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Maybe Bandai would buy the company, and initiate an odd mix of Giant Marine Robot collectable things.

Crimson Heretic wrote:

 notprop wrote:
And long before that the IP would have been put safely in the hands of a seperate entity entirely owned by the directors formerly of GW.

They'd try to sell it for movies etc first, relaunch the range second and then it would disappear.

Or worse, it would be bought by some American company and blander to within an inch of its existence and a range of soft toys, pre-paints, blind buy blisters and 18" action figures would be head toward a Toys R Us near you.

yeah or maybe they could get hustled to a third world country and be marketed as "made in great britain with pride"...*cough* range rover

I think made in America with Asbestos and Jesus Juice and definite no boob because bombs are the devils fun bags....er..cough?

To be honest, I think they'll get through this. They need to lower prices, stop OP characters for 6 points in 40k, and listen to feedback they were ignoring.

 notprop wrote:

Or worse, it would be bought by some American company and blander to within an inch of its existence and a range of soft toys, pre-paints, blind buy blisters and 18" action figures would be head toward a Toys R Us near you.

Why the American hate? We have companies like Revell/Monogram or Reaper that could make GW minis and stuff better then GW does right now. AND CHEAPER
Hell even if it went to WOTC I doubt we'd see pre-paints and soft stuff. Blind buy 'maybe' but it'd probably be promo stuff like what Hot Wheels does. And honestly you'd say 'no' to action figures?

Besides it's not like America does EVERYTHING better then the Brits: Cars, movies, p**n, food, military, government (which is terrifying in it's factuality.), industry, technology, medical, etc. etc. etc.

No hate on the British folks here but GW would of been well served if it had LEFT Britain and became an American company HQed solely in Baltimore. And kept their stuff in Memphis as well.

 notprop wrote:
Hasbro wouldn't be a rescue it would be a disaster!

Cuddly Space Marines and Orks in Happy Meals within 24 months. You have been warned!

You mean like what happened to D&D?

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
No hate on the British folks here but GW would of been well served if it had LEFT Britain and became an American company HQed solely in Baltimore. And kept their stuff in Memphis as well.

Moving GW's HQ to the USA might not be a bad thing for GW's legals, as they could spew litigation all around and get more of it to stick.
Manufacturing is mostly molds and machines, which they can load onto a ship. That's if all the rest was smashed up from the closure of Memphis. The technical team might have to go with it though.
But, how many of the creative team would want to move with it? I assume almost all of them at based in the Midlands near Nottingham.

Crimson Heretic wrote:

 notprop wrote:
And long before that the IP would have been put safely in the hands of a seperate entity entirely owned by the directors formerly of GW.

They'd try to sell it for movies etc first, relaunch the range second and then it would disappear.

Or worse, it would be bought by some American company and blander to within an inch of its existence and a range of soft toys, pre-paints, blind buy blisters and 18" action figures would be head toward a Toys R Us near you.

yeah or maybe they could get hustled to a third world country and be marketed as "made in great britain with pride"...*cough* range rover

http://news.sky.com/story/1357273/range-rover-evoque-now-made-in-china

The Evoque? Pffft. The Evoque is NOT a Range Rover. I don't care what they, Land Rover OR Jaguar say!

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 notprop wrote:

Or worse, it would be bought by some American company grr rant dribble

Why the American hate?

It's okay. I think he got a bit confused and mistook a swipe against Range Rover's hypocrisy/advertising standards fail for an attack on Blighty, and decided to have a little kneejerk retaliation. Combined with some sort of seizure, from the looks of things.

On-topic: I'm not so sure what'll happen. If I was, I'd make a fortune hiring out my crystal ball services. As it is, I agree with those who think the brand's been weakened and poisoned too much. Any big player like Hasbro buying GW, might be like GW 'buying' back Specialist Games - not profitable enough for their liking, so why bother? Are they in the business of snapping up fixer-uppers? If a smaller company, or some collective of small buyers took it over (unlikely, 'cos I think it'd ironically still have too high an asking price), I dunno if they'd be able to revive it's fortunes as much as they'd like. Even if they answered gamers' prayers and created new, better, balanced, scale-appropriate, rule sets for 40K and WFB, people'd stay away because they won't be 'real' 40K and WFB. Best-case scenario, if the games don't completely evaporate, is that they'll be on a more even footing with the swathes of other games out there (not just those of the GW-lites of PP, Wyrd and Corvus Belli*, etc.) and be 'just' more examples of those.

And that's not bad.

*Guess who recently dumped a high-quality range of minis because it wasn't part of their more popular and profitable game?

The 40K IP has value. I am not sure about fantasy because that IP seemed to heavily overlap with traditional fantasy and as such I don't think can be differentiated enough to make it highly valuable.

If GW went under, I would suspect they would be bought by someone. All manufacturing facilities would probably be sold and redundant portions of the company removed. The only thing that would probably be left is the IP.

I suspect the IP would then be tweaked to make a bit more sense and then you'd have a range of items that come out based on the IP to get cash moving into the company.

 Azazelx wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Hasbro wouldn't be a rescue it would be a disaster!

Cuddly Space Marines and Orks in Happy Meals within 24 months. You have been warned!

You mean like what happened to D&D?

Heh, it was TSR that had all sorts of children's toys for D&D.

Including action figures, models, and a Saturday Morning cartoon....

But the scary thing is that I can see people going to Toy Vault and buying plush Ultra Marines and Orks....

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Hasbro wouldn't be a rescue it would be a disaster!

Cuddly Space Marines and Orks in Happy Meals within 24 months. You have been warned!

You mean like what happened to D&D?

Heh, it was TSR that had all sorts of children's toys for D&D.

Including action figures, models, and a Saturday Morning cartoon....

But the scary thing is that I can see people going to Toy Vault and buying plush Ultra Marines and Orks....

The Auld Grump

Yeah, I don't get the hate. You make action figures and skylander type stuff for kids to hook 'em while they're young, building action sets and a cartoon, then segue into all the laughable grimdark gack for teens-adult. I say laughable here because GW fluff is not nearly as grim and dark as people make it out to be, when compared to Wyrd's offerings or Cthulu.

Seeing as Asmodee appears to be in a buying mood, since they acquired FFG; they might be a contender for a buy-out.

 Vermis wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 notprop wrote:

Or worse, it would be bought by some American company grr rant dribble

Why the American hate?

It's okay. I think he got a bit confused and mistook a swipe against Range Rover's hypocrisy/advertising standards fail for an attack on Blighty, and decided to have a little kneejerk retaliation. Combined with some sort of seizure, from the looks of things.
...

It's okay. I think you got a bit confused about the former US owners of Land Rover that did a poor job with the brand. Where as the current Indian owners (third world? That ranges from inaccurate to racist - that's okay is it?) seem to be taking they brand from strength to strength.

By all means use your own ignorance to excuse the stupidity of others but please don't use it to explain my comments.

 notprop wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 notprop wrote:

Or worse, it would be bought by some American company grr rant dribble

Why the American hate?

It's okay. I think he got a bit confused and mistook a swipe against Range Rover's hypocrisy/advertising standards fail for an attack on Blighty, and decided to have a little kneejerk retaliation. Combined with some sort of seizure, from the looks of things.
...

It's okay. I think you got a bit confused about the former US owners of Land Rover that did a poor job with the brand. Where as the current Indian owners (third world? That ranges from inaccurate to racist - that's okay is it?) seem to be taking they brand from strength to strength.

By all means use your own ignorance to excuse the stupidity of others but please don't use it to explain my comments.

Well, someone needs to explain your comments because what I heard was "AARgh! America...er...they is dumb..and...um....racists...arrgh!!!"

 MWHistorian wrote:

 notprop wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 notprop wrote:

Or worse, it would be bought by some American company grr rant dribble

Why the American hate?

It's okay. I think he got a bit confused and mistook a swipe against Range Rover's hypocrisy/advertising standards fail for an attack on Blighty, and decided to have a little kneejerk retaliation. Combined with some sort of seizure, from the looks of things.
...

It's okay. I think you got a bit confused about the former US owners of Land Rover that did a poor job with the brand. Where as the current Indian owners (third world? That ranges from inaccurate to racist - that's okay is it?) seem to be taking they brand from strength to strength.

By all means use your own ignorance to excuse the stupidity of others but please don't use it to explain my comments.

Well, someone needs to explain your comments because what I heard was "AARgh! America...er...they is dumb..and...um....racists...arrgh!!!"

Me am American. Me is frum gratist country on Urf! Waaagggghhh!

(Actually, in WWII... I am pretty sure we were the Orks... lots of troops, and cheap disposable tanks....)

The Auld Grump, and disposable submarines (with torpedoes that hit random targets), and disposable ships (some made out of concrete)... but surprisingly excellent aircraft.

 notprop wrote:


Or worse, it would be bought by some American company and blander to within an inch of its existence and a range of soft toys, pre-paints, blind buy blisters and 18" action figures would be head toward a Toys R Us near you.

You mean like 2 of GWs most similar (in terms of what they make), largest, and most successful competitors Privateer Press (WarmaHordes) and Wyrd (Malifaux)?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:


(Actually, in WWII... I am pretty sure we were the Orks... lots of troops, and cheap disposable tanks....)

Or you know... The Soviets...

US actually had some decent equipment. True the Shermans weren't the best tanks but we did have great naval and aerial equipment as well as some of the most advanced tech besides Nazi Germany.

The Soviets had lots of cheap disposable.... everything lol. Then again they probably would have single handedly crushed Nazi German then rolled the rest of Europe were it not for the U.S.

 notprop wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 notprop wrote:

Or worse, it would be bought by some American company grr rant dribble

Why the American hate?

It's okay. I think he got a bit confused and mistook a swipe against Range Rover's hypocrisy/advertising standards fail for an attack on Blighty, and decided to have a little kneejerk retaliation. Combined with some sort of seizure, from the looks of things.
...

It's okay. I think you got a bit confused about the former US owners of Land Rover that did a poor job with the brand. Where as the current Indian owners (third world? That ranges from inaccurate to racist - that's okay is it?) seem to be taking they brand from strength to strength.

Um, no it doesn't, by the original meaning of First, Second, and Third world.

First world was USA, NATO, etc.

Second world was USSR, Soviet Bloc, etc.

Third world was everyone else.

"The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO, or the Communist Bloc."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

Shhh!! Don't let history get in the way of some good Social Justice!

 MWHistorian wrote:
Shhh!! Don't let history get in the way of some good Social Justice!

I'm assuming that notprop isn't old enough to remember the Cold War, so doesn't understand the origins of the term "Third World."

Saldiven wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Shhh!! Don't let history get in the way of some good Social Justice!

I'm assuming that notprop isn't old enough to remember the Cold War, so doesn't understand the origins of the term "Third World."

Living under the threat of atomic annihilation was awesome! That and trapper keepers.

Oh yes the Cold War.. When the Olympic games was the battlefield... I sort of miss those days of threats of nuclear destruction.

Back on topic if GW went belly up its assets would be sold off and life would go on as normal

Barfolomew wrote:
The 40K IP has value. I am not sure about fantasy because that IP seemed to heavily overlap with traditional fantasy and as such I don't think can be differentiated enough to make it highly valuable.

But 40K overlaps with an awful lot of 'traditional' sci-fi and sci-fantasy, too. Dune, 2000AD strips like Judge Dredd and Nemesis the Warlock, Aliens, Starship Troopers, etc. Heck, the first time I saw space marines, with the ubiquitous mk7 power armour, I thought 'can they rip off Star Wars Stormtroopers like that...?'

Saldiven wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Shhh!! Don't let history get in the way of some good Social Justice!

I'm assuming that notprop isn't old enough to remember the Cold War, so doesn't understand the origins of the term "Third World."

Old enough to know that countries change over the years and if you are using Wikipedia and WW2 era notions of where nations currently are you might want to revise your idea of understanding because you sound a little bit archaic.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:

 notprop wrote:


Or worse, it would be bought by some American company and blander to within an inch of its existence and a range of soft toys, pre-paints, blind buy blisters and 18" action figures would be head toward a Toys R Us near you.

You mean like 2 of GWs most similar (in terms of what they make), largest, and most successful competitors Privateer Press (WarmaHordes) and Wyrd (Malifaux)?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:


(Actually, in WWII... I am pretty sure we were the Orks... lots of troops, and cheap disposable tanks....)

Or you know... The Soviets...

US actually had some decent equipment. True the Shermans weren't the best tanks but we did have great naval and aerial equipment as well as some of the most advanced tech besides Nazi Germany.

The Soviets had lots of cheap disposable.... everything lol. Then again they probably would have single handedly crushed Nazi German then rolled the rest of Europe were it not for the U.S.

Nah, the Soviets were the Imperial Guard. Complete with Commissars.

And if anyone is calling the T-34 a 'cheap, disposable tank', I'ma gonna hafta visit dem wit a baseball bat.

Best tank of the war. (Though the Germans had some contenders.)

The British army of the war also gave a good deal of Imperial Guard inspiration.

By comparison, we had 'the Ronson lighter'. (It always lights on the first strike.)

Before the war we had the M2 'Mae West' and the Stuart, neither exactly overwhelmed... anybody. (The M2 picking up the 'Mae West' nickname because it had... uhm... boobies. )

Navy wise... we had good battlewagons, and okay cruisers. Our destroyers were so-so, our PT boats were... entertaining, and decent at the job - but really lived up to being cheap and disposable.

The submarines were a tragedy - the Mark I torpedo was damn near random in its targeting, and was known to turn around and hit the sub that it had launched it. (My dad was a submariner in WWII. We lost an ungodly number of subs to our own anti submarine air patrols.)

There was a battle in which a US destroyer group fired over thirty torpedoes at a Japanese battleship group - and none of them hit. (Though we won that battle - the Japanese battleships turned and fled. They thought there were reinforcements coming for the destroyers - but there weren't.)

The Auld Grump, yep, we were orks. We even got the random tables.

Barfolomew wrote:
The 40K IP has value. I am not sure about fantasy because that IP seemed to heavily overlap with traditional fantasy and as such I don't think can be differentiated enough to make it highly valuable.

40K doesn't have that much inherent value. Sure it's got Space Marines in that form but the concept already existed, and it's own variants on stuff, I think even the God-Emperor is ripped straight out of Dune, but you can reproduce almost the entirety of the setting without actually infringing on anything that's uniquely GW. There's no reason to rely on GW's IP for any big movie franchise, it only really makes sense for smaller computer games.

I guess they'll also have genestealer cults, some of the vehicle types (but not many - even the Rhino is named after a US tank modification), and some of the Ork charactization.

I actually think GW's biggest assets will be their model production capacity and distribution network, so that's what I'd be looking for in a buy out. Just think what'd happen to the gaming scene if GW started providing outsourced manufacturing for other companies...

We'll all have to find something else to do with our spare time, that's what.

(That or different play environments will start to fracture and play older editions/house rules/who knows with their existing models and the Chinese recasters will become the standard source for anyone who sticks with the game instead of wandering off to find something else to do)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Herzlos wrote:
...some of the vehicle types (but not many - even the Rhino is named after a US tank modification)...

The Rhino is an M113, the Chimera is a BMP, the Land Raider is a British Mk. 1. If you're looking for original designs in 40k you have to take a look at the xenos.

That said GW did manage to come up with a uniquely weird blend of advanced technology, backwards mysticism, and absurdly religious overtones that would be nigh-unacceptable if you pitched it in a more politically-correct age; I don't know that folks would let it up and vanish if GW went down. (That said it'd never be a good movie, some executive would come in and edit it down to PG-13 to try and sell it to a wider audience and the resulting gibberish would make back a tenth of the budget and nobody would do anything with it for a decade after)

Herzlos wrote:
40K doesn't have that much inherent value. Sure it's got Space Marines in that form but the concept already existed, and it's own variants on stuff, I think even the God-Emperor is ripped straight out of Dune, but you can reproduce almost the entirety of the setting without actually infringing on anything that's uniquely GW. There's no reason to rely on GW's IP for any big movie franchise, it only really makes sense for smaller computer games.

Yarp! Sometimes I think the perception of 40K's IP value is exaggerated by gamers who are saturated with it, to the expense of other settings. I like aspects of it meself, but, well, I know there are other things too. 40K's a drop in the bucket, and mingled with a lot of other drops.

AnomanderRake wrote:
(That or different play environments will start to fracture and play older editions/house rules/who knows with their existing models...)

Will that fracturing really be so different to how things go now? I know GW fans are fond of piping up with 'you can get a game anywhere!' every so often, but with GW tourneys long-dead, I'm sceptical about how many actually go on some kind of wargaming tour of the country.

The Rhino is an M113

With smoke stacks!

the Land Raider is a British Mk. 1

The wrong way round.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
(That said it'd never be a good movie, some executive would come in and edit it down to PG-13 to try and sell it to a wider audience and the resulting gibberish would make back a tenth of the budget and nobody would do anything with it for a decade after)

Sounds like current 40K alright.

What will happen? Someone will buy it up. But I doubt they will go bankrupt anyway. They have little debt or liabilities, own the manufacturing facilities and the only real liabilities are the retail spaces they rent, and these are rented by GW Retail. If things got bad they could close GW retail Ltd and re structure the rest of the company. If they did this we might see a sale by the liquidator, but there is a good change GW plc would offer the insolvency people enough money to buy back the stock held in the retail shops and there would just be a sale of a few shop fittings.

 notprop wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 notprop wrote:

Or worse, it would be bought by some American company grr rant dribble

Why the American hate?

It's okay. I think he got a bit confused and mistook a swipe against Range Rover's hypocrisy/advertising standards fail for an attack on Blighty, and decided to have a little kneejerk retaliation. Combined with some sort of seizure, from the looks of things.
...

It's okay. I think you got a bit confused about the former US owners of Land Rover that did a poor job with the brand. Where as the current Indian owners (third world? That ranges from inaccurate to racist - that's okay is it?) seem to be taking they brand from strength to strength.

By all means use your own ignorance to excuse the stupidity of others but please don't use it to explain my comments.

I thought it was quite clear he was having a swipe at someone making an ignorant comment (Also, very wrong as all of JLRs cars are made in the UK with the exception of the Evoques for the Chinese market.)

 Steve steveson wrote:
What will happen? Someone will buy it up. But I doubt they will go bankrupt anyway. They have little debt or liabilities, own the manufacturing facilities and the only real liabilities are the retail spaces they rent, and these are rented by GW Retail.

Except their most recent financial statement shows a steady downward trend in revenue with a slight upward trend in cost. Projecting both out, this time next year they will be operating at a loss, once this occurs, it doesn't take long to move into severe financial distress.

 Steve steveson wrote:
If things got bad they could close GW retail Ltd and re structure the rest of the company. If they did this we might see a sale by the liquidator, but there is a good change GW plc would offer the insolvency people enough money to buy back the stock held in the retail shops and there would just be a sale of a few shop fittings.

My guess is that they don't own the vast majority of their retail locations, which means they will need to break leases in order to close retail locations, which is a cost with no direct profit. If it comes out that they will need to close all their shops, then the stock will drop drastically and therefore become worthless. Even if they do remove their brick and mortar business, there is still the webstore that I think will continue to put most FLGS off and discourage GW support.

Barfolomew wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:
What will happen? Someone will buy it up. But I doubt they will go bankrupt anyway. They have little debt or liabilities, own the manufacturing facilities and the only real liabilities are the retail spaces they rent, and these are rented by GW Retail.

Except their most recent financial statement shows a steady downward trend in revenue with a slight upward trend in cost. Projecting both out, this time next year they will be operating at a loss, once this occurs, it doesn't take long to move into severe financial distress.

 Steve steveson wrote:
If things got bad they could close GW retail Ltd and re structure the rest of the company. If they did this we might see a sale by the liquidator, but there is a good change GW plc would offer the insolvency people enough money to buy back the stock held in the retail shops and there would just be a sale of a few shop fittings.

My guess is that they don't own the vast majority of their retail locations, which means they will need to break leases in order to close retail locations, which is a cost with no direct profit. If it comes out that they will need to close all their shops, then the stock will drop drastically and therefore become worthless. Even if they do remove their brick and mortar business, there is still the webstore that I think will continue to put most FLGS off and discourage GW support.

If we are holding to the ten year slow fall mentioned i n the OP... that gives time for GW to let the stores go as the leases expire.

A slow crumble is a lot more likely than a quick collapse.

The Auld Grump