GW Annual Report is Up -- Report discussion starts on pg 12

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**Hollismason**

Whichever how did they spend 6 million dollars building a website like that?

**Barfolomew**

Hollismason wrote:
How do you spend 8 million dollars on a website. Someone explain that to me.

Several semi-legitimate ways:

- Servers and infrastructure because you refuse to host externally
- Software package and licensing
- Heavy customization of software package because you think your special
- Paying for developers, graphics, etc.
- Program manager
- Changing your mind constantly causing rework
- Decommissioning of the old website
- Training on new system

And several tricky accounting ways:

- Billing any time for anyone mildly associated to the website to the program, even though they would be doing something else most of the time
- Billing anything associated with the website to the new program instead of the old one, even if it was really the old one's fault
- Not subtracting out the typical fees with running the website anyway if you had done nothing. Claim 4MM when you spend 3MM each year anyway.

**Azreal13**

infinite_array wrote:
"It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another. "

Translation: The legal system didn't let us win, therefore the entire system must be gak.

Good lord.

I've suddenly had an insight into what is driving the 40K rules development.

Kirby: "These rules are gak, I didn't win! Change them, minion!"

**pretre**

kronk wrote:
pretre wrote:
kronk wrote:
From that pre-amble, I'm expecting a drop in revenue from 2013. Significant, perhaps.

I think the preamble doesn't predict that. It does predict a lot of large one-time costs that may make the financials less than spectacular though.

Exactly, but said differently. He's laying out all of the expenses (mostly one-offs) for the year now, because the profits aren't going to be spectacular. Either trying to soften the blow that is coming, or just make excuses for it.

I may have been arguing an incorrect point. I think Sales will be flat or up, but it will look really bad because of the expenditures. I probably shouldn't have contested your point since I think you may be saying something similar.

**kronk**

Yeah, I think you and I are saying about the same thing. I think flat sales (or slightly down), but negative year on year profits due to the expenditures (and/or slightly down sales).

Edit: Kronk doesn't know his gak!

**Hollismason**

I think it's not only going to look bad because of expenses but also because of declining sales figures.

Hoping for a crash cause I wish Hasbro to be waiting in the wings.

**Baragash**

Hollismason wrote:
How do you spend 8 million dollars on a website. Someone explain that to me.

When you contract an IT company to come in and build a system for you, you spec up what you want and that forms part of the contract. Anything you ask for outside that scope requires you to pay for the consultant's time to implement.

Scope documents are incredibly important when initiating an outside developer to do an IT project for you.

£4m seems like a hell of a lot for what they got, in comparison to what similar-sized companies I've worked at have paid.

**Crablezworth**

When you hire based on "attitude" over talent, you're basically saying subservience is more vital to the company than creativity. Kirby just wants to be told snow is black, he doesn't value innovation, merely mindless obedience.

"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky." - Tom Kirby

**Nvs**

Well after the Obama Care website, this one was a bargain!

**curran12**

Gonna reserve judgment til I see the whole report. It's fun to whip ourselves up into a froth over this stuff, but I want to see facts and data.

That said, I agree with kronk and petre's predictions. Sales are probably going to be about the same, but they are going to look worse given higher expenses.

But I will disagree to an extent on the aversion to "hiring attitude over talent" in some circumstances. It obviously depends on the nature of the individual job and so is not a good blanket statement, but generally it is far easier to train skills than it is to train personality. But that is just my two cents on that.

**Davor**

Is this real? It seems no so professional.

**Thud**

I'm guessing a 5-7 percent decrease in revenue from last year.

**Wayniac**

Davor wrote:
Is this real? It seems no so professional.

Honestly, not sure. It could be a fake designed to prevent snooping around; on another forum someone said they found the link by changing the date. The question is if GW is that smart? I would think that an actual fake document would be a lot worse. This seems like it could be true.

**Barfolomew**

Nvs wrote:
Well after the Obama Care website, this one was a bargain!

I can believe the Obamacare website at $120MM more than I can the GW website at $6MM. Obamacare at least had to integrate with a ton of companies and had the government's fingers in it. GW is one small company with no government interference. As someone who does this sort of thing for a global company with lots of back end systems to complicate the system, GW got hosed on this website or self inflicted it.

**Hollismason**

He's kind of a idiot donkey-cave savant.

**rigeld2**

Maybe he was very drunk when writing it?

**Grimtuff**

Davor wrote:
Is this real? It seems no so professional.

Well, it is published by GW...

**infinite_array**

Hollismason wrote:
He's kind of a idiot donkey-cave savant.

A savant would be running GW competently.

**SeanDrake**

The irony is they managed to spend all that money on a custom website, only to end up with something so generic it makes grey look exciting.

Basically they could have spent a fraction as much on an off the shelf solution, to have got something that looked the same and had the same functionality if not more.

**Wayniac**

Grimtuff wrote:
Davor wrote:
Is this real? It seems no so professional.

Well, it is published by GW...

They could have a honeypot to trick people who go looking for it before it's ready. I mean, I've heard of that happening. Question is if GW would know to do that. If it's fake, they're likely laughing at how gullible/stupid the internet must be.

Does anyone remember the last Chairman's Preamble? Was it written in this same conversational style?

**weeble1000**

In the technological world we occupy there is constant debate over who 'innovates' and who merely copies. We have, this last year,
spent an indecent amount of your money trying to stop someone stealing our ideas and images. It is a very difficult thing to do
when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another. Our experience has probably
been typical of most – far too much money spent on far too little gain. The argument is that we have to do this or we will, bit by bit,
lose everything that we hold dear, everything that keeps the business going. Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?

Last year I published the secret that I believe is at the heart of what makes this business great. Steve Jobs once did the same over at
heavily litigating Apple. He said they ignored everything that did not lead to 'insanely great products' and that was what made them
great. None of the people Apple are suing are trying to do that, so why sue?

I said, ‘we recruit for attitude and not for skill’. It is what makes us great. It is those people who design the miniatures; those people
who make them and those people who sell them; those people who transformed our business systems in five short months. I have
been deluged with two comments about that statement, neither of which was: 'you fool, you just gave away the crown jewels'.
Why doesn't everyone do it? Ask them.

BTW: WilmerHale is handling the GW v CHS appeal, and is the same firm that is representing Apple in the Apple v Samsung litigation. So Kirby comparing GW's litigation efforts to those of Apple is hardly apropos. And Apple has also won its cases against Samsung thus far.

Rather than bemoaning the American legal system, perhaps Mr. Kirby should have a thought about whether GW's case against CHS was manifestly unjust on its face. It is quite unprecedented for three major law firms to represent a profit-making company pro-bono in civil litigation. Do you think these firms have done it for the lols?

**Kid_Kyoto**

Wow, I was sure that was a parody till I saw he was quiting, then I realized he don't give a #$%.

But wow.

Arrogant, condcending, ignorant, and filled with transparent lies and deflections.

Wow.

**Hollismason**

infinite_array wrote:
Hollismason wrote:
He's kind of a idiot donkey-cave savant.

A savant would be running GW competently.

No you misunderstand he's a savant at being a idiot donkey-cave.

**Grimtuff**

WayneTheGame wrote:
Grimtuff wrote:
Davor wrote:
Is this real? It seems no so professional.

Well, it is published by GW...

They could have a honeypot to trick people who go looking for it before it's ready. I mean, I've heard of that happening. Question is if GW would know to do that. If it's fake, they're likely laughing at how gullible/stupid the internet must be.

Does anyone remember the last Chairman's Preamble? Was it written in this same conversational style?

Maybe I didn't explain myself so well. (If it is genuinely published by GW) it was a snipe at GW's usual unprofessional publishing of their rules etc.

**Barfolomew**

Speaking of crappy web design. If you use this link:

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/

You can see the folder for each year. Clicking on 2014 shows the months, then the links for the documents uploaded in that folder. Chairman's preamble was uploaded today, along with 2 other documents.

The 2014 document reads with the same level of crazy as the 2013 document. I'll go with legit.

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/CHAIRMAN-statement-final.pdf

**Azreal13**

kronk wrote:
Yeah, I think you and I are saying about the same thing. I think flat sales (or slightly down), but negative year on year revenue due to the expenditures (and/or slightly down sales).

I might be needlessly pedanting all over your post, but revenue wouldn't be affected by expenditure, only profit and net profit at that.

**RiTides**

Because no one seems able to grasp the essential simplicity of what we do there has always been the search for the Achilles heel, the one thing that Kirby and his cronies have overlooked. These are legion. I run through the list from time to time when someone says that computer games will be the death of us – they are so much more realistic now! – again. This year it is 3-D printing. Pretty soon everyone will be printing their own miniatures and where will we be then, eh?

We know quite a lot about 3-D printers, having been at the forefront of the technology for many years. We know of what we speak. One day 3-D printers will be affordable (agreed), they are now, they will be able to produce fantastic detail (the affordable ones won't) and they will do it faster than one miniature per day (no, they won't, look it up). So we may get to the time when someone can make a poorly detailed miniature at home and have enough for an army in less than a year. That pre-supposes that 3-D scanning technology will be affordable and good enough (don't bet the mortgage on that one) and that everyone will be happy to have nothing but copies of old miniatures.

All of our great new miniatures come from Citadel. It is possible that one day we will sell them direct via 3-D printers to grateful hobbyists around the world. That will not happen in the next few years (or, in City-speak, 'forever') but if and when it does it will just mean that we can cut yet more cost out of the supply chain and be making good margins selling Citadel 3-D printers.

He doesn't know what he's talking about here. Citadel 3-D printers? I'm guessing he means re-branded other companies printers, because there's absolutely no way they'll be able to make and support reliable printers- that's a whole separate business.

As for having models to print, that is still an issue, but there will be more and more alternatives as things progress. I downloaded the below model free from turbosquid and printed it this past weekend. I believe I could print about a half dozen of them in a day, if I wanted. Yes, there's a long way to go, and this part works well because it's a bust and not much cleanup is required on the surfaces that matter. But still... the fact that he is so off the mark on this statement means I can't trust the rest, either.

This was printed on a Form1+. A B9 Creator can achieve similar results. Both are about $3K, but that will drop in the future.

It's never going to truly replace cheap cast parts, but it's just the fact that he is exaggerating things in his favor, when these things do already exist!

**Grimtuff**

Barfolomew wrote:
Speaking of crappy web design. If you use this link:

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/

You can see the folder for each year. Clicking on 2014 shows the months, then the links for the documents uploaded in that folder. Chairman's preamble was uploaded today, along with 2 other documents.

The 2014 document reads with the same level of crazy as the 2013 document. I'll go with legit.

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/CHAIRMAN-statement-final.pdf

Indeed.

Just to remind everyone of the madness from last year.

How about other games like Pokémon or role-playing games? (Who can remember them, now?).

**frozenwastes**

WayneTheGame wrote:
Davor wrote:
Is this real? It seems no so professional.

Honestly, not sure. It could be a fake designed to prevent snooping around; on another forum someone said they found the link by changing the date. The question is if GW is that smart? I would think that an actual fake document would be a lot worse. This seems like it could be true.

Yeah. I just took the URL of previous reports and substituted in 2014 and 07 and got a directory.

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/

In there is also an agenda for the annual meeting and a proxy voting form.

**Wayniac**

I only skimmed it, did he really refer to himself as "Kirby and his cronies" in that part?

This man is insane.