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 Azreal13 wrote:
even if a finger has been shoved into the dyke.

O_o

 Azreal13 wrote:
He's reversing the one man store format!

To me it sounded like they were opening more, and they called it "proven" on top of that. They're tinkering with the idea of opening a few big stores in big cities with lots of traffic or tourism, but I wouldn't call that reversing the format, though.

This hasn't been mentioned yet:

I have set a goal of getting the business into sales growth in 2015/16 and have asked staff to accept a salary freeze until December
2015 to allow us to maintain our cost to sales ratio. If we deliver sales growth in the first half of 2015/16 I have agreed to back date any
salary reviews to 1 June 2015. We are all working hard to deliver this goal.

They are on a salary freeze in the same year they payed out a dividend?!? And they literally just put a gilded statue out in front of the building. They need to start worrying about the squirly guy burning the building down. And getting their raises is contingent on turning around a multi-year sales decline trend. Good luck with that.

Seriously though, this is death spiral stuff. Put salary freezes into a company with failing sales and anyone talented enough to get a job elsewhere, will. You end up left with the people too thick to see the writing on the wall, or people who aren't qualified enough to do good work, but just good enough not to get fired.

(paraphrasing)

Top-down reassessment

I'm excited for this. I'd like to see what their half-year report in January 2016 says.

So what we take away from this...

Sales are down
Profits are up (due to no 4 mil web store costs)
Kirby still Cray-cray?
40k is looking at being Sigmar'd (maybe) in the near future

Sound about right?

 CaulynDarr wrote:
This hasn't been mentioned yet:

I have set a goal of getting the business into sales growth in 2015/16 and have asked staff to accept a salary freeze until December
2015 to allow us to maintain our cost to sales ratio. If we deliver sales growth in the first half of 2015/16 I have agreed to back date any
salary reviews to 1 June 2015. We are all working hard to deliver this goal.

They are on a salary freeze in the same year they payed out a dividend?!? And they literally just put a gilded statue out in front of the building. They need to start worrying about the squirly guy burning the building down. And getting their raises is contingent on turning around a multi-year sales decline trend. Good luck with that.

Seriously though, this is death spiral stuff. Put salary freezes into a company with failing sales and anyone talented enough to get a job elsewhere, will. You end up left with the people too thick to see the writing on the wall, or people who aren't qualified enough to do good work, but just good enough not to get fired.

I do wonder if these freezes include the chairman's golden parachute

 thenoobbomb wrote:

jamesk1973 wrote:
I shall redouble my efforts to introduce people to other games.

Yes! We must show GW that trying to fix problems with their current format is bad!

I long ago quit worrying about them fixing anything. Now I just want them to fold and sell off their completely awesome IP to someone else.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Our customers tend to be teenage boys and male adults with some spare money to spend and time to enjoy hobbies.

Poor people and opponents of boob-plate get BTFO once again.

BTFO?

 Accolade wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:
This hasn't been mentioned yet:

I have set a goal of getting the business into sales growth in 2015/16 and have asked staff to accept a salary freeze until December
2015 to allow us to maintain our cost to sales ratio. If we deliver sales growth in the first half of 2015/16 I have agreed to back date any
salary reviews to 1 June 2015. We are all working hard to deliver this goal.

They are on a salary freeze in the same year they payed out a dividend?!? And they literally just put a gilded statue out in front of the building. They need to start worrying about the squirly guy burning the building down. And getting their raises is contingent on turning around a multi-year sales decline trend. Good luck with that.

Seriously though, this is death spiral stuff. Put salary freezes into a company with failing sales and anyone talented enough to get a job elsewhere, will. You end up left with the people too thick to see the writing on the wall, or people who aren't qualified enough to do good work, but just good enough not to get fired.

I do wonder if these freezes include the chairman's golden parachute

This is speculation. But if they do salary review annually for the whole company to coincide with the annual financials, then that June 1 announcement could have been right as employees where expecting to get their raises. Maybe a past employee of GW can shed light on when they typically handle salary reviews. I'd like to know just how bad GW kicked its employees in the

Preamble wasn't nearly as good this time as some of the previous. A couple nice gems, but nothing as good as Who even hears about Pokemon nowadays?

I have set a goal of getting the business into sales growth in 2015/16 and have asked staff to accept a salary freeze until December
2015 to allow us to maintain our cost to sales ratio. If we deliver sales growth in the first half of 2015/16 I have agreed to back date any
salary reviews to 1 June 2015.

So... no back-dating then.

 AduroT wrote:
Preamble wasn't nearly as good this time as some of the previous. A couple nice gems, but nothing as good as Who even hears about Pokemon nowadays?

Perhaps someone showed Kirby the profits of Pokemon during one of his Jane Austen reading sessions and he nearly choked to death on his tea?

 Azreal13 wrote:

He does, however, acknowledge gaming as part of the hobby, alongside acknowledging that adults buy their products.

So, for the first time in a long time we know that GW knows that grown ups buy their stuff and play games with it, we can only hope they do something decent with that information, customer relations get taken care of if they do.

That certainly sounds encouraging, but if they're acknowledging that grown ups play their games, where does AoS fit in? Or is that likely to be a remnant of the old direction?

 Mymearan wrote:

 Kosake wrote:

they are premium priced for their premium quality

Uuuh... did I miss something? Somehow, I can not agree that GW makesd premium quality.

You don't? I think you'd pretty much be on your own there. Most people seem to agree that their models are some of the best on the business.

The plastic as such is good, but even the new models are a mixed bag, some good, some less so, and some of their models models don't assemble too smoothly. Their infantry lines certaily are prone to gaps and the tanks also require a lot of care to not leave gaps. Nothing a dedicated hobbyist can't fix, sure, but I wouldn't call models where you have to spend so much time on mould lines and seamless fits "premium". Decent quality, yes, but not premium.

ziggurattt wrote:
(paraphrasing)

Top-down reassessment

I'm excited for this. I'd like to see what their half-year report in January 2016 says.

I'm feeling the exact opposite emotion, myself. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it makes me think they'll be reducing the range and Squatting some armies that aren't selling so well (even if that reason is only because of terrible rules or because they've never been updated since they were released), which puts me in a mood to stop buying anything for fear of throwing my money away investing in an army that won't be around anymore. Same thing if they "AoS-ify" 40k as everyone's been saying, it'll kill pretty much whatever little interest I had left in the game. It really doesn't sound "safe" to give GW my money...we'll see about the time that Tau release is supposed to come out, though.

And if Tau end up getting cut from the game, for whatever reason, then all of my 40k crap goes on eBay and I never touch another GW product ever again. I don't think they'd actually be stupid enough to do that, but then after Age of Sigmar there's really no telling anymore.

Herzlos wrote:

where does AoS fit in?

The garbage?

 Sidstyler wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
even if a finger has been shoved into the dyke.

O_o

 Azreal13 wrote:
He's reversing the one man store format!

To me it sounded like they were opening more, and they called it "proven" on top of that. They're tinkering with the idea of opening a few big stores in big cities with lots of traffic or tourism, but I wouldn't call that reversing the format, though.

There's a bit about continuing to trial multi man stores in high traffic areas such as their Tottenham Court Road store.

I read that as corporate speak for "one man stores are a nightmare, so we're going back to proper shops, but I can't say that otherwise I make the Chairman out to be the idiot we all know he is."

 CaulynDarr wrote:
This hasn't been mentioned yet:

I have set a goal of getting the business into sales growth in 2015/16 and have asked staff to accept a salary freeze until December
2015 to allow us to maintain our cost to sales ratio. If we deliver sales growth in the first half of 2015/16 I have agreed to back date any
salary reviews to 1 June 2015. We are all working hard to deliver this goal.

They are on a salary freeze in the same year they payed out a dividend?!? And they literally just put a gilded statue out in front of the building. They need to start worrying about the squirly guy burning the building down. And getting their raises is contingent on turning around a multi-year sales decline trend. Good luck with that.

Seriously though, this is death spiral stuff. Put salary freezes into a company with failing sales and anyone talented enough to get a job elsewhere, will. You end up left with the people too thick to see the writing on the wall, or people who aren't qualified enough to do good work, but just good enough not to get fired.

A fatal flaw in this plan is that the UK government is increasing the minimum wage heavy over the next year, so some GW staff will be getting pay rises no matter what management want!

The report is better than many expected, the barrage of releases in the last six months seems to have stemmed the tide for now, but the bottom line is that sales continue to decrease. At least Roundtree has acknowledge this problem and is making it a priority to fix it.

I just hope AoS bombs hard enough in the next six months to make them realise that doing the same to 40K will kill them as a company.

Also I'm hopeful the Forgeworld changes will get ride of the high postage costs, if I can get them delivered to a local store for free they will see more of my money.

 Accolade wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:
This hasn't been mentioned yet:

I have set a goal of getting the business into sales growth in 2015/16 and have asked staff to accept a salary freeze until December
2015 to allow us to maintain our cost to sales ratio. If we deliver sales growth in the first half of 2015/16 I have agreed to back date any
salary reviews to 1 June 2015. We are all working hard to deliver this goal.

They are on a salary freeze in the same year they payed out a dividend?!? And they literally just put a gilded statue out in front of the building. They need to start worrying about the squirly guy burning the building down. And getting their raises is contingent on turning around a multi-year sales decline trend. Good luck with that.

Seriously though, this is death spiral stuff. Put salary freezes into a company with failing sales and anyone talented enough to get a job elsewhere, will. You end up left with the people too thick to see the writing on the wall, or people who aren't qualified enough to do good work, but just good enough not to get fired.

I do wonder if these freezes include the chairman's golden parachute

Kirby owns, what, about 7% of the stock? Why would he care if he gets a freeze? He's getting a sweet dividend check.

Anyway, I feel it is very telling that, even after all of the releases this year, they still couldn't do better. What are they going to do when they've "finished" updating 40K in the next year or so?

As far as "premium" models go, they do a good job on their infantry (as long as you like the over-the-top aesthetics), but their vehicle designs ssuucckk. They can't properly design a vehicle for actual gameplay use to save their lives. Weapons that barely move, or mounted in ways that they can't even shoot anything near the vehicle, "spheres" that aren't spheres, flyers that technically can't shoot anything within 24", and on and on.

and he's expressed a desire to get back in to toy shops, comic stores etc where GW has not been since the glory days of heroquest,, space crusade etc

if they manage that it will actually count as advertising as well as more opportunities to sell stock (how many of the older UK members here first encountered table top gaming via one of those boxsets from a toy focused store? a fairly high percentage I would suspect)

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
and he's expressed a desire to get back in to toy shops, comic stores etc where GW has not been since the glory days of heroquest,, space crusade etc

if they manage that it will actually count as advertising as well as more opportunities to sell stock (how many of the older UK members here first encountered table top gaming via one of those boxsets from a toy focused store? a fairly high percentage I would suspect)

I took that to mean they'll send a sales rep to the specialist places to see if they'll take a rack of stuff. I'm not sure there's many up here that would agree (though I heard something about Forbidden Planet stocking some).

What they need to do (but don't seem to be doing) is trying to get their goods into big box retailers - Walmart, Tesco, Argos* etc.


*Back when I got into gaming about '96, Argos was the only place I could get GW stuff, and they've currently got pages and pages of games and lego, though I don't think they have any model kits. Anyway, they sell similar stuff, used to sell it, and there is a store in pretty much every large town across the UK. There's at least 8 within a 30 minute drive of me, whilst there's 1 game store and 1 comic shop.

The big question is: is Kirby a genuine lunatic or is he trolling everyone?

I do not often talk about our products

Translation: I wouldnt know where to start. Is it something to do with the Star Treks?

To be here next year we have to do what all our customers want, not just a noisy few

Stop liking what I dont like.jpg

Only £7.50 and a day you will remember all your life.

Sell, sell, sell!

The new Warhammer is new.

Long cat is long

As I write the world is tumbling in chaos around us. Pundits discover they cannot predict elections, the Americans ride to the rescue of world football (thank you, Uncle Sam), Sunderland escape relegation, again, the UK will split up into its consistent parts, it will leave Europe; and yet we struggle on.

Ok, so hes a lunatic. Is he actually predicting these things or is he just being unnecessarily overly-dramatic. Also Kirby, I think you mean "constituent ".

They still fail to acknowledge the obvious elephant in the room:

Barrier to entry is far to high, and constantly increasing the prices to ludicrous levels (seriously, look at the cost of those Sigmarines!) is not going to rescue them.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Kirby owns, what, about 7% of the stock? Why would he care if he gets a freeze? He's getting a sweet dividend check.

Anyway, I feel it is very telling that, even after all of the releases this year, they still couldn't do better. What are they going to do when they've "finished" updating 40K in the next year or so?

Smacks of more short term cost cutting that GW have been doing, which seems aimed at making the company a more attractive purchase and thus enabling Kirby to trouser a nice big payout from the buy out.

RE: min wage, not sure many are on min wage at GW now that they have one man stores? I guess maybe some of the bar staff at Bugmans?

Time is a flat circle, we'll simply go back round to the begining and start all over again when it comes to releases for 40k. GW simply can't afford a break in the release cycle now based on these numbers otherwise they risk tanking their already slowing down sales.

 Harriticus wrote:
Jeez GW is taking a long time to just collapse already

I have it on good word that they've been in a death spiral ever since they moved to white metal in the early '90s.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They still fail to acknowledge the obvious elephant in the room:

Barrier to entry is far to high, and constantly increasing the prices to ludicrous levels (seriously, look at the cost of those Sigmarines!) is not going to rescue them.

Not true, there's a whole bit about the top down reorganisation of the range, and while they won't be cutting prices, they'll be expanding the range of price points.

Of course, I have made an assumption that expansion will be down but I foresee a range of 5 man Tactical Squads, Assault Marines without jump packs, smaller fantasy regiments etc.

Basically the same old gak with sprues taken out, but with AoS working the way it does, then that barrier could conceivable be much lower.

Please not I'm making no assertions about the quality of AoS or anyone's desire to play it, just about the accessibility.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
Jeez GW is taking a long time to just collapse already

I have it on good word that they've been in a death spiral ever since they moved to white metal in the early '90s.

Smug much?

Look at all they've done in the last year just to tread water, and while the intro makes a lot of the right noises, it's still just words and modern GW is almost defined by the right idea being executed poorly, so I wouldn't crow too much just yet.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Accolade wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:
This hasn't been mentioned yet:

I have set a goal of getting the business into sales growth in 2015/16 and have asked staff to accept a salary freeze until December
2015 to allow us to maintain our cost to sales ratio. If we deliver sales growth in the first half of 2015/16 I have agreed to back date any
salary reviews to 1 June 2015. We are all working hard to deliver this goal.

They are on a salary freeze in the same year they payed out a dividend?!? And they literally just put a gilded statue out in front of the building. They need to start worrying about the squirly guy burning the building down. And getting their raises is contingent on turning around a multi-year sales decline trend. Good luck with that.

Seriously though, this is death spiral stuff. Put salary freezes into a company with failing sales and anyone talented enough to get a job elsewhere, will. You end up left with the people too thick to see the writing on the wall, or people who aren't qualified enough to do good work, but just good enough not to get fired.

I do wonder if these freezes include the chairman's golden parachute

Kirby owns, what, about 7% of the stock?

You guys mean Kevin Rountree the new CEO?

I'm not sure what a price freeze has to with prior agreements to the "chairman's" severance package?

Kirby is still the chairman. Rountree is the CEO.

GW's strategy of increasing customer uptake is highly dependent on goodwill from both existing customers and stockists due to their strategy of reliance on physical storefronts (both theirs and independents) and positive word of mouth. Considering the scorched earth tactics that were used against the fandom and stockists (Independent sites shut down, non-communication (FAQs, rumors), shutting of fan events, Chapterhouse, regional embargoes, no photo webstores, direct only etc), they have to realize that part of their barrier to growth is the disgruntled masses they have left in their wake. These are a direct obstruction either by not carrying their product or circulating negativity by word of mouth. I think GW's strategy of ignoring those it left behind in favor of new blood is not working out the best as the critical mass that once fueled its growth is now the critical mass that is holding it back.

They'll have to cross back over the scorched earth they created themselves sooner or later, and the sooner they do so, cap in hand, the better off they will be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Barrier to entry is far to high, and constantly increasing the prices to ludicrous levels (seriously, look at the cost of those Sigmarines!) is not going to rescue them.

C'mon HBMC: You've been on this board long enough to know that GW costs are a drop in the bucket compared to luxury yachting, space tourism or super car collecting.

Relapse wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Our customers tend to be teenage boys and male adults with some spare money to spend and time to enjoy hobbies.

Poor people and opponents of boob-plate get BTFO once again.

BTFO?

Blasted the feth Out

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Baragash wrote:
Two non-financial takeaways:

1) FW moving to the main website publically confirmed, this becomes interesting if it allows ordering to store and removes that ridiculous postage barrier (price is a little steep in my experience considering I've been part of doing more for less in London with companies with proven track records but whatever).

This is such a wonderful thing. If it can be ordered via FLGS (through web orders) they will get, like tens of thousands out of some peeps.

The people spending thousands get free shipping anyway, so there's no barrier there. It will mean a pretty significant boost in smaller purchases though .

Where does this leave the whole "I don't support GW, I give my money to FW" "you know its the same company?" stuff that was going on elsewhere?

Eh. I've got people near me who'll still claim that FW stuff is not allowed, even if it's both on the GW store, and in a main codex...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also:
1) Kirby: wtf?
2) FW and GW store merge: Yay
3) Range revision: Could be good. Probably will result in the old metal Steel Legion and Vostroyan models getting either retconned, or made plastic.
4) AoS "Broad Acclaim". They've stuck their head in the sand, and called the planet wrong. Again.

Sales volume appears to be continuing to slide even after the expansive, rapid release of new products. Inventory levels are even lower than last year and the previous year which could mean that the company recognizes volume and demand are lower and don't expect them to increase or that they've hit the wall in their production capabilities. Mr. Rountree's comment about taking a look at the product range could indicate the latter as too many SKUs will weigh heavily on production capabilities unless they plan to expand them, which doesn't appear to be the case.

The company is still profitable and is lean and able to be more responsive to the market. This after Kirby's reorganization efforts; say what you will about the loon...er man but he did cut a lot of fat that needed trimming. I'm not speaking to 1-man stores here as I think that's just silly to begin with and probably a major reason retail is down so much versus mail-order. Why plan your purchasing around when the store is actually open if you can just order online?

Rountree's other comments are just typical corporate speak for different things that companies do anyway which makes me question a bit who they think their target readers are for this because any experienced trader can read between the lines.

"We'll open some stores and close some stores and put them in different places." OK, no company has ever done that before.

"We need more customers so we'll try to open more trade accounts." Odd statement considering the draconian nature of their trade terms and general poor handling of trade accounts.

"We'll try to court comic, toy and other shops as trade partners." Yeah, you're really showing you have no idea who you're selling to or how inaccessible your product is (on several levels) to the broader market.

Financials look good but I have to look at the insane amount of work that it's taken to get them there and that they've really placed all of their eggs in one basket with the focus on 40K and then leaving off of 40K for some time to pursue something completely new in the form of AoS. If AoS doesn't pan out, they've lost out on money they could have been getting from their proven cash-cow, 40K. It's a gamble and I think they know that from they way that they are actually attempting to market the game versus just expecting people to buy it like their other attempts. Time will tell if AoS was a good gamble or not.

Interesting times for GW as a company and they're very much still viable with good cash-flow and a strong, albeit weakening, market position.