this is a nutsy preamble.
I seem to remember it being lauded by a newspaper (Daily Telegraph, Financial Times?) with his last report as it showed a no nonsense plain speaking style.
YakManDoo wrote: I think this preamble was written by a crazy person. It's random...bizarre and incoherent in several places. If my boss wrote something like this my resume would be out immediately. Honest to God this is a nutsy preamble.
Anyone else agreed he is probably insane? I mean the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same results.
I mean he keeps dening that the internet is useful over and over. Trying to ignore its existance, yet it still exists. I mean it was only a matter of time before you know everyone saw he was insane.
Da Boss wrote: Man, the more I read it, the more convinced I become of a really unhealthy culture at GW corporate. Kirby sounds deranged.
Edited by insaniak. Let's not get carried away, hmm?
Fair point Insaniak, but maybe TK was drowning his sorrows in a pint or two while writing this piece of classic literature, it would explain the level of rambling-ness and out and out bitterness that comes through.
OTOH it shows that GW has serious issues from the top down.
Tsilber wrote: So another doomsday report, the sky is falling for GW... Same old song for 20 years boys and girls.
You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but d'you fancy backing that thinking up with any sort of facts or figures at all? Or would you perhaps want to wait less than 24 hours so you'll have all those astonishing performance numbers to make us all look like fools with?
Kirby stands there at the top of this citadel, carved by his own hands, while the masses foaming below. They, nay, the whole world will look up at him and yell "save GW!"
And he will whisper "who still remember Pokemon anyway?"
Tsilber wrote: So another doomsday report, the sky is falling for GW... Same old song for 20 years boys and girls.
Did you read the preamble? Any thoughts?
Thoughts are not the kind of thing Kirby hires.
He hires for attitude, that means screaming at the top of your lungs as you bash together two lumps of green stuff, or smashing computer keys with your face as you program their new GW website.
kestral wrote: Can't be real. No one running a major company writes that poorly.
As stated before, it's linked directly from GW's website. It is either a super crazy-elaborate hoax, or it's real. And given previous...*ahem* speeches by Tom Kirby, it's pretty consistent with his style.
kestral wrote: Can't be real. No one running a major company writes that poorly.
As stated before, it's linked directly from GW's website. It is either a super crazy-elaborate hoax, or it's real. And given previous...*ahem* speeches by Tom Kirby, it's pretty consistent with his style.
I believe Kirby has snorted too much of his own product to be coherent anymore.
All those lines of Space Marines eventually takes a toll on the cognitive portions of your brain.
I know one direct effect losing Merrett would cause (from a 40K lore perspective), but I see this as a "be careful what you wish for" situation.
Yonan wrote: The hooves... the thunder of the hooves is deafening!
As the sun rises, we may need to put on our sunglasses to protect from the blinding reflection.
I doubt that anything would happen to the lore, it has already been well established for the last 20+ years that the 41st millennium and its grimdark nature would actually change very little other than perhaps some minutiae. It would be the same universe with the same factions, nothing significant would change.
Back on topic: The board needs a leader that is willing to do what needs to be done, the hero they need, not the hero they want.
Whoever takes over needs to see the good in reducing GW stores (at least in the US), increase brand awareness, support the community, embrace the FLGS, reduce the barrier to entry.
I've been reading this thread off and on throughout the day,... I love you all.
Has anyone noticed the song and dance about 3D printing... it seems like a man jingling keys to an infant. He's doing a misdirection without actually talking about what's gnawing on their feet while saying "don't worry about the lion in the other room!" No mention of the competition that is not only offering gorgeous models, but also cheaper barriers to entry and overall cost to play miniatures games. Many of which can be seen as direct descendants of their own specialist games they crap-canned.
I had an extremely difficult time reading this document. One, because it was poorly written and couldn't understand it. Two, because I couldn't believe what was being said. I very much enjoy the discussion over what the "hogs" line meant. I think we can talk about Preamble As Intended versus Preamble As Written all day, but until they issues a financial FAQ, we just have to all decide how we'd write our own Dear John exit letters.
Well, Kirby is degenerating into a barely-literate goatman snorting and spewing nonsense while simultaneously admitting how messed up GW is.
Magical quotes of fail! "Games Workshop has had a really good year. If your measure of 'good' is the current financial year's numbers, you may not agree."
"We have, this last year, spent an indecent amount of your money trying to stop someone sealing our ideas and images"
Things that don't belong in a professional business document! Yaaaaay!
"...That will not happen in the next few years (or, in City-speak, 'forever')"
"...so those of you who want to see an end to these preambles (rhymes with rambles)..."
Seriously, I've applied for jobs and whatnot in my life in the corporate world. If I put something like preambles (rhymes like rambles) or other weird little jokes in parenthesis throughout my document, no way I'd ever be hired. They'd think I was a nut.
It's funny but not in the "ha ha" way, more like the "Oh boy, this is awkward".
xraytango wrote: I doubt that anything would happen to the lore, it has already been well established for the last 20+ years that the 41st millennium and its grimdark nature would actually change very little other than perhaps some minutiae. It would be the same universe with the same factions, nothing significant would change.
Well, let's just say that you don't know what I know and leave it at that. I can't really talk about it, and while the shift in attitude is something I'd welcome, I do wonder what else would change and that worries me more.
Soggy Kittenz wrote: I almost feel bad for Kirby for saying this, but this made my day brighter. He has done little good for the hobby or company and I have been looking forward to a change in their management. Although, of course, it is too early to say, this could end up turning around GW, if they hire someone competent. Imagine a return to the golden years of GW... *drools slightly*
Credit where it is due, if it wasn't for Kirby, GW may have disappeared a long time ago. His greatest crimes are overstaying his welcome, not moving with the times and failing to acknowledge he isn't Steve fethin Jobs
What exactly did Kirby due to help save GW?
I'm not being sarcastic I'm seriously asking here. I know next to nothing about the corporate history of GW and its profit ups and downs...
go here and click on the preamble. It's not "live"yet but since nobody at GW knows how to properly run a website (even one you spend millions on) it's easily accessible...
go here and click on the preamble. It's not "live"yet but since nobody at GW knows how to properly run a website (even one you spend millions on) it's easily accessible...
Tsilber wrote: So another doomsday report, the sky is falling for GW... Same old song for 20 years boys and girls.
You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but d'you fancy backing that thinking up with any sort of facts or figures at all? Or would you perhaps want to wait less than 24 hours so you'll have all those astonishing performance numbers to make us all look like fools with?
No facts or evidence required and have no intention to make anyone look like fools. I just stated the facts, its another 'Gw is terrible and/or going under type article/post/thread', the same thing thats been said for years (i guess this would be my fancy backing).... Yet the world has kept spinning and will keep spinning and GW will continue to exist is all Im stating, I do not see anything in the report or this thread that has not been seen or accused before. Maybe this will be it, this will be the year,, who knows /shrug...
No facts or evidence required and have no intention to make anyone look like fools. I just stated the facts, its another 'Gw is terrible and/or going under type article/post/thread', the same thing thats been said for year.... Yet the world has kept spinning and will keep spinning and GW will continue to exist is all Im stating, I do not see anything in the report or this thread that has not been seen or accused before. Maybe this will be it, this will be the year,, who knows /shrug...
Okay, "the world keeps spinning" has nothing to do with it. And at first you say it's not going to happen, then it's been said for 20 years, and now who knows? You're waffling anytime tries to discuss the matter. Games Workshop has been doing terrible things to customers and independent retailers. And they are worse than any year previously of recent (with no Golden Parachute deal that we know of) There is actual hard financial evidence to correspond to with this. There is discernible trends within the business to sell you items with objectively worse quality with a higher price; thus the value of the brand is dropping. We know LotR/Hobbit is dead. We can see that Fantasy is being ignored. And we now have extremely placating releases for armies, no-risk codices, and insane "collector's editions." None of these things add up to a healthy company in solid standing. I would ask have you ignored many of the larger threads filled with good knowledge? Have you read the The Future of Games Day and Games Workshop series?
If you have any ground to still defend GW after this little spat of Kirby's and what's to come tomorrow, then please speak up. If it's "I have no problem with the games or prices," well then great. Your opinion is noted and it probably won't be enough to right a listing ship unless you suddenly have a lot of cash to buy "all the stuff."
No facts or evidence required and have no intention to make anyone look like fools. I just stated the facts, its another 'Gw is terrible and/or going under type article/post/thread', the same thing thats been said for year.... Yet the world has kept spinning and will keep spinning and GW will continue to exist is all Im stating, I do not see anything in the report or this thread that has not been seen or accused before. Maybe this will be it, this will be the year,, who knows /shrug...
Okay, "the world keeps spinning" has nothing to do with it. And at first you say it's not going to happen, then it's been said for 20 years, and now who knows? You're waffling anytime tries to discuss the matter. Games Workshop has been doing terrible things to customers and independent retailers. And they are worse than any year previously. There is actual hard financial evidence to correspond to with this. There is discernible trends within the business to sell you items with objectively worse quality with a higher price; thus the value of the brand is dropping. We know LotR/Hobbit is dead. We can see that Fantasy is being ignored. And we now have extremely placating releases for armies, no-risk codices, and insane "collector's editions." None of these things add up to a healthy company in solid standing. I would ask have you ignored many of the larger threads filled with good knowledge? Have you read the The Future of Games Day and Games Workshop series?
If you have any ground to still defend GW after this little spat and what's to come tomorrow, then please speak up. If it's "I have no problem with the games or prices," well then great. Your opinion is noted and it probably won't be enough to right a listing ship unless you suddenly have a lot of cash to buy "all the stuff."
LOL, listen. I was simply stating GW has been on this downward spiral for years, its been said there is tons of evidence and financial reports to support this. Its general consensus this is the worse year and I'm sure next year it will all be said again. I was merely stating that with all this, GW seems to pull through still. I was saying GW would continue to exist, i wasn't waffling man on my last post, stop twisting words and views simply because I do not agree with you that GW's demise is coming. I was stating History and matters of fact, not hypothesis on reports I read.
I wasn't defending or saying GW was doing the right thing either... i did not say that one time in this thread. I guess It takes more then reports and blogs to convince me GW will fall apart since it has managed to last this long. Again, this is not defending them or saying they are doing things correctly, it's clear evidence and the decline in customers/hobbiest they must not be.
I really read that as, Kirby is downplaying all the heat he is getting, and simple leaving to avoid a much more heated ending.
I am not nay saying GW. I have high hopes in next January they can recover what they are under new CEO position and make leaps and bounds to rebuilding a good customer, company relationship again.
Tsilber wrote: LOL, listen. I was simply stating GW has been on this downward spiral for years
Is it still the same spiral if it goes from a 10 degree downward angle to a 90 degree downward angle?
I think its just a faster downward spiral.
Who would you like see jump in as CEO if it does in fact happen? A fellow hobbiest? A Business man who never touched the game? A former employee? should this be asked in a different thread? I'd be interested in what current and former 40k hobbiest would want and think would work best.
Again, this is not defending them or saying they are doing things correctly, it's clear evidence and the decline in customers/hobbiest they must not be.
You post one way and then back track another. Choose some firm ground and maybe some folks might not appear to be on your case. There are several people all asking you to clarify or provide facts and you've gone from "I'm all about them" to "None required."
This time is different. We have plenty of economically minded folks here and elsewhere all saying "this crap doesn't look good." We have also the same folks stating that once a public entity like GW gets into a death spiral, unless you literally are Steve Jobs (ironic Kirby would say him), your company is sunk. And it's not over a few years sunk. It's months to maybe a year sunk, like TSR.
VanHallan wrote: Is this guy like a Billy Madison type of CEO or something? If that is what gets released to reassure investors or recruit new ones, good lord.
I can certainly see a similar reaction to a question on business ethics ; p
Again, this is not defending them or saying they are doing things correctly, it's clear evidence and the decline in customers/hobbiest they must not be.
You post one way and then back track another. Choose some firm ground and maybe some folks might not appear to be on your case. There are several people all asking you to clarify or provide facts and you've gone from "I'm all about them" to "None required."
This time is different. We have plenty of economically minded folks here and elsewhere all saying "this crap doesn't look good." We have also the same folks stating that once a public entity like GW gets into a death spiral, unless you literally are Steve Jobs (ironic Kirby would say him), your company is sunk. And it's not over a few years sunk. It's months to maybe a year sunk, like TSR.
Okay obviously you're upset about something and really want to try to argue which you know will end up just getting this thread closed....Ill try to spell it out for you anyway, try not to twist it around and simply read it for what im saying.
FACT: For years there have been reports about GW declining in sales, customer satisfaction or whatever. And there have been blogs or thread spoken about saying the same thing. (this means its been the same old song for years)
GW continues to exist. (The facts and evidence is GW still exist... so actual history and the present day was all that was required, no further evidence)
I even went on to say, heck maybe this will be the year (though I doubt it, since its all been said before) to try to reinforce I wasn't defending them or taking the argument "HEY GW WILL ALWAYS BE AROUND BECAUSE THEY DO THE RIGHT THING" , perhaps that got lost in translation.
But I did not defend GW one time here, the statements made above is not defending/saying that GW is doing the right thing, I did not say that once, and even had to point this out. You can take it like that if you like, but its not the case and I have said that... people like yourself can get on my case all you like if it pleases you. But the way you twist my post around, quote partial sentences and try to bully me around on this thread (which isnt working), really does not give positive credibility to your post that crucify or attack GW.
Okay obviously you're upset about something and really want to try to argue which you know will end up just getting this thread closed....Ill try to spell it out for you anyway, try not to twist it around and simply read it for what im saying.
FACT: For years there have been reports about GW declining in sales, customer satisfaction or whatever. And there have been blogs or thread spoken about saying the same thing. (this means its been the same old song for years)
GW continues to exist. (The facts and evidence is GW still exist... so actual history and the present day was all that was required, no further evidence)
I even went on to say, heck maybe this will be the year (though I doubt it, since its all been said before) to try to reinforce I wasn't defending them or taking the argument "HEY GW WILL ALWAYS BE AROUND" , perhaps that got lost in translation.
But I did not defend GW one time here, the statements made above is not defending/saying that GW is doing the right thing, I did not say that once, and even had to point this out. You can take it like that if you like, but its not the case and I have said that... people like yourself can get on my case all you like if it pleases you. But the way you twist my post around, quote partial sentences and try to bully me around on this thread (which isnt working), really does not put a lot of credibility to your post that crucify or attack GW.
No, I'm not upset. I am tired of the same nonsense being stated. It defies all the evidence. Games Workshop didn't fail previously thanks to landing the Lord of the Rings deal and have pumped up profits with price hikes (at lower sales volume) and cut costs to the bone. Nothing is left to cut but the millstones of stores, which will reduce sales volume, which will in turn further cut profits. Whether that can beat the spiral has to be seen, but anyone with economic smarts has said it's doubtful.
So your stance is to be a bit inflammatory with statements like "another sky is falling for GW" and then immedietely back peddle to whatever this stance is of "yea, not likely, maybe, whatever." It's not adding anything to the conversation. So why don't you address the three other folks who quoted you on your first statement instead of just me.
Who would you like see jump in as CEO if it does in fact happen? A fellow hobbiest? A Business man who never touched the game? A former employee? should this be asked in a different thread? I'd be interested in what current and former 40k hobbiest would want and think would work best.
Honestly, any of the guys that provided CHS with their
pro bono defense.
Who would you like see jump in as CEO if it does in fact happen? A fellow hobbiest? A Business man who never touched the game? A former employee? should this be asked in a different thread? I'd be interested in what current and former 40k hobbiest would want and think would work best.
Honestly, any of the guys that provided CHS with their
pro bono defense.
Or the guy writing those future of games workshop articles.
He'd be great at it.
In fact actually there would be nothing wrong with a business man who never touched the game. The problem with Kirby is he wants yes men working for him. A real business man should be smart enough to ask the design studio and those who do know the game their opinions.
Or the guy writing those future of games workshop articles.
He'd be great at it.
I think my head and my bank account would implode if that happened. The world's biggest 40k fanboy with executive level experience running Games Workshop?
Thanks for making me have a good thought about the future of 40k. There could be a good chance if that'd happen, I bet.
Okay obviously you're upset about something and really want to try to argue which you know will end up just getting this thread closed....Ill try to spell it out for you anyway, try not to twist it around and simply read it for what im saying.
FACT: For years there have been reports about GW declining in sales, customer satisfaction or whatever. And there have been blogs or thread spoken about saying the same thing. (this means its been the same old song for years)
GW continues to exist. (The facts and evidence is GW still exist... so actual history and the present day was all that was required, no further evidence)
I even went on to say, heck maybe this will be the year (though I doubt it, since its all been said before) to try to reinforce I wasn't defending them or taking the argument "HEY GW WILL ALWAYS BE AROUND" , perhaps that got lost in translation.
But I did not defend GW one time here, the statements made above is not defending/saying that GW is doing the right thing, I did not say that once, and even had to point this out. You can take it like that if you like, but its not the case and I have said that... people like yourself can get on my case all you like if it pleases you. But the way you twist my post around, quote partial sentences and try to bully me around on this thread (which isnt working), really does not put a lot of credibility to your post that crucify or attack GW.
No, I'm not upset. I am tired of the same nonsense being stated. It defies all the evidence. Games Workshop didn't fail previously thanks to landing the Lord of the Rings deal and have pumped up profits with price hikes (at lower sales volume) and cut costs to the bone. Nothing is left to cut but the millstones of stores, which will reduce sales volume, which will in turn further cut profits. Whether that can beat the spiral has to be seen, but anyone with economic smarts has said it's doubtful.
So your stance is to be a bit inflammatory with statements like "another sky is falling for GW" and then immedietely back peddle to whatever this stance is of "yea, not likely, maybe, whatever." It's not adding anything to the conversation. So why don't you address the three other folks who quoted you on your first statement instead of just me.
First glad you're not upset.
Second, 3? I do not see 3 responses to little ole me directly that i did not respond to. I mean Yonan made some sort of doomsday horse parody that i do not think requires me to respond. Someone else asked if a decline of 10% was the same as 90%, which I answered... And Azreal asked for evidence on what I stated which I thought we covered. What else was there? No idea were you are getting 3 from.
and again, there was no back peddling, your are reading into things, or mis reading it...
Either way, I understand your statement. Again not sure why you read into my post, perhaps its because I have backed GW in the past on other threads. But you're speaking of evidence, while I was merely stating the facts. Predictions of outcome can be made from both parties. Based on evidence and conclusions of hypothesis (which i am not disputing exist), You are saying there is strong case of outcome X. And based on the facts and the history surrounding this company, GW somehow managed to stay alive through the years.
Let me try to switch gears here for a second, I guess im kinda saying something along the lines of. There is a governor and a bunch of supporters claiming and putting out reports how this guy supports lowering taxs and will lower them, yet history shows every Governor has said the the same thing yet Taxs go up still. So I would say, "Yeah I'll believe the next Governor of CT is going to lower taxs when I see it''. Its not me defending the Governor, just saying it's the same ole song, he got elected and raised my taxs, world keep spinning. Again perhaps my past post of defending GW made you auto assume I was defending again.
Hopefully now that thats cleared up. Seriously Lord of the rings was there saving grace? I do not see anyone playing that game ever, and the price point alone on some of those kits deterred me from ever trying it. If lord of the rings was their panic button, they might be in bigger trouble then any of us can imagine.
This has to have been a joke report done having a few drinks to get some laughs from the other upper management. Then accidentally uploaded instead of the real one.
Probably the most unprofessionally written release from a company I've ever read.
