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 cincydooley wrote:

Don't we have have to consider that GW most probably believes their stores ARE their advertising?

That and word of mouth is pretty much all they have, so yeah.

Not only that, but don't we also have to consider the marketing of their competitors and their subsequent options? I don't know if I've ever seen GW advertise in any trade publications in the US (never have seen one in GTM, Geek, or Wired). In that same regard, I don't know that I've ever seen any for Warmahordes either. When Space Marine was being released for the consoles, I saw ads for that (though I'm sure Relic was responsible for that). But I can honestly say I'm not sure I've seen ads for any miniatures game apart from in Ravage.

Privateer has embraced web advertising in a pretty clever way. They go to internet blogs and communities that are traditionally GW based and offer them spoilers and exclusive new content. An example of this is how much PP spoilers Bell of Lost Souls gets. Then there are the trade shows like GenCon which GW doesn't attend, but pretty much everyone else does. Lots of smaller companies also seem to try to work with podcasters and vloggers like Corvus Belli's relationship with Beasts of War.

We agree that GW could do more to advertise, but where do they start? And are there any precedents for them to use as a basis for that marketing?

The same place they've done in the past. Partnering with other companies like Milton Bradley and De Agostini. And actually go to the trade shows. Get an actual social media plan. Work with bloggers and vloggers.




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 cincydooley wrote:
Appreciate that explanation frozen. I don't actively manage my portfolio so I'm not real accustomed to reading some of the stock information you can find on the various google money sites.

It looks like the GW stock is, at least really stable, with a dip (presumably when Wells left?) that seems to have been completely recovered from.

Definitely not stable. It actually moves up and down relatively rapidly (and fortunately for investors, more up than down).

The thing about news and the stock market is that stock prices tend to react to news in the way the market was heading anyway. It's when things diverge that you can get some info. And that's what's happening with GW. They've had some bad news in the form of management leaving and institutional selling and the price didn't drop in any lasting manner. This tells us that the market participants are optimistic about GW' future regardless of individual pieces of bad news. That's the nature of the stock market-- it's manic-depressive. One moment it's optimistic and convinced nothing can possibly go wrong and the next its convinced the world is coming to an end. And then add into that the fact that it functions on incomplete information. And then also add in all sorts of computer based trading that can get triggered as the price moves over certain points. For example, there will be a ton of sell orders just beneath the late 2005 high because people think the notion of reaching a previous high is important. And it ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy.

 BryllCream wrote:
The tourney/competative growd have never been GW's target audience. I doubt they even consider them when designing rules/models, so anecdotal evidence of tournament go-ers giving up 40k isn't that helpful.


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 Kroothawk wrote:
. Not unthinkable for a company, that tries to prove in court that they invented halberds, arrows and Roman numbers

Source on this?

Seriously? Pull your head out of the dirt.

Here's the quote:

Document 147, paragraph 28:

"28. Games Workshop also has a large number of well-known unregistered trade
marks (including names of armies, Chapters, and other products) including without limitation:
Adeptus Mechanicus, Assault, Alpha Legion, Black Templars, Blood Angels, Blood Ravens,
Cadian, Carnifex, Chaos Space Marines, Chaplain, Chimera, Crimson Fists, Dark Angel, Death Watch, Devastator, Dreadnought, Drop Pod, Eldar, Elder Farseer, Eldar Jetbike, Eldar Warlock,
Eldar Seer Council, Empire, Exorcist, Flesh Tearers, Gene Stealer, Grenade Launcher, Halberd,
Heavy bolter, Heresy Armour, Hellhound, High Elf, Hive Tyrant, Horus Heresy, Howling
Banshee, Imperial Fists, Imperial Guard, Inquisition, Iron Hands, Jetbike, Jump Pack, Land
Raider, Land Speeder, Legion of the Damned, Librarian, Lightning Claw, Melta, Mk II Armour,
Mk V Armour, Plasma, Predator, Rhino, Salamander, Scorpion, Soul Drinker, Space Wolves,
Stormraven, Storm Shield, Tactical, Techmarine, Termagants, Terminator, Thousand Sons,
Thunder Hammer, Tyrant, Tyranid Warrior." (emphasis added)

As for Arrows and roman numerals, here is a copy of the US Copyright Office's refusal to register GW's Assault Shoulderpad application.

There it is, black and white. GW claims to own a trademark on the words Halberd, Grenade Launcher, Imperial Guard, Plasma, Chaplin, Tyrant, Librarian, Salamander, Scorpion, Tactical, and Terminator, among many, many others. Halberd? Librarian? GRENADE LAUNCHER?!?

while I've enjoyed disagreeing with the doom-mongers, I feel compelled to point out a little bit of evidence supporting their case.

GW share performance over the last five or so years has been good - outperformed the market. But the';re quite low-priced as shares - price/earnings ratio is only around 14 - this seems pretty low, average /e for the FTSE is more like 25. Quite often, low P/Es mean that a company is unfashionable or that investors don't believe an industry has a long term future - for instance, media companies with a heavy reliance on print, companies that are not diversified and are thus vulnerable to market changes, or companies with unimpressive or old-fashioned management.

It really is an enigma, isn't it? The market sucked up the selling of millions of shares and the news about Wells leaving and the stock went up, but certain traditional indicators like PE vs average PE are showing the opposite *should* be true. Divergent signals are dangerous times.

 frozenwastes wrote:

Privateer has embraced web advertising in a pretty clever way. They go to internet blogs and communities that are traditionally GW based and offer them spoilers and exclusive new content. An example of this is how much PP spoilers Bell of Lost Souls gets. Then there are the trade shows like GenCon which GW doesn't attend, but pretty much everyone else does. Lots of smaller companies also seem to try to work with podcasters and vloggers like Corvus Belli's relationship with Beasts of War.

[

GW and FW did actually attend GenCon last year, much to everyone's surprise. They're actually going to be at Origins this year too, which really surprised me.

I guess I was looking at more traditional advertising. Advertising on forums and websites like Beasts of War is going to reach an audience that, presumably, already knows GW. If I wasn't active online, I'm not sure I'd even know what Beasts of War was. I realize we are in the Internet age and everything, but I can't imagine someone that isn't "in the know" with war gaming would ever find their way to BoLS or Beasts of War. What they would see, however, is that odd little "Games Workshop" store next to the Michaels in their local strip mall. To pull in the non-captive customer, that's gotta be a better method. But it isn't perfect, so my question is really what other means do you pull in that "everyday" customer new to the hobby completely?

As Kroothawk mentioned earlier; GW experienced spikes in sales/new customers when they actively pursued advertising via the same routes that other companies take. The would be better served to spread sales of their product to retailers other than game stores (hobby lobby, michaels, toys are us); if nothing else, the starter boxes would be best served placed in such locations as a sort of gateway drug.

 BryllCream wrote:
The tourney/competative growd have never been GW's target audience. I doubt they even consider them when designing rules/models, so anecdotal evidence of tournament go-ers giving up 40k isn't that helpful.

You've brought up this point before and it remains demonstrable nonsense. Tournaments were a big deal back in the 90's. GW used to run all sorts of events, from the actual Grand Tournaments to various roadshows. Jervis hardly ever stopped banging on about them during the days of 2nd Ed.

 agnosto wrote:
As Kroothawk mentioned earlier; GW experienced spikes in sales/new customers when they actively pursued advertising via the same routes that other companies take. The would be better served to spread sales of their product to retailers other than game stores (hobby lobby, michaels, toys are us); if nothing else, the starter boxes would be best served placed in such locations as a sort of gateway drug.

It is a bit more complicated than that: GW experienced spikes, when they let OTHERS do marketing for them. GW itself actively pursued advertising only in its first years, but that soon stopped. I made my first GW order because of a GW ad in a wargaming magazine.

Having a perfect introductory product (Heroquest, Star Quest, LOTR sprue+magazine) and standard advertising did the job. Space Hulk, Bloodbowl and with some work Mordheim and Necromunda are such introductory products. Maybe even the starter boxes, better a De Agostini sprue+magazine product for 40k. For years, my single demand for GW was a rerelease of Space Hulk in general toy stores accompanied by TV ads to recruit new customers. Guess how dissapointed I was, when GW actually releleased Space Hulk, with no advertising, only in GW stores, as a limited release with stock for 2 days.

I'm not convinced the current toy market in the US would be willing to accept an unbuilt, unpainted board game at this point in time. I'm not sure stores like toys R us even sell anything beyond the standard licensed and Milton Bradley board games these days. They don't sell some of the basic "boutique" family games like TTR and Zooloretto that even my local Meijer or target does (though they keep getting clearanced out....not a great sign)

You'd think they'd be able to capture some of the older Lego crowd at least.

They'd be totally fine with some snap together simple miniatures moulded in two different colours. You can paint them if you want, but it wouldn't be required. Keep them simple enough and design the sprues so the parts can be rolled/twisted for easy removal without tools (yeah, it slightly damages them, but you can design to mitigate that and it doesn't matter too badly for those just using them as gaming pieces for a board game).

If GW no longer has the contacts to get the game into main stream stores, then they should go talk with a board game producer who does. Just like they did with Milton Bradley back in the day.

As for Gencon/Origins, it's a good move to start re-engaging with the industry as a whole. Though it might be a sign of things not being as rosy as GW's investor relations would like us to think. They shunned the normal distribution channels and industry trade shows for years, probably out of a belief that concentrating on their own marketing and their own events would yield better returns for their efforts. Has this changed? Did they get smarter or are they desperate?

I imagine that giving tidbits of information to places like BoLS and Beasts of War is the last thing GW wants to do. Those sites advertise places to buy GW goods at a discount and GW wants to direct web traffic to its own site not bloggers and resellers.

 frozenwastes wrote:
They shunned the normal distribution channels and industry trade shows for years, probably out of a belief that concentrating on their own marketing and their own events would yield better returns for their efforts. Has this changed? Did they get smarter or are they desperate?

I think it would work a lot better if they didn't shut down the 'Ard Boyz circuit and basically become recluses impossible for the majority of the US to access. You can't decide that you're going to be an elite gaming club and then simultaneously turn about and shutter yourself into a locked-down clubhouse. My understanding of 'the old days', which were before I started gaming in 2008, was that GW often held global campaign/events days that FLGS could participate in and that largely were responsible for the building of the community.

Personally, I don't get why 'Ard Boyz wasn't a winner for them. The promise of a free army in semifinals (that costs them a pittance) in a high-points format that is tailor made for FOTM crowds to go puke money into in order to secure the new 'overpower' should have generated a crapload of sales.

That 'Ard Boyz was generally a shoddily-run circuit reliant on volunteer officials and often generated ill-will as WAAC neckbeards came out of the woodwork is a good reason it died, but GW does not appear to give a flying fig about the general gaming community so I don't get why they gave it the axe. If the sole reason was that it somehow supported local retail instead of the GW web orders, then way to cut off your nose to spite the face.

Ard Boyz was lame, the GW Outrider system would be welcomed back by many stores. In my local area there would be more fantasy and 40k tournaments if the Outrider program was going on again.

The limiting factor on tournaments locally, especially fantasy and to a lesser degree 40k is getting someone to run them regularly. Space and interest is not limiting around here.

Wait, let me get this strait: GW has cut costs, consolidated product lines, sold off materials, laid off workers, doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?

Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.

JWhex wrote:I imagine that giving tidbits of information to places like BoLS and Beasts of War is the last thing GW wants to do. Those sites advertise places to buy GW goods at a discount and GW wants to direct web traffic to its own site not bloggers and resellers.

What is appropriate for a smaller competitor (going to a GW focused news blog and community and offering them exclusive stories) is not going to be the same for GW. They need to find something though. Or just outsource the whole damned thing to a proven advertising firm and let the professionals figure it out. They seem to do better when they let other companies promote their stuff.

sourclams wrote:
I think it would work a lot better if they didn't shut down the 'Ard Boyz circuit and basically become recluses impossible for the majority of the US to access. You can't decide that you're going to be an elite gaming club and then simultaneously turn about and shutter yourself into a locked-down clubhouse. My understanding of 'the old days', which were before I started gaming in 2008, was that GW often held global campaign/events days that FLGS could participate in and that largely were responsible for the building of the community.

Absolutely. They had all sorts of stuff going on. National GTs, Gamesdays, Summer Campaigns, an army building rewards system. All backed up by a team of volunteer promoters (Outriders and later Greyknights). That's now all been axed.

Personally, I don't get why 'Ard Boyz wasn't a winner for them. The promise of a free army in semifinals (that costs them a pittance) in a high-points format that is tailor made for FOTM crowds to go puke money into in order to secure the new 'overpower' should have generated a crapload of sales.

They probably have no way of measuring the success of such an event. But they do have a number for its cost. So they cut it. I could definitely see the discussion at the meeting about cutting it being about how they can't prove it's helping, but definitely know it's costing them money.

Many people say that GW needs to market more but I am still waiting to hear some good suggestions.

I think it is reasonable to suppose that GW internally has had a lot of discussions on how to market their products. For all we know they may have hired a marketing firm or consultant and did not like the results. Or for that matter they may be following the results of a consultant's study.

The whole clamp down on rumours could be the advice of a marketing company, no one posting here knows one way or the other.

Again its one of those things that you cant really know about unless you are on the inside. Interestingly though GW has built a significant market in the US without any meaningful advertising at all and no dominant position of having GW stores in a high density either.

As far as increasing their presence or doing more marketing on the web, I actually find that kind of funny. The web is practically bursting with information about 40k and fantasy and it would take a 9 year old less than 1 minute to find the GW webstore.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Wait, let me get this strait: GW has cut costs, consolidated product lines, sold off materials, laid off workers, doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?

Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.

Shhh.... don't say this too loud or the flying monkeys from corporate office will unleash their fanatical groups of Apoligists and call you a heretic and other foul things!.

On a more serious note. I agree with you. I'm just waiting for them to be bought out.

 frozenwastes wrote:
If GW no longer has the contacts to get the game into main stream stores, then they should go talk with a board game producer who does.

*cough* Fantasy Flight Games *cough* Someone they already have a long-standing relationship with *more coughing*




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JWhex wrote:
Many people say that GW needs to market more but I am still waiting to hear some good suggestions.

Then you're not paying attention. Read a few of Kroothawk's posts. He's fairly good at explaining when the GW boom times (so to speak) were, and how promotion played a role in it.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I've always had generic white boxes for GW stuff ordered by post to the store. There's no point printing a box that doesn't have to sell itself off the shelf.

Isn't this fairly obvious?

Apparently not to the people who are slating GW for using white boxes.

I've never cared much either way - the box will be chucked afterwards... the only point for giving it a pretty picture is to show what is inside. Maybe give an idea on how to paint the contest.

Other than that... a blank box works fine.

The Auld Grump

I always just read the bit that says "this box contains x models."

That's how I know that my crisis suits had 6 gun drones in them.

Also, one thing at GW staff are good at, if they know the army, is telling you the kinds of bits you get in certain more obscure kits.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

*cough* Fantasy Flight Games *cough* Someone they already have a long-standing relationship with *more coughing*

I've been super impressed with FFG's licensed 40k/WH products. A quick search also shows that FFG have a presence in major department stores and other mainstream distribution channels that GW does not.

GW supplies the plastic miniatures (easy snap together ones that can be twisted off the sprues and assembled without tools or glue) and FFG supplies everything else and designs the game. In Europe, GW can go back to De Agostini and get magazines about the game on the newstands just like they did for LOTR. EDIT: It looks like De Agostini has really grown since the LOTR days. They now operate in 66 countries and publish in 30 languages, and now also have North American distribution of their products. So the marketing magazine could be global if GW worked with them again.

But... with the closing of the production centre in Memphis and the general cuts to staff, combined with Tau shortages and the like, it might be that GW has cut too much of their production capability to take on a growth project like that without first doing major reinvestment. It could be that as GW's sales volume has dropped, they've ratcheted down their production capabilities in kind and are pretty much operating at capacity with their 4 new kits a month.

JWhex wrote:
Interestingly though GW has built a significant market in the US without any meaningful advertising at all and no dominant position of having GW stores in a high density either.

But remember when they built it. Most of GW's real competition is pretty new, and it's not hard to expand when you're the only company in the industry. Just put your products in stores and let the people coming in for MTG/D&D/whatever do the rest. It's not the ideal way of doing it, but it still builds a dominant position.

The web is practically bursting with information about 40k and fantasy and it would take a 9 year old less than 1 minute to find the GW webstore.

It would take you a minute to find it if you had a reason to look. Yes, a lot of people have heard of 40k, but that's not enough. You advertise in places that potential customers might be found because you want to get them thinking about your game and coming back to the idea. For example, consider MTG, which does lots of online advertising despite the fact that most of the people seeing the ads have probably heard of it at least once. Why? Because there are people who heard about it once, weren't interested at the time, and forgot about it. Because there are people who heard about it 10 years ago when some people at their school played, and might be curious and take a look if they saw a hint of how cool the game is. Because there are people who used to play and might play again if they see ads that bring back happy memories of the game. Etc.

Or use me as an example: I used to play MTG, and I saw people playing 40k occasionally in the store. I didn't really know much about it and thought it was a stupid idea, and when that store went out of business that was the end of seeing 40k. Sure, if you asked me about it at the time I would have said yes, I've heard of it, and I could find GW's website just as easily as anyone. But I had no reason to, until one of my friends started playing, corrected some of my bad information, and showed me that it was actually a really fun game. But take that friend away and I never would have started 40k. Now think about what might have happened if I was constantly seeing ads for 40k while reading MTG blogs/forums, it might have caught my interested and convinced me to give it another chance.

I think that the intent was 'mass market board game companies' - while FFG makes some awesome games, you don't generally see them at Toys 'R' Us.

Lots of folks were introduced to the hobby by Heroquest.

Heck, I sill have two copies of the game, about seven feet away from where I am sitting.

Does anyone know if MB pulled away, or if it was GW?

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I think that the intent was 'mass market board game companies' - while FFG makes some awesome games, you don't generally see them at Toys 'R' Us.

Lots of folks were introduced to the hobby by Heroquest.

Heck, I sill have two copies of the game, about seven feet away from where I am sitting.

Does anyone know if MB pulled away, or if it was GW?

The Auld Grump

Board games are actually starting to make their way to the general public in a big way. Wil Wheaton's Tabletop web show has a contract with Target, which means that games like Elder Sign are a lot more visible than they once were.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Wait, let me get this strait: ...GW has cut costs...doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?

Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.

Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that all GW products have doubled in price?

Chicken Little is back in the building, folks!

(and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Wait, let me get this strait: ...GW has cut costs...doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?

Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.

Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that all GW products have doubled in price?

Chicken Little is back in the building, folks!

(and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).

They doubled the price of the LotR plastic boxes as well.

And as reguard to growth in the market.

Unless you live under a rock or in a GW B&M store, .
EVERY other table top game company is EXPANDING their ranges and INVESTING in new product lines.(A sign of growth is it not?)

Not to mention the crowd funding kickstarters have launched .
If one small company can get over £1,000,000 in crowd funding for its games.And deliver them to a delighted customers.
How much money is being poured into table top gaming world wide?

Anecdotal evidence.
Walked by my local GW shop on Saturday.
10 years ago you could not move for kids , being dropped off while parents went shopping in the city center.
On Saturday there was the one man retail staffer.And two of his mates eating a burger and chatting about making scenery.
My local FLGS has stopped selling GW products because the 'pricing disparity to other ranges was ridiculous'.

Actual factual source material of growth in table top games.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25373.html

1.) FFG has a cooperation with German Heidelberger Spiele, who are a major distributor here and translate the most popular FFG games for the German market.
2.) De Agostini acknowledged that the LOTR line was their most successful. AFAIK GW quit, they don't want to talk about it but don't want to deal with De Agostini ever again.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that all GW products have doubled in price?

Beside most Hobbit products that doubled price and Cadia and Dire Avengers, there are IIRC no 10man Xeno 40k boxes mandatory for GW stockists coming June. Guess what will happen ...

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
(and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25373.html

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Wait, let me get this strait: ...GW has cut costs...doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?

Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.

Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that all GW products have doubled in price?

Chicken Little is back in the building, folks!

(and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).

They doubled the price of the LotR plastic boxes as well.

Again, fast and loose with the facts. Good job us guys are not running a business.

Yes, there was a massive price hike, they halved box sixes and didn't reduce pricetag accordingly. Increase was around 33%. But that is not 100%.

http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22201

I wonder if the space marine tactical box will see a halving of the amount of minis in the box and a drop to £20.50?

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Wait, let me get this strait: ...GW has cut costs...doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?

Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.

Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that all GW products have doubled in price?

Chicken Little is back in the building, folks!

(and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).

They doubled the price of the LotR plastic boxes as well.

Again, fast and loose with the facts. Good job us guys are not running a business.

Yes, there was a massive price hike, they halved box sixes and didn't reduce pricetag accordingly. Increase was around 33%. But that is not 100%.

http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22201

Yep, thats fair enough - they didn't up the price as much as I remembered.

Might wanna drop the snide attitude though mate, its not pleasant and not gonna win you many admirers.

When I was takling about double LOTR prices, I meant current plastic boxes cost double than comparable LOTR plastic boxes:
6 riders from MInas Tirith 23€ (below 20€ 2 yeara ago), 6 Knights of Rivendell 40€
12 LOTR Infantry now 20€ (2 years ago 15€), 12 Hobbit Infantry 30€
LOTR starter 50€ at release, Hobbit starter 100€