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DorianGray wrote:
It's NOT like GW is racking in the money themselves. Their production costs are massive. All their public shareholders which are British public institutions will dump the stock if they can't meet dividends.

Actually GW's current earnings per share (38.3) are at similar levels to the LOTR days (height of 40.1). And they just increased their dividend from 16p to 20p. During the LOTR days they had volume driving their high earnings. These days their high earnings are driven by capturing a greater portion of the markup to retail, severe cost cutting and protecting their margins through premium pricing. In their financial reports they describe their approach to paying dividends as only distributing truly surplus cash.

Kirby has described GW as an efficient cash generating machine for good reason.

They totally could try to increase sales volume by lowering price. They're just not going to. The last time they chased volume they ended up being blindsided by the post LOTR revenue shock and they had two dangerous loss making years. Since then they have been intentionally sacrificing volume to reduce costs and improve their margins. The latest report repeats their commitment to premium pricing under Rountree's tenure.

Anyone who feels they were priced out by GW is right to feel that way as it was intentional. GW wants you to pay more and get less as in doing so they will save on a variety of costs like shipping, manufacturing, administration, etc., so they can efficiently generate more truly surplus* cash to pay out as dividends. If you're not the kind of customer who will pay what they ask, you can be on your merry way while they concentrate on those they see as their true customers. Collectors who see their miniatures as "jewel like objects of magic and wonder" (Kirby).

Also their shareholders of record are all private investment firms from all over the world (and Kirby's 6.7%) and not "British public institutions."

* it's sad that GW's management can't figure out a single thing to do with millions and millions of pounds to grow their business further.

How about this: Living Codices(codex) online for free.

1. Consistent balance between all the codices makes the game a lot more fun.

2. Lowers the barriers to entry and encourages new players to start the game.

3. Accept and acknowledge imbalance issues of the past and present and try to fix them in a timely way.

As a compromise between free rules and expensive hardbacks, GW might look to Paizo and Pathfinder.

The big, lovely, full-color rules are pricey. They don't cycle through them like GW does, but they aren't cheap. The nuts and bolts of the rules are available for free online. No fluff, no background, no pictures. That way, the people who want a beautiful book can buy it, and the people who want rules to play (and thus, to buy minis to play) can get them. This also allows for easy updating of the rules (as you update the free online rules) and doesn't necessitate printing a new book to fix rules issues.


Another way to appease gamers without lowering prices is by adding value. GW could do this by running sales, by including coupons for a discount of the rules with the miniatures, etc. GW could also offer bundle deals, or even take what they have learned with Assassination Force and the other sets they have released and release boxed games that have an internal narrative, but also sell models at a discount.

For instance, they could sell a "Jungles of Armageddon Prime" game with Catachans and Ork Kommandos. You could have characters in the box and a price that was cheaper than selling them all individually, then after the sales run, sell them individually at a higher cost. These narrative games could use the same underlying mechanics of 40K, instead of a totally different game, and would function as 'skirmish games'.

They really, really need to figure out good ways of connecting with their fans. I'd love to see actual battle reports again, and some of my favorite battle reports were 'less professional". Ones with a regular gamer playing a GW writer, or even (boy this is a long time ago) a fan providing writeups of his own games. The battle reports need to be in depth and detailed, but modern technology should make that much less of a chore than it was 15 years ago.

They also need to actually demonstrate that they want and need the good will of their fans. GW seems to simply assume that their fans are content to lap up whatever they dole out, rather than behaving as a company who benefits from the economic support of devoted fans.

Everyone comparing GW to other companies just realise that GW is the only publicly traded wargaming company.

If you're a private company you can basically do whatever the feth you want. You don't report to anyone.

If you're on a stock exchange you're beholden to a board of director made of the largest shareholders who will have your head on a plate if you don't hit targets, hit margins, etc.

GW simply doesn't have the kind of independence that Privateer Press, etc has.

If you nerds really want to solve this problem BUY OUT GW and take it private off the stock exchange through a leveraged buyout and kick out Kirby. Kirby will probably fight to the death to keep his top job so it'll have to be a hostile takeover so you'll need crack investment bankers. (Like me)

It'll be bloody messy but when you're going to be using millions of your own money to buy a public company to take it private ... don't you kinda want to have higher returns then a hyper niche toy company with pathetic profit margins (compared to other industries like tech companies/Pharmaceuticals?)

Maybe a billionaire who likes 40k will do it just for the hell of it and run it himself. Short of that, don't get your hopes up.

DorianGray wrote:
Everyone comparing GW to other companies just realise that GW is the only publicly traded wargaming company.

So?

As a customer, I care far more about how a company's decisions affect me than I do about why they made those decisions. Unless, of course, I feel positively enough about the company to care about their welfare as well as my own. That's the goodwill that people keep mentioning, that GW have seemingly been trying very hard to squash out.

If GW's status as a public company is affecting their ability to connect with their customers, ultimately that's their problem.


I doubt that being publicly traded actually is the problem, though, since they were publicly traded well before they started shutting out their customers.

It certainly may have forced some decisions on them... But doesn't explain most of their less customer friendly choices.

DorianGray wrote:


If you nerds...

Pot, meet Kettle.


And I agree with insaniak, there are numerous, publicly traded stores that I simply do not shop at because their "principles" do not agree with mine. And if insaniak is correct about them being publicly traded long before they started into a tailspin, then I would suspect that they made the same exact mistake that Home Depot did a while back.

Two of the most prominent "won't shop at" places for me, are Target and Walmart. And Home Depot, when it was founded, was run on the principle that everyone should be able to do things around the house themselves. As such, they hired retirees from various fields, whom they didn't need to pay all that much (but they usually did) because the guy was "enjoying" his retirement. I'm talking 30 year electricians, plumbers, construction workers, etc. in the orange apron, who were all more than happy to walk you through what you needed to get your project/repair done. Fast forward, they get a new CEO, who is far more interested in dividends, margins and profits so they fire all those "expensive" retirees, in favor of the prototypical Walmart worker, and suddenly you have a situation where a guy like me, who knows nothing about plumbing, but needs to replace the U shaped pipe in a kitchen sink, is lost in the store because the new breed of employee can only point out that plumbing is on aisle 5 (thanks, genius, I can read that for myself as well).

Obviously, GW hasn't completely gone down the "orange apron road", because they simply are not going to attract non-gamer types as employees, so they've gone for the money in other ways.

First you wouldn't need billions you would need approximately 50 million . You could of course attempt to buy out shareholders. But the safest bet is just go for a take over.

But to answer the questions.

Give Tony Cottrell (sp?) A larger staff and hand him specialist games .

Forums.

Lower prices or have a loyalty program both probably would be a good idea at least for the first 16 months.

Close 60/70 percent of these stores pull back into 1 store per large city with multiple staff ( Birmingham for example has 4 within easy reach)

Games days that have games, a decent bag of swag ( see blizzcon ) and pre releases for say 5-8 months You could knock 10-15 percent of just for the event.

Monthly WD that has content.

The market cap of GAW.L s about 187m.

The problem is, if you try to buy a lot of it, each incremental share gets more expensive, and this is why hostile takeovers are difficult. Expect to pay at least twice as much for shares in this circumstance, and keep in mind that there may not even be a controlling interest in shares available to be purchased. All the institutional owners will sell for the right price, but unsophisticated shareholders are likely to not even notice, in the short run, that someone is trying to effect a takeover.

Plus , equally or more importantly, being a large or even majority shareholder offers you no short term power. All of the power in a company rests in the board of directors, which are elected annually by the shareholders. Unless the company is in distress, it is very hard to reshape the board.

Frankly, it would be cheaper and easier to just bribe Kirby away (with a pile of cash, and perhaps some meaningless but titularly impressive position to assuage his ego) and work with other directors of the company to get what you want.

The real question is why anyone would want to. The effort to make GW into the next Marvel would be monumental and risky, and there is just way easier money to be made with capital than miniature wargaming. To make GW into a multibillion dollar enterprise, which is the only smart reason to buy control, would require a super risky investment of probably hundreds of millions.

I doubt even with unlimited funds, miniatures could be turned into a multibillion dollar enterprise, and for anything else, why not just license rights from GW? It's cheap anyhow; we can tell because there are plenty of licensees and little revenue.

Or, just do it outside of GW properties, which to me makes way more sense.

I think for the foreseeable future, GW will just do its thing, cater to its core, and continue to make profits and pay out dividends -- essentially just doing the same old, until and unless a new entrant or technology does something truly disruptive.

 Talys wrote:
The market cap of GAW.L s about 187m.

The problem is, if you try to buy a lot of it, each incremental share gets more expensive, and this is why hostile takeovers are difficult. Expect to pay at least twice as much for shares in this circumstance, and keep in mind that there may not even be a controlling interest in shares available to be purchased. All the institutional owners will sell for the right price, but unsophisticated shareholders are likely to not even notice, in the short run, that someone is trying to effect a takeover.

Plus , equally or more importantly, being a large or even majority shareholder offers you no short term power. All of the power in a company rests in the board of directors, which are elected annually by the shareholders. Unless the company is in distress, it is very hard to reshape the board.

Frankly, it would be cheaper and easier to just bribe Kirby away (with a pile of cash, and perhaps some meaningless but titularly impressive position to assuage his ego) and work with other directors of the company to get what you want.

The real question is why anyone would want to. The effort to make GW into the next Marvel would be monumental and risky, and there is just way easier money to be made with capital than miniature wargaming. To make GW into a multibillion dollar enterprise, which is the only smart reason to buy control, would require a super risky investment of probably hundreds of millions.

I doubt even with unlimited funds, miniatures could be turned into a multibillion dollar enterprise, and for anything else, why not just license rights from GW? It's cheap anyhow; we can tell because there are plenty of licensees and little revenue.

Or, just do it outside of GW properties, which to me makes way more sense.

I think for the foreseeable future, GW will just do its thing, cater to its core, and continue to make profits and pay out dividends -- essentially just doing the same old, until and unless a new entrant or technology does something truly disruptive.

But if you ever researched a take over you just need to buy all the shares hence 50 mil last time I checked. A market cap is different to how much shares are sold or so my research tells me. while a company may be worth 180odd the company usually only floats part of it. I don't know if GW are that... oh maybe they are.

But to gain enough influence to change you just need more shares than Kirby he currently possesses 6 milion

Barrier to entry is too high - there needs to be 3 or more DV style kits, all with different armies.

Prices are 25% too high. I buy from eBay mostly, and I'm not alone. I would happily buy fresh kits from GW if they took a $10-$15 chunk off the tag.

GW communicates very poorly about EVERYTHING. Look at the flames of war website and be filled with envy for their lovely communication and regular updates AIMED AT CUSTOMERS

Their website keeps getting worse I feel sorry that FW has to merge with it.

migooo wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Spoiler:

The market cap of GAW.L s about 187m.

The problem is, if you try to buy a lot of it, each incremental share gets more expensive, and this is why hostile takeovers are difficult. Expect to pay at least twice as much for shares in this circumstance, and keep in mind that there may not even be a controlling interest in shares available to be purchased. All the institutional owners will sell for the right price, but unsophisticated shareholders are likely to not even notice, in the short run, that someone is trying to effect a takeover.

Plus , equally or more importantly, being a large or even majority shareholder offers you no short term power. All of the power in a company rests in the board of directors, which are elected annually by the shareholders. Unless the company is in distress, it is very hard to reshape the board.

Frankly, it would be cheaper and easier to just bribe Kirby away (with a pile of cash, and perhaps some meaningless but titularly impressive position to assuage his ego) and work with other directors of the company to get what you want.

The real question is why anyone would want to. The effort to make GW into the next Marvel would be monumental and risky, and there is just way easier money to be made with capital than miniature wargaming. To make GW into a multibillion dollar enterprise, which is the only smart reason to buy control, would require a super risky investment of probably hundreds of millions.

I doubt even with unlimited funds, miniatures could be turned into a multibillion dollar enterprise, and for anything else, why not just license rights from GW? It's cheap anyhow; we can tell because there are plenty of licensees and little revenue.

Or, just do it outside of GW properties, which to me makes way more sense.

I think for the foreseeable future, GW will just do its thing, cater to its core, and continue to make profits and pay out dividends -- essentially just doing the same old, until and unless a new entrant or technology does something truly disruptive.

But if you ever researched a take over you just need to buy all the shares hence 50 mil last time I checked. A market cap is different to how much shares are sold or so my research tells me. while a company may be worth 180odd the company usually only floats part of it. I don't know if GW are that... oh maybe they are.

But to gain enough influence to change you just need more shares than Kirby he currently possesses 6 milion

Huh?

Market capitalization means the total number of outstanding shares multiplied by the current (market) price per share. It is an unambiguous investment term that has no other definition. If you bought 100% of the shares at the current price it would equal the market cap of the company.

GW's market cap as of 3 Aug 2015 is 187m GBP or about $292m USD. https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=GAW.L

To absolutely control a company's shareholder vote you need 50% + 1 outstanding common shares. At that point, at the next AGM, you can fire the entire board of directors and appoint your own, including yourself and your grandma. Everyone else gets to vote too, but their vote doesn't matter because your hand is bigger than all of theirs put together. Effectively, to control a company, you need 50% + 1 of the shares that will vote. This is because many shares are owned by unsophisticated shareholders who neither vote nor give their proxy to vote. Realistically, to control a company, you need to have a large number of shares, and convince other large shareholders to vote your way.

In order to achieve total or effective control (ie be a dictator), you need to buy a lot of shares. But if you had 100 million GBP in the bank, you would be unlikely to be able to buy 51% of GAW.L, because as you started buying shares, the value of the shares would increase. As you approached 51%, those shares would get more and more expensive, and in the end, in a perfect world, you'd be spending AT LEAST 200m GBP, if you could even find that many shares for sale. You will surely be gouged at the end.

Also, you can't do it overnight. The Board will see this, and they have many tools to make your life miserable (and enrich current shareholders) if they know you're trying to effect a hostile takeover. That share price will go through the roof, and you STILL might not end up with a controlling vote. In the worst case scenario, you end up with 15%-20% of the shares of the company, can't change a single seat on the board, and paid twice as much for the shares as they're worth, and can't sell the shares except at a huge loss.

Among other things, they can issue more shares, screwing you over! They even have a good reason to -- shares are abnormally high, and this is a great way for the company to cash in on it.

This is why in the typical scenario, a guy like Carl Ichahn will engineer a buyout or control (for example Dell), but not actually conduct the transaction unless they KNOW they are going to effect control. And even with with untold billions, the transaction won't happen unless he KNOWS he'll get what he wants. It's very complex, and you'll spend millions just engineering the deal before a penny changes hands.

Owning more shares than Kirby means NOTHING. It gives you a vote at the AGM (but so does owning 1 share), and Kirby has proven to shareholders that he's very good at one thing: making them money. You'd have to prove at an AGM that you could make people more money than him to dethrone him, and he has a good track record in that respect.

There is another issue that you have as well. If you somehow managed to wrest control of GW, took it in a totally different direction "for the benefit of the community" or whatever, and then it paid significantly less dividends or the stock price really took a hit for its remaining shareholders, those shareholders could sue you for oppression and breach of fiduciary duty -- that's when a majority shareholder acts in their own best interest, at the expense of minority shareholders. They might lose, but you never know; cases like this are sometimes won in court, and either way, it's super expensive.

The smart thing to do if you had billions would be to offer management a price that's superb (say triple current market value) and take the company private. As a part of that transaction, the board makes an extraordinary meeting of the shareholders, and anyone dissenting doesn't matter, because they'll just get a check like everyone else. The board gets the vote for you, and it's risk-free to you (in the sense that you won't end up with shares you can't do anything with but sell at a loss). Then you own 100% of the company and you can do whatever you want with it, including change directions or shutter it.

But all this is not really worth the hassle... since... instead of spending tens or hundreds of millions on GAW.L, you could just you know, start up your own gaming company or buy one that's privately owned where the founders want to cash out, or need money, or whatever.

migooo wrote:

Close 60/70 percent of these stores pull back into 1 store per large city with multiple staff ( Birmingham for example has 4 within easy reach)

This may work well in much of Europe. But in the US, I could see this feasibly only working in a very small number of cities (New York, Chicago) due to the shambles that our public transport is generally in.

I live near Tacoma, WA, and due to the exact spot where I live, I have 2 stores that are "reasonably" within range. Let's say that I live closer to one of the stores, and in your "plan" that store is chosen for closing; if I have to rely on public transport, that has effectively killed my ability and desire to game inside the "other" store that is now the only store and at a much greater distance.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

migooo wrote:

Close 60/70 percent of these stores pull back into 1 store per large city with multiple staff ( Birmingham for example has 4 within easy reach)

This may work well in much of Europe. But in the US, I could see this feasibly only working in a very small number of cities (New York, Chicago) due to the shambles that our public transport is generally in.

I live near Tacoma, WA, and due to the exact spot where I live, I have 2 stores that are "reasonably" within range. Let's say that I live closer to one of the stores, and in your "plan" that store is chosen for closing; if I have to rely on public transport, that has effectively killed my ability and desire to game inside the "other" store that is now the only store and at a much greater distance.

I actually mean for the UK.. I'd probably extended the staff in other countries. Or have something like a sister store program with LGS.

Okay so I've obviously misunderstood something. I'm not sure what exactly though. Your saying from this that GW has completely floated itself? Multiple times over it seems

So as a senior shareholder I'd be able to do nothing? That's what you're saying right? So a man that has 6 million pounds worth of shares has more power than 12 or 15? That's not how I understood things but I do see your point.

I got my figures from here http://companycheck.co.uk/company/01467092 and that's where I was basing my figures from.

But fine yeah you're figures seem to show that GW is in a far worse place than I have thought I honestly don't see them lasting

migooo wrote:

Okay so I've obviously misunderstood something. I'm not sure what exactly though. Your saying from this that GW has completely floated itself? Multiple times over it seems

So as a senior shareholder I'd be able to do nothing? That's what you're saying right? So a man that has 6 million pounds worth of shares has more power than 12 or 15? That's not how I understood things but I do see your point.

I got my figures from here http://companycheck.co.uk/company/01467092 and that's where I was basing my figures from.

But fine yeah you're figures seem to show that GW is in a far worse place than I have thought I honestly don't see them lasting

This is absolutely correct. You could own 75% of the shares of the company and be powerless for 11 months and 30 days.

A corporation is a republic, not a democracy. Shareholders elect a board of directors for a year, and during that year, the board of directors have complete control of the company, except for a list of very specific things which mostly have to do with restructuring the company, which, if the Board wants, would require a special vote in an extraordinary meeting of shareholders. To take Nokia as an example, shareholders were powerless to prevent the Board from selling the mobile phone division to Microsoft (didn't require a vote). But if Nokia wanted to itself become a subsidiary of Microsoft, or even issue new shares that it would sell to Microsoft, it would have had to hold an extraordinary meeting of shareholders, provide notice, and allow a vote.

When it comes to the AGM, you have a vote proportionate to your shareholdings. So if you own 6 million GBP of shares and the market cap is 287 GBP, you would own 2.1% of the vote. But if half the votes don't show up, you'd represent 4.2% of any particular vote.

Incidentally, most people who fill out the forms just proxy their vote to management, unless they're shareholders that held onto the stock AND don't like management (which isn't that common, because why own stock of a company you don't believe in?), so the Board controls an awful lot of votes.

Typically, very significant shareholders own those shares for a reason, and often, they or their representative will have a seat (and vote) at the Board of Directors. But this doesn't have to be the case, certainly not if the shareholder is hostile to the current Board.

Also, typically, for a company the size of GW (big enough, but not really big), Chairmanships and Directorships are like empires, and handed from one person to their successor, so long as the expectations of the major shareholders are met. And those expectations have nothing to do with "game balance" or whether the community loves you. It doesn't even *really* have anything to do with revenues. Almost universally, every sophisticated investor cares about share prices and dividends. The other stuff only comes up in the discussion of "why", which is only really relevant when share prices and dividends are weak -- because as long as the company is making money for shareholders, nobody cares much how it's achieved.

There are other methods of controlling them though. And it's been done before. You buy the suppliers or bribe/ influence people who do so effectively starving them if they can't get raw materials and make them persona non grata. I think that would be cheaper and more effective. Shareholders would bail. And you could scoop up the rights and remains.

Hypothetically, I think Kirby should raise prices, and release a new version of 40k which is stitched together with all the bad ideas of the various editions rolled into one. He should wear a suit, walk with a pronounced strut, and release weekly videos extolling his virtues and slamming hobbyists. A Mr McMahon character, if you will.

HOWEVER

At the same time, Forge World should lower their prices and continue to write excellent Horus Heresy rulebooks. They should engage with hobbyists online and at conventions. Allow beta testing of their rules, thank people for their help. Set themselves up as the faces (good guys)

That's right - GW should aim to be the villain and hero. Or not, because I haven't thought this through.

I dont know if there is a point where there is no redemption

That said Lowering or stopping the price increases will appease the majority of the peanut gallery.

Start actually do market research to see who actually wants what instead of what JJ wants to do. (get off that tower)

Then do that.

This doesn't necessarily mean make a ultra tight Competitive rule set.

But personally i feel like they need to actually be a Game work shop and a model work shop.

I agree with the rules stuff I read (i only got four minutes of read time left so I cut it short). I liked 4th editions SM codex- I could make a chapter of my own design. Now I feel more restricted- like I have to play THEIR way. A good create your own (X) would be a HUGE thing for me. I like having the ability to play how I like. This whole formations thing aggravates me (look I got universal Cheese syndrome for FREE cause I have Cheese already!!!)- like they think I am an idiot with no ability to think for myself. Maybe allow non GW minis in GW tournies. Make it about the hobby as well as the game. There- my two cents.

They could start by re releasing their specialist games. They want 12 year olds to play? Why did they remove the smaller games they COULD afford, in favour of horde rules WHFB armies?

One every 6 months would have gorkamorka, mordheim, hero quest, inquisitor, necromunda, BFG and Space Hulk out in 3,5 years. BFG could surf the X-wing enthusiasm, while gorka, inq, necro and space hulk would recruit to the 40k universe, while manowar, mordheim and some revamp of hero quest would recruit to age of sigmar.

As it is, they get a lot of hate from people who try to start up and then gives up in disgust as they realize 500 pts isnt enough to play anything.

GW could also start giving previews, instead of keeping the rumour mill going and just releasing somethig out of the blue. Dreadfleet is a good example of something that -might- have worked if introduced differently and playtested a bit more. I WANTED it to be good so much, but it just wasnt.

Thirdly, they could communicate with the fans.

As it is, they have gone from releasing many games, to releasing 2; age of sigmar and 40k. With the hobitt on its way out.

 triplegrim wrote:
They could start by re releasing their specialist games. They want 12 year olds to play? Why did they remove the smaller games they COULD afford, in favour of horde rules WHFB armies?

One every 6 months would have gorkamorka, mordheim, hero quest, inquisitor, necromunda, BFG and Space Hulk out in 3,5 years. BFG could surf the X-wing enthusiasm, while gorka, inq, necro and space hulk would recruit to the 40k universe, while manowar, mordheim and some revamp of hero quest would recruit to age of sigmar.

As it is, they get a lot of hate from people who try to start up and then gives up in disgust as they realize 500 pts isnt enough to play anything.

GW could also start giving previews, instead of keeping the rumour mill going and just releasing somethig out of the blue. Dreadfleet is a good example of something that -might- have worked if introduced differently and playtested a bit more. I WANTED it to be good so much, but it just wasnt.

Thirdly, they could communicate with the fans.

As it is, they have gone from releasing many games, to releasing 2; age of sigmar and 40k. With the hobitt on its way out.

Problem with this is that I no longer think any of the Fantasy specialist games will recruit people into Age of Sigmar without massively altering the specialist games themselves which will just cause even more resentment.

Why would people move from interesting games with lots of character like Mordheim to AoS?

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:
Hypothetically, I think Kirby should raise prices, and release a new version of 40k which is stitched together with all the bad ideas of the various editions rolled into one. He should wear a suit, walk with a pronounced strut, and release weekly videos extolling his virtues and slamming hobbyists. A Mr McMahon character, if you will.

HOWEVER

At the same time, Forge World should lower their prices and continue to write excellent Horus Heresy rulebooks. They should engage with hobbyists online and at conventions. Allow beta testing of their rules, thank people for their help. Set themselves up as the faces (good guys)

That's right - GW should aim to be the villain and hero. Or not, because I haven't thought this through.

Good cop bad cop. Works every time.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Why would people move from interesting games with lots of character like Mordheim to AoS?

Gamers tends to move from smaller games to larger games, in my experience. Also, they could have made mordheim a pure boardgame with a few expansions. There have never been more Hero Quest style games on the marked, and never have they been better or sold better. But GW is completely off that marked, except for a LIMITED release of Space Hulk. Limited; as in -we're only making a few of these-. Do they even want to make money?

When I said re release, I also ment more of a remake. City of Blight or Skavenblight etc. Where you head in to find warptokens or something. But doesnt have to be set in Age of Sigmar universe even.

It wouldn't work really as a board game. SG are dead I think as I understand it there's no money in a game where you collect 16 is figures and you are done and let's not forget GW is trying to pay dividends so no long term money in it or so they think. There's talisman or Dungeon that's quite like Hero Quest.

migooo wrote:
...as I understand it there's no money in a game where you collect 16 is figures and you are done ...

'No money' is a stretch. There was plenty of money in Space Hulk, and that didn't require any additional purchase at all. Zombicide appears to be making a crateload of money for CMoN. Hell, Warmahordes lets you play with only a dozen or so figures, which come with their rules in the pack.

Given that GW's apparent focus has for years now been new players rather than vets, all-in-one-box games would make far more sense than games like 40K or AoS, because there's far less work involved in making a sale. No need to explain how armies work, and what sort of models they need... Just hand them a box and ring up the sale.

migooo wrote:
It wouldn't work really as a board game. SG are dead I think as I understand it there's no money in a game where you collect 16 is figures and you are done and let's not forget GW is trying to pay dividends so no long term money in it or so they think. There's talisman or Dungeon that's quite like Hero Quest.

I'm sure Corvus Belli would disagree that there's no money in games that require 16 figures. I'm sure FFG may have something to say on the matter too.

Self contained board games are hugely popular, as are expansions for those board games. Likely far in excess of true, full blooded, wargames.

Speaking personally, my interest is switching to these sorts of games too, largely because I need to drive to my local club, and drawing up an army list, packing the models, travelling, unpacking the models, humping some boxes of terrain out of storage, setting up a table, playing the game and then doing the whole thing in reverse just isn't justified by the fun I get out of 40K right now.

By contrast, X Wing is very easy to play, we've got an Imperial Assault campaign going every couple of weeks (all played out of the box, no expansions yet) and I'm looking at other games with a smaller scale mainly, or that are self contained.

I'd kill for Bloodbowl, Epic, BFG etc all to come back again, I'd pick them up as a matter of course, whereas I'm struggling to remember the last time I gave GW any money as I type.

I was attempting to play into the GW mindset. I'm actually working for a company that's producing models for skirmish games.

If you're interested in Necromunda and Mordhiem type games. Then I can only say you might like what we are doing.

drop most things around 10 dollars... (makes it still expesnive but no more then most other hobbys)
listen to the fan community
plastic models for all my people(sisters)

Cutting prices, by $10 or any other amount, simply isn't feasible. As much as I criticise the way GW operates, I don't want to see them go under, and any sort of price cut would likely drive them under in short order.

There would be a slim chance that the lower prices would drive enough of an uptick in sales volume that it cancelled itself out, or even had a positive impact on the bottom line, but regardless of where you stand on the "do GW do research or not" debate, if they were harvesting the sort of data they'd need for that not to be anything but a massive gamble, we'd be aware of it.

No, as I've said countless times before, the way forward is to concentrate on value, not on price cuts. Stick enough extra legs in the ASM box to make 5 JP equipped and 5 foot Assault Marines, add a heavy weapons sprue to the tactical squad etc, etc.

I agree that having some sort feedback mechanism is needed, not only to find out what the customer base thinks, but also to engage with us to explain why certain things don't happen, that will mitigate a lot of the anger that stony silence provokes.

As for plastic Sisters? I think it's funnier as a non-SOB for them not to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

migooo wrote:
I was attempting to play into the GW mindset. I'm actually working for a company that's producing models for skirmish games.

If you're interested in Necromunda and Mordhiem type games. Then I can only say you might like what we are doing.

I will keep an eye out..