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 Azreal13 wrote:

Well, there is actually a legitimate argument in favour of what Kirby said, but as I've been subjected to the greatest display of passive aggression open to a Dakka user (I'm putting you on ignore, and I'm making damn sure everyone knows it!!) there's little point in my explaining it.

I thought that the greatest display was 'I'm putting you on Ignore, and I'm making damn sure everyone knows it - every time you post!'...

Hillarity ensues.

The Auld Grump - and Harpo does something funny.

 wuestenfux wrote:
The 3.5 CSM codex was overpowered like hell.
Once I played in a local tourney with 2 Lieutanents on bikes, 5x6 Daemonettes, 6 Daemonettes on Steeds, 3 Obliterator, and 1 Defiler. Each Lieutenant had 9 minor psychic powers in order to Siren. A model with Siren cannot be shot or target. Since nobody brought Black Templars, I won the tourney with ease. Did I mention that they wanted to kill me? No?

And like I said in the massive review I wrote when the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex came out, losing the 3.5 Codex was bad not because of the loss of power but the loss of flavour. FFS, the book had generic demons. How much more can we spell out how terrible that abortion of a Codex was? It destroyed the essence of Chaos by making everything the same.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I'm in the Uk, my flags just gone temporarily wonky.

Not sure I'd agree with the sentiment exactly, seems more people who really like Porsche, and those that really don't. But I guess if Kirby were the former, then it would make sense.

I mean, it isn't like I don't know what the point he was making was, it has always just struck me as odd that given a free choice, Ferrari, or even Rolls Royce (that's a much better one!) would have been better.

Maybe he was aiming for something that more people would see as possible, as opposed to Ferrari? Most people may think that one day they could buy a Porsche, but are realistic enough to realize they will never be able to afford a Ferrari?

Edit.

For someone you're meant to be ignoring you sure are paying a lot of attention to them. And you're going to get the thread locked. Just sayin'.

Oh, also "Haters gonna hate" is probably the single weakest 'get-out-of-having-to-make-an-actual-argument' card one can play at Dakka.

Wilfully ignoring GW's faults is also kinda silly. Again, just sayin'.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Yeesh, talk about sensitive. I disagree with Byte, get called a troll and put on ignore, Peregrine disagrees and gets accused of flaming?

In case you're reading this, as you wouldn't be the first person to publicly declare they were ignoring a poster only to somehow "forget" between making the declaration and clicking on the necessary button...

Disagreeing with what you say =\= a personal attack.

That happened to me with him about 2 years ago now. So I ignored him back and left him there.

Edit.

 Byte wrote:
How am I going to get the thread locked?

By talking about how you're ignoring people and complaining about being "flamed" instead of sticking to the topic. If you want to stop talking to people just do it, you don't have to yell to the whole world about how you're putting someone on ignore.

Its weird that I'm being singled out has some kind of GW defender, I just pointed out the unrest has been around for years and the general scenario will never change.

But the general scenario has changed. Over the history of GW they've seen periods of growth and periods of decline. And right now they're in a period of decline, or a period of stagnation at best. The fact that, in the past, concerns about the long-term health of the company have turned out to have been unjustified does not magically mean that this will continue to be the case.

People love to hate GW. Much like anything else that's mainstream in some circles. It falls into the category of "to big" to be cool.

No, people "love to hate GW" because GW is constantly making terrible decisions. It has nothing to do with how big they are or how cool they are, it's about the fact that GW is not a well-run business. It's about things like GW's CEO proudly declaring that they don't do market research, or GW's stubborn refusal to write rules that function "out of the box" without having to argue about how everything works. Things that other companies in the hobby don't fail so badly at.

Those that have issues with GW will tend to have issues with GW regardless of what the company does.

This is just nonsense. If GW started consistently making good decisions like other game companies a lot of the people who have issues with GW would be content. I don't know why you continue to act like GW's critics are just rabid hate monsters when people have told you plenty of legitimate disagreements that GW could fix.

What's so hard about trying to convey, "GW gets demonized, but the show goes on"

The fact that the show isn't going on. We know GW's financial state, and it isn't good. They're losing market share, losing profits, and just barely managing to compensate for the losses with cost cutting and price increases. The only reason GW still exists as a company after the past few years is that they started with near-complete dominance of the market and could take a significant drop in performance without actually losing money. But that initial advantage has been almost completely used up, GW has very little margin for error before they start losing money. And they are in serious danger of losing the "critical mass" factor where dominant market share gives even a weak product most of the new players entering the hobby, which would be a catastrophic loss in the long term even if GW continues to sell each box for more than the production costs for a while longer. If I was looking at GW from the point of view of an investor I'd be giving serious thought to pulling my money out before share prices start dropping.

Now, it's possible that GW will turn things around, and some people think GW has been making some positive steps in that direction. But if they do survive it will be because the show didn't go on. The show stopped, and GW started moving in a very different direction.

I think the two big things still going for 40k are....

1. A huge range. Lots of armies that are fully packed with miniatures. Even if you can find models you like more elsewhere you're unlikely to find such a complete range.

2. The number of existing players. When you choose a wargame, the number of existing players is such an important factor. A game could be awesome but it's meaningless if you can't find opponents. The fact GW find themselves in this position is just a case of being in the right place at the right time (largely in the 90's).

GW haven't been treating those things as the finite resources they are, it seems they might finally be starting to turn the corner on that one, we'll still have to wait and see, I think 8th ed will be very telling.

 Azreal13 wrote:
You know, as a bit of a petrol head, that "Porsche of miniatures" thing has always bothered me a bit.

Porsche are, broadly speaking, a mid range supercar manufacturer. Why not go with Aston Martin (similar market position but also a British marque and the whole Bond caché) or Lamborghini or Ferrari or something?

To call oneself the Porsche of anything seems like a curious lack of ambition if the intent is to portray yourself as the best of something.

You don't want to get into an argument about what is the 'best' of something like that

If anything, Aston Martin has something more of the 'old man poser's car' reputation about it, and aren't appealing to the same market as Porsche (which I think still people think of as 'sports car', despite their efforts with those dreadful 4x4 s)

Anyway, Kirby was obviously just using a term that everyone would instantly recognise as a luxury/high-end.

And for any newbies here who may have missed it, never miss a chance to post..

 Peregrine wrote:


But the general scenario has changed. Over the history of GW they've seen periods of growth and periods of decline. And right now they're in a period of decline, or a period of stagnation at best. The fact that, in the past, concerns about the long-term health of the company have turned out to have been unjustified does not magically mean that this will continue to be the case.

No, people "love to hate GW" because GW is constantly making terrible decisions. It has nothing to do with how big they are or how cool they are, it's about the fact that GW is not a well-run business. It's about things like GW's CEO proudly declaring that they don't do market research, or GW's stubborn refusal to write rules that function "out of the box" without having to argue about how everything works. Things that other companies in the hobby don't fail so badly at.

This is just nonsense. If GW started consistently making good decisions like other game companies a lot of the people who have issues with GW would be content. I don't know why you continue to act like GW's critics are just rabid hate monsters when people have told you plenty of legitimate disagreements that GW could fix.

The fact that the show isn't going on. We know GW's financial state, and it isn't good. They're losing market share, losing profits, and just barely managing to compensate for the losses with cost cutting and price increases. The only reason GW still exists as a company after the past few years is that they started with near-complete dominance of the market and could take a significant drop in performance without actually losing money. But that initial advantage has been almost completely used up, GW has very little margin for error before they start losing money. And they are in serious danger of losing the "critical mass" factor where dominant market share gives even a weak product most of the new players entering the hobby, which would be a catastrophic loss in the long term even if GW continues to sell each box for more than the production costs for a while longer. If I was looking at GW from the point of view of an investor I'd be giving serious thought to pulling my money out before share prices start dropping.

Now, it's possible that GW will turn things around, and some people think GW has been making some positive steps in that direction. But if they do survive it will be because the show didn't go on. The show stopped, and GW started moving in a very different direction.

The closest the GW show came to stopping was after the Lord of the Rings crash, nothing has been as bad since then and it has been over a decade since.

GW's financials are not bad at the moment, they are also doing better than barely managing, they are still making millions of pounds. When comparing GW to GW sure, things do not look as good as they have in the past, but there is no reason to believe that GW will do a Rackham, TSR or Ex-illis or......

Total War Warhammer will be an easy cash cow form now until Total War itself dies as a franchise, the game is just that good.

People do 'love to hate' GW, I have read posts that claim GW suck because of the Start collecting boxes, because they were cheaper than buying the boxes separately and this was a desperate and sleazy move. So for some people even lower prices are not worthy of merit.

GW could save alot of money by dropping their retail chain, but they would probably be reducing their potential for growth. Then where would we get new Wargaming buddies from? I imagine that they would have to come in (Lego style) from external IP's such as Star Wars. I am not sure how Warlord is doing with Terminator, or Prodos is doing with Alien vs Predator though, so maybe it is just a PPP thing?

The only bad decision they constantly make is to price Australia so unfairly.

 StygianBeach wrote:
Total War Warhammer will be an easy cash cow form now until Total War itself dies as a franchise, the game is just that good.

Oh dear... that's not really how that works. Most of that money will go to SEGA, which will come after the retailers and distributors take their cut. The licensing fee SEGA no doubt paid is just that: Paid. I really doubt GW gets an ongoing share in the game's success (or failure).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
The 3.5 CSM codex was overpowered like hell.
Once I played in a local tourney with 2 Lieutanents on bikes, 5x6 Daemonettes, 6 Daemonettes on Steeds, 3 Obliterator, and 1 Defiler. Each Lieutenant had 9 minor psychic powers in order to Siren. A model with Siren cannot be shot or target. Since nobody brought Black Templars, I won the tourney with ease. Did I mention that they wanted to kill me? No?

And like I said in the massive review I wrote when the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex came out, losing the 3.5 Codex was bad not because of the loss of power but the loss of flavour. FFS, the book had generic demons. How much more can we spell out how terrible that abortion of a Codex was? It destroyed the essence of Chaos by making everything the same.

Indeed, the 4th CSM codex has been one of the worst codices ever. Uninspired, unimaginable, un...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 StygianBeach wrote:
Total War Warhammer will be an easy cash cow form now until Total War itself dies as a franchise, the game is just that good.

Oh dear... that's not really how that works. Most of that money will go to SEGA, which will come after the retailers and distributors take their cut. The licensing fee SEGA no doubt paid is just that: Paid. I really doubt GW gets an ongoing share in the game's success (or failure).

Then why did the finnancial report meniton that TW:W was IP succes??? Its quite possible that GW gets some cuts each unit sold.

There's something like 50+ GW based games on the app store that's why royalties shot up, they whored out their IP to anyone that could pay.

Most of them are dreadful.

And their financial standing is not good they've lost nearly 20% of their model sales over three years that's shockingly bad and shows major decline in the player base they rely on.

herjan1987 wrote:
Then why did the finnancial report meniton that TW:W was IP succes???

What about IP success = constant revenue stream?

herjan1987 wrote:
Its quite possible that GW gets some cuts each unit sold.

Quite unlikely.

Some video games sell consistently well over the course of months if not years, most games however have a sudden burst in the week they are released and then die down.

Total War will have an ongoing stream of DLC for a while, if they're lucky that'll give them a bit of a revenue stream for a while.

But still, that's only a few million per year, GW can't rely on it to prop them up.

 StygianBeach wrote:
People do 'love to hate' GW, I have read posts that claim GW suck because of the Start collecting boxes, because they were cheaper than buying the boxes separately and this was a desperate and sleazy move. So for some people even lower prices are not worthy of merit.

That's a bit of a strawman. It's not really relevant that SOME people are idiots who hate anything GW does when people are highlighting very specific stupid things GW has done that you'd really struggle to put a positive spin on.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Some video games sell consistently well over the course of months if not years, most games however have a sudden burst in the week they are released and then die down.

Total War will have an ongoing stream of DLC for a while, if they're lucky that'll give them a bit of a revenue stream for a while.

But still, that's only a few million per year, GW can't rely on it to prop them up.

 StygianBeach wrote:
People do 'love to hate' GW, I have read posts that claim GW suck because of the Start collecting boxes, because they were cheaper than buying the boxes separately and this was a desperate and sleazy move. So for some people even lower prices are not worthy of merit.

That's a bit of a strawman. It's not really relevant that SOME people are idiots who hate anything GW does when people are highlighting very specific stupid things GW has done that you'd really struggle to put a positive spin on.

If I responded to something specific with my over generalised point, then I agree that I am in error.

I mainly wanted to point out that I have seen evidence that those people whom slag off GW regardless of GW's efforts do exist. I will agree that it is only some people though, and even then, the vast minority of people.

hobojebus wrote:


And their financial standing is not good they've lost nearly 20% of their model sales over three years that's shockingly bad and shows major decline in the player base they rely on.

Assuming you're citing the revenue drop, they've gone from 135m 3 years ago to 118m this year. So that's what ~12%?

I know I've said this to you before, but by all means be critical, God knows I am, but be accurate. Throwing around inaccurate and easily verifiable figures does nothing but undermine the legitimacy of any criticism and support the whole "haters goin hate" rhetoric.

Byte, I do assume you know what your talking about? How long have you been in the hobby?

I have been in since the late 90's and in all honesty GW has pretty much driven me away. I used to love GW - I would white knight for them, I would talk up about them and I regarded them as the best on the market.
Then the prices went up, the games I loved where trashed and I got disillusioned. I might have quit the hobby then, a slow and painful exit, but I happened to encounter Warmachine. And in doing so I found a better game which was cheaper to play and provided a superior product both in terms of models and game design and since then I have not looked back.
After Fantasy was destroyed I had almost nothing to back to GW for and so I abandoned it. The only reason I still play 40K is because it is so popular in my club where there is a certain elitism and fanaticism about GW.

Edit.

 Azreal13 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:


And their financial standing is not good they've lost nearly 20% of their model sales over three years that's shockingly bad and shows major decline in the player base they rely on.

Assuming you're citing the revenue drop, they've gone from 135m 3 years ago to 118m this year. So that's what ~12%?

I know I've said this to you before, but by all means be critical, God knows I am, but be accurate. Throwing around inaccurate and easily verifiable figures does nothing but undermine the legitimacy of any criticism and support the whole "haters goin hate" rhetoric.

No in talking about the 19% drop in model sales not revenue.

They are selling less models each year that is a fact.

There is zero evidence to support this, unless you're in possession of information beyond that included in the financial reports?

 StygianBeach wrote:
GW's financials are not bad at the moment, they are also doing better than barely managing, they are still making millions of pounds.

No, GW's financials right now are terrible. To look at the long-term health of the company you have to look beyond "did we make a profit this year" and look at things like why they made a profit, how they performed compared to last year, etc. And when we do that we see several red flags about GW's future:

1) Profit is decreasing, stagnant at best, while the market as a whole is growing. GW is still making money, but the amount of money they're making (adjusted for inflation) is on a bad trend. If the trend continues as it has been there's a serious danger that GW's profit margin will drop lower and lower until they're losing money, at which point the death spiral begins. And GW can't blame this on a temporary weak economy because other game companies are doing really well, it's a sign of problems with GW.

2) Sales volume is declining or stagnant while the market as a whole is growing. GW's prices are increasing, as a combination of increasing the prices on existing products and introducing more expensive new products. However, GW's revenue is not increasing to match. This means that GW is selling a smaller number of boxes at a higher profit per box. And since other companies in the market are not suffering a similar decline in sales volume this means that GW's market share is dropping. And market share is a very important thing for a community hobby like miniatures gaming, if GW loses too much market share they can find themselves in the beginning of a death spiral even if each box is still selling at a profit (for a short time).

3) GW's continued profits have been supported by aggressive cost cutting and side revenue from things like video game licenses. Obviously it's good to cut costs, but at some point you run out of things to cut. And if your continued profitability depends on cutting $X worth of costs to make up for $X worth of lost revenue you're in the death spiral once you run out of things that you can cut without suffering a drop in quality. Video game licenses are a similar problem. It's nice to get the money where you can, but it should be a red flag when a company is depending on revenue from things outside their main product lines and outside of their direct control to keep making a profit.

4) GW management proudly brags about things like not doing market research, or how "we tell the market what it is going to buy". This is a giant warning sign that GW doesn't understand why they're in trouble, doesn't understand how to get out of their current problems, and may not even acknowledge that they have a problem. GW isn't in the death spiral yet, but it's hard to have any confidence that they'll be able to reverse the bad trends before it's too late.

TL;DR: GW made a profit last year, but even companies that are making a profit can be in a bad position for the future.

Total War Warhammer will be an easy cash cow form now until Total War itself dies as a franchise, the game is just that good.

And, as pointed out, GW doesn't get that money. Warhammer Total War is probably an easy cash cow for the publisher, but GW is only getting the license payments from it. And GW, in a display of amazing incompetence, killed off the game that Warhammer Total War was licensed from. Now instead of saying "you played it on your PC, now play it on the table" the best GW can do is "we have this game which is kind of like the Warhammer universe". Instead of a powerful recruiting tool for their core products all GW is getting is some license payments.

People do 'love to hate' GW, I have read posts that claim GW suck because of the Start collecting boxes, because they were cheaper than buying the boxes separately and this was a desperate and sleazy move. So for some people even lower prices are not worthy of merit.

So? How many people are complaining that GW sucks because they offer starter sets at a discount? You can't just take a minority of stupid whiners and act like that means the people offering legitimate criticism of GW "love to hate".

GW could save alot of money by dropping their retail chain, but they would probably be reducing their potential for growth. Then where would we get new Wargaming buddies from? I imagine that they would have to come in (Lego style) from external IP's such as Star Wars. I am not sure how Warlord is doing with Terminator, or Prodos is doing with Alien vs Predator though, so maybe it is just a PPP thing?

Or they'd come in from independent stores selling GW products. I don't know how it works where you live, but in the US GW stores are a joke. There are lots of independent game stores everywhere that offer better prices on GW's own products, better store hours, better gaming space, better selection of non-GW products, etc. If every single GW store in the US closed overnight the hobby would continue on with minimal disruption, and hardly anyone would miss those stores.

 Azreal13 wrote:
There is zero evidence to support this, unless you're in possession of information beyond that included in the financial reports?

It's in the report last time model sales were down 5% the report before that it was 4%, added to the 10% from the two reports before that they have lost overall 19% of their model sales.

That's their core business that's shrinking.

Where? I'm going to need page numbers here, because that's nothing I've heard before.

All the PDFs are still on the GW Investor relations site.

Plus your maths is faulty regardless, because if something drops 10% year on year, the 10% drop in the second year is based on a lower starting figure (because it was already 10% down on the year before.)

 Azreal13 wrote:
Plus your maths is faulty regardless, because if something drops 10% year on year, the 10% drop in the second year is based on a lower starting figure (because it was already 10% down on the year before.)

Faulty, but not meaningfully so in this case. After 10%, 4%, 5% losses you're down to 82% of your starting point. The difference between 18% and 19% is irrelevant here, nobody is going to say "but it was only an 18% loss, everything is fine!" over that 1%.

(This is, of course, assuming that the 10%/4%/5% loss numbers are accurate and it's just about the math mistake.)

Nope. As I've already said, 135-118m in the last three reports.

So about 12.5%.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Nope. As I've already said, 135-118m in the last three reports.

So about 12.5%.

Then someone's numbers are wrong. A 10% drop followed by a 4% drop followed by a 5% drop leaves you at 82% of your starting point, or an 18% drop. So either your numbers for the starting and ending points are wrong, or hobojebus' numbers of 10%/4%/5% declines are wrong in addition to the math mistake.

My numbers aren't wrong. Taken straight from the reports.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Although hobojebus is conflating "model sales" with total revenue it seems, so probably not the most incisive interpretation.