Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I originally posted this to another forum, and usually refrain from cross-posting, but another thread on Dakka made this relevant for discussion. I am curious what the Dakka community thought are to this.

There seems to be a LOT of discussion lately about the health of GW considering the disappointment of the last period financials (with a 10% drop in top line revenue and a hefty reduction of cash on hand) in spite a time of rapidly increased product release schedules. For someone who has been involved in gaming as long as I have (since 1977) the parallels with the decline of the previous industry behemoth, TSR, and GW of today just seem a bit to familiar.

Before going into those I see, let me clarify a couple of things. First, during the last years of TSR, I was one of those who blindly defended them despite all the warning signs around me and the discussions of my regular D&D gaming group of 8 people. Also, I currently own several 40k armies (Ultramarines, Imperial Guard, Tau, Tyranids, Necrons and a HUGE Eldar army), a few large Warhammer armies (Empire, Chaos and High Elf), a complete copy of Warhammer Quest with all expansions, including White Dwarf supplements, two large Epic armies, three Necromunda gangs, six Mordheim warbands, and three Battlefleet gothic fleets. So I in no way WANT to see GW go away, but the current parallels cannot be ignored.

So let's look at these parallels:

Named Designers leaving: In the last two years of TSRs existence, many of the names that made them famous moved on for greener pastures. Many of them were long term employees of TSR. GW has seen the same loss of Rick Priestly, Andy Chambers, Gaving Thrope, Jake Thornton, among others. These are the people close to what is going on, and an en masse departure is not a good sign. Warning sign number one.

Accelerated Release Schedule: TSR was cranking out stuff near the end, much as GW is doing today. Yet that still didn't stem the tide of mass exodus of customers.

Thinking they were more than they are: In the end, TSR products were drastically overpriced compared to competitive products because they believed it was D&D and people will pay anything for it. Coupled with the decline in quality, it didn't help. People began moving one. With GW we have a similar situation. Most competitors sell 256 pg, full color, hard bound rulebooks for the $40 US to $50 US range (or $0.15 to $0.19 a page) while GW sells a 104 pg, full color hardbound book (avg. Codex) at $49.50 (or $0.47/pg. or 161% more than comparable products). Likewise, most model paints today are running at about $0.15-$0.17/ml and are of better quality than GWs, while GW is running at $0.33/ml (101% more than comparable products). Like TSR, GW is putting WAY too much faith in their brand power (and D&D is a MUCH stronger brand than Warhammer ever was).

Drop in Product Quality: The quality of TSR products went down hill fast leading to rumors that Lorraine Williams, then CEO of TSR, had forbidden playtesting of products. Many employees from the final days denied this but did confirm that the relentless pace of getting products out the door did in fact lead to little getting playtested. The latest products from GW are showing the exact same thing. Did anyone test D-Weapons in standard 40k games? Why are they issuing FAQs only one week after a book is released?

Cramming stuff into an established paradigm that doesn't belong: TSR tried to put everything they could around the popular D&D title where they should have been there own games. Instead of Buck Rogers RPG, we got Spelljammer crammed into the fantasy universes. Likewise, GW is adding superheavies, mini-titans (Riptide, Wraithknight, and Imperial Knights) and flyers in a 28mm game where they do not belong.

Abandoning everything around one brand: TSR uses to have many RPGs - D&D, AD&D, Boot Hill, Star Frontiers, et al. In the last days, TSR thought that their other products were detracting from sales of core D&D, thus they abandoned all the other titles and focused on making D&D versions of them. So, as they abandoned Star Frontiers and went with Spelljammer in fantasy worlds, we had Traveller and a few other RPGs fill in the spot. GW has the same attitude. Focus around two core brands because our other products detracted from people buying for those brands and ignore that the competition is picking up (and growing) by this conscious decision to leave them an opening into the market). How shortsighted and stupid can anyone be about this. Did Apple stop selling the iPod because the have the iPhone, no. Because they realize there are different markets for these products.

Increased pricing: TSR started rapidly increasing prices in the end as their customer base dwindled. When coupled with the materials being absurd additions (Spelljammer) and the noticeable drop in product quality, people began to feel ripped off by TSR and started using other products. Once that happened, and they realized other companies could produce products of like or better quality, the acceleration away from TSR quickened. GW is facing the exact same thing today, yet continues to operate in a complete vacuum of ignorance like TSR did then.

View of customers being suckers: It is well known that Lorraine Williams held gamers (their customers) with high contempt, and she made no secret about it. She considered them blind sheeple who would buy and love anything that TSR put out and, ultimately in the end it showed in their products, but not in the sheeples buying attitude. GW has A LOT of customer and channel relation issues right now (not to mention their absurd pricing) and they, like TSR, seem to be sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "La, la, la, I don't hear you. Everything is fine..."

Soullessness leading to market disconnect: As the previous point mentioned about the CEOs attitude, TSR became soulless as a result when they used to have passionate people who designed good materials because they also played the game. Heck, Raistlin Majere, the famous wizard from the Dragonlance series, came about because of the active playing of the game. Likewise, GW seems to be all about the money today with no passion for the game anymore from the staff.

Ignoring and Enabling competition: White Wolf Studios benefited immensely from TSRs mis-steps. So did a few smaller publishers. Today, I give Hasbro/WotC credit for recognizing 4th edition D&D was a huge mistake (thus why they have stopped sales of 4th edition and haven't put out a new product in over a year) and have decided the wiser course was to focus on D&D Next to save the brand. Why did Hasbro recognize this? Because Pathfinder/Paizo has stolen marketshare by sticking to their old formula. In other words, they recognized the threat of competition. GW refuses to see the rise of Wyrd, Corvus Belli, Privateer Press, Cipher Studios, Hawk Wargames and Fantasy Flight Games during a global recession as any threat, or as a result of their mis-steps giving the competition an opening into the market.

Aggressive IP defense: TSR started going after fans and anyone they felt remotely came close to infringing on their IP, gaining them the moniker T$R. GW seems to have adopted the same policy that was proven in TSR's time to be stupid and damaging to the financial health of the company.

As an aside, it may come off in this post that I didn't like Spelljammer, that is not the point. Lorraine Williams family owned the IP around Buck Rogers and Spelljammer was the example of her trying to shoehorn her legacy into the established brand of D&D, thus messing the whole thing up.

TLDR: It is hard to ignore the similarities of a previous industry behemoth, TSR, to GW today. GW of today seems to be following the exact same patterns as TSR in the last days which eventually lead to TSRs demise in very quick fashion (it is safe to say it was an actual collapse). Could GW possibly suffer that same fate considering those parallels?

I agree with most of your post but TSR did not go bust because of any of what you are talking about. At the end of the day they went out of business so suddenly because they published too many hard cover fiction books in the previous year that did not sell well and when their publisher demanded they buy them back they did not have the cash on hand to pay off the debt.

Now certainly everything you pointed out contributed to the situation but without the forced buy back I would guess TSR would have been around for a lot longer. So my guess is unless GW has a similar issue pop up you will either see a very slow demise over time or a continued loss of sales until they finally get they need to change how they do business.

 brettz123 wrote:
I agree with most of your post but TSR did not go bust because of any of what you are talking about. At the end of the day they went out of business so suddenly because they published too many hard cover fiction books in the previous year that did not sell well and when their publisher demanded they buy them back they did not have the cash on hand to pay off the debt.

Now certainly everything you pointed out contributed to the situation but without the forced buy back I would guess TSR would have been around for a lot longer. So my guess is unless GW has a similar issue pop up you will either see a very slow demise over time or a continued loss of sales until they finally get they need to change how they do business.

What you pointed out was the "straw that broke the camel's back" so to speak. However, it did that because the company was already in very rough shape as a result of the behaviors and attitudes I mentioned in the above.

GW has a different, but similar issue. They have a massive commitment on the retail level, most likely in the form of leases. If sales do not stay high enough then these will be the same thing - a massive cash commitment without the cash to pay for them. In there last financials - 37%-39% of the companies costs are operating these retail channels (and that is after going to 1 man formats) - that is huge. So, another 15%-20% drop in sales will push these obligations up to 50%-60% of company costs and put them into dangerous territory like TSR. If the drop was to be 30%-40%, if could potentially put them into receivership.

Quite frankly, GW seems to be cranking out products in the last four months it what seems more desperation than anything. TSR did the same thing in the final year which lead to so much of this inventory issue. This puts a strain on the company at all levels but particularly in the rapid build up of unsold inventory. This can crush a company - any company. Right now, GW seems to be throwing caution to the wind and just are operating with the "get more revenue" mentality without thinking everything through on what this does to the organization as a whole.

Which leads to the second point. TSR had that happen because they were cranking out books too fast, which lead to a massive build up in inventory which the seller pushed back on them. If people can only buy and read 4 TSR books a month and you put out 12 a month, well now they have to decide which 4 and 8 remain unsold. TSR exceeded the customer base budget -so to speak. This is a very interesting phenomenon that all good businesses pay attention to. It goes like this:

Let's say your budget is $100 a month for video gaming. Your favorite video game continues to release $50 expansions once every three months (ala GW pre-2012). You are able to buy it and stay up to date with the game no problem. Now, the company wants to make more money, so they raise the price on these expansions to $100. You love the game and it still fits within your budget. Now they decide they need even more money, but know they can't raise the price any higher since they are already double what is on the market. So they release the $100 expansions on a monthly basis. With a groan, you decide to go for that because you love the game, but the pricing is really hurting at that point (ala GW in 2013) and you notice more mistakes slipping thorough because of the faster release cycle, so you feel the value is declining. Now the company decides they need even more money so they move to releasing an expansion once a week (ala GW this year). You buy the first one and miss the next three because it has exceeded your budget and the first one you buy doesn't look well thought out and you begin to feel you are getting less for your money than ever. Three months later, you have bought three of these weekly expansions and are behind by 9. Now, feeling you can't keep up, you decide to find another game that fits within your budget. Thus the company, in an effort to get you to spend more, instead has lost all your spending overall.

That is the point, you can exceed the available money of your customer base therefore causing frustration and, eventually, defection. This is why first-hand knowledge of your market and customers is so important to a business and why, like TSR, GW continues following down the same dismal path.

Your points are basically correct but they have been correct for a very long time.

The game designers that you mentioned have been leaving for years, Andy Chambers left/was sacked a decade ago. The majority of GW's competition have at least one member who used to work for GW, some of them highly placed (Rick Priestly and John Stallard at Warlord games for example).

Similarly GW killed of Specialist games in 2001(?) when they stopped supporting them and I don't think that GW has ever put much onus on playtesting.

I think the only really new thing is the accelerated release schedule and that seems to be a reaction to their poor mid year results. Its no where near at the point of choking up their supply chain yet though. Its just a shame that the majority of these releases are so poor.

GW's problem now is that their history of dubious decisions and protectionist practices are starting to reach a critical mass. We have seen the first public bubbles a few months ago and I predict that things will only get worse from here.

This was an interesting read. Especially since GW owe their initial success to D&D, yet later dropped it for their own products. Perhaps Wayland should take the leap into their own brand IP.

GWs releases certainly have been coming thick and fast lately. Some of them look great too... It's a shame I haven't bought any, but they have priced themselves out of my sensibilities.

That's not to say I'm not interested... I'd totally be down for getting some DA stuff, trying out GK, and I could certainly always use more landraiders. If things were about 20% cheaper I probably would spend hundreds (maybe thousands) on all that stuff. But at the moment I'm spending zero, because I don't personally feel that I'm getting good value from them anymore. I'm not just gonna give them that same amount of money for less stuff, I will spend it elsewhere. In fact I haven't bought anything from GW since Blood Angels came out, and that was back in 2010. The scary thing is, things were actually about 20% cheaper them. That's how quickly the prices are escalating.

 Palindrome wrote:
GW's problem now is that their history of dubious decisions and protectionist practices are starting to reach a critical mass. We have seen the first public bubbles a few months ago and I predict that things will only get worse from here.

This is a good point. Lorraine Williams helmed TSR for 10 years. But, at the end when their BS practices caught up with them, things unravelled very, very fast.

That is where I think GW is today. The unravelling has just started and I think it is worse than anyone imagines with the massive increase in product releases. They seem to be scrambling very quickly which is usually an indicator things are very close to collapse.

Few of your parallels have much content to them, they're based on internet noise.

Although it gets posted all the time, there's no real evidence GW treats its customers with contempt. The designers you're citing left years ago; in some cases they've launched their own unsuccessful lines since, so you can't realy theorise they took the secrets of success with them. Equally, there's no real evidence that quality has dropped. One could contend, say, that my new Hive Crone is not as nicely modelled as the old Carnifex... but go back to the golden era of the 90s and many models were simply horrible.

There is a deeper truth, though; Kirby, as the leader of the company, needs to have a visionary strategy, beyond simple cost-cutting. As his background in the Inland Revenue suggests, he's not a visionary, he's merely an accountant. GW needs to rediscover its sense of fun, to find its mojo. Its products are actually still pretty good... for instance, I personally reckon their model are distinctly superior to PP and others. But GW needs a corporate culture that cares more about quality, and less about money.

A lot of the problems I would suggest come from the Plc culture, of short-term profits. But Plc culture would often demand that an unsuccessful CEO is ejected by investors. That might be GW"s best chance for the future.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Few of your parallels have much content to them, they're based on internet noise.

Although it gets posted all the time, there's no real evidence GW treats its customers with contempt.

There was that time the head of.. I want to say sales(?) in North America got on facebook and told all us smelly nerds to shut up and buy more. I think that amounts to the majority of the contact we the customers have had with the upper level guys in the last decade.

*Edit*
On and while it's not contempt I greatly dislike the idea that GW thinks my favourite part of the GW hobby is buying product from GW or that I am buying 'toys'.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Equally, there's no real evidence that quality has dropped. One could contend, say, that my new Hive Crone is not as nicely modelled as the old Carnifex... but go back to the golden era of the 90s and many models were simply horrible.

Aesthetic quality of models is going to be almost entirely opinion but there was finecast and codexes that are entierly reprints of rules from other dexes with a little extra tacked on (Inquisition and Legion of the Dammed) as well as a codexes that cover one or two units (Legion of the Dammed again, as well as Knights). That is clearly a step down from real codexes. I'd also say that the new paints are a definite step backwards, the technicals are nice and whatever but the new base paints don't seem to be able to survive summer here.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
GW needs to rediscover its sense of fun, to find its mojo... But GW needs a corporate culture that cares more about quality, and less about money.

That I absolutely agree with.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Its products are actually still pretty good... for instance, I personally reckon their model are distinctly superior to PP and others.

Here I don't though. I don't think GW can compete with the likes of Corvus Bellie or Meirce on quality and can't compete with Mantic or Wargames Factory on price so what is there market outside of 'GW gamers'?

Just to reinforce that point about distinctly superior models, Knight models 35mm Gandalf compared to GW's 2 recent 28mm heroic ones:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Although it gets posted all the time, there's no real evidence GW treats its customers with contempt.

There have been various comments by Kirby in his financial statements, and comments by GW's legal team during the Chapterhouse lawsuit that definitely suggested it.

Equally, there's no real evidence that quality has dropped.

The first codex released for 6th edition has a page and a half of errata.

This month, we've seen the release of a hardcover codex for 2 units (which are actually just the same unit with two different different guns) and another codex that gives you an army that will automatically lose the game on turn one.

And that's not even touching the whole 'Fine'cast debacle.

There seems to be more of this 'release a whole book with only a few pages of rules' thing that is definitely trying to spread the rules around to get people to buy more product.

But the digital releases are playing it very safe. They aren't investing in physical stock they then have to shift. If no one buys a digital copy then they have lost money but it's only staff hours on design and writing. If no one buys a codex they've wasted those costs and an entire print run and now have to face spending money on storage or disposal of remaindered stock.

Churning out out lots of digital releases with minimal game content seems a definite money grab that requires minimal investment.

There's a lot of rather selective reasoning going on here. For a start, the core of GW's business is its models. not the codexes. So arguing that the quality is declining just because of publications like the Knight codex is really missing the point - the Knight codex exists to sell the Knight model, which is a substantial investment and, it would appear, a popular model. So comparing GW with TSR is kind of pointless. It would make more more sense to compare it to Airfix, which occupied a similar position to GW in its time.

Interesting read.
The flurry of recent releases is my greatest concern too, not so much from a "GW is going dwon the toilet" point of view but more in terms of game balance, consistency and overall direction with armies/army interactions.
Its baffling.

Here I don't though. I don't think GW can compete with the likes of Corvus Bellie or Meirce on quality and can't compete with Mantic or Wargames Factory on price so what is there market outside of 'GW gamers'?

Just to reinforce that point about distinctly superior models, Knight models 35mm Gandalf compared to GW's 2 recent 28mm heroic ones:

The issue with this argument is that neither Corvus Bellie, Meirce nor Mantic produce Space Marines. That's really the beginning and end of the talk about GW models.

Doesn't matter if you agree with their quality all that matters is that GW is a company that produces Space marines and those other companies don't produce space marines

Long as players like Space Marines GW survives. That's all there is to it heh, and unfortunately GW is doing its best to make sure people don't like space marines lately..

 Tailgunner wrote:
There's a lot of rather selective reasoning going on here. For a start, the core of GW's business is its models. not the codexes. So arguing that the quality is declining just because of publications like the Knight codex is really missing the point - the Knight codex exists to sell the Knight model, which is a substantial investment and, it would appear, a popular model. So comparing GW with TSR is kind of pointless. It would make more more sense to compare it to Airfix, which occupied a similar position to GW in its time.

See, this points to another issue. Games Workshop grew it's business selling GAMES of which models were a big part of it. Now they exist to sell MODELS and write a lot of half-baked stuff in an effort to do that. As Rick Priestly eloquently said - games development is now a promotions department for a toy company.

Secondly, I would add, how well do you think GW would do if they were to completely stop selling rules and codexes tomorrow and only sell models?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kirasu wrote:

Here I don't though. I don't think GW can compete with the likes of Corvus Bellie or Meirce on quality and can't compete with Mantic or Wargames Factory on price so what is there market outside of 'GW gamers'?

Just to reinforce that point about distinctly superior models, Knight models 35mm Gandalf compared to GW's 2 recent 28mm heroic ones:

The issue with this argument is that neither Corvus Bellie, Meirce nor Mantic produce Space Marines. That's really the beginning and end of the talk about GW models.

Doesn't matter if you agree with their quality all that matters is that GW is a company that produces Space marines and those other companies don't produce space marines

Long as players like Space Marines GW survives. That's all there is to it heh, and unfortunately GW is doing its best to make sure people don't like space marines lately..

And only TSR produced D&D (a much stronger brand than Warhammer fantasy or 40k ever was) and no other company did, yet TSR still failed. This is the same attitude the top management has and it is killing the company.

Here is another fact - Corvus Belli and all the other (Wyrd, FFG, Cipher Studios, Mantic, Warlord, etc.) all had growth last year - GW did not. So it appears Space Marines are not the go to to save the company anymore.

I made the exact same arguments defendeding TSR as they went down, and I ate crow on that one.

 Tailgunner wrote:
There's a lot of rather selective reasoning going on here. For a start, the core of GW's business is its models. not the codexes. So arguing that the quality is declining just because of publications like the Knight codex is really missing the point - the Knight codex exists to sell the Knight model, which is a substantial investment and, it would appear, a popular model. So comparing GW with TSR is kind of pointless. It would make more more sense to compare it to Airfix, which occupied a similar position to GW in its time.

GW spouting that it is a model company, not a game company is part of its problem. GAMES Workshop is a game company. Some customers purchase the models for painting and display, but Warhammer is priced, designed, marketed, and sold as a GAME. No if ands or buts. It is a game. That the knight codex is designed to sell the knight model demonstrates this point.

Customers are buying the model to use in a GAME. The product is priced based on its relative value in the GAME rules. Customers are interested in the model because they regularly connect with the fictional universe out of which the product comes through a GAME.

Games Workshop wants customers to PLAY its games because customers that play the game buy more and buy more regularly.

GAMES Workshop is a games company that makes most of its money selling game pieces. If everyone who plays GW games suddenly stopped buying GW products, GW would die.

WarGAMING. The playing of GAMES that simulate armed conflict. Not warPAINTING. Not warMODELING. WarGAMING. Painting, building, displaying, reading, writing, and all of the lovely immersive activities that generally go along with table top Wargaming are awesome and important, but the playing of games is critical to the hobby and a substantial driver of it.

In fact, what games workshop did to wargaming was to so overly emphasize the connection between it's models and it's fictional universe and its rules that once you were in the games workshop ecosystem you couldn't easily get out. Most historical wargamers generally use whatever rules they like at whatever time because models are models. The only inhibiting factors may be base size and scale. So if you dislike a game, you just play a different game with your collected game pieces.

Games workshop was one of the forerunners of fantasy wargaming, in which most particularly the models, being tied to the imaginations of the artists and game designers, don't translate well to other game systems. Games workshop absolutely wants it this way. As a business, games workshop is designed from the ground up to take maximum advantage of this.

 insaniak wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Although it gets posted all the time, there's no real evidence GW treats its customers with contempt.

There have been various comments by Kirby in his financial statements, and comments by GW's legal team during the Chapterhouse lawsuit that definitely suggested it.

Equally, there's no real evidence that quality has dropped.

The first codex released for 6th edition has a page and a half of errata.

This month, we've seen the release of a hardcover codex for 2 units (which are actually just the same unit with two different different guns) and another codex that gives you an army that will automatically lose the game on turn one.

And that's not even touching the whole 'Fine'cast debacle.

On has only read the "Business Model" portion of GW's website to understand how they view their customers... here are some examples of what GW thinks of the customers:

"we will recruit lots of customers into our Hobby and they will enjoy spending their money on the products we make" - they are nothing but cash cows to us.

"people who are interested in collecting fantasy miniatures will choose the best quality and be prepared to pay what they are worth" - its just about the miniatures and paying anything we want. No one cares about the GAMES anymore.

And now the ultimate statement of being clueless:

Our continual investment in product quality, using our defendable intellectual property, provides us with a considerable barrier to entry for potential competitors: it is our Fortress Wall. While our 400 or so Hobby centres which show customers how to collect, paint and play with our miniatures and games provide another barrier to entry: our Fortress Moat. We have been building our Fortress Wall and Moat for many years and the competitive advantage they provide gives us confidence in our ability to grow profitably in the future. - look, it's really hard for competitors to sell games because of us.... Yeah right, tell that to FFG with X-Wing of PP with Warmahordes...

 Tailgunner wrote:
There's a lot of rather selective reasoning going on here. For a start, the core of GW's business is its models. not the codexes. So arguing that the quality is declining just because of publications like the Knight codex is really missing the point - the Knight codex exists to sell the Knight model, which is a substantial investment and, it would appear, a popular model. So comparing GW with TSR is kind of pointless. It would make more more sense to compare it to Airfix, which occupied a similar position to GW in its time.

Taking the Imperial Knight model as an example of Games Workshop's core business being models is a very poor one. While the Knight may be aesthetically pleasing, it utterly fails on an engineering level. One need only look at the design of the Dreamforge Leviathan or any number of Japanese Gundam kits to see how easily one can incorporate multiple points of articulation and swappable weapons for less than the cost of the Knight. For a $140 kit, GW (as the self proclaimed market leader) could, and damn well SHOULD, do better.

 Wayshuba wrote:

Today, I give Hasbro/WotC credit for recognizing 4th edition D&D was a huge mistake (thus why they have stopped sales of 4th edition and haven't put out a new product in over a year) and have decided the wiser course was to focus on D&D Next to save the brand. Why did Hasbro recognize this? Because Pathfinder/Paizo has stolen marketshare by sticking to their old formula.

Not really. There is a big argument among DND fans every time a new edition pops up and its called the "edition war". It has happened before. I could give some link from a forum back from 2000 when the 2nd to 3rd edition change happened and you will find people making the same arguments. One side liking the changes, the other side not liking them. The "old guard" talking how the new one isn't really DND blah blah blah.

Besides WoTC's mistake was not its failure in recognizing Paizo as a threat, it was giving up its IP with the System Reference Document and then doing what DND has done several times before. Release a new edition where they made certain core rules changes just like before (remember THACO?). Before there was only one DND because IP laws meant none else could take the old edition and change the name and then repackage it and resell it to the same people you already own of the old edition. That is all Pathfinder is, DND 3.5 with a different name, well and a few minor changes on every page to make you think that is a different game. Paizo just took advantage of DND during a vulnerable period of the "edition war" and gave the 3.5 fans what they wanted. The same old game with a few minor changes. If Paizo didn't do it some other company would have probably done it.

Besides I disagree that 4th edition was a mistake itself. If you step back for a moment and judge that game on its own merits you will find it is a rather good game.

The mistake here that WoTC made, and probably will never do again, is release anything like the SRD. 4th ed itself was not the problem. They may also be a hesitant to try new things, though that is not necessarily a good thing.

Getting this back to GW, I don't see GW giving up its IP or parts of its IP at any point.

Give up?

Not a chance in hell.

Having a percentage of what they claim to own unequivocally removed from their possession by a US court ruling?

Possible.

 azreal13 wrote:
Give up?

Not a chance in hell.

Having a percentage of what they claim to own unequivocally removed from their possession by a US court ruling?

Possible.

Ok I stand corrected. I should have said willingly give up their IP.

 Tailgunner wrote:
There's a lot of rather selective reasoning going on here. For a start, the core of GW's business is its models. not the codexes.

The core of GW's business is a game called Warhammer 40000. Aside from to the minority who buy the models just to collect and/or paint them, the models sell because people play the game. So a decline in the quality of the game discourages model sales.

... - the Knight codex exists to sell the Knight model, ...

Yes, that's the point.

A better codex will do a better job of selling the models. Conversely, a worse codex...

 Smacks wrote:
This was an interesting read. Especially since GW owe their initial success to D&D, yet later dropped it for their own products. Perhaps Wayland should take the leap into their own brand IP.

Shhh, you will give us ideas!

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Few of your parallels have much content to them, they're based on internet noise.

Although it gets posted all the time, there's no real evidence GW treats its customers with contempt. The designers you're citing left years ago; in some cases they've launched their own unsuccessful lines since, so you can't realy theorise they took the secrets of success with them. Equally, there's no real evidence that quality has dropped. One could contend, say, that my new Hive Crone is not as nicely modelled as the old Carnifex... but go back to the golden era of the 90s and many models were simply horrible.

There is a deeper truth, though; Kirby, as the leader of the company, needs to have a visionary strategy, beyond simple cost-cutting. As his background in the Inland Revenue suggests, he's not a visionary, he's merely an accountant. GW needs to rediscover its sense of fun, to find its mojo. Its products are actually still pretty good... for instance, I personally reckon their model are distinctly superior to PP and others. But GW needs a corporate culture that cares more about quality, and less about money.

A lot of the problems I would suggest come from the Plc culture, of short-term profits. But Plc culture would often demand that an unsuccessful CEO is ejected by investors. That might be GW"s best chance for the future.

I'd love to see GW sold and removed from the market, I think it would work wonders for the company, take the strain of constantly pushing for shareholder profit out and enable long-term investment back into the company and it's products. It would also enable them to take risks on new product again.

Kirby, btw, had a stab at writing for TSR D&D modules. He left TSR UK to work at GW. He once claimed that artwork and design on the miniatures boxes was pointless and they would sell as well in soap powder boxes, which is why we saw the odd move to those big weird plastic clamshells back in the early 90s... which were a total failure. He also claimed he would retire 5 years after taking the throne of GW... which still has not happened. His words in some of the financial statements have been next to terrible in regards to the customers of the products he's supposed to be selling, as though the jokes of the boardroom are spilling through.

As I've said previously on this site, I know people who've been through upper middle sales in the UK, they have told me at senior level, the games, their subject matter and the people who play (and pay) are held in very poor regard and the subject of ridicule. We need people who give a gak about the product back in senior level discussion and consultation.



What I really find damning, from my own customer service/process improvement background, is the 'moat and wall' analogy Kirby really likes. It ties in with the refusal to engage with the media and insistence on self praise within the company's literature. It's all about barriers, bunkers, defensiveness, instead of openness, engagement, interaction and relationships. It's real 'ivory tower' stuff and will continue to harm the company over time, as well as create resistance and disinterest from those on the outside of that wall, the customer.

 Wayshuba wrote:

 brettz123 wrote:
I agree with most of your post but TSR did not go bust because of any of what you are talking about. At the end of the day they went out of business so suddenly because they published too many hard cover fiction books in the previous year that did not sell well and when their publisher demanded they buy them back they did not have the cash on hand to pay off the debt.

Now certainly everything you pointed out contributed to the situation but without the forced buy back I would guess TSR would have been around for a lot longer. So my guess is unless GW has a similar issue pop up you will either see a very slow demise over time or a continued loss of sales until they finally get they need to change how they do business.

What you pointed out was the "straw that broke the camel's back" so to speak. However, it did that because the company was already in very rough shape as a result of the behaviors and attitudes I mentioned in the above.

Exactly my point unless there is a straw that breaks their back it seems to me that GW will take a long time to go away which also gives them a lot of time to turn the ship around. TSR didn't get that chance after the forced by back because they were contractually forced to buy back unsold stock from their publishers. GW doesn't have that issue which for them is a good thing.

 Wayshuba wrote:

GW has a different, but similar issue. They have a massive commitment on the retail level, most likely in the form of leases. If sales do not stay high enough then these will be the same thing - a massive cash commitment without the cash to pay for them. In there last financials - 37%-39% of the companies costs are operating these retail channels (and that is after going to 1 man formats) - that is huge. So, another 15%-20% drop in sales will push these obligations up to 50%-60% of company costs and put them into dangerous territory like TSR. If the drop was to be 30%-40%, if could potentially put them into receivership.

Quite frankly, GW seems to be cranking out products in the last four months it what seems more desperation than anything. TSR did the same thing in the final year which lead to so much of this inventory issue. This puts a strain on the company at all levels but particularly in the rapid build up of unsold inventory. This can crush a company - any company. Right now, GW seems to be throwing caution to the wind and just are operating with the "get more revenue" mentality without thinking everything through on what this does to the organization as a whole.

Which leads to the second point. TSR had that happen because they were cranking out books too fast, which lead to a massive build up in inventory which the seller pushed back on them. If people can only buy and read 4 TSR books a month and you put out 12 a month, well now they have to decide which 4 and 8 remain unsold. TSR exceeded the customer base budget -so to speak. This is a very interesting phenomenon that all good businesses pay attention to. It goes like this:

Let's say your budget is $100 a month for video gaming. Your favorite video game continues to release $50 expansions once every three months (ala GW pre-2012). You are able to buy it and stay up to date with the game no problem. Now, the company wants to make more money, so they raise the price on these expansions to $100. You love the game and it still fits within your budget. Now they decide they need even more money, but know they can't raise the price any higher since they are already double what is on the market. So they release the $100 expansions on a monthly basis. With a groan, you decide to go for that because you love the game, but the pricing is really hurting at that point (ala GW in 2013) and you notice more mistakes slipping thorough because of the faster release cycle, so you feel the value is declining. Now the company decides they need even more money so they move to releasing an expansion once a week (ala GW this year). You buy the first one and miss the next three because it has exceeded your budget and the first one you buy doesn't look well thought out and you begin to feel you are getting less for your money than ever. Three months later, you have bought three of these weekly expansions and are behind by 9. Now, feeling you can't keep up, you decide to find another game that fits within your budget. Thus the company, in an effort to get you to spend more, instead has lost all your spending overall.

That is the point, you can exceed the available money of your customer base therefore causing frustration and, eventually, defection. This is why first-hand knowledge of your market and customers is so important to a business and why, like TSR, GW continues following down the same dismal path.

I'm actually not disagreeing just pointing out that being forced to buy back inventory that wasn't sold is what put TSR out of business and that GW doesn't look like it will have that problem...... which is a very important distinction.

If Games workshop actually wanted to make more money they'd turn their retail stores into actual Gaming and Hobby stores, allowing minitiature companies other than Games Workshop to sell their wares for a fee directly in relation to space provided. Time and again specialty retail stores beyond a few noticable differences such as Apple, fail. Look at Disney etc...



It'd reduce their overhead of leasing, they'd bring in new customers to the hobby. It sounds strange but honestly they're in such a small market share regardless.

They're not a "Apple" product store.

The next thing would be to have a player registery on their website similar to facebook where players could create profile and track their games W/L.

They could also use this as a customer database and feedback.

Hollismason wrote:
If Games workshop actually wanted to make more money they'd turn their retail stores into actual Gaming and Hobby stores, allowing minitiature companies other than Games Workshop to sell their wares for a fee directly in relation to space provided. Time and again specialty retail stores beyond a few noticable differences such as Apple, fail. Look at Disney etc...

I strongly believe the GW retail stores are a millstone around GW's neck and, since moving from hobby centers to the one man model, relocated to isolated strip malls and quieter streets, no longer effect at recruiting as they once were.

I further believe they should be closed, GW should work to empower the independent retailer and ensure their product takes pride of place in those stores again, whilst also enabling further indy stores to open where they are no longer doing direct business. A huge saving in rent, utilities, wages, insurance, everything. They are then letting indy stores take all the risks, pay all the bills and promote their product for them. This should be a no-brainer, but it's held back by this now outdated idea they can own the entire market and treat stores they don't own themselves as the enemy, or at best a grudging obligation. GW used to be great at indy dealings in the US, enable the tournament scene again, bombard the store with advertising masking as free giant posters and display models...

Hollismason wrote:

The next thing would be to have a player registery on their website similar to facebook where players could create profile and track their games W/L.

They could also use this as a customer database and feedback.

This is an excellent idea, something I talked about years ago with bringing in the notion of taking the tournaments and making them 'legit', posting reports and interviews with gamers in White Dwarf, content and interaction.
Building community, enabling communication, establishing a legitimacy for the games... I think it would work wonders.

Palindrome wrote:Your points are basically correct but they have been correct for a very long time.
(...)
GW's problem now is that their history of dubious decisions and protectionist practices are starting to reach a critical mass. We have seen the first public bubbles a few months ago and I predict that things will only get worse from here.

Those points have been correct for a long time, but revenue growth has been below inflation for a long time as well.
It was above inflation, when pros from other companies made professional marketing (MB with Heroquest/Star Quest, DeAgostini with the LOTR magazine) recruiting thousands of new customers. None of this marketing was done by GW (although GW wrote the magazine to be fair).
So we have a steady decline for 8-9 years now, with GW infrastructure sold and sales staff fired to let the annual report look good. Now we seem to have reached the threshold where most infrastructure has been sold, most brains fired and only yesmen left who desperate hoping that doing more of the same will solve the problems. But last half year proved that it won't.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:A lot of the problems I would suggest come from the Plc culture, of short-term profits. But Plc culture would often demand that an unsuccessful CEO is ejected by investors. That might be GW"s best chance for the future.

1.) Tom Kirby is not the victim of Plc culture: He is the one who introduced it to GW and who profited the most of it (last financial year about 1.3 Mio GBP IIRC).
2.) Unsuccessful CEO Tom Kirby is backed by chair Tom Kirby and major shareholder Tom Kirby. But on 6th March, the hitherto biggest investor Nomad dropped out and sold most if not all of its shares.

 insaniak wrote:
This month, we've seen the release of a hardcover codex for 2 units (which are actually just the same unit with two different different guns) and another codex that gives you an army that will automatically lose the game on turn one.

Which Codex autoloses and why?

The question is more what what, if there even is one, the straw that breaks their back will be.

I'm honestly wondering if it will be FLGS's. Both of the main FLGS's I frequent (which will remain nameless) cannot stand GW's policies in regards to how they treat stores. Especially things like forcing them to stock products like Lord of the Rings and Fantasy even if there is little interest.

I have a feeling that if either store I frequent thought they could get away with dropping GW products, they would do so in a heartbeat.

We've seen local stores get more and more fed up with GW over years, and products like Magic and X Wing probably pull in money far more easily than GW stuff does. We may reach a point where FLGS's start to see drop offs in 40k populations (similar to Fantasy) and just decide the hassle isn't worth it. All it takes with something like that is a few of the bigger name stores dropping GW, and then it could snowball from there. It would have to hit at just the right time, like say a really unpopular release (maybe a new Space Marine codex comes out and absolutely bombs, maybe 7th ed is just absolute trash, maybe we get another Finecast, etc) but it could happen.

That's the only big event I can think of that might possibly happen. There could always be some random thing out of left field that no one sees coming, like 7th ed just flopping in it's own right, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a large amount of FLGS's pulling their support of GW over the next decade causing a major blow to the company's profits.

I know that if I was considering opening a FLGS, I wouldn't bother with stocking GW after seeing all the hassle other stores have had with them.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
If Games workshop actually wanted to make more money they'd turn their retail stores into actual Gaming and Hobby stores, allowing minitiature companies other than Games Workshop to sell their wares for a fee directly in relation to space provided. Time and again specialty retail stores beyond a few noticable differences such as Apple, fail. Look at Disney etc...

I strongly believe the GW retail stores are a millstone around GW's neck and, since moving from hobby centers to the one man model, relocated to isolated strip malls and quieter streets, no longer effect at recruiting as they once were.

I further believe they should be closed, GW should work to empower the independent retailer and ensure their product takes pride of place in those stores again, whilst also enabling further indy stores to open where they are no longer doing direct business. A huge saving in rent, utilities, wages, insurance, everything. They are then letting indy stores take all the risks, pay all the bills and promote their product for them. This should be a no-brainer, but it's held back by this now outdated idea they can own the entire market and treat stores they don't own themselves as the enemy, or at best a grudging obligation. GW used to be great at indy dealings in the US, enable the tournament scene again, bombard the store with advertising masking as free giant posters and display models...

Hollismason wrote:

The next thing would be to have a player registery on their website similar to facebook where players could create profile and track their games W/L.

They could also use this as a customer database and feedback.

This is an excellent idea, something I talked about years ago with bringing in the notion of taking the tournaments and making them 'legit', posting reports and interviews with gamers in White Dwarf, content and interaction.
Building community, enabling communication, establishing a legitimacy for the games... I think it would work wonders.

I agree somewhat that the stores are Millstones, but having them be Gamesworkshop Gaming Centers similar to a FLGS , overall would be better for service. They could support their rental and agreement leases by contract to sell. Would the books be better? Most certainly and it would be better for the Hobby as a whole. Plus it would bring in more new customers. Especially if GW came up with some way to work with WOTC as a official outlet for their Friday Night Tournaments.

In the End it's a specialty store and will eventually probably fail. They've kept them going this long.

Interestingly , does anyone have the rate of expansion/ closing of GW stores at their height or are they at their height right now.

Having a supportive Tournament enviroment would go towards increasing new customers as well but unfortunately GW will never get in that. MTG does great with Casual vs. Tournament and is a driving force on why it's remained.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Which Codex autoloses and why?

LotD, as if you take a pure army, they don't get permission to deploy normally and must still DS, and don't get exclusion from the auto lose if you've got no models on the table at the end of the turn rule.