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Personally I don't buy the argument that 40k is safe from getting the AoS treatment because 40k is the better selling of the two games.

Fantasy sales might have been dismal, meaning it needed it first, but 40k sales don't seem to be good by themselves.

Games-Workshop is a gakky company run by donkey-caves who have no business being in charge of anything, much less a multi-million dollar business. They have no business sense, have no idea what their priorities are, and have no idea how economics actually work or what their customers actually want.

If I could, I would buy the company from them, but I don't have that much money yet. Hopefully by the time I do have that much money GW will be in such dire straits that I can get it for cheaps then overhaul their old and fething gross business model into something that is profitable.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Personally I don't buy the argument that 40k is safe from getting the AoS treatment because 40k is the better selling of the two games.

Fantasy sales might have been dismal, meaning it needed it first, but 40k sales don't seem to be good by themselves.

I agree. GW started working of AoS before WFB went realy bad from no updates. IMO the changes they made to the game had less to do with the game and how it was, and more with what they claim as they own IP. That is why we have no dwarfs, elfs , orcs etc in the game. With the Total Warhammer game coming out in some time, they must have known about a DoW effec, but they still did it. I wonder what all the people will think about AoS and the fact that the world got blown up.

 McNinja wrote:
Games-Workshop is a gakky company run by donkey-caves who have no business being in charge of anything, much less a multi-million dollar business. They have no business sense, have no idea what their priorities are, and have no idea how economics actually work or what their customers actually want.

If I could, I would buy the company from them, but I don't have that much money yet. Hopefully by the time I do have that much money GW will be in such dire straits that I can get it for cheaps then overhaul their old and fething gross business model into something that is profitable.

Nope, they are the most businesses savy people. Because they can sell you an absurdly expensive plastic toy. The cost for designing a kit is $100,000. They have to sell so many kits just to break even.

I wished they would ditch the whole hobby concept and went full mainstream competitive gaming by mass producing cheap toys like hero clix and paying sweat shop children to paint them.

It is unfair to say GW's executives and decision makers are bad businessmen, they have hidden falling sales for years now, they have introduced some extraordinary cost cutting measures and they have made themselves very rich doing it.

I would say they do not understand their market ("We sell toys to kids")

They are arrogant ("Asking the market what it wants is otiose" "our customers favourite part of the hobby is buying things from games workshop")

And they are very unethical with their IP bullying (Spots the Space Marine, Chapterhouse)

They are also rather incompetent in their legal and IP departments (head of IP not knowing the difference between trademark and copywrite on the stand in the Chapterhous trial)

They also suck at the whole interacting with your customers, particularity bad in such a community driven industry (removing themselves from social media in favour of all comments/questions/discussions going through your local store's Facebook)

They don't even seem to understand their product, but they are GREAT accountants.

 Filch wrote:

Nope, they are the most businesses savy people. Because they can sell you an absurdly expensive plastic toy. The cost for designing a kit is $100,000. They have to sell so many kits just to break even.

I'm interested in knowing where you got that figure from?

 Torga_DW wrote:

 Filch wrote:

Nope, they are the most businesses savy people. Because they can sell you an absurdly expensive plastic toy. The cost for designing a kit is $100,000. They have to sell so many kits just to break even.

I'm interested in knowing where you got that figure from?

GW-man's Uplifting Primer?

 Torga_DW wrote:

 Filch wrote:

Nope, they are the most businesses savy people. Because they can sell you an absurdly expensive plastic toy. The cost for designing a kit is $100,000. They have to sell so many kits just to break even.

I'm interested in knowing where you got that figure from?

Once upon a time that was the reason most models were metal, because a metal mould would be cheap while the metal wasn't. It would make the best economical sense for small production runs and slow moving items. Plastic moulds cost tens of thousands at the time and you only offset that initial investment when you would have a high volume of sales. Once you pay off that initial investment though your box of tactical marines costs you 20 cents worth of plastic to make.

More recently however the plastic injection mould technology has come a LONG way and it must be very cheap for GW to be making named characters (some of the slowest moving items) in plastic, not to mention Limited Edition plastic models.

I have no idea what GW's current production costs are, but Tamiya have said their plastic moulds now only cost a fraction of what they used to.

 Kilkrazy wrote:


Yes, it is great fun.

A dogfighting game featuring iconic starfighters and pilots from the massively popular Star Wars, with simple rules that lead to complex tactics, and a sprinkling of special rules to add spice to the mix. All topped off with play straight out of the box ready painted models, cards and tokens for an experience that is as accessible as playing a wargame could be.

To put the prices in perspective, you can get an X Wing starter set with three 'planes' for about £20 to £25, and the add-on planes are about £10 to £12 each (more for large models like Millenium Falcon). Six to eight models a side will give quite an involved game, so you and a pal could get a really good set up for £100 to £150 each.

Thanks for the info. Sounded good until I checked the prices in Poland, one 'plane' costs as much as a squad of FWs lol! Maybe the prices will get better if it gets more popular here.

 jonolikespie wrote:

More recently however the plastic injection mould technology has come a LONG way and it must be very cheap for GW to be making named characters (some of the slowest moving items) in plastic, not to mention Limited Edition plastic models.

Yeah the finecast characters are the worst thing, i.e. Shadowsun costs more than a box of pathfinders... srsly?



Cheers
Kahnawake

 asorel wrote:
I'm not suggesting that AoS was an intelligent decision, or that GW execs hold anything sacred. My point was that, on some level, they are aware that changing a product to such a major degree could have a negative impact on profits. Because Fantasy isn't as large a source of profit, GW decided that attempting a redesign was worth the risk, because they lost profit wouldn't break the company. In contrast, 40k is the franchise that is keeping the firm alive. Messing with it in any significant way is a very large risk where profits are concerned. I would imagine that it is for a similar reason that the timeline has remained frozen in place. Advancing it entails fixing something that already "works" to some degree. Age of the Emprah won't happen until true desperation sets in.

Considering the fact that GW (as Kilkrazy stated already, so I won't repeat the "signs" and reasons) keeps repeating the mistakes that led to FB's downfall, I think it's not that hard to see that AoS treatment is coming for 40k, whether we want it or not. It's just a matter of time - I mean, how much of a clusterfeth is 40k at the moment anyway?

And when the AoSification happens, the outcry will have all the power and resonance of Istvaan III's.

But, of course, it will never really be GW's fault, will it? I am sure GW (and their white knights) will find a way to spin it around so that the fault lies entirely on the shoulders of those evil tournament goers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Filch wrote:
Nope, they are the most businesses savy people. Because they can sell you an absurdly expensive plastic toy. The cost for designing a kit is $100,000. They have to sell so many kits just to break even.

I wished they would ditch the whole hobby concept and went full mainstream competitive gaming by mass producing cheap toys like hero clix and paying sweat shop children to paint them.

But can they really, really sell that absurdly expensive plastic toy? Their sales figures, along with the scrapping of FB, seem to be pointing otherwise. The current GW managers are great leeches living off the brand that others (mostly we, the player base) created for them. But business-savy? No. fething. way.

The mid-year report in January will be interesting but possibly difficult to interpret.

If sales continue to fall, it will show that AoS has been a failure.

If sales are roughly level, it could mean that AoS is a success but 40K is continuing to decline, or it could mean that AoS is a minor failure and 40K is rallying.

Or sales may skyrocket!

In any case, the GW management will be able to compre the sales of AoS with the sales of WHFB over the first half of 2015, and they will be able to compare the sales of 40K with WHFB, and this will give them some idea of whether 40K could be successfully AoSified.

It will be very difficult to interpret indeed, especially since GW management do intend their reports to be so.

My best guess is that we will see some rise in sales in the January report, due to the AoS novelty-factor. The real deal will be the Annual Report, unless they have something up their sleeve to disguise any possible failing of AoS, of course (a CSM release comes to mind).

 McNinja wrote:
Games-Workshop is a gakky company run by donkey-caves who have no business being in charge of anything, much less a multi-million dollar business. They have no business sense, have no idea what their priorities are, and have no idea how economics actually work or what their customers actually want.

If I could, I would buy the company from them, but I don't have that much money yet. Hopefully by the time I do have that much money GW will be in such dire straits that I can get it for cheaps then overhaul their old and fething gross business model into something that is profitable.

If you want to change the company or it's culture, get together an investor group where everyone contributes small amounts of cash for a large stake in the company. It's actually not that hard to find other people who feel the same way you do.

The average investor is a fund working with money from elderly Northern European pensioners. They are seeking annual returns and dividends as a condition of their investment, and that's what GW provides.

There have been a lot of threads about what people would do if they were the CEO of GW. The answer no one wants to admit is they would act exactly the same way as current management b/c GW gets the job done when it comes to their investor's interests. The company would go down really, really fast without access to capital.

To OP:

I wouldn't worry too much, if it should fall a company that big with a game and fallowing as large as it is would be snatched up quickly. It would't e long before we'd see a new rules set, and hey they could feth up as bad as GW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 McNinja wrote:
Games-Workshop is a gakky company run by donkey-caves who have no business being in charge of anything, much less a multi-million dollar business. They have no business sense, have no idea what their priorities are, and have no idea how economics actually work or what their customers actually want.

If I could, I would buy the company from them, but I don't have that much money yet. Hopefully by the time I do have that much money GW will be in such dire straits that I can get it for cheaps then overhaul their old and fething gross business model into something that is profitable.

If you want to change the company or it's culture, get together an investor group where everyone contributes small amounts of cash for a large stake in the company. It's actually not that hard to find other people who feel the same way you do.

The average investor is a fund working with money from elderly Northern European pensioners. They are seeking annual returns and dividends as a condition of their investment, and that's what GW provides.

There have been a lot of threads about what people would do if they were the CEO of GW. The answer no one wants to admit is they would act exactly the same way as current management b/c GW gets the job done when it comes to their investor's interests. The company would go down really, really fast without access to capital.

I had thought of that before but trusting that everyone wants the samething is the catch.

However, I disagree about the CEO thing, GW does no market research and doesn't care too. They say that 80% of their market is collectors and hobbyist and there are very few players. I ask how do they know this? Hundreds of people go to wargame conventions just to play. So for every 300 people at a event like Nova and Adepticon there are 1200 buyers in the collector category. it doesn't add up. I'd wager that number is reversed easily. So, I'd do market research and find out for sure.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
It will be very difficult to interpret indeed, especially since GW management do intend their reports to be so.

My best guess is that we will see some rise in sales in the January report, due to the AoS novelty-factor. The real deal will be the Annual Report, unless they have something up their sleeve to disguise any possible failing of AoS, of course (a CSM release comes to mind).

I concur.

I think AoS will have been quite successful to start with, The starter set is widely seen as good value and apparently has sold well. However the game needs to build a significant long term audience to be financially successful. I am not convinced that GW know how to achieve this, based on their bad record with WHFB and recently with 40K too. (Let's remember that 40K still appears to be losing customers.)

More cracks in the armour could appear in the end of year report.