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http://www.iii.co.uk/articles/344389/can-we-trust-board-healthy-games-workshop

A good article on our favorite company. Any thoughts?

Is it? It's more doomsaying of GW's finances, a trend that's been around for at least 2 years. Hell, I mean he doesn't even address the Start Collecting boxes, something that would account for the healthy status of GW, despite falling profits and trends. Instead he blames it on royalties (not that's untrue, but come on, give credit where credit is due, the SC boxes are brilliant).

This article is nothing new, I could've read last years and it would have been the same.

Read the whole thing, can't really argue with it.

This is 2016 and you have a company which:

1) Has not had a sale inside of its own retail establishments for decades.

2) Opens and closes stores faster than any other company I've witnessed.

3) Doesn't let retailers actively sell products directly on their pages (somehow forcing companies to buy into GW's nonsensical demands in order to receive product)

4) Removed itself from social media for a while (social media...one of the biggest avenues of communication/advertisement available to a company in the 21st century)

5) Continues price increases which outrun the increase in the cost of production (and is sporadic between items).

If it wasn't as large as it is, and wasn't buoyed by a large following it would fail immediately as a company. I can't fathom any other large company acting this way and not going out of business (this is the advantage of selling toy models).

I've seen some decent moves within the past year which almost indicate the ship might be turning...but I have my doubts. As a GW gamer from the 90's I'll say that GW has become worse as a company over the years (as a fan and hobbyist).

With such a popular product it will be a slow and painful death if GW does eventually collapse. (read: 10-15 year process). I don't see them randomly closing up shop as some people like to predict every quarter or year.

It looks like it could have been written two years ago because not much has change with GW's overall situation. Revenue continues to decline, they sell less stuff to fewer people, and GW is far from their once near monopoly height, but continue to be profitable for the time being. The long term outlook doesnt look stellar but short term GW will be mostly fine.

By good ment well written. I agree with you fully that the company needs to change and has been on the wrong path for a while. I doubt they can make as significant of gains from other industries as they have this year. When that happens heads will roll and golden parachutes will flutter.

No big surprise. They're paying their behavor back. Though, im still amazed of how being a huge company can keep you alive for so long... these articles are more and more common and a good indicator of what's actually going on. Just wait for a correct comapny to finish them off or at least tothreaten them of doing it.

na, nothing new in that article this one is way more interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOVrmfXolQg

The article completely falls short on the "ignoring threats" part

GW's thread isn't 3d printers GW's problems are not replenishing whales at a higher rate then that they are losing them.
GW doesn't ignore threats they tend to compensate then by switching strategies while keeping the mask up.

The most obvious are:
- Alternative starter boxes / board game boxes.
- A huge wave of licensing deals

Both are innovative, and should be focus of a decent article that goes further then the easy chicle's.

On top of that they

- Opened up a explosion of GW stores directly starting the competition with FLGS
- Changed the attitude trowards gamers / the community

This all is interesting and should at least be mentioned.

 Elbows wrote:

1) Has not had a sale inside of its own retail establishments for decades.

2) Opens and closes stores faster than any other company I've witnessed.

3) Doesn't let retailers actively sell products directly on their pages (somehow forcing companies to buy into GW's nonsensical demands in order to receive product)

4) Removed itself from social media for a while (social media...one of the biggest avenues of communication/advertisement available to a company in the 21st century)

5) Continues price increases which outrun the increase in the cost of production (and is sporadic between items).

Read these points again, but assuming we're talking about a drug cartel.
People's addiction to their products is their best marketing strategy.

fresus wrote:

 Elbows wrote:

1) Has not had a sale inside of its own retail establishments for decades.

2) Opens and closes stores faster than any other company I've witnessed.

3) Doesn't let retailers actively sell products directly on their pages (somehow forcing companies to buy into GW's nonsensical demands in order to receive product)

4) Removed itself from social media for a while (social media...one of the biggest avenues of communication/advertisement available to a company in the 21st century)

5) Continues price increases which outrun the increase in the cost of production (and is sporadic between items).

Read these points again, but assuming we're talking about a drug cartel.
People's addiction to their products is their best marketing strategy.

Lol. The worst is that this silly comparason is true.

fresus wrote:

 Elbows wrote:

1) Has not had a sale inside of its own retail establishments for decades.

2) Opens and closes stores faster than any other company I've witnessed.

3) Doesn't let retailers actively sell products directly on their pages (somehow forcing companies to buy into GW's nonsensical demands in order to receive product)

4) Removed itself from social media for a while (social media...one of the biggest avenues of communication/advertisement available to a company in the 21st century)

5) Continues price increases which outrun the increase in the cost of production (and is sporadic between items).

Read these points again, but assuming we're talking about a drug cartel.
People's addiction to their products is their best marketing strategy.

There's a reason they're called "Krak" grenades and "Krak" missiles

Yep.

Alan Merett has allegedly just left GW.

Here's also a decent video about GW's business stuff from the perspective of a game developer. Specifically about licensing out their IP to video games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOVrmfXolQg

lol you must be the fasted kid on the block ; )

 Verviedi wrote:
Alan Merett has allegedly just left GW.

Who is he? I don't follow modern 40K - writer/designer?

I don't know how to take it. I read it as a "I am a nerd geek who loves GW but pissed off at them" but "I am also an investor and I love the money they give me."

It's like he is saying "I love the money GW is giving me, but as a gamer I am pained".

 Elbows wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Alan Merett has allegedly just left GW.

Who is he? I don't follow modern 40K

That's good, because Merret is/was one of the longest serving members of staff at GW!

He particularly came to prominence in the Chapterhouse case in his role as head of IP, where under questioning it become readily apparent he had little idea what IP was or how the law pertained to protecting it.

There's all sorts of anecdotes floating around how elements of GW's apparent insanity were directly attributable to him. One of which being he hated genestealers. The fact that we have, after all these years, seen a reinvention of Genestealer Cults may not be coincidence.

No, blame Matt Ward for it, his name is on the books!!!!!!!

 jreilly89 wrote:
Is it? It's more doomsaying of GW's finances, a trend that's been around for at least 2 years. Hell, I mean he doesn't even address the Start Collecting boxes, something that would account for the healthy status of GW, despite falling profits and trends. Instead he blames it on royalties (not that's untrue, but come on, give credit where credit is due, the SC boxes are brilliant).

This article is nothing new, I could've read last years and it would have been the same.

Gw is not healthy so sc doesn't account for it. Their customer base keeps shrinking and no company ever would consider that as a healthy. Especially whee rest of the industry is growing so can't even claim its tough time for the industry...

Gw has been losing customers for years so no wonder you see it for years. Should people pretend there is no problem? That would be stupid beond belief. Pretend problem doesn't exists and it bites you harder.

GW's basic problem is that 40K's user base has been shrinking for years, probably since the high price rises started in the mid-late 2000s, and faster since the release of 6th/7th edition spoilt the rules for a lot of people.

They ruined LoTR and WHFB during the same time period, and are trying to get things moving with AoS. It's too soon to tell how successful that game will be in the long run.

GW also have a rather circular way of dealing with their problems. They closed the regional HQs to save money, which I said was a bad move because it isolated the central HQ from a lot of the markets. Now they are reintroducing some form of regional HQs. They changed the web site from an interesting hobby destination to a not very good shop if you already knew what you wanted to buy. Now they are changing the web site again because it hasn't worked very well. They changed a lot of shops to one mon, then realised it doesn't work and are changing them back. They pretty much tried to destroy the FLGS section of their overall market, now it turns out that it's the best performing section of the business. They did a massive licensing deal on Total War:Hammer, in full knowledge that Dawn of War was a big recruiting tool, then closed down Warhammer.

The only positive I see is that all the bad mistakes listed happened during the time Kirby was in full charge, and the changes back are happening under Rountree. However, his changes are reducing profitability at the moment, because they require a lot of extra spending. But I feel like these are tinkering changes and there isn't a grand vision of strategy, just a kind of idea that they can go back to the 1990s to early 2000s when they were very successful.

Yeah, that's a big problem for GW these days - it's not the 1990s or early 00s any more.

There are a ton of companies out there who produce product which is often the equal or better than the GW equivalent, for less money, Vallejo paints being an excellent example of this. These new companies are nimble, listen to their fans, use social media, and are slowly killing GW by death from a thousand cuts.

Dakka's own Malestrom Edge game is a prime example of how with a little bit of hard work and smarts, you can create a product that is the equal of anything GW produces...

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:No, blame Matt Ward for it, his name is on the books!!!!!!!

Oh get over yourself. No matter what anyone does, it is GW who approves the work. So if Matt Wards stuff is bad, it's GW who approved the bad work. It is really tiring seeing all this Matt Ward hate. If I do something bad at work and my company doesn't make be rectify the bad work, it's the companies fault not the individual. So stop placing blame.

If anything it just brings the person's character who brings up Matt Ward.

Not really a good read.


To sum it up i hate gw here is why.

OgreChubbs wrote:
Not really a good read.


To sum it up i hate gw here is why.

You forgot, "I like collecting the money from them since I am a stock holder."

GW continue to sell more expensive kits to fewer customers. I think it's a bad thing, but to their credit they have managed to stop the arse end from falling out since the LOTR bubble bursting in the mid to late 00's.

Well, that's true in the sense that they haven't gone bankrupt.

OTOH their revenue now is probably half what it was in 2004-5, accounting for inflation, so it's not all Deep Joy!

That was dominated by LotR, so not really surprising, it's basically saying that GW's own products aren't as popular as a product tied to one of the most successful movie series ever.

We're at about half of their 03/04 financial year if you adjust for inflation, but they lost £15M from 04 to 05, another £20M from 05 to 06 and another £4M from 06 to 07 (which I think is the only year they had an overall loss in recent memory).

If you rewind to before LOTR, I think that'd be 2000? They made about £80M in 2000 which adjusted for inflation is about the same as they made these days.

fresus wrote:

Read these points again, but assuming we're talking about a drug cartel.
People's addiction to their products is their best marketing strategy.

Wouldn't a drug dealer want good word-of-mouth marketing of their product to expand their reach? If you can't (or don't) advertise in other ways that your only way to growth.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That was dominated by LotR, so not really surprising, it's basically saying that GW's own products aren't as popular as a product tied to one of the most successful movie series ever.

We're at about half of their 03/04 financial year if you adjust for inflation, but they lost £15M from 04 to 05, another £20M from 05 to 06 and another £4M from 06 to 07 (which I think is the only year they had an overall loss in recent memory).

If you rewind to before LOTR, I think that'd be 2000? They made about £80M in 2000 which adjusted for inflation is about the same as they made these days.

Yeah, you're about right, close enough as makes no real difference.

The important question is how much of GW's revenue in say 2005-5 was LoTR, and how much was 40K, WHFB and other lines (e.g. specialist games.)

Eh, GW has been getting worse and worse since
, well, when Kirby took over.