forgotten ghosts wrote: problem with that is what rules actually changed? the true revamp of the rules happened +/- 10 years ago, since then we have changed overwatch, put in snap firing, flyers and super heavies open topped gets hit by templates, subtract 2 instead dice drop highest, went back and forth on targeting specific floors of buildings, psychic phase hull points did i miss anything? the core rules have maybe been tweaked with in my age of gaming, but not many real changes since we started the 21st other than the whole apoc, and escalation merge into 40k
... Adding an entire freaking phase isn't a real change? Just...
Nevermind.
They just put the phase back to consolidate the psychic rules that were scattered all over the other phases of the game? Hardly a major change.
When you have to edit literally every codex power in the game, theoretically taking into account balance changes therein, it is a major change. As are things like the open topped getting hit by templates. And subtract 2 from a charge instead of 3d6drop the highest. Adding overwatch was massive.
Seriously, while the amount of work to make the change was small the ramifications of these changes are massive.
It's like saying changing the point value of a Riptide to 37 points wouldn't be a massive change. It's just reducing a single number, after all.
If I'm considering buying a video game, I generally go to one of the independent sources I trust, either in print or online and read a review that I can be fairly sure will give me as objective and critical view as is possible with a human in the equation. I might even read several.
Care to point to a source that is similar for wargames? Because I'm not aware of one.
With regard to a demo game, are you seriously suggesting that a pre-defined game, in a GW store, conducted by a GW staff member is going to give me the sort of information I need to make a critical assessment of the game as a whole? Because that will be the overwhelming majority of demo 40K games played around the world I suspect.
Do you credit a GW staffer (a salesman when all is said and done) with the honesty to explain how many of the purchases and decisions I may make, from army choice through to units through to which pieces I choose to glue onto my models could hugely influence how likely I am to be able to win, or even compete, in games? Is it possible, through playing a brief, small scale demo, to appreciate how I could equally make decisions based on models I simply liked to end up with a collection of models that is capable of eliciting negative reactions from other gamers, up to and including a refusal to play me?
All the other items you give as examples are relatively easy to assess, shoes fit or do not, a videogame will likely garner numerous reviews, as will a movie or many other entertainment products. A wargame however, needs an educated eye to assess it's strengths and weaknesses. That requires either investment of time and resources or the consultation of others with more experience. Now, unlike videogames or movies, wargaming isn't large enough to support a whole auxiliary industry of critics, if only there were some place where people with years, in many cases decades, of experience could all come together to share their experiences.....
Ah, that would never work, unless it was all relentlessly positive people would just dismiss it as hatred because they either didn't understand or agree with the arguments.
i haven't seen a gw store in about 10 years, i am talking about players doing there part to support what they love and not always needing some payed staff member to hold there hand
they only thing that will never work is the thing never tried
i got introduced to dakka in 98 by the guys that ran the shop in portsmouth nh, good group that bunch
Ok, so someone walks into a store, and your idea is that non-staff are on hand to provide demo games? Or do you happen to attend a club at a location where random, interested potential wargamers just wander in off the street?
There's plenty of players out there supporting what they love, it's just far fewer of them love 40K than apparently any time in recent history.
wuestenfux wrote: Have a look at the 40k releases in the last two years.
Recent fiscal year:
- 7th Edition
- Space Marines
- Astra Militarum
- Tyranids
- Eldar
- Imperial Knights
Former fiscal year:
- 6th Edition
- Tau
- Chaos Space Marines
- Dark Angels
- Daemons
Orks released, and BA, DE, Necrons, GK, SoB(?) to be released.
The pace is astonishing but still gross revenue went down.
To be honest, I think the pace is one of the things that hurt them. I know that the community is probably 50/50 on this (if even that), but I think that the slower release schedule of 5th ed. gave the consumer time to buy a codex, study it, put together their army and have a good amount of testing done before the next army came out. Once the next army came out, they could afford to adjust their army list and buy what they needed. Or, if the player was a FoTM player, he could get rid of his army and afford to pick up a new army with the money that he sold his last army for (plus a little extra).
With the pace of the release schedule now, I would be hesitant to purchase an army or add to my army until I see the next few books. Again, this is my personal preference and I'm not saying anyone else is like this - but I like to have time to digest the books. Now*, instead of purchasing an army, I am spending a good amount of money on the codices and the rulebook to stay at the top of my game. With limited funds (and being burned by GW in the past), I don't want to spend money on an entire army that is going to be invalidated in a few months when either a new codex comes out or a new rulebook changes the way that my army works. I'm not saying this will happen, but when an army is so expensive, you want to put it together, ready to play. You don't want to blow $700+ on a new army to then have to turn around and spend another $200 updating it for the next set of codex creep that comes out.
With the old pace, I could've purchased an army, played a while and then, when the next power-hitter came out, I could afford to update my army. Now, what I was spending on updating my army, I'm spending on the next Codex so I can be familiar with the rules. Maybe the pace was just off-putting for me, but I'm sure I'm not alone.
*This is hypothetical, I haven't spent money on GW in over two years.
Personally I could see GW doing a "7.5" release and for every edition thereafter. 7th comes out, 7.5 comes out a year later making minor changes, but juuust enough to make people switch up their army comp again so they have to buy another $400 batch of models to update their army, then 8th comes out, etc.
Random charges, random warlord traits, random psychic powers, random terrain, random mission objectives, allies, flyers, LoWs, fortifications...
Most of those happened with the change from 5th to 6th, hence the steep decline in the player base that happened in 6th and the consequent scramble by GW to get them back with 7th. Only they didn't do anything to actually please the people that left because of those changes...
i guess me and few people i play with have had an issue with any of those, we haven't gotten into the unbound lists but aren't opposed to it as most of use bring a metric ton of crap and then build lists after we already know what we will be playing. lords of war have been fun usually get destroyed in the game and allow other units to become much more effective. we typically don't play with the random terrain and objective rules i was opposed to allies in 6th but that was honestly because i couldn't allie with myself which got fixed most of what i feel needs to get fixed is within the actual codex themselves where certain things don't seem to make sense to me, and since those are what they will be redoing for the foreseeable future i am looking forward to more games of 7th
While you see 'the rules' come up as a common complaint, you'll also see a lot of disagreement about what the problem areas are and how the rulesets could be improved. They'll never make everyone happy, and 40K in particular probably enjoyed its largest growth period under its wonkiest and most patched rulesets (1st-3rd).
IMO, there are many canards that pop up in these discussions, and this is one of them.
The real and current problem with the rules IMO lies in the apparent disconnect between the studio and the rest of the business. Seventh edition 40K is -- even moreso than 6th -- a statement by the studio that 40K is a social game that requires its players to set parameters and generally be mature, agreeable people. You may feel that 40K *should* be this or that, but IMO the studio's stance is a pretty realistic take on what the game has been for most of its history (and again, during some real growth periods).
The problem IMO is that while the studio is busy telling us to forge the narrative, the rest of the business is busy pulling support for and promotion aimed at various communities -- through downsizing to small one-man stores, through less support and friendly policies toward FLGSs, through eliminated or missed opportunities for customer/community interaction, through a lack of tournament support for stores and smaller events, etc.
I like 7th edition a lot. Others feel differently, but my personal read is that a fair chunk of the complaining comes from people who haven't tried or have only barely tried it. IMO, if the 40K communities were healthier, you'd see more players working through the edition change like they've always done in the past. GW has always jerked the player base some around from edition to edition, and 7th is nothing new. What might be different now is that the communities that keep current players engaged and playing -- and introduce new players to the game -- aren't as strong as they used to be.
Kilkrazy wrote: A lot of people have stopped buying the game, for various combinations of reasons to do with price and not liking aspects of the modern rules.
The fact that you like the modern rules does not convince other people they are good. To get those people back, GW are going to have to change the rules and reduce the prices.
attest stuff
Price alone is not enough to explain the drop in GW sales. I can afford to buy the latest stuff every month, and I'm willing to bet there are a few folk on this site who have well-paid jobs and can equally shell out as well, without breaking sweat, or noticing the effect on their bank balance. Similary, I feel for the students and the poorer folk on this site who have genuine grievances about price hikes, but it's more complicated than prices.
I don't think it's a rules problem either, because if there is one single issue that everybody on dakka agrees 100% with, it's that GW has never produced a good rules set. They've produced ok rules sets, but everybody has at least one quibble with something.
For me, personally, I gave up the GW games because of my age and switched to historicals, because for some strange reason, nobody laughs at tiny, plastic British soldiers, but everybody laughs at tiny, plastic, goblins. Historicals are more respectable.
It is a combination of factors which no doubt vary between individuals.
For myself, I refused to buy the full price 6th and waited for the soft back out of Dark Vengeance. Meanwhile codexes doubled in price and I just decided they were not worth it, so I didn't buy any Riptides or Flyrants, etc. either.
Once 7th came along, less than two years later, it was an easy decision not to pay £50 for a set of rules that was a bundle of tweaks on 6th containing a number of things I didn't like, that individually were relatively minor and could be ignored if necessary, but why should I reward GW a penny for essentially not making things any better and just not making them worse but a bit different?
Basically I never thought 40K was a fantastic game but it was playable and had its points. It isn't getting any better and the "rental" price to stay in it has increased to the point where it is no longer value for money.
So that is me out of 40K for the foreseeable future. I cannot be the only person in that kind of frame of mind. It at least offers a rational explanation for the revenue decline.
forgotten ghosts wrote: problem with that is what rules actually changed? the true revamp of the rules happened +/- 10 years ago, since then we have changed overwatch, put in snap firing, flyers and super heavies open topped gets hit by templates, subtract 2 instead dice drop highest, went back and forth on targeting specific floors of buildings, psychic phase hull points did i miss anything? the core rules have maybe been tweaked with in my age of gaming, but not many real changes since we started the 21st other than the whole apoc, and escalation merge into 40k
...
Adding an entire freaking phase isn't a real change? Just...
Nevermind.
At least it got rid of the whole "when exactly does my power go off?" question.
Random charges, random warlord traits, random psychic powers, random terrain, random mission objectives, allies, flyers, LoWs, fortifications...
Most of those happened with the change from 5th to 6th, hence the steep decline in the player base that happened in 6th and the consequent scramble by GW to get them back with 7th. Only they didn't do anything to actually please the people that left because of those changes...
i guess me and few people i play with have had an issue with any of those, we haven't gotten into the unbound lists but aren't opposed to it as most of use bring a metric ton of crap and then build lists after we already know what we will be playing. lords of war have been fun usually get destroyed in the game and allow other units to become much more effective. we typically don't play with the random terrain and objective rules i was opposed to allies in 6th but that was honestly because i couldn't allie with myself which got fixed most of what i feel needs to get fixed is within the actual codex themselves where certain things don't seem to make sense to me, and since those are what they will be redoing for the foreseeable future i am looking forward to more games of 7th
Like I said, good for you and your friends that you still like the game, but unfortunately for GW, you and your friends don't seem to be in the majority when it comes to liking the new edition(s).
Kilkrazy wrote: A lot of people have stopped buying the game, for various combinations of reasons to do with price and not liking aspects of the modern rules.
The fact that you like the modern rules does not convince other people they are good. To get those people back, GW are going to have to change the rules and reduce the prices.
attest stuff
Price alone is not enough to explain the drop in GW sales. I can afford to buy the latest stuff every month, and I'm willing to bet there are a few folk on this site who have well-paid jobs and can equally shell out as well, without breaking sweat, or noticing the effect on their bank balance. Similary, I feel for the students and the poorer folk on this site who have genuine grievances about price hikes, but it's more complicated than prices.
I don't think it's a rules problem either, because if there is one single issue that everybody on dakka agrees 100% with, it's that GW has never produced a good rules set. They've produced ok rules sets, but everybody has at least one quibble with something.
For me, personally, I gave up the GW games because of my age and switched to historicals, because for some strange reason, nobody laughs at tiny, plastic British soldiers, but everybody laughs at tiny, plastic, goblins. Historicals are more respectable.
It is a combination of factors which no doubt vary between individuals.
For myself, I refused to buy the full price 6th and waited for the soft back out of Dark Vengeance. Meanwhile codexes doubled in price and I just decided they were not worth it, so I didn't buy any Riptides or Flyrants, etc. either.
Once 7th came along, less than two years later, it was an easy decision not to pay £50 for a set of rules that was a bundle of tweaks on 6th containing a number of things I didn't like, that individually were relatively minor and could be ignored if necessary, but why should I reward GW a penny for essentially not making things any better and just not making them worse but a bit different?
Basically I never thought 40K was a fantastic game but it was playable and had its points. It isn't getting any better and the "rental" price to stay in it has increased to the point where it is no longer value for money.
So that is me out of 40K for the foreseeable future. I cannot be the only person in that kind of frame of mind. It at least offers a rational explanation for the revenue decline.
What he said, but I'll also add a little more. I also stopped (for all the reasons above) but also to protest what I considered horrible business practices by GW. And their contempt for their customers. But like he said, it's a multitude of factors that varies per individual.
Ok, so someone walks into a store, and your idea is that non-staff are on hand to provide demo games? Or do you happen to attend a club at a location where random, interested potential wargamers just wander in off the street?
There's plenty of players out there supporting what they love, it's just far fewer of them love 40K than apparently any time in recent history.
agian not seeing a gw store in years the staff where i play would run a demo with you on anything you were interested in i have seen a demo going on for 40k the last 2 times i was in there, yesterday i put together one of the mek guns because i was the 5th wheel and ryan was busy showing 2 guys how to play 40k so he couldn't get a game in at all, had the kid that made the 3rd wheel in warmahordes brought his 40k tho... was fine tho cause i got my game in and got the mek gun put together, but i have also helped with a few of the demos and never have a problem steppin in.
i am not saying to live your life at the store to provide demo games, but i know alot of people that are just hanging around there locals and do do that
Automatically Appended Next Post: or i should say will do that if the situation arises
Herzlos wrote: Did you read their financial report? They gave no indication that they even know what's wrong, nevermind about them trying to fix it. It reads as if they are just going to keep doing the same and hoping it works out.
You mention the recession, but it's largely over, and pretty much every other gaming company is growing quite well, so the recession isn't to blame here.
To be fair, a lot of major retailers have the same problem right now. The retail landscape is changing in fundamental ways as the barriers for entry are incredibly low right now.
gorgon wrote: and 40K in particular probably enjoyed its largest growth period under its wonkiest and most patched rulesets (1st-3rd).
Source? Because both polls I've recently seen on the subject suggest that most people started playing during the 3rd-5th edition period and that 4th and 5th were the editions that most people thought were the best...
forgotten ghosts wrote: and since i know this is coming next, what about the outrage people have about 7th
to which i respond have you played 7th i absolutely love it
Good for you, a lot of people don't play it and won't play it because they don't like the direction it was taking (same could be said of 6th). And, judging from the dropped sales, we are slowly getting to the point where more people are stopping playing.
This is something that truly baffled me (and maybe started or accelerated their decline): for years they had been streamlining the game. They had been tweaking parts here and there to seemingly make it easier and smoother to play. 5th was easy to play and easy to pickup. But then 6th came along with its bloated, mismanaged ruleset and all of that went out the door.
I mean, were they trying to scrape off any remnants of former authors from their brand? I just don't get it. It feels like they were throwing ideas up against the wall to see what might stick rather than doing any market research . Instead, they give Ward and Co. the keys to the rules pantry and they bake up a tough-to-swallow mess with all the rules they can find. Not to mention glaringly obvious that they were trying to shoehorn Apoc into normal 40K. I would wonder if they asked their fans if that is what they wanted, but I already know the answer.
I personally cannot wait for GW to completely fail.
Then the IP will be snatched by someone who will truly attempt to maximize their success by leveraging the goodwill and fond memories associated with the IP of 40K.
GW cannot ever come back from where they are.
The only hope for the IP to survive is for it to be purchased by an entirely new entity.
The parts that have changed for the worse are the merging of standard 40k and apoc with escalation and LoW. The game is still a skirmish rule set with many aspects of small level games, but shovels large company level gaming down your throat. The list building mechanics now are a bad joke at best, and a complete absence of rules at the worst.
Indeed, this is a big problem. A skirmish game mixed with rules usually played at a larger level (superheavies, multiple detachments, allies).
This makes list building difficult, particularly at the tournament level. Now its hardly predictable what to expect.
Most of those happened with the change from 5th to 6th, hence the steep decline in the player base that happened in 6th and the consequent scramble by GW to get them back with 7th. Only they didn't do anything to actually please the people that left because of those changes...
Most of those happened with the change from 5th to 6th, hence the steep decline in the player base that happened in 6th and the consequent scramble by GW to get them back with 7th. Only they didn't do anything to actually please the people that left because of those changes...
Because they had no idea why those people left.
A company that brags about not engaging in any market analysis doesn't know why its customers stopped buying their product... gasp, who would have thought!
That is why I don't have any faith in GWs management ability to pull itself out of this decline before its too late.
gorgon wrote: While you see 'the rules' come up as a common complaint, you'll also see a lot of disagreement about what the problem areas are and how the rulesets could be improved. They'll never make everyone happy, and 40K in particular probably enjoyed its largest growth period under its wonkiest and most patched rulesets (1st-3rd).
IMO, there are many canards that pop up in these discussions, and this is one of them.
The real and current problem with the rules IMO lies in the apparent disconnect between the studio and the rest of the business. Seventh edition 40K is -- even moreso than 6th -- a statement by the studio that 40K is a social game that requires its players to set parameters and generally be mature, agreeable people. You may feel that 40K *should* be this or that, but IMO the studio's stance is a pretty realistic take on what the game has been for most of its history (and again, during some real growth periods).
The problem IMO is that while the studio is busy telling us to forge the narrative, the rest of the business is busy pulling support for and promotion aimed at various communities -- through downsizing to small one-man stores, through less support and friendly policies toward FLGSs, through eliminated or missed opportunities for customer/community interaction, through a lack of tournament support for stores and smaller events, etc.
I like 7th edition a lot. Others feel differently, but my personal read is that a fair chunk of the complaining comes from people who haven't tried or have only barely tried it. IMO, if the 40K communities were healthier, you'd see more players working through the edition change like they've always done in the past. GW has always jerked the player base some around from edition to edition, and 7th is nothing new. What might be different now is that the communities that keep current players engaged and playing -- and introduce new players to the game -- aren't as strong as they used to be.
It could also be that the people that they have put off with 7th edition are not as patient or willing to suffer through the changes of gameplay because of various other factors. If someone is upset about their army changing, or having to spend x amount of dollars on a new unit or what have you, when 7th hits and changes things up a bit again, that may just push them right over the line. They may throw their hands up and say, "Forget it." instead of committing to learning the new edition.
GW hasn't done itself any favors with regard to any community outreach at all. All they do is produce and expect their fans to buy.
Most of those happened with the change from 5th to 6th, hence the steep decline in the player base that happened in 6th and the consequent scramble by GW to get them back with 7th. Only they didn't do anything to actually please the people that left because of those changes...
Because they had no idea why those people left.
A company that brags about not engaging in any market analysis doesn't know why its customers stopped buying their product... gasp, who would have thought!
That is why I don't have any faith in GWs management ability to pull itself out of this decline before its too late.
That's indeed very strange. It wouldn't be too difficult to make some market research.
Most of those happened with the change from 5th to 6th, hence the steep decline in the player base that happened in 6th and the consequent scramble by GW to get them back with 7th. Only they didn't do anything to actually please the people that left because of those changes...
Because they had no idea why those people left.
This. If they don't do market research, focus groups or ask the market what it wants, they have zero clue why people are going elsewhere, and all they can do is throw gak at the wall and see what sticks, or keep doing the same thing and hope it works (which is the definition of insanity). Given the pump and dump type of mentality they have towards their customers, I wouldn't be surprised if they just assumed the people leaving are part of that. I did read somewhere that they figured someone would only play the game for a year before they got tired and went elsewhere, so with zero research who's to say if they aren't chalking it up to churn rather than a fundamental issue?
TheAuldGrump wrote: Play nice kids - he has found a game that he likes, and more power to him.
To be fair, telling people to play 7e before we judge it is basically telling someone to invest on a codex, a rulebook and an army just to judge something that they may or may not love. It's definitely not endearing to tell people they have to pay up first before they can make an opinion of the game.
people do it all the time with computer and video games, if you let gw take you for every penny before you played thats on you. i would go to a store and demo any game before investing in it, we try on shoes before we buy them right? i am forgetting this is an internet forum so who am i kidding
Just the price tag is enough to turn me off. Even if a videogame is the best videogame there is, I wouldnt buy it if it's priced $500. Honestly, how much would you have to spend in order to get a 40k army? I don't need a demo game to know, I'll just look at GW's website and look at the prices there and leave.
It's also not like I can't search for opinions of people who've played the game. So far there's still a huge imbalance of power from what I've heard, or have they fixed that with 7e? That alone is enough for me to judge it.
Fine, you love it. So what? Did you explain to my why you love it? If you love it, does that mean that I don't have to spend as much as other people just to play? Did it fix the issues I had with 40k (imbalance, poorly written rules, complexity for complexity's sake)?
I'm guessing all the answers are no.
It's annoying when people do that: tell other people that their opinions aren't valid because they've never tried it. To some degree that is true, but I don't need to eat poop before having a license of having an opinion about eating poop.
Most of those happened with the change from 5th to 6th, hence the steep decline in the player base that happened in 6th and the consequent scramble by GW to get them back with 7th. Only they didn't do anything to actually please the people that left because of those changes...
Because they had no idea why those people left.
This. If they don't do market research, focus groups or ask the market what it wants, they have zero clue why people are going elsewhere, and all they can do is throw gak at the wall and see what sticks, or keep doing the same thing and hope it works (which is the definition of insanity). Given the pump and dump type of mentality they have towards their customers, I wouldn't be surprised if they just assumed the people leaving are part of that. I did read somewhere that they figured someone would only play the game for a year before they got tired and went elsewhere, so with zero research who's to say if they aren't chalking it up to churn rather than a fundamental issue?
Sadly, maybe you're right. And maybe that is why the release schedule is so accelerated, especially in regard to 7th edition. Maybe they're hoping that a faster release schedule in regard to core rules will translate to a faster churn and more quick revenue. I really don't know what they're thinking, to be honest.
Ok, so someone walks into a store, and your idea is that non-staff are on hand to provide demo games? Or do you happen to attend a club at a location where random, interested potential wargamers just wander in off the street?
There's plenty of players out there supporting what they love, it's just far fewer of them love 40K than apparently any time in recent history.
agian not seeing a gw store in years the staff where i play would run a demo with you on anything you were interested in i have seen a demo going on for 40k the last 2 times i was in there, yesterday i put together one of the mek guns because i was the 5th wheel and ryan was busy showing 2 guys how to play 40k so he couldn't get a game in at all, had the kid that made the 3rd wheel in warmahordes brought his 40k tho... was fine tho cause i got my game in and got the mek gun put together, but i have also helped with a few of the demos and never have a problem steppin in.
i am not saying to live your life at the store to provide demo games, but i know alot of people that are just hanging around there locals and do do that
Automatically Appended Next Post:
or i should say will do that if the situation arises
Yeah, people don't actually do that where I live. So what then? How can I try 7th Edition without investing money? Care to give another example?
Cash on hand doesn't mean you're successful. The fact they don't have any debt is huge is a better indication as to how well they operate. They grew slowly and not through debt. From what I can tell, they seem to be running leaner and have few production issues. Nothing like the PP issue back in 2010 when you couldn't order half of their model range unless it was a new release.
A problem which GW (indirectly) caused. Nothing like sending your customers in droves to one of your biggest competitors by dictating where they can buy their products from.
"Sorry guv, you're from Australia. Can't buy our products from Wayland..."
Ahh, I don't seem to have the same problem the Australians have. My issue with PP was I got out of GW for a year and stated playing Hordes. After getting into that game, PP had troubles with their supply chain and I couldn't order anything that wasn't a new release from my FLGS or directly from PP's website. As a result, I quit playing the game, cancelled my orders with PP and went back to GW. The only benefit was 10 months later I got my entire order from PP. One max sized beast handler unit. Can't play skorne well without them. With GW, hey seem to be able to back fill their product rather quickly. The most I've waited was an extra 3 days for something and they always sent me an "I'm sorry for the delay gift" that goes with my purchase.
No, you missed his point. He was point out you couldn't get PP product becouse Australians where buying them all at that time. Why becouse GW priced them out and a bunch went to PP games at the same time.
Oh, their forums said they were retooling and had machines breaking down. They didn't indicate anything about Australians buying all of their products for 10 months. Heck, the feedback I got from PP reiterated they were in the process of revamping their production which coincided with what their forums said. Then I'm sorry but PP is a much much smaller company than GW because if people from Australia can suck all of their product they make then hey really had no supply chain to begin with. If my order was on back order for 10 months because that's how long it took to cast every order in front of me, they must have very little equipment or it was in horrible shape and nobody was willing to work with them.
Smart companies don't point to the player base and say "It is their fault". But, you see the casue and effect, that would have on their supply chain built up to hold them over for the retooling, right?
gorgon wrote: and 40K in particular probably enjoyed its largest growth period under its wonkiest and most patched rulesets (1st-3rd).
Source? Because both polls I've recently seen on the subject suggest that most people started playing during the 3rd-5th edition period and that 4th and 5th were the editions that most people thought were the best...
Source for yours? Not Dakka polls, I trust.
Also, note the underlined and consider my meaning.
gorgon wrote: and 40K in particular probably enjoyed its largest growth period under its wonkiest and most patched rulesets (1st-3rd).
Source? Because both polls I've recently seen on the subject suggest that most people started playing during the 3rd-5th edition period and that 4th and 5th were the editions that most people thought were the best...
Source for yours? Not Dakka polls, I trust.
Also, note the underlined and consider my meaning.
Yes, Dakka polls, they are extremely flawed, I know so if you have a better source for yours, I'm all ears.
forgotten ghosts wrote: to all of that, if you guys dropped the game because of the direction and haven't played the game than how is your opinion worth more than mine, like i said where i play ( 3 stores slightly overlapping groups) 40k 7th everyone loves it one guy refusing to play the new missions.
again when i comes to don't play it wont play... that is your choice and makes your view and opinion of the game slightly skewed as you already choose to not like it. and that is fine i do the same thing with other games, not because of the direction they are going or my predetermined opinion of them (i love star wars!!) but because i am not gonna learn another rule set paint more models, etc.
we all know what they say about opinions we all got one right! mine and some others that i play with truly dont know what the hell everyone is always complaining about. did anyone bother to mention that the entire world has been in a recession for some time now? proven by the billions given in bailouts all across europe and in the states, any one care to take that into account, and how bout the wars going on everywhere, i now a lot of players that are in active service, how often do they get to play paint?
yes there is a shift moving to other games, but again we are looking at a giant company that is noticing its losses. in my opinion gw will fix itself, and ONE of these other games that you guys have gone to will become the target and gw will stay the walmart, i think most of the banter is hoping the one you went to becomes it.
For me, 1. it's the core concept of 7th. It's too soon after 6th and feels like a cynical cash grab. Right there it puts me off. I don't have to buy it to not like that.
2. Unbound. The game is too unbalanced for an unbound type of game play without a lot of pre-negotiation. It's unworkable for pick up games. So, right there, I don't have to play it to know that I (someone who relies on PUG's) isn't going to have fun with that. Also, its another cynical cash grab witch further puts me off of 7th.
3. Pyschic phase/deamon summoning. I play for the fluff, so when I hear that an Ultramarine Librarian can summon deamons, I lose all respect for the game. Also, a whole phase of a billion dice being rolled slows up an already slow game. Also, for armies with no psykers (I used to play SOB) its a whole phase to just sit back and take it like a chump. None of those issues require playing it. Again, its the core concept I disagree with along with it being a cynical cash grab to get everyone to just buy deamon models.
4. Mealstrom. Again, the core concept. It destroys any notion of an over-all strategy and just makes it turn by turn tactics. I like the players to determine strategy, not random cards. This is a furthering of the randomness that many players already didn't like. More of something we don't like isn't going to be better. Again, not something I have to play test to know.
This. All of it.
Blacksails wrote: The problem is both that the rules haven't changed, and the parts that have changed have done so for the worse.
Also this. GW makes changes for the sake of change. It moves the game sideways rather than forwards. If it ain't broke don't fix it!
gorgon wrote: and 40K in particular probably enjoyed its largest growth period under its wonkiest and most patched rulesets (1st-3rd).
Source? Because both polls I've recently seen on the subject suggest that most people started playing during the 3rd-5th edition period and that 4th and 5th were the editions that most people thought were the best...
40K experienced colossal growth under 1st edition because it hadn't existed before and grew from a base level of 0.
I suspect most people on DakkaDakka did start in 3rd-5th, which lasted from 1999 to 2012 -- let's remember 6th edition was only two years ago!! There hasn't been time for lots of people to during 6th/7th.
gorgon wrote: While you see 'the rules' come up as a common complaint, you'll also see a lot of disagreement about what the problem areas are and how the rulesets could be improved. They'll never make everyone happy, and 40K in particular probably enjoyed its largest growth period under its wonkiest and most patched rulesets (1st-3rd).
IMO, there are many canards that pop up in these discussions, and this is one of them.
The real and current problem with the rules IMO lies in the apparent disconnect between the studio and the rest of the business. Seventh edition 40K is -- even moreso than 6th -- a statement by the studio that 40K is a social game that requires its players to set parameters and generally be mature, agreeable people. You may feel that 40K *should* be this or that, but IMO the studio's stance is a pretty realistic take on what the game has been for most of its history (and again, during some real growth periods).
The problem IMO is that while the studio is busy telling us to forge the narrative, the rest of the business is busy pulling support for and promotion aimed at various communities -- through downsizing to small one-man stores, through less support and friendly policies toward FLGSs, through eliminated or missed opportunities for customer/community interaction, through a lack of tournament support for stores and smaller events, etc.
I like 7th edition a lot. Others feel differently, but my personal read is that a fair chunk of the complaining comes from people who haven't tried or have only barely tried it. IMO, if the 40K communities were healthier, you'd see more players working through the edition change like they've always done in the past. GW has always jerked the player base some around from edition to edition, and 7th is nothing new. What might be different now is that the communities that keep current players engaged and playing -- and introduce new players to the game -- aren't as strong as they used to be.
It could also be that the people that they have put off with 7th edition are not as patient or willing to suffer through the changes of gameplay because of various other factors. If someone is upset about their army changing, or having to spend x amount of dollars on a new unit or what have you, when 7th hits and changes things up a bit again, that may just push them right over the line. They may throw their hands up and say, "Forget it." instead of committing to learning the new edition.
GW hasn't done itself any favors with regard to any community outreach at all. All they do is produce and expect their fans to buy.
The game changed far more dramatically from 2nd to 3rd and the player base still grew, however. Fourth edition made players junk their mech armies. Fifth made them junk their infantry. Cripes, I'm a Tyranid player -- you know how many dramatic swings I've been through between BOTH edition changes and codex changes? Undoubtedly there were players that quit with each change, but the game (and sales) seemed to largely stay healthy during most of that time, suggesting that many adjusted and stayed, while others got on board.
I'm not suggesting a magic bullet. Increased competition is also an important factor here, although I again I think GW's retraction helped create the space that other companies grew into and filled. A lot of the stuff that Privateer does now looks like the stuff that GW did a decade ago.
Personally, I think there's an "enthusiasm gap," and that it could be overcome by taking some best practices from yesteryear and combining them with truly modern thinking about how to engage their customer community.
Edit: I've played every edition of the game. The 7th edition ruleset isn't nearly the worst, IMO. And the minis -- considering overall quality and range -- are the best they've ever been. I don't think its about 7th or 6th being failed products. Sales have been declining for years.
gorgon wrote: and 40K in particular probably enjoyed its largest growth period under its wonkiest and most patched rulesets (1st-3rd).
Source? Because both polls I've recently seen on the subject suggest that most people started playing during the 3rd-5th edition period and that 4th and 5th were the editions that most people thought were the best...
40K experienced colossal growth under 1st edition because it hadn't existed before and grew from a base level of 0.
.
Like so.
Substitute "religion" for "wargame" in the dialogue.
gorgon wrote: While you see 'the rules' come up as a common complaint, you'll also see a lot of disagreement about what the problem areas are and how the rulesets could be improved. They'll never make everyone happy, and 40K in particular probably enjoyed its largest growth period under its wonkiest and most patched rulesets (1st-3rd).
IMO, there are many canards that pop up in these discussions, and this is one of them.
The real and current problem with the rules IMO lies in the apparent disconnect between the studio and the rest of the business. Seventh edition 40K is -- even moreso than 6th -- a statement by the studio that 40K is a social game that requires its players to set parameters and generally be mature, agreeable people. You may feel that 40K *should* be this or that, but IMO the studio's stance is a pretty realistic take on what the game has been for most of its history (and again, during some real growth periods).
The problem IMO is that while the studio is busy telling us to forge the narrative, the rest of the business is busy pulling support for and promotion aimed at various communities -- through downsizing to small one-man stores, through less support and friendly policies toward FLGSs, through eliminated or missed opportunities for customer/community interaction, through a lack of tournament support for stores and smaller events, etc.
I like 7th edition a lot. Others feel differently, but my personal read is that a fair chunk of the complaining comes from people who haven't tried or have only barely tried it. IMO, if the 40K communities were healthier, you'd see more players working through the edition change like they've always done in the past. GW has always jerked the player base some around from edition to edition, and 7th is nothing new. What might be different now is that the communities that keep current players engaged and playing -- and introduce new players to the game -- aren't as strong as they used to be.
It could also be that the people that they have put off with 7th edition are not as patient or willing to suffer through the changes of gameplay because of various other factors. If someone is upset about their army changing, or having to spend x amount of dollars on a new unit or what have you, when 7th hits and changes things up a bit again, that may just push them right over the line. They may throw their hands up and say, "Forget it." instead of committing to learning the new edition.
GW hasn't done itself any favors with regard to any community outreach at all. All they do is produce and expect their fans to buy.
Yes, there definitely is something in that. I mean, I never really worked out wound allocation in any edition, and it kept changing. So did LoS and parts of the movement rules, and assault. In fact when you look back, lots of bits of rules changed each edition without much apparent reason for why.
Most of those happened with the change from 5th to 6th, hence the steep decline in the player base that happened in 6th and the consequent scramble by GW to get them back with 7th. Only they didn't do anything to actually please the people that left because of those changes...
Because they had no idea why those people left.
This. If they don't do market research, focus groups or ask the market what it wants, they have zero clue why people are going elsewhere, and all they can do is throw gak at the wall and see what sticks, or keep doing the same thing and hope it works (which is the definition of insanity). Given the pump and dump type of mentality they have towards their customers, I wouldn't be surprised if they just assumed the people leaving are part of that. I did read somewhere that they figured someone would only play the game for a year before they got tired and went elsewhere, so with zero research who's to say if they aren't chalking it up to churn rather than a fundamental issue?
Sadly, maybe you're right. And maybe that is why the release schedule is so accelerated, especially in regard to 7th edition. Maybe they're hoping that a faster release schedule in regard to core rules will translate to a faster churn and more quick revenue. I really don't know what they're thinking, to be honest.
I suspect that faster release pace is to sell more books quickly. There are IDK how many armies and factions in the two games. Most players don't own more than one or two, and GW would like a way to get some money out of everyone every year if possible.
To be fair, we always used to complain about the slow pace of codex releases in 4th/5th. That was because if you were unlucky you might have to wait five, six or up to 10 years for your army to be updated. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect that every army should be updated within the first half of the lifetime of a new edition.
However the fast pace of releases has been bad in three ways: 1. The rules aren't any better, just changed faster; 2. It has become obvious that GW are desperate to shove out more books and invalidate things even quicker than before; 3. the doubled price of codexes means the "rent" for keeping up with the game has probably tripled.
Barfolomew wrote: Here's how I see it. GW claims to be in the market of making models and for some reason, they don't understand that in order to make models, especially ones that have to be painted, people need a reason to buy them. GW IP is not like comics, movies or TV shows where people will buy models to just sit on the self, there has to be a reason at some point.
According to testimony in the CHS suit, GWwants to think of itself as a collectibles company, regardless of the reality of the situation as posted above.
GW should have multiple games that use the same models. This allows them to lower price of production because the same models are used in multiple games. They also allow people to play with the same model, thus the purchaser feels they are getting more value. I would recommend the games be:
- Board game that takes 30 minutes or less and costs $50 or less. Game should support 1 to 4 players. This could be a scenario game based on a ship where players need to defend, escape or assault the ship. Expansions could include rules for other armies and new scenarios.
That was Space Crusade and Advanced Space Crusade
- Small skirmish game that takes 1 hour or less with an intro price of $100 total. This would be Necromunda.
...or 28mm Inquisitor or any number of games they could pull out of the 40K universe.
- Mid level skirmish game that takes 1 hour with intro price of $200. I would see this at about 750 points of 40K.
- Platoon level game that takes about 2 hours with field army price of around $300. 1500 points of 40k.
- Army level game at 3 hours, $500 and about 3000 points of 40K.
Alpharius wrote: Don't forget that he also suffers from Murderlust.
Murderfang suffers from Murderlust, and murders his foes with his Murderclaws.
For real.
So, GW is clearly not financially bankrupt, but they might be creatively bankrupt!
GW claims its target demographic is 15-35, but this thing with its murderclaws would only amuse a 12 year old. And even that I'd question as I was playing GW games before that age and am fairly sure I would have thought it childish. Who are they selling to exactly? They seem very confused for people who don't need to do market research.
To be fair, we always used to complain about the slow pace of codex releases in 4th/5th. That was because if you were unlucky you might have to wait five, six or up to 10 years for your army to be updated. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect that every army should be updated within the first half of the lifetime of a new edition.
However the fast pace of releases has been bad in three ways: 1. The rules aren't any better, just changed faster; 2. It has become obvious that GW are desperate to shove out more books and invalidate things even quicker than before; 3. the doubled price of codexes means the "rent" for keeping up with the game has probably tripled.
To be fair though that was because they updated things in a very weird way, with some armies (Marines) getting constant releases and updates, and others barely getting anything for months and falling behind. This problem would never exist if GW did updates in the way that PP does; a book every so often that gives an extra kit or three to every faction at once. It's the fact that they always released things slow, and tended to intersperse things that didn't need updates (Marines) with things that did (everything else) that caused the problem.
Alpharius wrote: Don't forget that he also suffers from Murderlust.
Murderfang suffers from Murderlust, and murders his foes with his Murderclaws.
For real.
So, GW is clearly not financially bankrupt, but they might be creatively bankrupt!
GW claims its target demographic is 15-35, but this thing with its murderclaws would only amuse a 12 year old. And even that I'd question as I was playing GW games before that age and am fairly sure I would have thought it childish. Who are they selling to exactly? They seem very confused for people who don't need to do market research.
But in fact I think GW saw 40K as a more productive option. Remember that Specialist Games went the way of the Bitz service during the Mark Wells era, when an awful lot of apparently peripheral stuff was cut in order to cut costs and return the company to profit. It all may not have been a good idea.
Apocryphal story about accounting.
Spoiler:
This is a story that accounting students get told to illustrate the business limitations of accounting.
A man who runs an electrical supplies store calls in an accountant to help him become more profitable.
After analysing the stock and cash flow, the accountant advises the owner to drop cable ties, since they make zero profit, so he does.
Over the next few months his regular customers begin to go elsewhere for their equipment.
Finally he asks one why he doesn't come to the shop any more. The ex-customer says he used to be able to get all the parts and equipment he needed in one place, including cable ties. So now he goes somewhere else.
Obviously it is not an exact parallel to Specialist Games, Worldwide Campaigns, Tournament and Club support, etc. but I think it has relevance.
I've read exact similar story from memoirs of an engineer:
Spoiler:
He went to work in a well-estabilished gunpowder and ammunition manufacturer, which had hit hard times. The accountants had noted that many of the cartridge lines were unprofitable (there were and are many old & rare calibres), so they cut them to save money. Result: sales took even bigger dip and company did only worse. The engineer pointed out to the accountants that most hunters owned multiple guns, and they wanted to buy all the ammo at the same time: they did not want to drive around the town trying to find ammo for their old 8.2*54mm, they wanted to go to straight to the retailer which they knew carried all the calibres they wanted to buy ammo for. Retailers knew this, and did not want to carry a manufacturer with a small selection. So the engineer pushed the company to make more different types, not less, including some types which had become popular but the company had not made previously (at the time, it was Magnum shotgun shells) because it was afraid of investing. Result: in few years, company's sales tripled. Of course the tale had a sad ending, as the new CEO became enthralled with a pet vanity project which ate up all the capital the company had painstakingly built up during its renewal, and the company went under anyway. But that's a different story.
So I am not also suggesting GW's situation is similar, after all, different patients, different strokes. But if nothing else, thin product catalogue carries considerable risks. Certainly, I know more than one manufacturer who were so busy 'cutting costs' and 'superfluous branches' and 'concentrating on core business' that they ran out of things to sell, and no matter how lean their production chain was, they had no cash flow, so they went under.
Regarding the viability of much-talked about skirmish game in GW's current position: obviously nobody is suggesting that a skirmish game alone would sell so much that the company fortunes turn around: in fact, even a successful game likely would sell only a fraction of what 40k brings in. However, the idea is about long term growth potential. Comparison to the past with Mordheim and Necromunda is not viable. Back then, GW games were generally more affordable and getting started costed much less than today. Mordheim was not meant really to draw in new players for WHFB: it was simply something little extra, which the fans of the franchise could play when they were in the mood for something little different, or for those people who didn't want to invest into larger scale wargame.
By contrast, the 'NuHeim' would be designed to work as a standalone game, which would allow people to play meaningful games without obscene amount of miniatures, with compatible miniatures which one could easily adapt as a base for a WHFB army if they wanted. (I'm assuming WHFB here as it needs this kind of 'throw-in' product in a worst way, 40k perhaps less so). The 'NuHeim' would come with
-rules similarities with WHFB, so leap to the 'big league' would be straightforward -around 15-20 miniatures, compatible with WHFB, in fact if GW wants to go real cheap here, they can simply use existing sprues, they have tons of different ones. However, new designs might draw in the veterans as well. -a small painting/hobby guide - in fact they could sell also 'NuHeim paints collection' separately -small but cool looking, pretty background book - GW can do these real well -periodic expansions and dataslates how to convert existing WHFB units and characters to NuHeim (or totally new ones, if we go crazy) -price tag of 60 to 80 euros. Keep it simple, keep it cheap (by GW standards). You don't want to cram in too much stuff or too big miniatures, that will drive the price tag up too much. People will buy more if they're hooked.
With this, GW has -something for the people or parents who wander in the shop and ask "uh, looks cool/my kid really loves these, but do you have like anything bit simpler? Which doesn't cost hundreds of dollars and take year to prepare?" -something for people who like Skirmish games but not large wargames, or can't afford one -something which is easy to give as a Christmas or Birthday present -something which the veterans may be interested in just for curiosity, or if they want the new miniatures (see: Space Hulk) -something which might be even sold in regular toy shops, if GW wants to go that route -...and also something which is potentially easy to advertise in non-GW medium (they don't do that and to a degree I understand why, but with 'one box' product it might be different) -...AND which may later bring in easy licensing income as it should be pretty easy to transform into mobile or computer format
Are all generic. There is nothing here that GW can hang their hat on and be willing to spend money on.
No Bloodbowl no Mordheim or other Fantsay based skirmish game will be coming out of GWHQ anytime soon.
Fantasy is likely a thorn in the current boards side, for the reasons outlined above.
Yes, a rational company or leadership would be investing and promoting their other game system. This is GW we are talking about.
And remember, when Kirby goes, you have a company that Kirby has shaped remaining. Any change will occur at the pace of a tanker heading towards an iceberg turning. If at all.
Mr. Burning wrote: And remember, when Kirby goes, you have a company that Kirby has shaped remaining. Any change will occur at the pace of a tanker heading towards an iceberg turning. If at all.
With a crew only trained to say "Yes sir!", not to actually do anything involved with operating a ship.
Mr. Burning wrote: I think it bears repeating that the Warhammer fantasy universe has very little unique and defensible content.
Fantasy actually has an interesting & deep set of world-myth associated with it (which is why they've gone through so many iterations of the WHRPG over the years); Mordheim in particular is a very interesting setting. And Skaven, as implemented in the setting, are a fantastically interesting race.
Lots of stories have started with generic elements & taken them to interesting (and copyrightable) places.
Are all generic. There is nothing here that GW can hang their hat on and be willing to spend money on.
Just because something is not completely indigenous and unique does not mean one can't make money with it. If Vampires weren't profitable, Twilight movies wouldn't exist.
As anal as GW are about their IP, they are not going to abandon an entire universe just because some parts of it are very generic (a common feature with practically any post-Tolkien fantasy world).
The danger for GW is that it is so easy to find historical or fantasy substitutes for most of the figures needed for most of the Fantasy armies that they possibly only make a lot of money off the large model kits (corpse chariots, and the like) and the more unusual factions of Skaven and Lizardmen.
The same is becoming true for 40K, which perhaps helps explain the recent drive to introduce new and larger types of models into the game.
Kilkrazy wrote: The danger for GW is that it is so easy to find historical or fantasy substitutes for most of the figures needed for most of the Fantasy armies that they possibly only make a lot of money off the large model kits (corpse chariots, and the like) and the more unusual factions of Skaven and Lizardmen.
The same is becoming true for 40K, which perhaps helps explain the recent drive to introduce new and larger types of models into the game.
Just speculation on my part of course.
Astute! Oooh, that makes a lot of sense.
It is very easy to find stuff to replace most infantry-sized miniatures, but finding something that is appropriate for replacing an Imperial Knight or other biggie-model is much more difficult. I've noticed that.
If Fantasy was retired, I wonder whether it would actually be announced, or if model kits would start just disappearing, Specialist Games style (and it would just stop being mentioned in whatever the magazine is now that mentions stuff).
It is difficult to believe that Fantasy would be retired, however if done I think people would quickly notice whichever way they might do it.
One of the points Kirby made was that they aim to create new sales out of their existing IP, which of course is only Fantasy and 40K. They can hardly do that by retiring one of them even if it is the smaller selling and possibly shrinking.
Wasn't there a story floating around--that then head of North American GW--was fighting to keep the Warhammer Fantasy brand alive, as the main office was debating about dropping down to a single product (40k)?
Kilkrazy wrote: The danger for GW is that it is so easy to find historical or fantasy substitutes for most of the figures needed for most of the Fantasy armies that they possibly only make a lot of money off the large model kits (corpse chariots, and the like) and the more unusual factions of Skaven and Lizardmen.
And Tomb Kings, Wood Elves (at least the non-elves), & Ogres. Chaos, as always, is a mixed bag - some of GW's imagery is fairly unique (Slaaneshi daemons in particular), but people have gotten to the point where they accept a lot of proxy-daemons for aesthetic reasons.
It would have been nice if GW had actually allowed their history to advance, though. In both 40k & Fantasy, they had world-wide campaigns to allow for major plot advancement...and then chickened out instead of actually moving the clock forward.
Backfire wrote: I'd think it would be other way around: it seems that in the USA Fantasy is doing particularly poorly.
I believe that was the reason GW Main wanted to drop the line--due to poor product movement. The Northern GW offices were arguing that while Fantasy was selling poorly, they would not be diversified enough banking on one product. Unless I'm misunderstanding your post.
Backfire wrote: I'd think it would be other way around: it seems that in the USA Fantasy is doing particularly poorly.
I believe that was the reason GW Main wanted to drop the line--due to poor product movement. The Northern GW offices were arguing that while Fantasy was selling poorly, they would not be diversified enough banking on one product. Unless I'm misunderstanding your post.
I think if they were to drop Fantasy, that they'd herald death even faster. Of course if I were say Ronnie Renton (CEO of Mantic) I'd love for such a thing as the closest competitor to Fantasy is Kings of War.
I've mentioned this already ITT, but it came up again while talking with some meat sack friends earlier this evening and as it seemed to go largely unnoticed, I'll mention it again.
Mark Wells was paid 500k "for loss of office."
Now this is a dialect of corporate double-speak I'm not so well versed in, but is this essentially compensation for getting the boot? If so, the implications of that, and Kirby subsequently taking over, could be quite significant. Especially considering he departed in Jan 2013.
Azreal13 wrote: I've mentioned this already ITT, but it came up again while talking with some meat sack friends earlier this evening and as it seemed to go largely unnoticed, I'll mention it again.
Mark Wells was paid 500k "for loss of office."
Now this is a dialect of corporate double-speak I'm not so well versed in, but is this essentially compensation for getting the boot? If so, the implications of that, and Kirby subsequently taking over, could be quite significant. Especially considering he departed in Jan 2013.
Loss of office would be severance. It's the golden parachute. Most places it's usually 1 year of base salary as a CEO because it's harder for them to find a comparable position. In the US, this kind of information is disclosed via S-8 and within the foot notes of the statements because they are on either the BoD or are a C level executive. They should also be including any stock options he receives as well. Didn't he terminate during FY14? This isn't from FY13 right?
Unless you're the CEO of JC Penny, you probably won't be getting your job back as CEO. Most serve on Boards until they can get another shot.
When you leave a position, you terminate. How you terminate is another story. Most don't leave unless they retire. He may have been fired, he may have quit. Who knows what is true. IIRC, he left prior to the poor results and after he left, the poor performance wasn't tied to him. Hey may have seen the writing on the wall and jumped prior to it or he may have just been an early part of the reduction in force that GW had during the year.
boyd wrote: When you leave a position, you terminate. How you terminate is another story. Most don't leave unless they retire. He may have been fired, he may have quit. Who knows what is true. IIRC, he left prior to the poor results and after he left, the poor performance wasn't tied to him. Hey may have seen the writing on the wall and jumped prior to it or he may have just been an early part of the reduction in force that GW had during the year.
You don't get half a million quid for choosing to leave as a rule. That it was paid, and so much time after the event, suggests this could be compensation for dismissal, it may even be the result of a tribunal, which would explain the delay.
Its hard to blame Wells for much as Kirby seems to always be pulling the strings, and he will do so with the next CEO as well.
Don't forget, TK is only stepping down as CEO he will still hold the Chair.
Thats how I've been taking it anyhow.
I'm not trying to attach any blame to Wells, quite the opposite.
There is a story here that can fit the information as given that Kirby got rid of Wells because he thought he could do as good a job and save a bit on the salary, but subsequently has had to pay compensation to Wells, possibly due to unfair or constructive dismissal, and has managed to steer the GW plane so it is pointing firmly at the ground.
Not saying it is the right interpretation, or the only one, but it is possible.
Are all generic. There is nothing here that GW can hang their hat on and be willing to spend money on...
Yes, a rational company or leadership would be investing and promoting their other game system. This is GW we are talking about.
Kilkrazy wrote:The danger for GW is that it is so easy to find historical or fantasy substitutes for most of the figures needed for most of the Fantasy armies that they possibly only make a lot of money off the large model kits (corpse chariots, and the like) and the more unusual factions of Skaven and Lizardmen.
Even if Warhammer is generic post-Tolkien fantasy with a wee bit of warhammery seasoning, and they don't see much hope in that, I still think they're missing a trick. I wouldn't mind seeing them release a fantasy skirmish game with a low cost of entry, but there are three things that've been said many times before:
1. Everyone and their granny has a skirmish game out these days. GW dropped the ball on that and even with Warhammer mechanics being used for a much more appropriate size of game, it'll be hard to get back into that market.
They should be taking advantage of 2. the generally high quality of their minis and 3. their economies of scale and cheap post-tooling plastic manufacture (and what's left of their ubiquity and infrastructure) to do just what they have done and are struggling to do now: sell armies. Only with the aim to sell as cheaply, or cheaper than their most relevant competitors in that areas, and at a price point that at least doesn't seem as unreasonable as it does now, compared to a skirmish gang. They'd perform a reverse-Mantic and appeal to players of other systems, not just to Warhammer players for Warhammer. Then the generic themes would be an advantage!
I.e. Hasslefree, Corvus Belli, Red Box et al sell better-quality, metal, individual minis and characters for fantasy and sci-fi, but they ain't cheap per mini. You're not going to build an army for mass battle gaming with them, at least not anytime soon. The other, most comparable army-sellers include the Perrys and Warlord etc. with their plastic historicals, which are a great price for pretty good minis (and I agree, I'd much rather build a Warhammer Empire or Bretonnia army with Perry inf + cav) but you're not likely to see many orcs and elves coming from them anytime soon. For fantasy, you've got the likes of WF's plastic orcs and AoW's dwarfs among others, and Mantic. Limited, iffy ranges for the first lot and a... borked range, for the latter.
Talk about dropping the ball... It's frustratingly ironic that the two biggest choices are the generally good quality and terrible prices of GW, or the great prices and generally funky quality of Mantic. And I would much rather build an army with GW's high elves, skaven, or beastmen, than Mantic's elves, Black Tree Design's vermen, or Foundry's blood gorged on the one hand*; or Tre Manor's metal elves on the other. They'd be the best compromise or balance between quality+style and cheap production - if only the retail cost wasn't so money-grubbing!
*There's another one like Mantic: the God of Battles rules look good, but IMO it was a mistake to bulk it way out with big pics and painting guides, 'cos it only made me weep at how dreadful Foundry's fantasy minis are.
boyd wrote: When you leave a position, you terminate. How you terminate is another story. Most don't leave unless they retire. He may have been fired, he may have quit. Who knows what is true. IIRC, he left prior to the poor results and after he left, the poor performance wasn't tied to him. Hey may have seen the writing on the wall and jumped prior to it or he may have just been an early part of the reduction in force that GW had during the year.
You don't get half a million quid for choosing to leave as a rule. That it was paid, and so much time after the event, suggests this could be compensation for dismissal, it may even be the result of a tribunal, which would explain the delay.
Its hard to blame Wells for much as Kirby seems to always be pulling the strings, and he will do so with the next CEO as well.
Don't forget, TK is only stepping down as CEO he will still hold the Chair.
Thats how I've been taking it anyhow.
I'm not trying to attach any blame to Wells, quite the opposite.
There is a story here that can fit the information as given that Kirby got rid of Wells because he thought he could do as good a job and save a bit on the salary, but subsequently has had to pay compensation to Wells, possibly due to unfair or constructive dismissal, and has managed to steer the GW plane so it is pointing firmly at the ground.
Not saying it is the right interpretation, or the only one, but it is possible.
Oh I wasn't saying you were attaching blame, I was just saying Wells can't be held to too much account of what was likely a result of Kirby's cajoling. I'm sure Wells will do better elsewhere and look at this report and just shake his head..
If I were suddenly appointed CEO of GW, and TK were Chair, I think that the first thing I would do is hog-tie him and duct tape his mouth shut, then start asking questions to get to the root of the GW culture.
Are we a manufacturer or a retailer?
Why don't we advertise?
Who is buying our product?
What do they do with it?
Where is our biggest customer (geographically)
How can we maximize production and minimize cost?
How do we sell more?
Will lower prices increase sales.
When do we release new products?
What do we need to do to retain and regain veteran customers?
Who do we need to support in the way of officially sanctioned events and conventions?
Why are we trying to do all the heavy lifting?
How do we get people excited about our product?
And so on, so forth etc. ad nauseum. Blah, blah, blah
It seems as though TK is the type of fellow to have a quick, know-it-all answer for every situation and yet he knows nothing at all. His many statements over the years show he doesn't think that far ahead and is making gak up when it comes to those questions.
Does 40k really need GW to survive? It seems to me that 40k is bigger than Games Workshop. Perhaps GW going under would be the best thing to happen to 40k in a long time. It would certainly continue to exist, and chances are it would be under more competent management. I cant speak for everyone here, but I feel the same way about GW as they do all of us: couldnt care less. The game will live on, let GW burn.
We're really in a holding pattern for now. All we can do is watch the stream of new releases as they segment harder and harder; pushing more day one purchases they can get along with limited editions upon limited editions. Eventually, even the most stalwart of buyers hobby enthusiasts will either grow wise or run out of discretionary funds. The new wolf release has 2 LEs and one of them appears to have significant rules in it to make is almost worth purchase. A few hardcovers, some quick coins, and net some more revenue off already created content.
I'm sure the Painting Buddha gent, Mr. Michael, will put out one more address as he seems to be growing weary of the subject matter, as well. There's not much more to say, but watching.
For many of us who have sold off, it would take not just lower prices, but better product value including rules and community management. Putting a hot skewer in the "blame the player" mentality that's poison to any game and wrangle back in their sprawl. But the past few pages have been people waffling on the thought it'd ever happen.
Supposedly something big comes our way next month. Will it be 9E Fantasy? A skirmish game? Dreadfleet: Dread to Rights? Who knows... but it's going to have to come with a commitment from the company to do the community right. And that seems like there's no price tag on that.
Vermis wrote: For fantasy, you've got the likes of WF's plastic orcs and AoW's dwarfs among others, and Mantic. Limited, iffy ranges for the first lot and a... borked range, for the latter.
Talk about dropping the ball... It's frustratingly ironic that the two biggest choices are the generally good quality and terrible prices of GW, or the great prices and generally funky quality of Mantic. And I would much rather build an army with GW's high elves, skaven, or beastmen, than Mantic's elves, Black Tree Design's vermen, or Foundry's blood gorged on the one hand*; or Tre Manor's metal elves on the other. They'd be the best compromise or balance between quality+style and cheap production - if only the retail cost wasn't so money-grubbing!
Slightly off topic, but Shieldwolf miniatures has a range of good plastic Mountain Orcs.
Point is if GW doesn't hurry, even their advantage of having a good fantasy range (that could be cheap if you want to build an army) that you mentioned will be chipped away.
I so want a cheap Elven army, but no ranges out there tickle my fancy. The GW Wood Elves/High Elves would almost do the trick design-wise, but I'm not a fan of heroic proportion nowadays. Damn Infinity spoiled me.
This was glorious. A glorious read. Glorious Numbers. Glorious delusions by the execs. I am basking in GW's miserable state, happy that they're finally facing some consequences for their actions.
But this will change nothing, do not fool yourselves. They will hunker down, get more bitter, get more vindictive, more secretive, push more releases, raise more prices, remove more content. They don't know what they're doing wrong, besides that internet trolls are ruining everything apparently.
By this time next year I expect WD to be split into 6 separate parts, all with pretty pictures of 9th Edition.
And eventually GW will crash and burn, and then 40k can get picked up by adults who know what they're doing, who use a combination of modern business strategy, customer interaction, IP expansion, and sensible management to do new, exciting things with 40k.
And eventually GW will crash and burn, and then 40k can get picked up by adults who know what they're doing, who use a combination of modern business strategy, customer interaction, IP expansion, and sensible management to do new, exciting things with 40k.
You can but hope.
Chances are equally good that the IP will end up with people far far worse.
And eventually GW will crash and burn, and then 40k can get picked up by adults who know what they're doing, who use a combination of modern business strategy, customer interaction, IP expansion, and sensible management to do new, exciting things with 40k.
You can but hope.
Chances are equally good that the IP will end up with people far far worse.
I know it seems like I'm setting myself up to be wrong, but there really isn't anybody out there that could be worse than GW.
I don't know how it could get worse from a management level. You have legitimate competitors now, who can basically completely undercut you to the point where relative quality shouldn't be of concern. Why they don't already kind of boggles the mind, but seriously. You have a company that is being run like the transcontinental railroad at the beginning of the 1900's. Somebody who has the interest and capital in buying 40k HAS to have the foresight to know what the potential reality is. GW is absolutely up the creek without a paddle judging from this report.
Depends what you mean by "worse". For example EA buying the 40K IP would most likely shut down all the miniatures side completely as it's not their core business and just use the IP in computer gaming. That would kill 40K the miniatures game pretty quickly.
So GW has been maintaining its numbers the past few uears via cannibalization of company holdings.
I feel somewhat vindicated now. A couple years back I pointed out that GW seemed to be artificially bolstering its numbers by selling off their material assets and holdings.
The "everything is fine crowd" was very dismissive at the time.
I still cant believe that GW has reduced from, "What was it? 4, 5 or 7 factories?" down to just one. (*Note that dome of the factories were owned by others and were contracted for the production)
Also can't believe that some are calling the crippling of their ability to expand production as a good thing business wise.
Seems like the entire model is one where they over-reacted to the 2008 financial crisis. That instead of taking a bit of a stock hit and setting up for long term survival, they went into a self destructive hack, slash and burn in order to maintain numbers that we not realistic for the economy at the time.
They wouldn't be stupid enough to not license out the mini's games to someone else though. They are still worth something. Just think how good 40K would be if any of the old designers took the helm again without having to answer to Kirbys board.
Herzlos wrote: They wouldn't be stupid enough to not license out the mini's games to someone else though. They are still worth something. Just think how good 40K would be if any of the old designers took the helm again without having to answer to Kirbys board.
The ones that have all left or the ones remaining?
I meant the ones that were responsible for the games in the first place and had already left and were running their own companies (RickP, Allesio, etc). But I could still see an improvement if the current team took it over; as I think a lot of the problems aren't in the design team but the upper managements restrictions on the design team.
Herzlos wrote: I meant the ones that were responsible for the games in the first place and had already left and were running their own companies (RickP, Allesio, etc). But I could still see an improvement if the current team took it over; as I think a lot of the problems aren't in the design team but the upper managements restrictions on the design team.
I highly doubt that upper management has any input in the actual development of the rules themselves... All the actually talented designers have left already, all that remain are pretty much talentless hacks that couldn't design a decent shoots and ladders game to save their lives.
From my perspective its sad to see the decline, local firm done good and all that, if they do go down the pan family members will be out of a job as will a lot of friends and the City of Nottingham will be worse off.
I am still hoping they make it out of this hole, i have a special fondness for GW, they never really did anything to upset me, apart from raise prices, its a real shame that Kirby got involved too, he sounds like one of the muppets.
VanHallan wrote: Somebody who has the interest and capital in buying 40k HAS to have the foresight to know what the potential reality is. GW is absolutely up the creek without a paddle judging from this report.
Hmmm, take over, money, public listing....sounds like a job for T Kirby to me..........
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Herzlos wrote: They wouldn't be stupid enough to not license out the mini's games to someone else though. They are still worth something. Just think how good 40K would be if any of the old designers took the helm again without having to answer to Kirbys board.
I don't think the board forces the designers to make poorly written rules.....
Old or current there will still be emphasis based on forging a narrative at the expense of you know, consistency and legibility.
Baragash wrote: Basically if you're using any Oz internet shops without a physical store front, GW is coming for them.
There haven't been any of those since the mid-'90s, aside from the occasional one who managed to do a back-door deal with an existing trade account holder. Since then, GW have had a clause in their trade account contract specifying that the retailer had to have a physical store.
The new part in the ACCC submission (as far as I can tell) is the 'value added pricing' model, which would allow them to offer less of a trade discount to accounts they feel aren't putting enough effort into selling GW's product in the way GW considers appropriate.
Disregarding Kirby's latest proof of incompetence, GW seems to suffer from classic BBS (big boy syndrome). They see that there are no other sharks (companies doing their volume of revenue) in their particular waters (tabletop wargaming) and feel invincible. So they completely ignore the school of piranha (Corvus Belli, Spartan Games, Wyrd Miniatures, Fantasy Flight Games, Mantic, Warlord Games, et. al), that are all taking a series of smaller bites of their revenues but the effect is the same - death of the current shark.
I once worked for a very large and well-known brand (second only to Coca-Cola once) and it was amazing how senior management viewed so many companies as "not our competitors" strictly from the standpoint that not a single one did the revenues of their company. They completely ignored that their were about two dozen competitors that had sprung up and were each nipping a little bit of their revenue and customer base away each year. GW is suffering from the same fate (in addition to having some unique delusions all to themselves).
Their threat is the piranha today, not another shark. But they are too busy looking at being the lone shark and so they completely ignore the little piranha.
This report absolutely surprises no on that was compiling scenarios based on observable trends over the last six months. Take that forward over the next six, when there are already observable trends (Dystopian Wars outselling 40k 7th at a ratio of 7 to 1. Corvus Belli Operation:Firestorm pre-orders outselling 7th edition release by a factor of 2 to 1 already and still having three more weeks of pre-orders to go), and it should surprise no one that the next period financials is going to make the current ones look good by comparison.
I wonder why it is they don't just cut down the price of the models in very large bundles only, like battleforces, in order to gain more interest from non players.
I know quite a few people that are on the fence about the game simply because there is no gateway into it that is cheap.
Old or current there will still be emphasis based on forging a narrative at the expense of you know, consistency and legibility.
None of the new systems written by the old guard have the same problems as GW books. Hail Caesar is a bit Narrativey (being that it's actually designed as a beer and pretsel game - with appropriate complexity), but it's still much better written than WHFB. So the problem isn't with the designers themselves.
I fully expect people to laugh at me, but I can name one thing that will save GW for the next 2-3 years:
BRETTONIANS
We've waiting, what, 10 years? 10 hard years for a new army book and miniatures. We looked at space wolves and thought - why are you getting a separate army book just for having pointy teeth.
We looked at Dark angels and thought - why are you getting a separate army book just for being moody. We looked at Blood angels...you get the picture.
We Brettonian players are a loyal bunch, and when they get released, they will fly off the shelves, for the simple reason that it'll be another 10 years before we see them again
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I fully expect people to laugh at me, but I can name one thing that will save GW for the next 2-3 years:
BRETTONIANS
We've waiting, what, 10 years? 10 hard years for a new army book and miniatures. We looked at space wolves and thought - why are you getting a separate army book just for having pointy teeth.
We looked at Dark angels and thought - why are you getting a separate army book just for being moody. We looked at Blood angels...you get the picture.
We Brettonian players are a loyal bunch, and when they get released, they will fly off the shelves, for the simple reason that it'll be another 10 years before we see them again
Short-term, we will save GW
I'll see your Brettonians and raise you a Dark Eldar.
Anybody know if the DE span a good profit when they were released? Baring in mind it was during the height of 5th, so a pinch of salt may be required here.
If someone bought their IP terrible things could happen like gungans. There could also be crossovers that don't make sense like 40k meets Yor, the Hunter from the Future. Worst yet, another greedy company could by the IP. It would be best if the IP was not picked up commercially.
Basically if you're using any Oz internet shops without a physical store front, GW is coming for them.
It's been doing the rounds. Very unlikely it'll happen - this is a probing check to see if they're allowed to. They're basically asking our anti competitive watchdog if they can be anti competitive by restricting sales channels outside of themselves. Chances of it being allowed are pretty slim.
The hilarious part is where they ask the ACCC to keep it on the low low by not making it public record. By law it has to be public record. Great legal fact checking right there!
Basically if you're using any Oz internet shops without a physical store front, GW is coming for them.
It's been doing the rounds. Very unlikely it'll happen - this is a probing check to see if they're allowed to. They're basically asking our anti competitive watchdog if they can be anti competitive by restricting sales channels outside of themselves. Chances of it being allowed are pretty slim.
Unlike the US where it was like "Anti-competitive behavior? No problemo!" and now you have to get secret spreadsheets from the suppliers and call/email them to place orders.
Well, people are complaining that the Space Wolves are overusing the word "wolf", so now we can overuse "murder" instead! Genius!
I'm all for wordplay. I mean, Ultramarines are literally marines with an ultramarine color. Murderfang is just... that's not wordplay. It's putting two words together.
Come on, pretend you're 12 years old. Wouldn't you want MURDERFANG, from OMNICIDE, and murder things with MURDERCLAWS and MURDERLUST?
Clearly I'm just taking my man dollies too seriously.
Its why I'm glad the Salamanders didn't get their own codex. Otherwise we'd be stuck with a Drake Lord riding a MagmaDrake wielding a Dragonhammer, while wearing a Drakescale cloak and Belt of Draconic. Drake.
To tie this tangent back to the topic, the fluff certainly isn't getting any better. While the rules have had a previous decline in quality, the fluff has often not been met with as much criticism in recent books. The latest Guard dex read like a catalogue than a primer into the history of the Guard.
Well, and then the tragedy of the Space Wolves now. I'm still baffled why they got a new flyer when giving them the stormraven/talon would make so much more sense.
sand.zzz wrote:Does 40k really need GW to survive? It seems to me that 40k is bigger than Games Workshop. Perhaps GW going under would be the best thing to happen to 40k in a long time. It would certainly continue to exist, and chances are it would be under more competent management. I cant speak for everyone here, but I feel the same way about GW as they do all of us: couldnt care less. The game will live on, let GW burn.
The problem is that 40K players, on the whole, need (and want) to be spoon-fed their gaming experience. ("Here comes the flying viking bathtub into the fortress-monastery! Neeaaaooooww!") I've seen too many utterly abandon the game and completely sell up their sizeable collections, as if it were the most natural thing to do, because they take a dislike to one ultimately ignorable aspect of the game. Similarly, they dismiss other games as 'dead' because they're unsupported. Read: the rules are more complete and balanced than 40K has a hope to ever be, but gamers, particularly GW fans, ignore them because there's no churn of new editions and new models with the intent to rifle through a gamer's pockets. It actually disturbs me, a wee bit, to see many of those fans claim their games of choice are vibrant and alive because of this, and to see them say they'd leave wargaming altogether if GW went under. It makes me think that they're not really in it for the gaming (as opposed to... pushing action figures of their favourite saturday morning cartoon around), and that Alan Merrett wasn't entirely inaccurate about the GW hobby.
Point being, if you thought the exodus from 6th and 7th was bad... hoo boy. If GW goes under I think 40K won't be long in following it. I'd predict that most current 40K players will drop it like a hot potato, because of the sudden lack of churn and the perceived... stigma, almost... of a dead game. By the time some buyer fishes out the body and gives it the kiss of life, most will have moved on. If they (necessarily, I think) create what amounts to a new edition of the game, a lot of those who look back will be turned off by new edition syndrome. (Along with a dollop of scepticism about how well the new guys can even do compared to beloved GW) Especially if they actually turn it into a good, balanced, tactical game, because the necessary scale of those changes will frighten off even more of GW's old devotees. See the demise of Space Marine/Epic when the Epic 40,000 edition came about, to a degree that - IMO - Epic: Armageddon (a quite good game if I say so meself) couldn't draw enough of them back. (Among other factors that affected that last edition)
There will be players of a revamped 40K, just like there are still players of Epic 40K and E:A, in one form or another. But I think that, initially at least, the numbers will be so low that it'll be right back at square one, and will have to compete more directly with all those games and gaming companies that've sprung up lately, and any others that will inevitably appear to fill their corner of the void left by the collapse of GW's original version of 40K. If the new owners try to continue on as GW did, and don't take enough steps to tighten the rules or improve the pricing structure, it'll be an uphill battle and likely kill 40K as a commercial venture altogether.
heartserenade wrote:
Vermis wrote: They'd be the best compromise or balance between quality+style and cheap production
Slightly off topic, but Shieldwolf miniatures has a range of good plastic Mountain Orcs.
Well, they have a range of some kind of anthropomorphic crocodile-men.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not white-knighting GW orcs. Looking at fantasy as a whole, I actually prefer more Tolkien-esque orcs, like those produced by Wargames Factory. I just don't think the WF orcs are as good as they could be. ('Specially with those lego-hands) So I'm not impressed that Shieldwolf to the green, bucket-jawed gorilla trope and ran with it, adding even more grimdark fangs and a strange mouth-head-split to accommodate them, arguably making them less generic, and looking like Warhammer's version of South Park canadians.
Herzlos wrote:None of the new systems written by the old guard have the same problems as GW books. Hail Caesar is a bit Narrativey
Only in that it initially eschewed points costs and listbuilding in favour of scenarios and historical orders of battle, IMO! (That lasted long in a post-GW gaming environment)
(being that it's actually designed as a beer and pretsel game - with appropriate complexity)
Well, it's written in a friendlier style, open to houseruling, and a bit simpler and more intuitive, but...
...but it's still much better written than WHFB. So the problem isn't with the designers themselves.
... this. It's more balanced and deeper, IMO. It might depend on what exactly your definition of 'beer 'n' pretzels' is, but while I agree HC is uncluttered enough for the most casual, line-up-n-charge gaming, it's also capable of handling larger, more involved battles thanks to that, + less skewed and more tactical mechanics.
So... er... let's make that somewhat on-topic: I agree! Some of the old guys coming back could streamline and mature GW's games a lot, if that's what they wanted to do. (Kids have a lot of pester power these days)
I think you can hope for no price increases for a year or two and some bundle deals that effectively give you a discount but are expensive in themselves.
New models will continue to be the focus for high pricing.
To expand and clarify, I think we are seeing this already.
Well that's fair. I actually fancy Tolkien-esque orcs as well and would've bought a bunch from GWsLotR line if they weren't so damn expensive for freaking monopose plastics (and not to mention being slightly smaller because of the 25mm scale). I also like the wild look of Shieldwolf orcs, and my point is that they are more or less comparable to GW orcs (indeed they can even blend in with a GW orc army). Other companies will be more or less tapping to fantasy models and they'll produce them in customizable plastics, and GW will lose an advantage.
I agree with WGF, though: I would like to like their work (especially the Viking/Saxon line), but quality-wise it's a slight miss for me.
heartserenade wrote: my point is that they are more or less comparable to GW orcs (indeed they can even blend in with a GW orc army). Other companies will be more or less tapping to fantasy models and they'll produce them in customizable plastics, and GW will lose an advantage.
Oh yes! Forgot to say that I agree with you there. My own dislike of Shieldwolf orcs is like someone saying GW is perfectly fine because their one local GW store is packed. Far from the full story, and not very relevant to it. Shieldwolf orcs are still a viable alternative to GW's style and especially prices.
Well, EA did say that the problem with dungeon keeper mobile was that "they innovated too much" which is something I could easily imagine Kirby saying wrt Dreadfleet.
I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.
The release schedule combined with the book price hike severly curtailed my spending. I think I spent more on the Wrath of Kings kickstarter to get everything so I could start to build a local community than I did on GW in the last year.
I don't want 40k to go away. I'm not as confident as some others that being bought out would be best either for a variety of reasons. I don't want awesome GW kits to go away. There is currently 1 set of models that compare in plastic to GW40k kits and that is Dream Forge's stuff (though mantic's space zombies look pretty good and I haven't dug into mine to check yet).
Anywho fingers crossed they can right the ship. It's happened before so maybe it can happen again. Locally 7th re-ignited 40k pretty heavily so hopefully off the internet it's done the same and we'll start to see some of those results in the next 6 months.
Hulksmash wrote: I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
In general though it's only blatant dismissal of criticism as "haters" or the like that gets met with "white knighting". Just very few of the pro-GW people offer any real evidence or insight beyond "40k is booming in my area, so everything is fine" or "I think the price is fair" and then it tends to degenerate into attacks on the people who don't think GW is fine. That's always the case; the anti-GW crowd actually reference reasons, the pro-GW crowd just says "Looks fine to me!" without backing anything up...
Hulksmash wrote: I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
In general though it's only blatant dismissal of criticism as "haters" or the like that gets met with "white knighting". Just very few of the pro-GW people offer any real evidence or insight beyond "40k is booming in my area, so everything is fine" or "I think the price is fair" and then it tends to degenerate into attacks on the people who don't think GW is fine. That's always the case; the anti-GW crowd actually reference reasons, the pro-GW crowd just says "Looks fine to me!" without backing anything up...
My experience in this thread is pretty much exact opposite...
On the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, I submit the following.
This is the same chart rolled forward that I have been posting for, ooh 7 or 8 years now, probably longer, basically every time this topic comes up when GW publishes their results. I would have done this much earlier, but I was out the country with lousy internet access, so didn't have the chance and now pretty much everything I would have said already (which basically aligns with Rheinholt, although from a slightly different perspective - he has far greater investment analysis and business turnaround experience than me, my own experience comes more from being in business management). In my opinion, this year's results continue to vindicate what has been a long term trend, evident since the mid 'noughties" to those of us with any basic accounting or business understanding, that GW have a big problem in terms of volume sales decline. White Knights have naysayed it, but the maths simply do not lie. All I have done is discount their published turnover and retained profit figures with the official UK inflation rate to give a "current cost" (or rather 1997 cost as it is easier to calculate ) I picked 1997 as that is as far back as I have records for. Basically the dark blue line shows their turnover in 1997 pounds, and the dark red line shows the same for profit. The trends are obvious, and need no explanation surely.
Again, I will also add my usual caveat that I am not worried or bothered about GW making a profit. That is what they should and rightly should do. What I *am* worried about is GW driving the WFB, 40k and LotR hobbies into the ground and harming the gamers' experience and therefore their long term customer base in pursuit of (non-existent?) short term excessive profits. To that end GW collapsing in some way as a viable company is a potential problem because that event may take the game with it. The longer and further their downward trend in "real" turnover continues, the more and more likely this point comes. As others who have crunched the numbers above have demonstrated, this may come in the next 2 years.
I will say that back in 2004 I originally predicted GW's demise in some form in 2008. Clearly they are still around, so am I simply a doom monger? My response is, I didn't forsee the drastic cost cutting they were able to undertake in 2007, I had expected them to be less successful than they were in that year, although they still made a loss, but it dug them out of a hole, and they were rescued also by some really fortuitous and massive exchange rate changes following the financial crisis of 2008, so I claim this was because of "unknown unknowns", and I was right about the underlying picture. It is clear though that unless something similarly fortuitous and unexpected occurs (and I have no idea and will not speculate about what those may be - heck, who knows, they may crack that secret formula!), there will be "Bad Things" happening at Lenton over the next 18 to 24 months. And also it has to be said that GW *has* died in many ways already - certainly WD, SG, metal models, community interaction,and lots of other things have all died because GW could no longer afford them. To me now, GW is a zombie gaming company - it makes toys for brand addicts, not games for gamers.
The point for me is to see and understand what is going on at GW, and make you you and your mates make informed judgements accordingly, particularly with your hard earned cash! What those judgements are are down to you - and will depend on your take on life and gaming.
Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.
For the tournament player, this seems to be the hell. The meta is shifting too fast and the players cannot keep up with the pace. List building as a major part of gaming has too many parameters to take into account at the moment.
Hulksmash wrote: I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
In general though it's only blatant dismissal of criticism as "haters" or the like that gets met with "white knighting". Just very few of the pro-GW people offer any real evidence or insight beyond "40k is booming in my area, so everything is fine" or "I think the price is fair" and then it tends to degenerate into attacks on the people who don't think GW is fine. That's always the case; the anti-GW crowd actually reference reasons, the pro-GW crowd just says "Looks fine to me!" without backing anything up...
My experience in this thread is pretty much exact opposite...
Can you cite an example of this opposite experience, where a pro-GW member references a reason and an anti-GW member claims we're doomed with no basis?
Okay, guess it was time to elaborate on why I keep saying what I am saying. Most of the time these trends can be tracked overall based on changes of sales growth once the downward trend starts. Assuming GW maintains a similar change ratio YoY from this point forward (YoY growth change plus acceleration rate of 7.9%) this chart shows the picture.
Year Revenues Growth Change 2011 £123.1 N/A
2012 £131.0 +6.4
2013 £134.6 +2.7
2014 £123.5 -11.6
2015 £ 99.4 -19.5 Cost target to profit: £86.8m - cut from previous year £21.2m
2016 £ 72.2 -27.4 Cost target to profit: £63.1m - cut from previous year £23.7m (total from present £44.9m)
2017 £ 46.7 -35.3 Cost target to profit: £40.8m - cut from previous year £22.3m (total from present £67.2m)
The problem with viewing longer term trends is founded in the assumptions that the factors that comprise those trends maintain themselves going forward. What is important to try and identify is when those underlying factors have begun to crumble, and once that happens, the previous trends no longer apply and the factors of collapse are taken into account. We probably could have done a ten year analysis on TSR and said things are going to always be the same, right up until the last two years of there collapse. Same with Wang Computer, Digital Equipment, and other similar companies at this point in existence.
Given that GW is really down to their two core product lines, released their "heavy hitter" products over the last year and still experienced a sizable decline against a market that is growing, and do not have an unusual circumstance, such as the LOTR bubble popping, I think it is safe to say the crux has been crossed.
The numbers above reflect a consistent decline based on change in sales growth and the current 7.9% change acceleration rate. However, history has shown this is rarely going to be the case and the acceleration rate should increase year over year. The numbers above are only if GW doesn't continue to screw things up any worse than they are, but the last few months have already shown they are "doubling down" on the strategy that got them to this point - so I do not expect this to change. The cost cutting required to keep their heads above water should this turn out to be true, will be impossible to keep ahead off (the cuts are just too deep) and, even if they do, they will be cutting into necessary costs to obtain the revenue in the first place so will only accelerate the decline.
Anyway, take this for what it is worth. Just my predictions based on my experience and nothing more. This is why I say, however, that if they end up this coming year around the £100m mark (slightly higher or lower) they are in full out collapse and nothing is going to stop it at that point.
Wayshuba wrote: I think it is safe to say the crux has been crossed.
agree with everything you say, just found that to be a tad awkward. "The Rubicon has been crossed" is in line with your intentions. (although who knows if they will get away with it, like caesar did!)
Sorry to be nit-picky on the internet, i mean it only to add further weight to your statement.
sand.zzz wrote:Does 40k really need GW to survive? It seems to me that 40k is bigger than Games Workshop. Perhaps GW going under would be the best thing to happen to 40k in a long time. It would certainly continue to exist, and chances are it would be under more competent management. I cant speak for everyone here, but I feel the same way about GW as they do all of us: couldnt care less. The game will live on, let GW burn.
The problem is that 40K players, on the whole, need (and want) to be spoon-fed their gaming experience. ("Here comes the flying viking bathtub into the fortress-monastery! Neeaaaooooww!") I've seen too many utterly abandon the game and completely sell up their sizeable collections, as if it were the most natural thing to do, because they take a dislike to one ultimately ignorable aspect of the game. Similarly, they dismiss other games as 'dead' because they're unsupported. Read: the rules are more complete and balanced than 40K has a hope to ever be, but gamers, particularly GW fans, ignore them because there's no churn of new editions and new models with the intent to rifle through a gamer's pockets. It actually disturbs me, a wee bit, to see many of those fans claim their games of choice are vibrant and alive because of this, and to see them say they'd leave wargaming altogether if GW went under. It makes me think that they're not really in it for the gaming (as opposed to... pushing action figures of their favourite saturday morning cartoon around), and that Alan Merrett wasn't entirely inaccurate about the GW hobby.
Point being, if you thought the exodus from 6th and 7th was bad... hoo boy. If GW goes under I think 40K won't be long in following it. I'd predict that most current 40K players will drop it like a hot potato, because of the sudden lack of churn and the perceived... stigma, almost... of a dead game. By the time some buyer fishes out the body and gives it the kiss of life, most will have moved on. If they (necessarily, I think) create what amounts to a new edition of the game, a lot of those who look back will be turned off by new edition syndrome. (Along with a dollop of scepticism about how well the new guys can even do compared to beloved GW) Especially if they actually turn it into a good, balanced, tactical game, because the necessary scale of those changes will frighten off even more of GW's old devotees. See the demise of Space Marine/Epic when the Epic 40,000 edition came about, to a degree that - IMO - Epic: Armageddon (a quite good game if I say so meself) couldn't draw enough of them back. (Among other factors that affected that last edition)
There will be players of a revamped 40K, just like there are still players of Epic 40K and E:A, in one form or another. But I think that, initially at least, the numbers will be so low that it'll be right back at square one, and will have to compete more directly with all those games and gaming companies that've sprung up lately, and any others that will inevitably appear to fill their corner of the void left by the collapse of GW's original version of 40K. If the new owners try to continue on as GW did, and don't take enough steps to tighten the rules or improve the pricing structure, it'll be an uphill battle and likely kill 40K as a commercial venture altogether.
Just take a look at Warhammer Historicals, arguably the "largest" historicals ruleset for some time, with a huge tournament presence. Once that went under (or was unsupported), the scene died, quickly,. And none of the other systems: Hail Caesar, War and Conquest, etc. could pick up the slack. WABforum? Tumbleweeds. Same would happen if GW went under.
If nothing else, GW is the glue that keeps people coming to forums like this one - love it, hate it, ignore it, whatever.
I'll just keep playing the game, collecting models, and enjoy myself while it lasts (and its been 20+ years for me so far, so good).
sand.zzz wrote:Does 40k really need GW to survive? It seems to me that 40k is bigger than Games Workshop. Perhaps GW going under would be the best thing to happen to 40k in a long time. It would certainly continue to exist, and chances are it would be under more competent management. I cant speak for everyone here, but I feel the same way about GW as they do all of us: couldnt care less. The game will live on, let GW burn.
The problem is that 40K players, on the whole, need (and want) to be spoon-fed their gaming experience. ("Here comes the flying viking bathtub into the fortress-monastery! Neeaaaooooww!") I've seen too many utterly abandon the game and completely sell up their sizeable collections, as if it were the most natural thing to do, because they take a dislike to one ultimately ignorable aspect of the game. Similarly, they dismiss other games as 'dead' because they're unsupported. Read: the rules are more complete and balanced than 40K has a hope to ever be, but gamers, particularly GW fans, ignore them because there's no churn of new editions and new models with the intent to rifle through a gamer's pockets. It actually disturbs me, a wee bit, to see many of those fans claim their games of choice are vibrant and alive because of this, and to see them say they'd leave wargaming altogether if GW went under. It makes me think that they're not really in it for the gaming (as opposed to... pushing action figures of their favourite saturday morning cartoon around), and that Alan Merrett wasn't entirely inaccurate about the GW hobby.
Point being, if you thought the exodus from 6th and 7th was bad... hoo boy. If GW goes under I think 40K won't be long in following it. I'd predict that most current 40K players will drop it like a hot potato, because of the sudden lack of churn and the perceived... stigma, almost... of a dead game. By the time some buyer fishes out the body and gives it the kiss of life, most will have moved on. If they (necessarily, I think) create what amounts to a new edition of the game, a lot of those who look back will be turned off by new edition syndrome. (Along with a dollop of scepticism about how well the new guys can even do compared to beloved GW) Especially if they actually turn it into a good, balanced, tactical game, because the necessary scale of those changes will frighten off even more of GW's old devotees. See the demise of Space Marine/Epic when the Epic 40,000 edition came about, to a degree that - IMO - Epic: Armageddon (a quite good game if I say so meself) couldn't draw enough of them back. (Among other factors that affected that last edition)
There will be players of a revamped 40K, just like there are still players of Epic 40K and E:A, in one form or another. But I think that, initially at least, the numbers will be so low that it'll be right back at square one, and will have to compete more directly with all those games and gaming companies that've sprung up lately, and any others that will inevitably appear to fill their corner of the void left by the collapse of GW's original version of 40K. If the new owners try to continue on as GW did, and don't take enough steps to tighten the rules or improve the pricing structure, it'll be an uphill battle and likely kill 40K as a commercial venture altogether.
Just take a look at Warhammer Historicals, arguably the "largest" historicals ruleset for some time, with a huge tournament presence. Once that went under (or was unsupported), the scene died, quickly,. And none of the other systems: Hail Caesar, War and Conquest, etc. could pick up the slack. WABforum? Tumbleweeds. Same would happen if GW went under.
If nothing else, GW is the glue that keeps people coming to forums like this one - love it, hate it, ignore it, whatever.
I'll just keep playing the game, collecting models, and enjoy myself while it lasts (and its been 20+ years for me so far, so good).
No it was the other way around Historical gamers, never changed over to GW Historial in the first place. As we already had better rules for historical and cheaper better models form other companies. What should say is "when GW Historical was drop the GW players never changed over to the the other Historical games".
Hulksmash wrote: I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.
GW have dismissed tournaments and their players for the last 15 years. Their disdain for anything other than the narrative and shifting the latest shiny should have sent warning signs to the competitive community long ago.
Hate to be harsh but hanging your hats on a company that doesn't like you isn't really the best way forwards.
Well, that is a bit of an exaggeration. It has been the past five years really that the tournament support has been scaled down by GW.
Back to Warhammer Historicals, as someone said above it never took off widely because Historicals players already had access to better rules and cheaper models that were based and ready to go. WHAB required you to rebase your entire army to a different standard that was incompatible with anything except WHAB. There was also an established tournament scene going back 40 years or more.
The rules only really got much milage among people coming in through Warhammer F/40K, who had little or no prior exposure to historical wargaming.
That said, the collapse of WHAB once GW stopped supporting it does say something about the propensity of a GW game to collapse. The same thing could happen to Fantasy and 40K.
Hulksmash wrote: I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.
GW have dismissed tournaments and their players for the last 15 years. Their disdain for anything other than the narrative and shifting the latest shiny should have sent warning signs to the competitive community long ago.
Hate to be harsh but hanging your hats on a company that doesn't like you isn't really the best way forwards.
Yeah, if you're a tournament player, look for another game.
Hulksmash wrote: I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.
GW have dismissed tournaments and their players for the last 15 years. Their disdain for anything other than the narrative and shifting the latest shiny should have sent warning signs to the competitive community long ago.
Hate to be harsh but hanging your hats on a company that doesn't like you isn't really the best way forwards.
Hate to be harsh but you don't really seem to know what' you're talking about. I've been playing for almost 20 years and I disagree with "dismissing" tournaments and players for 15 years.
In the US they hosted 4-5 GT's across the country yearly as little as 6 years ago (I wanna say 2008 was their last year with a ton of GW run events). They provided the support for the beginning of the Indy Circuit here in the US. They provided regular stores with significant prize support for hosting instore tournaments. They recently started testing supporting smaller GT's again by providing around 2k in prize support for a 64-man 40kGT and a 50-man Fantasy GT.
5th edition was easily the most tournament ready edition they ever produced. One person has been vocal about the game not being about tournament play and it's not. But that's not the same as saying they don't like tournament players.
6th changed the dynamic (as it wasn't as tournament friendly) but that's also when they started supporting events again. And now we're 7th. The least tournament friendly edition due to the number of adjustments but I feel 7th is more indicative of a fast buck than not liking tournament players.
And as much as people say to shift the newest "shiny" is what GW has done for a long time I disagree. Let's really look at it just from 6th on since going back it's only worse than it is now (as in it's less accurate to state they buffed new unit).
Nothing in the DA book was overpowered or screamed buy me. New daemon book was the same with the new models. Eldar boosted sales for units that already sold (wave serpents) and created a pretty usable new unit but horrible flyer. Chaos had 1 kit of 3 that was produced for it that wasn't trash. IG got the Wyvern but no other must-haves out of their 3 kits. Space Marines got Centurions but they aren't a must have though good. Tau are the closest but really only created a single new unit (Riptide) that was good. Instead boosting up a previous unit owned by lots of people. Tyranid new units were pretty poop. Ork new units were meh at best (arty is good but already owned). Point to me these latest shinies that are the bestest.
And, by far the most important, there are upwards of 20 2-day events run on a yearly basis here in the US. GW has nothing to do with this outside of it being their game but it's important in how people allocate for games they play if tournaments are important to them. The only one that might compete is WH/Hordes but I don't know how many large scale US events are put on yearly.
Yeah, if you're a tournament player, look for another game.
Point out another game supported on the local and national level across the entire US and I'll consider it. I live in a gaming mecha in terms of sheer number of stores and players. FFG is located here in the cities and even then X-wing is the only game that competes with 40k locally at a tournament level. And it's probably the closest thing nationally as far as tournaments go thanks to FFG pushing events like their worlds and such. It's completely different from normal miniature gaming though and to me is a seperate entity from things like 40k, Warmahordes, KoW, Infinity, Spartan Games and such where you collect and paint armies.
Hulksmash wrote: I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
In general though it's only blatant dismissal of criticism as "haters" or the like that gets met with "white knighting". Just very few of the pro-GW people offer any real evidence or insight beyond "40k is booming in my area, so everything is fine" or "I think the price is fair" and then it tends to degenerate into attacks on the people who don't think GW is fine. That's always the case; the anti-GW crowd actually reference reasons, the pro-GW crowd just says "Looks fine to me!" without backing anything up...
My experience in this thread is pretty much exact opposite...
Can you cite an example of this opposite experience, where a pro-GW member references a reason and an anti-GW member claims we're doomed with no basis?
Yes. For example, my first post in the thread in page 5:
Spoiler:
I don't understand what's a big deal here.
-it's stupid piece of writing. Of course it is, Kirby's a corporate guy. Corporate propaganda pieces are always stupid and trying to spin everything in best possible light and often end up sounding hilarious. No exceptions. Did you see the letter with which Elop fired thousands of people from Microsoft? Kirby has NOTHING on Elop when it comes to stupid corporate language.
-Kirby's stepping down as CEO. Totally expected, AIUI Kirby doing the double chairs thing was always going to be somewhat temporary. Of course there is a caveat that he hints that he will continue if no suitable candidate is found, AND he will still continue as Chairman of the Board. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
-Steve Jobs comparison was surprisingly (though maybe unintentionally) adept in that Apple was and is extremely militant in using legal challenges to hunt down any actors, no matter how small, which it saw as a threat, including Apple fan sites and blogs. Hmm, sound familiar?
-GW website costed £4 million is somehow "OMG". I fail to see why. Sure it's not particularly GREAT site but exorbitant amount of money spent to seemingly crappy result is common enough in the world of corporate websites. Finnish State Railroads spent three years and 15 million euros for this site. It crashed within 3 hours of its induction...
Immediately, WayneTheGame (oh the irony given his statement here) runs up a response:
And the cavalry has arrived!
Even though my post was actually quite negative, but on this site, that's not good enough! If you do not commit yourself 100% to GW hating, you're White Knighted.
That you describe the describe your own post as "quite negative" tells it's own story, as it pretty much is exactly "sure x is bad, BUT!" All the way through.
The post you quote has no substance to it, merely your own observations and opinions, and in no way constructs a compelling argument that GW are anything other than headed in a bad direction.
Hulksmash wrote: I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
Personally I feel the release pace has hurt the game. Someone pointed out earlier but I'll reiterate as a tournament player primarily. Books releasing every 2 months isn't good for 40k. Release them all together or release them 6 months apart. The reasoning is that most people don't have the time to build the new hotness or are reticent to do so because it could be invalidated before they take the shrink wrap off their boxes. The "meta" doesn't have time to settle between codexes and leads a feel of rock/paper/scissor.
GW have dismissed tournaments and their players for the last 15 years. Their disdain for anything other than the narrative and shifting the latest shiny should have sent warning signs to the competitive community long ago.
Hate to be harsh but hanging your hats on a company that doesn't like you isn't really the best way forwards.
Hate to be harsh but you don't really seem to know what' you're talking about. I've been playing for almost 20 years and I disagree with "dismissing" tournaments and players for 15 years.
In the US they hosted 4-5 GT's across the country yearly as little as 6 years ago (I wanna say 2008 was their last year with a ton of GW run events). They provided the support for the beginning of the Indy Circuit here in the US. They provided regular stores with significant prize support for hosting instore tournaments. They recently started testing supporting smaller GT's again by providing around 2k in prize support for a 64-man 40kGT and a 50-man Fantasy GT.
5th edition was easily the most tournament ready edition they ever produced. One person has been vocal about the game not being about tournament play and it's not. But that's not the same as saying they don't like tournament players.
6th changed the dynamic (as it wasn't as tournament friendly) but that's also when they started supporting events again. And now we're 7th. The least tournament friendly edition due to the number of adjustments but I feel 7th is more indicative of a fast buck than not liking tournament players.
And as much as people say to shift the newest "shiny" is what GW has done for a long time I disagree. Let's really look at it just from 6th on since going back it's only worse than it is now (as in it's less accurate to state they buffed new unit).
Nothing in the DA book was overpowered or screamed buy me. New daemon book was the same with the new models. Eldar boosted sales for units that already sold (wave serpents) and created a pretty usable new unit but horrible flyer. Chaos had 1 kit of 3 that was produced for it that wasn't trash. IG got the Wyvern but no other must-haves out of their 3 kits. Space Marines got Centurions but they aren't a must have though good. Tau are the closest but really only created a single new unit (Riptide) that was good. Instead boosting up a previous unit owned by lots of people. Tyranid new units were pretty poop. Ork new units were meh at best (arty is good but already owned). Point to me these latest shinies that are the bestest.
And, by far the most important, there are upwards of 20 2-day events run on a yearly basis here in the US. GW has nothing to do with this outside of it being their game but it's important in how people allocate for games they play if tournaments are important to them. The only one that might compete is WH/Hordes but I don't know how many large scale US events are put on yearly.
Yeah, if you're a tournament player, look for another game.
Point out another game supported on the local and national level across the entire US and I'll consider it. I live in a gaming mecha in terms of sheer number of stores and players. FFG is located here in the cities and even then X-wing is the only game that competes with 40k locally at a tournament level. And it's probably the closest thing nationally as far as tournaments go thanks to FFG pushing events like their worlds and such. It's completely different from normal miniature gaming though and to me is a seperate entity from things like 40k, Warmahordes, KoW, Infinity, Spartan Games and such where you collect and paint armies.
I have been in the hobby for ages as well for most of that it was GW all the way. They may have supported tourneys but since inception their rules have never been formulated with regards to competitive game play. Either way, I was possibly a bit harsh.
But the recent trends towards multiple releases compressed into a short span of time would lead me to think of other options.
Namely some kind of living rulebook - especially 5th edition based with tweaks for flyers and new race/unit additions. Since GW do not sponsor anything, organizers should feel no compunction to tow the line. Many players would probably feel freer and would actively participate in the development of a revised rule-set..
The argument against is that getting a consensus iis nigh on impossible. However maybe a concensous is not needed. all it needs a tournament or two willing to take the step to create something that will allow tournament play for years,
maybe just a pipe dream. But I believe that tournaments do not need constant creep and tourney players want some structure and - for want of a better word, ground rules - that do not shift too much from year to year.
There are those that will say play by the rules as given - but the creators themselves want their rules pulled apart (the narrative) - so why not do just that?
Azreal13 wrote: That you describe the describe your own post as "quite negative" tells it's own story, as it pretty much is exactly "sure x is bad, BUT!" All the way through.
The post you quote has no substance to it, merely your own observations and opinions, and in no way constructs a compelling argument that GW are anything other than headed in a bad direction.
So what your saying is your dismissing him as not being negative enough and his facts not being hard enough. Very few of the posts, negative or positive, contain anything that is not opinion. GW is not large enough to have external commentators talking about its results, and very few people here are qualified to give a proper opinion.
Azreal13 wrote: That you describe the describe your own post as "quite negative" tells it's own story, as it pretty much is exactly "sure x is bad, BUT!" All the way through.
The post you quote has no substance to it, merely your own observations and opinions, and in no way constructs a compelling argument that GW are anything other than headed in a bad direction.
So what your saying is your dismissing him as not being negative enough and his facts not being hard enough. Very few of the posts, negative or positive, contain anything that is not opinion. GW is not large enough to have external commentators talking about its results, and very few people here are qualified to give a proper opinion.
I take it you skipped over all the mathematics from the guys that are/ have been in various business firms then.
Azreal13 wrote: That you describe the describe your own post as "quite negative" tells it's own story, as it pretty much is exactly "sure x is bad, BUT!" All the way through.
The post you quote has no substance to it, merely your own observations and opinions, and in no way constructs a compelling argument that GW are anything other than headed in a bad direction.
So what your saying is your dismissing him as not being negative enough and his facts not being hard enough. Very few of the posts, negative or positive, contain anything that is not opinion. GW is not large enough to have external commentators talking about its results, and very few people here are qualified to give a proper opinion.
Dude, there's charts and everything.
Not every post has to be an in depth analysis, of course there can be back and fourth between various posters, my point is that at some point, most posters who are "anti" have used some sort of tangible evidence to support their argument, while those who are trying to argue things aren't too bad chiefly hang on the key point of "nah-uh cause reasons."
It doesn't make a compelling argument, and it harms the credibility of those trying to argue an alternate view. If you're going to argue that GW isn't potentially on the verge of a financial issue, cite reasons beyond the subjective and anecdotal.
EDIT
To address the negativity comment. I'm not dismissing anything in the basis of it's positivity or negativity, but on the merits of it's credibility. Many of Backfire's, and others who share his opinion, counter arguments lack credibility, it isn't anything to do with his stance. I'll also say I find a post he has written and subsequently cited as negative to actually read as an attempt to defend GW, as, evidently, did Wayne. That Backfire feels this was a critical post speaks much to his opinion on the matter.
Wayshuba wrote: Okay, guess it was time to elaborate on why I keep saying what I am saying. Most of the time these trends can be tracked overall based on changes of sales growth once the downward trend starts. Assuming GW maintains a similar change ratio YoY from this point forward (YoY growth change plus acceleration rate of 7.9%) this chart shows the picture.
Year Revenues Growth Change 2011 £123.1 N/A
2012 £131.0 +6.4
2013 £134.6 +2.7
2014 £123.5 -11.6
2015 £ 99.4 -19.5 Cost target to profit: £86.8m - cut from previous year £21.2m
2016 £ 72.2 -27.4 Cost target to profit: £63.1m - cut from previous year £23.7m (total from present £44.9m)
2017 £ 46.7 -35.3 Cost target to profit: £40.8m - cut from previous year £22.3m (total from present £67.2m)
The problem with viewing longer term trends is founded in the assumptions that the factors that comprise those trends maintain themselves going forward. What is important to try and identify is when those underlying factors have begun to crumble, and once that happens, the previous trends no longer apply and the factors of collapse are taken into account. We probably could have done a ten year analysis on TSR and said things are going to always be the same, right up until the last two years of there collapse. Same with Wang Computer, Digital Equipment, and other similar companies at this point in existence.
Given that GW is really down to their two core product lines, released their "heavy hitter" products over the last year and still experienced a sizable decline against a market that is growing, and do not have an unusual circumstance, such as the LOTR bubble popping, I think it is safe to say the crux has been crossed.
The numbers above reflect a consistent decline based on change in sales growth and the current 7.9% change acceleration rate. However, history has shown this is rarely going to be the case and the acceleration rate should increase year over year.
"Acceleration rate increase" is usually in cases where the company's technological products become obsolete. Such as with company which produces cars, computers, OS's or phones. There it is very much possible to fall into "death spiral" when company's sales fall as the customers abandon the product since there are so much more capable ones around, and with reduced cash flow, the company is unable to produce a killer product - or tries, but without proper resources and rushed development, it is so bad that it only serves to accelerate the decline.
However, such a development is not really applicable to GW. They are not technologically obsolete: I guess one could argue that their games are not as good as competitors, but in tabletop world this is not anywhere as big a factor as in purely technological solutions where performance has obvious and reliable yardsticks. Another thing is that GW products have very large secondary market. Thus, the sales do not give accurate picture to how much GW games are played: recently I bought a GW miniature which was made in 1996. No way I'd be buying a phone or computer made in the '90s. Even though their sales in real ££ terms are comparable to what they were in turn of the century, I'd bet there are actually more active players today than then. Playerbase might be shrinking from top days, but it is not going to go away immediately. Hence, there is unlikely to be mass exodus of customers comparable as happened with say, Atari, or Kodak, or Nokia since the business is just completely different. Much more likely scenario is the slow dribbling down of sales, as old timers gradually quit and recruitment of new players slows to a trickle.
Also as I pointed out earlier, there is no ongoing evidence of this accelerated death spiral you keep talking about. Kirby reported in January half-year report, that their sales began to decline late in previous year (presumably after Tau release?). This claim is supported by numbers which show a slowdown in 2013 second half-year. Since the latest half-year did not show decline compared to previous one, it does not seem that we're in the middle of a huge sales drop-off. Again, the evidence points out to flat or slow decline of sales - exactly as before. Now, it is of course possible that this massive collapse only begins immediately after they have released 7th edition, but that'd be quite graituous timing, don't you agree?
Third, again you claim a "growing market". Are you really sure? Didn't we talk this through last time around?
Just take a look at Warhammer Historicals, arguably the "largest" historicals ruleset for some time, with a huge tournament presence. Once that went under (or was unsupported), the scene died, quickly,. And none of the other systems: Hail Caesar, War and Conquest, etc. could pick up the slack. WABforum? Tumbleweeds. Same would happen if GW went under.
If nothing else, GW is the glue that keeps people coming to forums like this one - love it, hate it, ignore it, whatever.
I'll just keep playing the game, collecting models, and enjoy myself while it lasts (and its been 20+ years for me so far, so good).
Except for the fact that 40k is a gigantic IP which has spawned: a library of pulp novels, a half dozen or so TT games, a dozen or more video games, 20+ years of its own flagship game, and millions of fans worldwide ranging in ages from 10-70 years old.
I dont think comparing it to WH historicals is fair or relevant.
Whatever happens, there will be a 40kTT game. There is too much money to be made off of it for the industry to let it rot. Its really a moot point though - GW would continue to exist at least inname. Someone will scoop it up and make money off of it. Its just too big and established of an IP.
Azreal13 wrote: That you describe the describe your own post as "quite negative" tells it's own story, as it pretty much is exactly "sure x is bad, BUT!" All the way through.
Which is a very definitition of "quite negative". Duh. If I had said "it really is bad", then it would have been "very negative".
The post you quote has no substance to it, merely your own observations and opinions, and in no way constructs a compelling argument that GW are anything other than headed in a bad direction.
LOL. This comes from a guy who has made no substantive contribution in this thread at all, other than deriding people who do not hold his own viewpoint.
To address the negativity comment. I'm not dismissing anything in the basis of it's positivity or negativity, but on the merits of it's credibility. Many of Backfire's, and others who share his opinion, counter arguments lack credibility, it isn't anything to do with his stance. I'll also say I find a post he has written and subsequently cited as negative to actually read as an attempt to defend GW, as, evidently, did Wayne. That Backfire feels this was a critical post speaks much to his opinion on the matter.
It is apparently completely unthinkable to you that someone might have a position which is somewhere between "That's it, they're doomed! DOOMED I TELL YOU" and "No, that is actually great news!"
I wonder what it is in the Internet that encourages people to think in binaric terms.
The post you quote has no substance to it, merely your own observations and opinions, and in no way constructs a compelling argument that GW are anything other than headed in a bad direction.
LOL. This comes from a guy who has made no substantive contribution in this thread at all, other than deriding people who do not hold his own viewpoint.
No substantive contribution huh?
Just the edited highlights of my first page of posts ITT,
Azreal13 wrote:
Soggy Kittenz wrote: So do we all believe that Kirby stepping down is a good thing or not? Personally, I will impressed if whoever is next manages to do a worse job, so improvement?
Kirby stepping down is an irrelevance, he will still hold an influential position within the company, he will be instrumental in appointing a successor, who will conform to his ideas of how the company should be run, and will still be pervasive throughout upper management due to established, long term relationships with the remainder of staff who aren't going anywhere.
We might see some small signs of change, but don't expect revolution.
Azreal13 wrote:
Blacksails wrote: So, I know very little about business. How bad is this report really? What similarities does this have to other companies that have gone under or managed to recover? Are there parallels to be drawn? And could GW recover if they keep doing largely what they're currently doing?
To me, it looks unhealthy, but I don't know how bad it really is.
It's... not good.
It could have been worse, they've essentially managed to make up a small amount from January, year on year, but as has been pointed out, that period features the relaunch of their flagship product, and arguably one of the most lucrative model releases of recent times (pure speculation on my part, but given even I have become a big IK fanboy, difficult to see that it couldn't have been.)
It's like a scene in an RPG when the floor starts to break away in pieces, and the protagonists leap from one solid section to the next, that plan will only work for so long until you get out of that room or go down the hole.
Azreal13 wrote:Another small gem
We also need a constant flow of great managers for our stores. In the end that is still the most important thing of all.
No Tom, you need a working environment where you don't burn up and spit out the ones you have every twelve months and you need a culture where the talented ones who are perhaps a little more unorthodox aren't muttered about in darkened corners and squeezed out at the earliest opportunity.
Then you won't need a "constant flow" just enough to populate your new stores as you open them.
Azreal13 wrote:Anyone else noticed that Mark Wells appears to have been given a golden handshake in excess of £1/2m?
Azreal13 wrote:
Crimson wrote: I'm a bit surprised that the share price hasn't taken a bigger hit, or is -2.15% a lot?
Thing with the share price is that January will have shaken a lot of small scale investors loose.
They've paid a dividend, which will have encouraged purchases before the qualification date, and has seen a steady, but undramatic, fall since it was paid, as those who bought stock just for a quick payout have been divesting themselves.
Almost 50% of GW's shares are owned by institutional investors, and a further ~15% owned by Kirby and other senior management. They've all had dividends, and are in it for the long haul in all likelihood, and in most cases have probably seen a decent return on the purchase price, regardless of the roller coaster in between times.
All this means is that, in reality, there probably aren't enough equity holders of the sort who would likely panic and try and offload their stock in a hurry, causing a run on the price. Remember anyone who bought at the start of the year has made money in the stock and been paid a divided, they're unlikely to be too dissatisfied.
Azreal13 wrote:
Compel wrote: It is odd that the share price has had a decent jump as a result of this, though.
I wouldn't expect a nosedive (even for the ignorant me, that would seem too sensible), but I would have thought mostly flat-ish would be ok.
The shares closed up 5%.
5.
Honestly, that's essentially zero reaction. As I said earlier, over 60% of the shares are owned by a combination of institutions and staff, not the sort of owners likely to dump stock at the drop of a hat, all the flighty types already got scared away in January.
The 'hobby' is selling the best quality miniatures in the world - made by GW. That's it.
If you had no knowledge of GW and were presented with the about us text of GW you would assume that they are in the same market as Hummel figurines, Sideshow WETA, and other collectible merchandise.
The game is a distant after thought.
Little tribia fact, having the best cars in the world, did not save Ferrari from being bought by Fiat.
Sorry, don't mean to be constantly correcting you, but Ferrari weren't exactly making the best cars in the world when they were purchased, and being purchased isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially in the auto industry where the enormous R+D costs can be diffused over multiple marques and platforms, just like being purchased wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for GW, depending on who the buyer was and what their intentions were.
Azreal13 wrote:
Wolfstan wrote: Given that Reinholt understands what is going on and given that there is so much chatter going on about it I do wonder why the account handlers of these big investors haven't started asking questions. I understand that the interweb allows millions of opinions and theories, but there is no smoke without fire. You'd of thought some account handler somewhere might start wondering if there is something amiss and have a closer look!?
You're misunderstanding the motivations of these large investors.
As my old Economics teacher was fond of saying, the trend of the stock market is always up. You just have to hang in long enough and, even with cliff edges and recessions, ultimately you should make a return, the only variable is how much. If the company in question pays a regular dividend then that's ultimately all you're looking for.
Most of the low level investors have already bailed in January, and the majority of those left are looking at making investments in terms of years and decades, not a quick buck in the course of a few months.
Alternatively, some may consider GW a ripe target for a takeover, which would likely cause a steep increase in share price, and be gambling on that happening, after all, if they've held stock for more than a year or two already, the current price still shows a good ROI, so why not?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sand.zzz wrote: Stop derailing the thread with your petty squabble. Its been infomative and succinct for 50+ pages.
Alas, it was inevitable, ad hominems are essentially all the "pro" crowd really have, personal attacks, normally initiated by those trying to argue from a pro-GW bias get more threads on this subject closed down than anything.
But I'll do my bit, I'll bow out of the thread for a bit and let him shout at the wall til he's calmed down a tad.
They may have supported tourneys but since inception their rules have never been formulated with regards to competitive game play.
That isn't strictly accurate either.
WHFB and 40K have since the beginning been issued with points values and army books to limit options in order to create a balanced game.
Obviously not always totally successfully... but the concept has always been there and it derives straight from the design of tournament games like WRG Ancients.
Automatically Appended Next Post: This thread is about the financial report's implications.
I see no value in a H8Rs versus WKs online battle.
Further OT posts are subject to deletion without notice. --Janthkin
I think the release schedule could have worked if what they released was actually good. Supplements that did little or ones that no one wanted. (Black Legion and Crimson Slaughter?) If they had released codecies that got players excited instead of dropping out (Nids, Orks) then it could have worked in GW's favor. Maybe.
Wayshuba wrote: Okay, guess it was time to elaborate on why I keep saying what I am saying. Most of the time these trends can be tracked overall based on changes of sales growth once the downward trend starts. Assuming GW maintains a similar change ratio YoY from this point forward (YoY growth change plus acceleration rate of 7.9%) this chart shows the picture.
Year Revenues Growth Change 2011 £123.1 N/A
2012 £131.0 +6.4
2013 £134.6 +2.7
2014 £123.5 -11.6
2015 £ 99.4 -19.5 Cost target to profit: £86.8m - cut from previous year £21.2m
2016 £ 72.2 -27.4 Cost target to profit: £63.1m - cut from previous year £23.7m (total from present £44.9m)
2017 £ 46.7 -35.3 Cost target to profit: £40.8m - cut from previous year £22.3m (total from present £67.2m)
The problem with viewing longer term trends is founded in the assumptions that the factors that comprise those trends maintain themselves going forward. What is important to try and identify is when those underlying factors have begun to crumble, and once that happens, the previous trends no longer apply and the factors of collapse are taken into account. We probably could have done a ten year analysis on TSR and said things are going to always be the same, right up until the last two years of there collapse. Same with Wang Computer, Digital Equipment, and other similar companies at this point in existence.
Given that GW is really down to their two core product lines, released their "heavy hitter" products over the last year and still experienced a sizable decline against a market that is growing, and do not have an unusual circumstance, such as the LOTR bubble popping, I think it is safe to say the crux has been crossed.
The numbers above reflect a consistent decline based on change in sales growth and the current 7.9% change acceleration rate. However, history has shown this is rarely going to be the case and the acceleration rate should increase year over year.
"Acceleration rate increase" is usually in cases where the company's technological products become obsolete. Such as with company which produces cars, computers, OS's or phones. There it is very much possible to fall into "death spiral" when company's sales fall as the customers abandon the product since there are so much more capable ones around, and with reduced cash flow, the company is unable to produce a killer product - or tries, but without proper resources and rushed development, it is so bad that it only serves to accelerate the decline.
However, such a development is not really applicable to GW. They are not technologically obsolete: I guess one could argue that their games are not as good as competitors, but in tabletop world this is not anywhere as big a factor as in purely technological solutions where performance has obvious and reliable yardsticks. Another thing is that GW products have very large secondary market. Thus, the sales do not give accurate picture to how much GW games are played: recently I bought a GW miniature which was made in 1996. No way I'd be buying a phone or computer made in the '90s. Even though their sales in real ££ terms are comparable to what they were in turn of the century, I'd bet there are actually more active players today than then. Playerbase might be shrinking from top days, but it is not going to go away immediately. Hence, there is unlikely to be mass exodus of customers comparable as happened with say, Atari, or Kodak, or Nokia since the business is just completely different. Much more likely scenario is the slow dribbling down of sales, as old timers gradually quit and recruitment of new players slows to a trickle.
Also as I pointed out earlier, there is no ongoing evidence of this accelerated death spiral you keep talking about. Kirby reported in January half-year report, that their sales began to decline late in previous year (presumably after Tau release?). This claim is supported by numbers which show a slowdown in 2013 second half-year. Since the latest half-year did not show decline compared to previous one, it does not seem that we're in the middle of a huge sales drop-off. Again, the evidence points out to flat or slow decline of sales - exactly as before. Now, it is of course possible that this massive collapse only begins immediately after they have released 7th edition, but that'd be quite graituous timing, don't you agree?
Third, again you claim a "growing market". Are you really sure? Didn't we talk this through last time around?
Yes, it does happen to technology companies more often because of the nature of the accelerated rate of market advancement. However, it is not solely related to those types of companies. Acceleration rate increase happens in ANY company moving through collapse, not just tech companies. It is an effect of rapidly losing a customer base and can happen for a lot of reasons. Almost any company that produces fad products (which GW doesn't) eventually goes through this. Market changes (not just with tech) can also produce this. I would contend that GW is not only fighting their terrible business decisions, but there is a shift in the market happening for faster, smaller, less time intensive games which GW is not currently capable of handling.
As for the on-going evidence of the death spiral... it is there as it has been for the last year especially. They are showing all the classic symptoms in the historical order they appear in - as I discussed in another thread. Company feeling financial pressures - check. Rushing products out the door and raising prices dramatically to stem customer loss - check. Decline in quality of products as a result - check. Declines in revenue as a result - check. Now we watch as further cost cutting cuts into the bone and leads to poorer sales, and so on and so on. Speaking of that, there is where the most telling number in the GW report was - a substantial decline in revenue with a flat expenditure in Cost of Sales.
All the evidence for the death spiral is CLEARLY there. The latest financials back it. As for the current period sales, they achieved what they did throwing everything they could at stopping the decline. While they performed okay with the revenue, they paid for it dearly in profit. Lastly to add, they did in fact have a drop off. Flat should not have been where they were. Every other period they had a 40k rules release their revenue actually grew over prior years in that period - this time it didn't happen.
To your question, I already said that I wouldn't expect stellar results coming in next period from 7th edition - other reports of other "smaller" game systems outselling 40k 7th by 2 to 1 and as high as 7 to 1 speak volumes for the market shift. In addition, GW seems determined to keep pushing new release price higher and higher until eventually only millionaires will be able to afford them.
One can predict a death spiral from parallels with other companies. Naturally it is impossible at the beginning of the supposed tail spin to have any data on its progress. That would emerge in the Dec 2014 interim report.
What is of particular interest to me is only two sets of numbers:
Total Revenue: 2014 = 123,501 , 2013 = 134,597
It is 91.8% from what it was last year.
Actual overall income has shrunk.
Profit Before Taxation: 2014 = 12,396 , 2013 = 21,395
It is 57.9% from what it was last year.
If internal efficiencies are supposed to be vastly improved what is going on?
"Net Book Value" is not all that different so any assets they have has not really changed (where the money could have gone).
I have to look again, somewhere buried in the details a ton of money was dumped into something as an expense since gross revenue had not quite dipped 10%.
As for the on-going evidence of the death spiral... it is there as it has been for the last year especially. They are showing all the classic symptoms in the historical order they appear in - as I discussed in another thread. Company feeling financial pressures - check. Rushing products out the door and raising prices dramatically to stem customer loss - check. Decline in quality of products as a result - check. Declines in revenue as a result - check. Now we watch as further cost cutting cuts into the bone and leads to poorer sales, and so on and so on. Speaking of that, there is where the most telling number in the GW report was - a substantial decline in revenue with a flat expenditure in Cost of Sales.
Financial pressure? They don't seem to think themselves they have much financial pressure, given that they just handed out dividend.
Prices - once again, I point out that they have skipped annual price hikes twice in a row now. Sure enough, new products do tend to cost more, but this is not a new development, it was same story 5-6 years ago already. Companies in panic mode are more likely to drop the prices!
Rushing products - IIRC, they aren't actually releasing any more miniatures annually than they did before. They are just spread along the year more evenly. They are producing more codices and supplements, though.
Decline in quality - in what way? Technically, no. Artistically, that is always debatable.
Their operating expenses actually dropped compared to previous year, even with the "exceptional costs". Remains to be seen, of course, how "exceptional" they were. At very least though, they probably don't have to pay so much severance packages next year.
All the evidence for the death spiral is CLEARLY there. The latest financials back it. As for the current period sales, they achieved what they did throwing everything they could at stopping the decline. While they performed okay with the revenue, they paid for it dearly in profit. Lastly to add, they did in fact have a drop off. Flat should not have been where they were. Every other period they had a 40k rules release their revenue actually grew over prior years in that period - this time it didn't happen.
Duh, in 5th and 6th edition releases, they released the edition quite early in the financial year, complete with starter set (which is probably their biggest selling single product). Now, they had just a week or two worth of sales of the basic rulebook, and no starter set.
To your question, I already said that I wouldn't expect stellar results coming in next period from 7th edition - other reports of other "smaller" game systems outselling 40k 7th by 2 to 1 and as high as 7 to 1 speak volumes for the market shift.
What are these reports? If they are selling so well, why are they "smaller"?
And personally, I do not expect a big upswing either because of 7th edition - the ruleset came out too soon and too unexpectedly, and the starter set is same one which most people who wanted it, have already bought. However, I do not also see a huge death spiral starting. All the signs point to that they will be doing what they have been doing until now - largely flat or slowly declining sales. Even Kirby did not promise more than "single digit growth".
Talizvar wrote: What is of particular interest to me is only two sets of numbers:
Total Revenue: 2014 = 123,501 , 2013 = 134,597
It is 91.8% from what it was last year.
Actual overall income has shrunk.
Profit Before Taxation: 2014 = 12,396 , 2013 = 21,395
It is 57.9% from what it was last year.
If internal efficiencies are supposed to be vastly improved what is going on?
"Net Book Value" is not all that different so any assets they have has not really changed (where the money could have gone).
I have to look again, somewhere buried in the details a ton of money was dumped into something as an expense since gross revenue had not quite dipped 10%.
They better not blame it on the new website.
Maybe it has something to do with a particularly embarassing legal battle.
Of course that was really an ongoing expense over the last couple of years though so maybe the bills for that were drawn from some sort of legal fund or some sort of account soley set up for that purpose?
It is interesting that there is little mention of it in TKs pre-ramble nor is it shown as an expense, though I am sure it was an expense we just don't see it transparently apparent somehow.
@Backfire:[u]
In your second to last sentence, you quoted TK about single digit or declining growth in sales. We have seen for the last couple of years a decline in sales numbers. There was a time that I bought $1200 US a year in GW products but over the last six years I have spent maybe a quarter of that amount. Why is that, is it because I have all I need or want? No, there are a alot of very appealing products, I very much want them. Is it the price? No, it's the price for entry, no one else can afford to start. Is it the value? Very much it is, why are they selling incomplete, half-baked, unfocused, clunky rules which are a product of 1970's game design and the fact that the current studio brings nothing fresh to the table.
I also find it hard to support a company that is so adversarial with the very people that have sold their products for the last 30 years by making it harder for them to sell their products!
I have more reasons as well, but so many have covered them already.
Talizvar wrote: What is of particular interest to me is only two sets of numbers:
Total Revenue: 2014 = 123,501 , 2013 = 134,597
It is 91.8% from what it was last year.
Actual overall income has shrunk.
Profit Before Taxation: 2014 = 12,396 , 2013 = 21,395
It is 57.9% from what it was last year.
If internal efficiencies are supposed to be vastly improved what is going on?
I have to look again, somewhere buried in the details a ton of money was dumped into something as an expense since gross revenue had not quite dipped 10%.
They better not blame it on the new website.
Kirby puts blame on "exceptional costs": see page 42 on the report. It is mostly severance payouts from large middle management layoff they had, with some "other" items which may include legal costs. I guess the website investment is in cost of sales, if it's all indeed on this financial year.
To some extent, it is also true what some people have noted, that their operating costs are not totally linear compared to revenues: thus if the revenues drop, the operating costs do not drop in same proportions.
Backfire wrote:Financial pressure? They don't seem to think themselves they have much financial pressure, given that they just handed out dividend.
The financial pressure he's talking about is that from previous reporting periods. You can see it in previous year's reports. Wells is very honest about protecting margins.
The dividend paid out was also quite a bit smaller than previous years.
Prices - once again, I point out that they have skipped annual price hikes twice in a row now. Sure enough, new products do tend to cost more, but this is not a new development, it was same story 5-6 years ago already. Companies in panic mode are more likely to drop the prices!
The majority of GW's products sell well upon initial release and then taper off. So if they release new products at higher prices, they get the same effect as an across the board price increase. We have now had $7 a miniature fantasy releases, codexes being split into multiple hardbacks and DLC. The gorkanaut being priced at stompa levels despite being a much, much smaller kit.
and no starter set.
This is a really solid piece of ammunition they still have in the chamber.
MWHistorian wrote: I think the release schedule could have worked if what they released was actually good. Supplements that did little or ones that no one wanted. (Black Legion and Crimson Slaughter?) If they had released codecies that got players excited instead of dropping out (Nids, Orks) then it could have worked in GW's favor. Maybe.
Just about every single CSM player wants the Crimson Slaughter supplement. It gives access to Divination. Black Legion sold exceptionally well. The Tyranid codex pity party was real, but look at them now. Tyranids have their own cheese lists rolling people at your flgs. The Ork codex has brought Ork players out of the woodwork. As far as releasing stuff that is 'actually good'. I could go line by line over each release, subjectively arguing the merits of many of them.. but no one wants to read that.
Maybe your local community thinks it had all been bad. Your Nid and Ork players have all quit, and your CSM players dont want Divination. I guess its possible? Point is, I dont think GW's troubles are stemming primarily from the content of the releases.
People areusing that stuff and enjoying it everyday.
*Some* people are using that stuff and enjoying it every day.
I would say that most of the 40K players among my friends, though, and that includes dozens of people, don't play every day or even every week.
They are mostly people who've been playing for years but only get in, say, between one and twenty games a year. Less than once a week for sure.
Now, if you play an average of ten times a year (due to family / other commitments / other hobbies / lack of space), but in the meantime you do still paint and stuff, what has changed?
In 5th edition, you paid £25 or so for the main book, and about once every five years you had to buy a codex for £15 or so. Call it £40 for four years of play, or £1 per game, in fact, with ten games a year.
You may or may not have bought 6th (a bunch of the friends I played at a big games meeting a few months back hadn't, and were still using the 5th ed rules till that very day, and trying to learn 6th at the last minute). But now suddenly you have to buy 7th. For £50. And a new codex, or more likely two new codexes (one plus an alternate one, like Crimson Slaughter or Ghazghull). Suddenly it's *over £100* just to be able to carry on playing with all the stuff you already own. And you can expect another edition to be along in under two years. Your cost per game just shot up from a negligible £1 to a massive £5.50... if you were one of the lucky dudes who got ten games in a year. If you only got four games in a year, or six? Well, you either gave up, and gave a load of your minis to my son (he was quite happy!), or you stuck with 5th edition (or went back to it, if you'd tried 6th and realised it wasn't great).
Price point for the codices and rules is now at the point that casual gamers are put off playing at all. That's something that has to change if GW is to survive. You can't have a mass-market non-digital game without casual gamers. And when your business model is supposedly selling to the players who want to forge a narrative rather than the competitive guys... you are fethed.
Is the problem that they're trying to model themselves on Apple? Apple is a company with a huge market, so I feel Kirby may have seen something good and decided to copy it (hence all the pointless legal battles), but that the idea doesn't work in such a niche market, so the company's gone all squiffy
Ian Sturrock wrote: And when your business model is supposedly selling to the players who want to forge a narrative rather than the competitive guys... you are fethed.
I think you've just hit the most important point I haven't yet seen in any of these discussions; casual players (like myself) are only going to buy stuff as and when. If it's too expensive, not for an army I'm interested in or simply plain fetching ugly I won't buy it. Likewise if too much comes out too quickly it goes beyond my hobby budget, so I will defer buying stuff, even if I like it. And once deferred it can be ages, or never, before I buy it.
Hardcore competitive gamers have a real motivation to buy the latest, most powerful, units (or even armies) and also as many of the codices as possible, so that they can understand the meta. Unfortunately with the bloated, constantly shifting rules, lack of tournament support and emphasis on narrative, unbound games GW have alienated this market in particular.
Ian Sturrock wrote: And when your business model is supposedly selling to the players who want to forge a narrative rather than the competitive guys... you are fethed.
I think you've just hit the most important point I haven't yet seen in any of these discussions; casual players (like myself) are only going to buy stuff as and when. If it's too expensive, not for an army I'm interested in or simply plain fetching ugly I won't buy it. Likewise if too much comes out too quickly it goes beyond my hobby budget, so I will defer buying stuff, even if I like it. And once deferred it can be ages, or never, before I buy it.
Hardcore competitive gamers have a real motivation to buy the latest, most powerful, units (or even armies) and also as many of the codices as possible, so that they can understand the meta. Unfortunately with the bloated, constantly shifting rules, lack of tournament support and emphasis on narrative, unbound games GW have alienated this market in particular.
You've hit the nail and this could be an important nail at GW's coffin.
Small, Far Away wrote: Is the problem that they're trying to model themselves on Apple? Apple is a company with a huge market, so I feel Kirby may have seen something good and decided to copy it (hence all the pointless legal battles), but that the idea doesn't work in such a niche market, so the company's gone all squiffy
Kirby has mentioned Apple couple of times in his prefaces, and GW does have some things in common with Apple:
-small product selection
-highly secretive
-run their own sales channel, ignoring most of the industry practises
-generally overpric...er, I mean, premium products.
However, I am far from sure that Apple's strategy, though wildly successful for now, is sustainable. They rely too much on being trendy and hip, and trends tend to go out.
Hulksmash wrote: I think part of it is that even speaking remotely in GW's defense or not stating they are going to fall apart in less than 3 years is met with cry of "White Knighing".
In general though it's only blatant dismissal of criticism as "haters" or the like that gets met with "white knighting". Just very few of the pro-GW people offer any real evidence or insight beyond "40k is booming in my area, so everything is fine" or "I think the price is fair" and then it tends to degenerate into attacks on the people who don't think GW is fine. That's always the case; the anti-GW crowd actually reference reasons, the pro-GW crowd just says "Looks fine to me!" without backing anything up...
My experience in this thread is pretty much exact opposite...
Can you cite an example of this opposite experience, where a pro-GW member references a reason and an anti-GW member claims we're doomed with no basis?
Yes. For example, my first post in the thread in page 5:
Spoiler:
I don't understand what's a big deal here.
-it's stupid piece of writing. Of course it is, Kirby's a corporate guy. Corporate propaganda pieces are always stupid and trying to spin everything in best possible light and often end up sounding hilarious. No exceptions. Did you see the letter with which Elop fired thousands of people from Microsoft? Kirby has NOTHING on Elop when it comes to stupid corporate language.
-Kirby's stepping down as CEO. Totally expected, AIUI Kirby doing the double chairs thing was always going to be somewhat temporary. Of course there is a caveat that he hints that he will continue if no suitable candidate is found, AND he will still continue as Chairman of the Board. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
-Steve Jobs comparison was surprisingly (though maybe unintentionally) adept in that Apple was and is extremely militant in using legal challenges to hunt down any actors, no matter how small, which it saw as a threat, including Apple fan sites and blogs. Hmm, sound familiar?
-GW website costed £4 million is somehow "OMG". I fail to see why. Sure it's not particularly GREAT site but exorbitant amount of money spent to seemingly crappy result is common enough in the world of corporate websites. Finnish State Railroads spent three years and 15 million euros for this site. It crashed within 3 hours of its induction...
Immediately, WayneTheGame (oh the irony given his statement here) runs up a response:
And the cavalry has arrived!
Even though my post was actually quite negative, but on this site, that's not good enough! If you do not commit yourself 100% to GW hating, you're White Knighted.
Yeah, I don't see what you see. White Knighting isn't about positivity or negativity, but on how it comes across, and you're not particularly guilty of it.
In your post, you claim that £4 million for a website isn't bad, because someone else spent £14 million on a website. But most of the commenters with experience in the industry (I've no idea what you do, but I'm a software engineer) see £4m for that website to be a huge sum, considering it's off the shelf with maybe a weeks worth of modification work. Maybe there's tonnes of behind the scenes upgrades going on that are rolled into the website budget, but on the face of it, £4 million for what's visible on games-workshop.com is an absolute joke, especially since we all know how smoothly the launch went.
On the corporate speak; no-one is commenting on the corporate speak as such; of course they'll try and put a positive spin on it. It's the whole tone and writing style of it, that makes it look more like a drunken facebook post than a corporate announcement. The professionality of the whole piece is atrocious, and I can only assume that it wasn't proofread by anyone. The chairmans pre-amble was so unprofessional that most people thought it was a hoax at first. That just isn't common in the corporate world for a business that is run properly.
It's not all doom and gloom though; hopefully the cost cutting measures will start saving them money once the one-time costs have been recovered, they are still profitable with some divisions growing, and hopefully a new CEO will have some ability to change things. There's always the possibility that Kirby won't be re-elected to the chair, or will retire completely in January. But since they've already announced the interview day I suspect the next CEO has already been chosen, so it's likely to be someone we already know of.
Financial pressure? They don't seem to think themselves they have much financial pressure, given that they just handed out dividend.
And they borrowed to pay a divident before. It has no direct bearing on financial pressure, and presumably after the stock drop when the 3rd quarter announced no dividend they decided it was worth paying one to keep the stock price steady. The fact they've had to instigate large cost cutting measures tells us they are feeling financial pressure.
Prices - once again, I point out that they have skipped annual price hikes twice in a row now. Sure enough, new products do tend to cost more, but this is not a new development, it was same story 5-6 years ago already.
New products used to cost a small amount more (a few %), with prices of everything else being brought into line every June, now we're seeing that every new product costs more than the previous months, so instead of 1 rise a year, we're seeing 12. We're also seeing some huge jumps and repackages, with prices jumping up by as much as 70%. There's no way the price increases haven't escalated. And they look worse, since the old products are now significantly cheaper than the new ones with no obvious reason as far as new customers are concerned (why does a Morkanaught cost as much as a Stompa? Why does that codex cost 50% more than that one?)
Companies in panic mode are more likely to drop the prices!
Have you got a citation? I thought the opposite was true. Companies in panic mode raise prices.
Rushing products - IIRC, they aren't actually releasing any more miniatures annually than they did before. They are just spread along the year more evenly. They are producing more codices and supplements, though.
Decline in quality - in what way? Technically, no. Artistically, that is always debatable.
A lot of the products, particularly the publications seem rushed; the editing error rate seems to be much higher now, with stuff that shouldn't have even made it to playtesting (pages of WHFB text in a 40K codex, the Dark Angels codex not having rules for the LE character), the apparent early release of 7th Edition.
To your question, I already said that I wouldn't expect stellar results coming in next period from 7th edition - other reports of other "smaller" game systems outselling 40k 7th by 2 to 1 and as high as 7 to 1 speak volumes for the market shift.
What are these reports? If they are selling so well, why are they "smaller"?
Because we're talking about the games, not the company. Smaller games are games that are physically smaller i.e. Zombicide or X-Wing. These companies will catch up on GW eventually, but it might take a while due to GW's market dominance and 20 years head start.
And personally, I do not expect a big upswing either because of 7th edition - the ruleset came out too soon and too unexpectedly, and the starter set is same one which most people who wanted it, have already bought. However, I do not also see a huge death spiral starting. All the signs point to that they will be doing what they have been doing until now - largely flat or slowly declining sales. Even Kirby did not promise more than "single digit growth".
I'd agree with that, the BRB didn't seem to do too well, but I think with the 2 box sets containing a mini rulebook will have a pretty reasonable impact. From what I can gather, the starter set sales were always a lot higher than the BRB, because it's more convenient and provides better value (and extra £15-20 gets you some starter armies)
Regarding the accelerated collapse only applying to tech firms; it must also apply to social companies. You need 2+ players to play 40K (I've never heard of anyone coming up with social rules for it), so it's value is partially dependent on what other people do (we'll ignore painters for now), and if you can't get a game of 40K, it has less value than some other system you can get a game of. If it becomes harder to get a game of 40K because there are less players or it's too time consuming, then it's value diminishes.
In the past, it's main value was that it was ubiquitous; you could turn up to pretty much any games event and find an opponent, but if players are leaving faster than joining for other systems, it'll lose that ability (whilst at my local club everyone still has a 40K army in a box somewhere, it's dropped from the top spot in terms of what people want to play). Once it hits a point where it's hard to actually get an opponent (like WHFB already has), then it's decline will become much faster.
For example, look at what happened to bebo, hi5 and myspace once everyone moved onto the next new thing. They all went from being huge to irrelevant almost overnight. The same happens with gaming companies.
Financial pressure? They don't seem to think themselves they have much financial pressure, given that they just handed out dividend.
Closing regional HQs. Moving to one man stores. Taking on £4.5m in "exceptional costs". Pulling a lot of products from the channel to sell direct to make more margin. No, they are feeling the financial pressure and it is obvious. The dividend payment-let me ask this, how much did Kirby make on that dividend payment?
Backfire wrote: Prices - once again, I point out that they have skipped annual price hikes twice in a row now. Sure enough, new products do tend to cost more, but this is not a new development, it was same story 5-6 years ago already. Companies in panic mode are more likely to drop the prices!
As the CHS lawsuit showed, most of GWs sales of a product come from it's initial release. So they have constantly escalated pricing on new releases, with each batch higher than the previous one. As I have indicated on many other threads here prior to these financials in discussions about companies in panic mode/death spiral, heavy price increases are actually the common reaction at this point. This is one early sign I have long looked for when analyzing troubled companies. When I see constant hikes of 50%+ (and GW has done 70%-100% in quite a few cases this last year), that is generally a warning sign. No sane company, in good shape, pushes 50% price increases in one go on customers.
Backfire wrote: Rushing products - IIRC, they aren't actually releasing any more miniatures annually than they did before. They are just spread along the year more evenly. They are producing more codices and supplements, though.
Decline in quality - in what way? Technically, no. Artistically, that is always debatable.
Quality of printed books has gone down the tubes in the last year. Riddled with stupid mistakes and very little "crunch" and lots of fluff. Even the 7th edition books have a lot of errors and holes.
As for the quality of the miniatures - they have gone down to (and I am not talking aesthetically, which is subjective). Special plastic characters used to have options with them (see "Space Marine Commander"), now they are all mono-pose with no options. The Imperial Knight? Poor engineering versus kits such as those from DreamForge, yet GW is supposed to produce "the best miniatures in the world". Aesthetically one may prefer the Imperial Knight, but at least with DreamForge you have pose-able legs, detachable and pose-able weapon arms.
Backfire wrote: Their operating expenses actually dropped compared to previous year, even with the "exceptional costs". Remains to be seen, of course, how "exceptional" they were. At very least though, they probably don't have to pay so much severance packages next year.
Their operating expenses need to drop to stay profitable. However, as I noted earlier in this thread, that works as long as you can stay ahead of revenue declines. If GW does in fact stay on the current course of decline, as I discussed above, and falls to around £100 in gross revenue for the next corporate year, they will have to cut more than £21m in costs just to turn a profit. That is starting to reach an area where you just can't cut that fast and stay ahead of the curve.
Backfire wrote: Duh, in 5th and 6th edition releases, they released the edition quite early in the financial year, complete with starter set (which is probably their biggest selling single product). Now, they had just a week or two worth of sales of the basic rulebook, and no starter set.
Actually, the typical releases for 40k were in July (3rd-July 1998, 4th-July 2004, 5th-July 2004) except for 6th edition which was in June and 7th edition which was in May. In other words, 40k editions were always released at the near beginning of their corporate reporting year where 7th was rushed out to catch the end of the year. It is pretty obvious from looking at the 7th edition books as well, that it was rushed out the door to make the end of year period.
Backfire wrote: What are these reports? If they are selling so well, why are they "smaller"?
And personally, I do not expect a big upswing either because of 7th edition - the ruleset came out too soon and too unexpectedly, and the starter set is same one which most people who wanted it, have already bought. However, I do not also see a huge death spiral starting. All the signs point to that they will be doing what they have been doing until now - largely flat or slowly declining sales. Even Kirby did not promise more than "single digit growth".
Two large distributors/stores have reported that Infinity Operation: Icestorm pre-orders (only available for two weeks now and still three weeks to go) has already outsold 40k 7th edition by 2 to 1 (with more time to go) and another one reported Dystopian Wars outselling 40k 7th edition by a factor of 7 to 1. When GWs bread-and-butter is 40k and Corvus Belli and Spartan Games products are outselling the big boy's main product this is pretty indicative of what is coming for GW in the very near future.
When I said smaller, I mean in company size versus GW. GW is not going to die from competition because of another big boy; they are going to die from a group of smaller companies that each end up eating a portion of their market share and revenue until their is none left.
And all signs are pointing to something different now. Worldwide Games Day is dead (exchanged for one Warhammer Fest in the UK). They have closed all their regional HQs. They have moved almost HALF of their products to online direct only. They have gone to one-man stores. None of this was typical over the last ten years. So, all is not the same as it has been for a long time.
Wayshuba wrote: Okay, guess it was time to elaborate on why I keep saying what I am saying. Most of the time these trends can be tracked overall based on changes of sales growth once the downward trend starts. Assuming GW maintains a similar change ratio YoY from this point forward (YoY growth change plus acceleration rate of 7.9%) this chart shows the picture.
Year Revenues Growth Change 2011 £123.1 N/A
2012 £131.0 +6.4
2013 £134.6 +2.7
2014 £123.5 -11.6
2015 £ 99.4 -19.5 Cost target to profit: £86.8m - cut from previous year £21.2m
2016 £ 72.2 -27.4 Cost target to profit: £63.1m - cut from previous year £23.7m (total from present £44.9m)
2017 £ 46.7 -35.3 Cost target to profit: £40.8m - cut from previous year £22.3m (total from present £67.2m)
The problem with viewing longer term trends is founded in the assumptions that the factors that comprise those trends maintain themselves going forward. What is important to try and identify is when those underlying factors have begun to crumble, and once that happens, the previous trends no longer apply and the factors of collapse are taken into account. We probably could have done a ten year analysis on TSR and said things are going to always be the same, right up until the last two years of there collapse. Same with Wang Computer, Digital Equipment, and other similar companies at this point in existence.
Given that GW is really down to their two core product lines, released their "heavy hitter" products over the last year and still experienced a sizable decline against a market that is growing, and do not have an unusual circumstance, such as the LOTR bubble popping, I think it is safe to say the crux has been crossed.
The numbers above reflect a consistent decline based on change in sales growth and the current 7.9% change acceleration rate. However, history has shown this is rarely going to be the case and the acceleration rate should increase year over year.
"Acceleration rate increase" is usually in cases where the company's technological products become obsolete. Such as with company which produces cars, computers, OS's or phones. There it is very much possible to fall into "death spiral" when company's sales fall as the customers abandon the product since there are so much more capable ones around, and with reduced cash flow, the company is unable to produce a killer product - or tries, but without proper resources and rushed development, it is so bad that it only serves to accelerate the decline.
However, such a development is not really applicable to GW. They are not technologically obsolete: I guess one could argue that their games are not as good as competitors, but in tabletop world this is not anywhere as big a factor as in purely technological solutions where performance has obvious and reliable yardsticks. Another thing is that GW products have very large secondary market. Thus, the sales do not give accurate picture to how much GW games are played: recently I bought a GW miniature which was made in 1996. No way I'd be buying a phone or computer made in the '90s. Even though their sales in real ££ terms are comparable to what they were in turn of the century, I'd bet there are actually more active players today than then. Playerbase might be shrinking from top days, but it is not going to go away immediately. Hence, there is unlikely to be mass exodus of customers comparable as happened with say, Atari, or Kodak, or Nokia since the business is just completely different. Much more likely scenario is the slow dribbling down of sales, as old timers gradually quit and recruitment of new players slows to a trickle.
Also as I pointed out earlier, there is no ongoing evidence of this accelerated death spiral you keep talking about. Kirby reported in January half-year report, that their sales began to decline late in previous year (presumably after Tau release?). This claim is supported by numbers which show a slowdown in 2013 second half-year. Since the latest half-year did not show decline compared to previous one, it does not seem that we're in the middle of a huge sales drop-off. Again, the evidence points out to flat or slow decline of sales - exactly as before. Now, it is of course possible that this massive collapse only begins immediately after they have released 7th edition, but that'd be quite graituous timing, don't you agree?
Third, again you claim a "growing market". Are you really sure? Didn't we talk this through last time around?
It's generally tech, but it also went to steel minimills and you could argue that the gaming system is close enough to a videogame platform on a macro level.
The fall of many of these companies started the same way: not catering for 'crappy' customers; someone else did, moved upmarket and made the original irrelevant.
It isn't really obsoletion but irrelevance. In tech, worse technology often wins out because the 'more advanced' tech has overshot the customer.
ICv2 has released the results of a study on the size of the hobby game market, including the finding that that the market in the U.S. and Canada totaled around $700 million at retail in 2013, as reported in the recently released Internal Correspondence #85. ICv2 also broke down the market by category, and found that the collectible games category was by far the largest, at $450 million; miniatures were second, at $125 million; board games were third at $75 million; card and dice games fourth at $35 million; and RPGs last at $15 million.
We define "hobby games" as those games produced for a "gamer" market, generally (although not always) sold primarily in the hobby channel of game and card specialty stores. We define the "hobby games market" as the market for those games regardless of whether they’re sold in the hobby channel or other channels.
In order to arrive at the estimate for the total industry, we compiled estimates on five individual categories: collectible games, miniatures, board games, card and dice games, and roleplaying games.
We interviewed many industry insiders to compile these estimates, and without their willingness to speak frankly with us about their own estimates of market size and the reasoning behind them, we would have been unable to complete this project.
We also report on the Spring season in the hobby game market, and found that it remained strong. In collectible games, Magic: The Gathering was not as strong (although definitely not weak), but Pokemon, My Little Pony, and Marvel Dice Masters were taking up the slack. WizKids' Dice Masters, in particular, was red hot (although in very short supply), with some calling it the “hottest game in years.”
Board games continued to grow in 2014, with growth coming from both the hard core games and civilians coming over in large numbers from other markets.
In miniatures, the two big licensed games, Star Wars X-Wing and Star Trek Attack Wing, were the games with the most heat this Spring, as the market anticipated the new edition of Warhammer 40K.
Boss Monster and Adventure Time were the big news in the Card and Dice Games category, with both getting a big reaction and selling out quickly.
And in RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons failed to appear in the Spring Top 5 in the last chart before the release of the new edition, the first time that’s happened since we began charting hobby game sales a dozen years ago.
ICv2 published its hobby game bestseller charts in the new issue, covering all five categories.
Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines – Spring 2014
Title
Publisher
1
Warhammer 40k Games Workshop
2
Star Wars X-Wing
Fantasy Flight Games
3
Star Trek Attack Wing
WizKids/NECA
4
Warmachine
Privateer Press
5
Hordes
Privateer Press
Interesting to note that Fantasy has dropped out of the top 5. Was it in the top 5 in last year's figures? I seem to recall it was still hanging in there.
This chart of the Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines (hobby channel) reflects sales in Fall 2013. The charts are based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers.
is :
Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines – Fall 2013
Title
Publisher
1
Warhammer 40k Games Workshop
2
Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures
Fantasy Flight Games
3
Warmachine
Privateer Press
4
Star Trek Attack Wing
WizKids/NECA
5
Hordes
Privateer Press
But obviously doesn't factor in direct/GW stores sales.
Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines – Spring 2014
Title Publisher 1 Warhammer 40k Games Workshop 2 Star Wars X-Wing Fantasy Flight Games 3 Star Trek Attack Wing WizKids/NECA 4 Warmachine Privateer Press 5 Hordes Privateer Press
I still don't understand why they list WM and Hordes as separate games. I'd be really curios to see what the list would look like with the two combined.
Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines – Fall 2013
1 Warhammer 40k
2 Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures
3 Warmachine
4 Star Trek Attack Wing
5 Hordes
Interesting. I wonder how X-Wing would do if FF could sort out it's supply problems. Also makes me wonder what the gap is between 40k and the rest.
I think we can figure out an estimate. The financial report from GW says that 56% of their NA sales where from trade. The total NA sales where 32 million pounds(about 55 million US). So their trade sales would be 31 million US through trade. With the IVC2 estimate of 125 million US for miniatures, that means that roughly 25% of the US miniature marked is made up of Games Workshop products.
I would say it could still be 5 or 6 times what X-wing sells. But you also have to consider it takes about 5 or 6 new X-Wing players to spend what a new 40K player has to spend to get into the game.
Conversely there are many more veteran 40K players than X-Wing, which is such a new game, who may be buying modest amounts of stuff per year amounting to a large total.
filbert wrote: Interesting to note that Fantasy has dropped out of the top 5. Was it in the top 5 in last year's figures? I seem to recall it was still hanging in there.
IIRC in the last 5 years it was usually at #3-#5, some years it was completely out. Though this is probably first time it has been out of the list for more than 1 quarter in a row?
Those top 5 fall almost exactly in line with the biggest flgs in my local community. Except I'd have to replace the Star Trek game (which no one plays), with Flames of War, which takes over just about every table in the place on Sundays.
I wasn't going to bother with this, but it looks so pretty I changed my mind. This is another graph I've kept going for a while. These are international sales revenue figures over the past 14 years. There is no discounting for inflation here, so this is cash terms translated to UK pounds in the prevalent average exchange rate for each relevant year.
It is so clear that GW is tanking outside the UK, where it is barely (before discounting for inflation remember!) holding steady. Continental Europe is really taking a beating where sales are worse (in cash terms remember, so the reality is even worse as inflation has eroded value over time) than at any time since the beginnings of the LotR bubble! North America has just about lost all the ground it gained over the previous two years, and the rest of the world (including Australia) continues to be insignificant.
Osbad wrote: I wasn't going to bother with this, but it looks so pretty I changed my mind. This is another graph I've kept going for a while. These are international sales revenue figures over the past 14 years. There is no discounting for inflation here, so this is cash terms translated to UK pounds in the prevalent average exchange rate for each relevant year.
It is so clear that GW is tanking outside the UK, where it is barely (before discounting for inflation remember!) holding steady. Continental Europe is really taking a beating where sales are worse (in cash terms remember, so the reality is even worse as inflation has eroded value over time) than at any time since the beginnings of the LotR bubble! North America has just about lost all the ground it gained over the previous two years, and the rest of the world (including Australia) continues to be insignificant.
Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?"
GW has been tanking outside the UK for ages. If they can get their act together in the UK, they will survive...I hope
I still don't understand why they list WM and Hordes as separate games. I'd be really curios to see what the list would look like with the two combined.
Agreed. I wonder if PP would take over the #2 spot.
I've followed the ICv2 reports for a long time. The trend I believe I've seen is that the gaming market has been expanding, but GW's own market has been shrinking. They can turn it around- they've got a ways to go before they're really unprofitable.
For the top 5
40k is always #1
For years, the 2nd and 3rd spots were Warmachine or Hordes- and they'd switch out periodically. I agree, it would be nice to see them lumped together.
The other spots have changed quite a bit more. Once in a while, we'd see WFB, but not as often as you'd think. Sometimes, we'd see Reaper's Dark Heaven Legends show up (they abandoned making a game for the range a long time ago) and we've actually seen Malifaux get into the top 5 as well (and outsell WFB).
In the time I've been following it, LotR has never made it into the top 5.
This chart really shows where the bulk of the LOTR sales boom came from: Continental Europe. Only a moderate bump in the UK, almost flat in North America. Would have expected a bigger bump in the UK.
Osbad wrote: I wasn't going to bother with this, but it looks so pretty I changed my mind. This is another graph I've kept going for a while. These are international sales revenue figures over the past 14 years. There is no discounting for inflation here, so this is cash terms translated to UK pounds in the prevalent average exchange rate for each relevant year.
timd wrote: This chart really shows where the bulk of the LOTR sales boom came from: Continental Europe. Only a moderate bump in the UK, almost flat in North America. Would have expected a bigger bump in the UK.
And do you know why that bump happened? It had nothing to do with the popularity of the movies themselves (The Hobbit movie trilogy is having roughly the same numbers), it was all because of Planeta DeAgostini.
Start advertising your products and make them available through major retail chains at a reasonable cost and your sales will sky-rocket! Who would have thought it... It takes a special type of incompetence to take what was a tried and tested formula and just throw it in the trash.
Sorry if this has been clarified before but the ICv2 report seems to be purely based on actual sales. If you're not doing like for like how does it prove anything?
We all know it costs more to get up and running with GW, so monetary value can't really mean anything. £200 of GW sales could only mean 3 new players. Apply that to X Wing and (depending on where you buy) this could mean 8 new players (basic starter set).
So GW might have a whopping great sale figure, but I can't see how that shows that they are still number 1 in the gaming world
Osbad wrote: I wasn't going to bother with this, but it looks so pretty I changed my mind. This is another graph I've kept going for a while. These are international sales revenue figures over the past 14 years. There is no discounting for inflation here, so this is cash terms translated to UK pounds in the prevalent average exchange rate for each relevant year.
It is so clear that GW is tanking outside the UK, where it is barely (before discounting for inflation remember!) holding steady. Continental Europe is really taking a beating where sales are worse (in cash terms remember, so the reality is even worse as inflation has eroded value over time) than at any time since the beginnings of the LotR bubble! North America has just about lost all the ground it gained over the previous two years, and the rest of the world (including Australia) continues to be insignificant.
I'd *really* love to see that chart in constant dollars (pounds, whatever...)
From the GW reports, we it seems like they are consistently selling fewer objects (even in most years when they make increased profits, it is less than the increase in prices). This is likely indicative of a shrinking player base.
There's really no way to count actual players for each game.
Back on the report- one thing I think is crazy is that he didn't mention the fact that 7th edition came out this year.
He must have been intentionally avoiding telling his investors that his company sales are down the year that they launch a new edition their flagship property.
Backfire wrote: Duh, in 5th and 6th edition releases, they released the edition quite early in the financial year, complete with starter set (which is probably their biggest selling single product). Now, they had just a week or two worth of sales of the basic rulebook, and no starter set.
Actually, the typical releases for 40k were in July (3rd-July 1998, 4th-July 2004, 5th-July 2004) except for 6th edition which was in June and 7th edition which was in May. In other words, 40k editions were always released at the near beginning of their corporate reporting year where 7th was rushed out to catch the end of the year. It is pretty obvious from looking at the 7th edition books as well, that it was rushed out the door to make the end of year period.
3rd actually came out 10th October 1998. I remember as my brother got it for his 12th birthday on the same day. But I digress.
The chart is not necessarily accurate. Apart from the inflation effect, GW changed their geographical reporting practice at least once during the period. (Swapping Nordic sales from Europe to UK or something -- I don't remember the details.)
It would be useful to put in a line for total worldwide sales.
Also note that GW are changing again from next year and will report by "channel" rather than by geographical area. It is difficult to know why this should be done except to conceal potentially interesting information from investors.
timd wrote: This chart really shows where the bulk of the LOTR sales boom came from: Continental Europe. Only a moderate bump in the UK, almost flat in North America. Would have expected a bigger bump in the UK.
And do you know why that bump happened? It had nothing to do with the popularity of the movies themselves (The Hobbit movie trilogy is having roughly the same numbers), it was all because of Planeta DeAgostini.
Start advertising your products and make them available through major retail chains at a reasonable cost and your sales will sky-rocket! Who would have thought it... It takes a special type of incompetence to take what was a tried and tested formula and just throw it in the trash.
You must have missed Kirby when he said they don't have to advertise or survey their customers. It is a niche market and they know what we want better than we do.
Kirby has pretty much said that the company is "fine" because the main proof is that if can still pump out dividends.
He is only around to ensure every year he can pay himself through that method.
Really, precious little else has priority than that.
You would see a whole new company if it was focused on market growth.
As long as there is always a way to ensure there is cash on-hand to pay dividends, the numbers can look as bad as they want until the company does not have enough resources to meet commitments.
Management practices will not change a jot until something other than dividends is noticed.
At first I was like "this report is obviously bogus when it says the whole size of the market for RPGs is smaller than the sales of one company in that market." But then I needed to remember that this is at retail and icv2 is concerned with retailers. The reason the RPG market has "shrunk" so much is that publishers largely now sell direct.
The D&D people at Wizards have also confirmed that their approach to revenue for the 5th edition of D&D is not to focus on a buy a book every month model where they fill shelves with books. They're going to have a much slower release rate and concentrate on accessory and branded products, many of which are licensed out to third party manufacturers.
I'd propose that the industry is actually larger as this literally is about retail. There's no way they can track me ordering directly from a manufacturer and cutting out retail entirely. And being outside of retail, it'd be outside the scope of this study. Their primary customer and area of concern is retail of comics, games and hobby products.
As a point of confirmation, the collectible card game numbers sound right given what Hasbro presented at the New York Toy Fair. They talked about massive growth outside of North America and the icv2 estimates for NA sound about right for Magic's revenue from Hasbro's investor relations stuff.
I think the icv2 study may be quite accurate and their estimates of market growth in past surveys might be as well.
GW really is shrinking in a market that's growing. We know they are failing in North America to a substantial degree while everything else appears to be booming here.
I've been buying GW stuff since I got into Fantasy (thanks to getting the original Warlock on Firetop Mountain fighting fantasy release). My first Citadel miniatures were the solid dark grey lead ones (in fact I remember it being a "Great Goblin" and it cost me 35p). I remember the shock of seeing "plastic bases" on the lead figures when I got my http://solegends.com/citboxes/bc4deathcommando.htm - Still on a shelf behind me unpainted - lol As a kid, I played WFB (I bought the 2nd edition box - which is still on my shelf). I didn't get "into" 40K till the late 90's with the release of 3rd edition.
Nowadays, I'm a school teacher and run the rather small 40K club at school.
We have an hour at dinner once a week to game. I've run this club for 11 years at the school I'm at now. It's always been a small club, usually with 6-12 players showing up with 400 point armies to play on the board/scenery I provide. As year 11's left school, an equal number of players started in year 7 as they started school. Now there are no new players starting. The club is down to 1 kid who now plays vs. me once a week.
New year 7's come now, ask how much the models are, and we never see them come again. I even provide a full painted set of Dark Vengeance now for anyone to use. The 1 kid that plays now can only afford to get models from ebay.
I've been reading Dakka a while now and these "Doom of GW" threads have been around all the while. I'm not White Knighting, but I would hate to see GW go under. What I *would* like to see is them take a step backwards to the practices that were good during successful years. I know you all seem to think the skirmish games were good, but imagine GW putting out one now. You'd never be able to buy figures as singles to add to your skirmish band, they'd sell them in boxes of 10 for a ridiculous price, even though you only wanted one.
For me, the times I enjoyed was when I could log onto the web store, find a single part number or sprue code and order just that. No forcing full boxes down my throat. I could get what I wanted at a decent price and I was encouraged to play/paint by getting that. Now if I want a small part, I have to feel like my wallet's been raped and I have a ton of stuff I don't want. The other thing that killed playing for me was (last edition) the flyers, and now the Psychic phase.
I can see GW going under in a few years, and I can see the current management taking every last penny out of the company before vanishing. :-(
It feels like one of those CCG companies of the early 2000s that knows it's coming to the end of its lifecycle. So it releases more and more must haves at a faster frequency at higher prices to milk everybody for every penny they can before they collapse.
Can GW fix it?
1. Produce cheaper starter sets that can clip together and have basic rules. Sell then in mainstream toy stores. Get kids back into playing the games. Even have a few paints and a brush in the boxes. Airfix do this with models they sell.
2. Leave at least 5 years between rule changes and play test them. GW has a fantastic place to play test - their own stores. Spend a year or so play testing (like D&D Next) before release.
3. Stop with the gak huge kits. Take the game back to a time when small troop squads meant something.
4. Bring back the single sprue/parts ordering on the web store - this won't save them, but I want it :-)
and I nearly forgot...
5. Get rid of the "Apple" marketing philosophy they seem to have adapted. They have too small a fan base to make it work.
Eggs wrote: They couldn't have a more polar opposite marketing strategy than apple?!
Apple advertise pretty much everything they make, on prime time tv, in cinemas, printed media. They spend a fortune on advertising.
How is gw in any way like that?
"Prestige" attitude, high prices compared to the rest of the market, a certain fondness for throwing litigation around. All of the bad traits with none of the good ones.
Eggs wrote: They couldn't have a more polar opposite marketing strategy than apple?!
Apple advertise pretty much everything they make, on prime time tv, in cinemas, printed media. They spend a fortune on advertising.
How is gw in any way like that?
"Prestige" attitude, high prices compared to the rest of the market, a certain fondness for throwing litigation around. All of the bad traits with none of the good ones.
Agreed.
It's like the company mantra is "be like Apple" but nobody has grasped the central concepts of what would make that a worthwhile exercise.
I'm not going to get into an apple argument, because some folks love em, and some folks love to hate em, but I think any comparison of apple and gw is downright bonkers.
One makes fairly high end technology, the other makes plastic models. One advertises, the other doesn't. One is in the top twenty biggest companies in the world. The other is a tiny, niche company worth less than the other makes in a couple of days. One has more than double the cash the us government has. The other probably has less cash than North Korea. Not seeing the connection myself.
At first I was like "this report is obviously bogus when it says the whole size of the market for RPGs is smaller than the sales of one company in that market." But then I needed to remember that this is at retail and icv2 is concerned with retailers. The reason the RPG market has "shrunk" so much is that publishers largely now sell direct.
I think the biggest reason that the RPG market is so much smaller is because every player doesn't need to purchase that much in order to play.
Currently, I'm part of a six-person Pathfinder group. In the group, I am the only person who has any of the hard back books. Two other people have purchased the smart phone app. The other three have made zero purchases from Paizo to play the game. I purchased the hardback "Rise of the Runelords" campaign path, and we've been playing that pretty much all year with no further need to purchase anything else that what we already had to keep playing. Between the six of us, we've all spent less than $100 per person (though I've spent the bulk of it).
Though, it gets worse than that. We played a different campaign starting in summer of 2012 through the end of 2013 that was home brewed. All the books and resource material we use were purchased over that 18 month period. For this year-to-date, the entire group has spent about $150.00 over seven+ months: Rise of the Runelords, Inner Sea campaign setting, and a pawn set. That's all we've needed to purchase in order to play every Sunday for the last seven or so months.
The sheer nature of RPG's is that the players really just don't have to purchase that much material to play.
(Sorry for off topic, but I think it was an interesting issue that differentiates the RPG game market from the table top miniature game market.)
Eggs wrote: They couldn't have a more polar opposite marketing strategy than apple?!
Apple advertise pretty much everything they make, on prime time tv, in cinemas, printed media. They spend a fortune on advertising.
How is gw in any way like that?
"Prestige" attitude, high prices compared to the rest of the market, a certain fondness for throwing litigation around. All of the bad traits with none of the good ones.
Agreed.
It's like the company mantra is "be like Apple" but nobody has grasped the central concepts of what would make that a worthwhile exercise.
See, Apple can have the prestige attitude because its fething Apple, they've actually had a positive influence on the future of the technology. GW on the other hand is like a slimy used Geo salesman, will never go beyond its station but still think their the best. No wonder the white knights seem so out of touch with reality, they are following the companies attitude to the letter.
Eggs wrote: I'm not going to get into an apple argument, because some folks love em, and some folks love to hate em, but I think any comparison of apple and gw is downright bonkers.
One makes fairly high end technology, the other makes plastic models. One advertises, the other doesn't. One is in the top twenty biggest companies in the world. The other is a tiny, niche company worth less than the other makes in a couple of days. One has more than double the cash the us government has. The other probably has less cash than North Korea. Not seeing the connection myself.
That's because we're (or certainly I'm) not making a comparison between the companies, more suggesting that GW has aspirations to be viewed as/operate as Apple does.
Which, in many ways, is a sensible thing, why not aspire to imitate what is, like it or not, one of the most successful commercial operations on the planet with a well entrenched, rabid fan base? I can see why that appeals, I can even see why Kirby might even consider GW "the Apple of wargaming" if I equip my Goggles Of Delusions Of Grandeur™.
The issue is, they've taken all the bad stuff (such as aggressive litigious practices, high pricing, invalidation of serviceable product with a rapid release schedule) without any of the good (ok, struggling to think of good stuff Apple do, but I'm sure there is some - I do like their stuff, it's just too expensive for what it is. Huh, sound familiar?)
That's because we're (or certainly I'm) not making a comparison between the companies, more suggesting that GW has aspirations to be viewed as/operate as Apple does.
Which, in many ways, is a sensible thing, why not aspire to imitate what is, like it or not, one of the most successful commercial operations on the planet with a well entrenched, rabid fan base? I can see why that appeals, I can even see why Kirby might even consider GW "the Apple of wargaming" if I equip my Goggles Of Delusions Of Grandeur™.
The issue is, they've taken all the bad stuff (such as aggressive litigious practices, high pricing, invalidation of serviceable product with a rapid release schedule) without any of the good (ok, struggling to think of good stuff Apple do, but I'm sure there is some - I do like their stuff, it's just too expensive for what it is. Huh, sound familiar?)
LOL, well at least there we have common ground. Apple and GW also have in common that both promote their product as The Hobby™, where other companies don't exist and customers are only supposed to use Official™ product with Official™ accessories bought from Official™ company stores. Well, of course most other companies do that too, I mean who doesn't like revenue from gullible customers who buy everything with The Logo on it, but both Apple and GW take that especially far.
I won't say that GW needs someone like Steve Jobs, but clearly they are dying for someone new, with actual influence and not just a sock puppet for Kirby and other old Board members, to shake things up a bit and bring some new perspective.
That's because we're (or certainly I'm) not making a comparison between the companies, more suggesting that GW has aspirations to be viewed as/operate as Apple does.
Which, in many ways, is a sensible thing, why not aspire to imitate what is, like it or not, one of the most successful commercial operations on the planet with a well entrenched, rabid fan base? I can see why that appeals, I can even see why Kirby might even consider GW "the Apple of wargaming" if I equip my Goggles Of Delusions Of Grandeur™.
The issue is, they've taken all the bad stuff (such as aggressive litigious practices, high pricing, invalidation of serviceable product with a rapid release schedule) without any of the good (ok, struggling to think of good stuff Apple do, but I'm sure there is some - I do like their stuff, it's just too expensive for what it is. Huh, sound familiar?)
LOL, well at least there we have common ground. Apple and GW also have in common that both promote their product as The Hobby™, where other companies don't exist and customers are only supposed to use Official™ product with Official™ accessories bought from Official™ company stores. Well, of course most other companies do that too, I mean who doesn't like revenue from gullible customers who buy everything with The Logo on it, but both Apple and GW take that especially far.
I won't say that GW needs someone like Steve Jobs, but clearly they are dying for someone new, with actual influence and not just a sock puppet for Kirby and other old Board members, to shake things up a bit and bring some new perspective.
Hey, I'll argue with you when I disagree with you, I'll agree with you when I do, I don't hold grudges.
Their own chain of retail stores...
Blimey, the more you look the more comparisons you can find.
While acknowledging Eggs' point that the companies are ultimately quite dissimilar, one has to wonder if these little off-the-cuff references Kirby keeps making are actually symptomatic of a much deeper aspiration on his part....
EDIT
If Redshirts get relabelled something daft and over the top in the next year, I'd call it confirmed. Look out for a GW "Primarch" or some similar nonsense coming to a store near you soon!
My dissatisfaction at the moment is coming from a slightly different angle than that which has been discussed thus far in the thread I think.
I had a slight experience with WFB and W40k as a child by happening by a store with a custom-made game table with a game going on somewhere in Seattle (I cannot remember if it was a GW store or an independent, but it was in the 90's, and it was nearby a children's ballet school.)
However, I did not officially attempt to enter the hobby until I was in college in 2011, when my friends took me over to a local hobby store that had just opened up. I fell immediately in love with the setting of Warhammer 40k, and though I didn't have much money at the time, I invested in a Catachan Battle Box (the one with the Sentinels in it); I wanted to play imperial guard, because I wanted to have a lot of troops and it would be cool when people attacked me to imagine tons of my guys getting wiped out at a time.
Unfortunately, after I had examined the current ruleset more closely (I believe it was 5th edition), I realized that to be able to play the kind of army I wanted to play was going to require a lot more money than I was willing to spend for those kinds of numbers (it was to my disbelief at the time, naive as I was to GW's attitude, that I couldn't find any bulk discounts to help ease the pain of my desire to field platoons).
So as soon as I had entered the game-side of the hobby, I left. But I still was infatuated with Warhammer 40k, and The Black Library at the time was more than willing to provide great pricing for its stories; to date I have purchased all Dan Abnett Omnibuses and have the complete Horus heresy Collection up to Unremembered Empire which just arrived in the mail today.
However, I have noticed a shocking speed at which some of the later titles are becoming out of print; unless I wish to purchase them as eBooks (which I don't), I'd have to go through the secondary market to get "Blood Pact", "Sabbat Worlds", and "Salvation's Reach", as well as a few of the Omnibuses like Ciaphas Cain. The secondary market is less than appealing, since OOP Black Library Titles on Amazon are severely high-priced. Other publishing companies have no problem maintaining their catalogs of older books for decades or more; I can still purchase new Book 1 of the 1996 run of Animorphs from Scholastic for less than $5, but Black Library can't keep a Dan Abnett Gaunt's Ghost novel in print for 3 years?
The news regarding upcoming books and reprints is also lacking for BL; when is The Victory omnibus scheduled to come out? What books are they planning to add to Print on Demand or do another printing of next? When is Penitent coming out? Quite a few of these questions would help win them my sales, as it would let me know whether to bother waiting to buy the books from them, or whether I should just take the pain and buy the books used. But they are quite opaque as far as their website is concerned.
If I were to make a decision that would help improve revenue slightly for BL, and therefore GW, I would have them expand their Print-On-Demand selection; they could charge a good price and still be able to undercut the prices being listed on places like Amazon for their works, price markups which they see no part of.
So far as I have been able to garner, they only have 14 Print-on-Demand books, and none of them from their most popular lines (heck, one of them is even "Pawns of Chaos", which was the one BL book I regretted purchasing, it was so bad)
Saldiven wrote:I think the biggest reason that the RPG market is so much smaller is because every player doesn't need to purchase that much in order to play.
Also, some of the sales of the RPG segment get pushed into other segments. Pathfinder miniatures, for example are likely counted as miniatures. The new D&D miniatures Wizkids are making will likely also be a stand alone product.
In the d20 bubble, Wizards did their best to get players going as the primary buyers. Loot and the Lute, Complete Arcane, racial splat books, etc., were all about making each player want the products rather than just selling to GMs.
When wizards abandoned 3.x, Paizo realized it was about the GMs. They lead with their adventure paths as their main core of their business.
I think we'll see the 15 million of the RPG market increase with the new edition of D&D just hitting shelves now. Wizards seems to be going after a more casual RPGGMs than the Pathfinder die hards, so it'll be interesting to see if they bring anyone back into the hobby.
GW has some RPG based revenue in North America with their FFG license. But it's a pittance. In a market that's even smaller than miniature wargaming.
I think that the icv2 is probably fairly accurate in this market estimate.
My dissatisfaction at the moment is coming from a slightly different angle than that which has been discussed thus far in the thread I think.
I had a slight experience with WFB and W40k as a child by happening by a store with a custom-made game table with a game going on somewhere in Seattle when I was just a child (I cannot remember if it was a GW store or an independent, but it was in the 90's, and it was nearby a children's ballet school.)
However, I did not officially attempt to enter the hobby until I was in college in 2011, when my friends took me over to a local hobby store that had just opened up. I fell immediately in love with the setting of Warhammer 40k, and though I didn't have much money at the time, I invested in a Catachan Battle Box (the one with the Sentinels in it); I wanted to play imperial guard, because I wanted to have a lot of troops and it would be cool when people attacked me to imagine tons of my guys getting wiped out at a time.
Unfortunately, after I had examined the current ruleset more closely (I believe it was 5th edition), I realized that to be able to play the kind of army I wanted to play was going to require a lot more money than I was willing to spend for those kinds of numbers (it was to my disbelief at the time, naive as I was to GW's attitude, that I couldn't find any bulk discounts to help ease the pain of my desire to field platoons).
So as soon as I had entered the game-side of the hobby, I left. But I still was infatuated with Warhammer 40k, and The Black Library at the time was more than willing to provide great pricing for its stories; to date I have purchased all Dan Abnett Omnibuses and have the complete Horus heresy Collection up to Unremembered Empire which just arrived in the mail today.
However, I have noticed a shocking speed at which some of the later titles are becoming out of print; unless I wish to purchase them as eBooks (which I don't), I'd have to go through the secondary market to get "Blood Pact", "Sabbat Worlds", and "Salvation's Reach", as well as a few of the Omnibuses like Ciaphas Cain. The secondary market is less than appealing, since OOP Black Library Titles on Amazon are severely high-priced. Other publishing companies have no problem maintaining their catalogs of older books for decades or more; I can still purchase new Book 1 of the 1996 run of Animorphs from Scholastic for less than $5, but Black Library can't keep a Dan Abnett Gaunt's Ghost novel in print for 3 years?
The news regarding upcoming books and reprints is also lacking for BL; when is The Victory omnibus scheduled to come out? What books are they planning to add to Print on Demand or do another printing of next? When is Penitent coming out? Quite a few of these questions would help win them my sales, as it would let me know whether to bother waiting to buy the books from them, or whether I should just take the pain and buy the books used. But they are quite opaque as far as their website is concerned.
If I were to make a decision that would help improve revenue slightly for BL, and therefore GW, I would have them expand their Print-On-Demand selection; they could charge a good price and still be able to undercut the prices being listed on places like Amazon for their works, price markups which they see no part of.
So far as I have been able to garner, they only have 14 Print-on-Demand books, and none of them from their most popular lines (heck, one of them is even "Pawns of Chaos", which was the one BL book I regretted purchasing, it was so bad)
Agreed, for a goodly period of time both Black Library and Forgeworld could be held up as examples of the fact that not all hope was lost, that here, within the environs of GW themselves were little pockets of resistance that seemed to still be set on doing things the old fashioned way, the way those of us who remember consider how it used to be in the old days.
Then they devolved into a limited edition novella factory and a Space Marine conveyor (hyperbole, I do acknowledge this isn't the whole sum of what either division does) and it seemed to become evident that whatever is at the heart of what is killing GW had spread.
At first I was like "this report is obviously bogus when it says the whole size of the market for RPGs is smaller than the sales of one company in that market." But then I needed to remember that this is at retail and icv2 is concerned with retailers. The reason the RPG market has "shrunk" so much is that publishers largely now sell direct.
The D&D people at Wizards have also confirmed that their approach to revenue for the 5th edition of D&D is not to focus on a buy a book every month model where they fill shelves with books. They're going to have a much slower release rate and concentrate on accessory and branded products, many of which are licensed out to third party manufacturers.
I'd propose that the industry is actually larger as this literally is about retail. There's no way they can track me ordering directly from a manufacturer and cutting out retail entirely. And being outside of retail, it'd be outside the scope of this study. Their primary customer and area of concern is retail of comics, games and hobby products.
As a point of confirmation, the collectible card game numbers sound right given what Hasbro presented at the New York Toy Fair. They talked about massive growth outside of North America and the icv2 estimates for NA sound about right for Magic's revenue from Hasbro's investor relations stuff.
I think the icv2 study may be quite accurate and their estimates of market growth in past surveys might be as well.
GW really is shrinking in a market that's growing. We know they are failing in North America to a substantial degree while everything else appears to be booming here.
Yep - those numbers sort of go to support the accuracy of the survey.
RPGs are largely sold through book sellers as well (both online like Amazon and regular stores like Barnes & Nobles as well as digital releases). Miniatures are largely direct sale. Although there are maybe a half dozen lines any game store might carry of regular miniatures, and another 2 or 3 of prepaints like X-Wing and Clix...the plurality of miniatures are sold by online super stores (Noble Knight, The War Store, FRP) or direct from the manufacturer (Hasslefree, RAFM, Iron Winds, Zombiesmith, Old Glory, Eureka...).
To be honest - the $125 million for miniatures was a bit higher than I was expecting just based on how many companies I know of which are now doing the bulk of their sales direct. The market is much larger - but the market through traditional game and comic stores is dwindling in relation to the direct and online sales (though still growing...which says a lot about GW shrinking...).
Then they devolved into a limited edition novella factory and a Space Marine conveyor (hyperbole, I do acknowledge this isn't the whole sum of what either division does) and it seemed to become evident that whatever is at the heart of what is killing GW had spread.
At first I was like "this report is obviously bogus when it says the whole size of the market for RPGs is smaller than the sales of one company in that market." But then I needed to remember that this is at retail and icv2 is concerned with retailers. The reason the RPG market has "shrunk" so much is that publishers largely now sell direct.
The D&D people at Wizards have also confirmed that their approach to revenue for the 5th edition of D&D is not to focus on a buy a book every month model where they fill shelves with books. They're going to have a much slower release rate and concentrate on accessory and branded products, many of which are licensed out to third party manufacturers.
I'd propose that the industry is actually larger as this literally is about retail. There's no way they can track me ordering directly from a manufacturer and cutting out retail entirely. And being outside of retail, it'd be outside the scope of this study. Their primary customer and area of concern is retail of comics, games and hobby products.
As a point of confirmation, the collectible card game numbers sound right given what Hasbro presented at the New York Toy Fair. They talked about massive growth outside of North America and the icv2 estimates for NA sound about right for Magic's revenue from Hasbro's investor relations stuff.
I think the icv2 study may be quite accurate and their estimates of market growth in past surveys might be as well.
GW really is shrinking in a market that's growing. We know they are failing in North America to a substantial degree while everything else appears to be booming here.
Yep - those numbers sort of go to support the accuracy of the survey.
RPGs are largely sold through book sellers as well (both online like Amazon and regular stores like Barnes & Nobles as well as digital releases). Miniatures are largely direct sale. Although there are maybe a half dozen lines any game store might carry of regular miniatures, and another 2 or 3 of prepaints like X-Wing and Clix...the plurality of miniatures are sold by online super stores (Noble Knight, The War Store, FRP) or direct from the manufacturer (Hasslefree, RAFM, Iron Winds, Zombiesmith, Old Glory, Eureka...).
To be honest - the $125 million for miniatures was a bit higher than I was expecting just based on how many companies I know of which are now doing the bulk of their sales direct. The market is much larger - but the market through traditional game and comic stores is dwindling in relation to the direct and online sales (though still growing...which says a lot about GW shrinking...).
And it is very easy to find folks that just plain would not believe ICv2 when they first started posting that Pathfinder had outstripped D&D 4e sales... going so far as to call the folks at ICv2 liars with a hidden agenda....
Then WotC created Essentials to try to recapture the market, only to announce that 5e was on the way a year later....
So, I am willing to accept ICv2's claims in regards to WH40K - they have been right before.
For my part... I had thought that Pathfinder outselling 4e was only a local phenomenon - that my area was just more discerning than the rest of the world.... Goodness, I was almost disappointed to discover that the same thing was happening everywhere....
I also have to say that at least WotC is trying to fix the problems that they had created with the botched campaign for 4e....
I do not know if D&D 5e can turn things around, and I have no real interest in it - but they have not offended me this time arond, and are trying to mend fences.
GW, by comparison, tend to pull down websites rather than admit that maybe, just maybe, they have put their foot in it.
TheAuldGrump wrote:And it is very easy to find folks that just plain would not believe ICv2 when they first started posting that Pathfinder had outstripped D&D 4e sales... going so far as to call the folks at ICv2 liars with a hidden agenda....
Then WotC created Essentials to try to recapture the market, only to announce that 5e was on the way a year later....
So, I am willing to accept ICv2's claims in regards to WH40K - they have been right before.
Technically the order of events was
Pathfinder takes #2 spot
Essentials gets released
Pathfinder takes #1 spot
People say it can't be true
Wizards announced the cancellation of all future 4E products
People admit ivc2 was right all along.
Your point totally stands though.
The thing to remember is that WotC had developed a good direct source of revenue. To this day they have a few million in revenue from their D&D Insider subscriptions for 4th edition stuff.
For my part... I had thought that Pathfinder outselling 4e was only a local phenomenon - that my area was just more discerning than the rest of the world.... Goodness, I was almost disappointed to discover that the same thing was happening everywhere....
I also have to say that at least WotC is trying to fix the problems that they had created with the botched campaign for 4e....
It's very similar to how we keep hearing about how GW is no longer the most played game in given people's circles.
I do not know if D&D 5e can turn things around, and I have no real interest in it - but they have not offended me this time arond, and are trying to mend fences.
GW, by comparison, tend to pull down websites rather than admit that maybe, just maybe, they have put their foot in it.
5e is solid. It's like a lighter version of 3rd mixed with AD&D ideas. I may not play it, but I think it's quite possible or likely that they'll retake the top spot. Albeit of a very small market.
GW, on the other hand, literally believes, at the highest level, that they don't need to concern themselves with what the market wants. 4e was a mistep for WotC because they thought they could tell everyone what they should want out of D&D. It didn't work, so they went back and asked. And did a ton of market research, public play testing and focus group work.
GW's product line is dwindling down to being just 40k and if they keep thinking that knowing what the market wants is not necessary, what will they do if their 40k plan stops working? If their customers continue to show them that they aren't interested in greater and greater numbers.
There were some interpretations of Kirby's preamble that it was actually a answering back to other board members that didn't recognize his genius. A polemic against concerns raised by his fellow board members.
For the sake of anyone who still enjoys 40k, I hope this is right. That the yes-man corporate culture isn't 100% absolute at GW. That if they can get a good new CEO, that even with Kirby still on board as chair, they can go in a new direction and start listening to the customers again and asking the market what it really wants.
TheAuldGrump wrote:And it is very easy to find folks that just plain would not believe ICv2 when they first started posting that Pathfinder had outstripped D&D 4e sales... going so far as to call the folks at ICv2 liars with a hidden agenda....
Then WotC created Essentials to try to recapture the market, only to announce that 5e was on the way a year later....
So, I am willing to accept ICv2's claims in regards to WH40K - they have been right before.
Technically the order of events was
Pathfinder takes #2 spot
Essentials gets released
Pathfinder takes #1 spot
People say it can't be true
Wizards announced the cancellation of all future 4E products
People admit ivc2 was right all along.
Your point totally stands though.
Though the folks at Paizo maintain that Pathfinder outstripped 4e much earlier - and in that... my local market seems to agree with. Mid to late 2010. (See if you can find the audio files for Aunt Lisa's Story Hour - a lot of fun to listen to.) *EDIT* Link!
That Essentials was a reaction to plummeting sales and losing marketshare. (For what it is worth, I had expected Essentials to do much better than it did.)
Locally... the returns on 4e were horrendous - with Border's returning three out of four cases that they had on the day of release - returning them to WotC six months later. (Returns are hated in the book trade - leading to remaindered books, damaged books, wasted time and expense. Returns were a big part of what killed TSR.)
Essentials was easier for bookstores, because they were paperbacks, rather than being returned the books could be stripped - the covers torn off and returned, rather than the entire book.
Mind you, there were still folks in denial about 4e in 2012....
The thing to remember is that WotC had developed a good direct source of revenue. To this day they have a few million in revenue from their D&D Insider subscriptions for 4th edition stuff.
Though it is worth mentioning that both WotC and Paizo are relying on subscription models - WotC with the Insider, Paizo with the print and PDF lines for Pathfinder.
And there are a lot of things to subscribe to for Pathfinder.
For my part... I had thought that Pathfinder outselling 4e was only a local phenomenon - that my area was just more discerning than the rest of the world.... Goodness, I was almost disappointed to discover that the same thing was happening everywhere....
I also have to say that at least WotC is trying to fix the problems that they had created with the botched campaign for 4e....
It's very similar to how we keep hearing about how GW is no longer the most played game in given people's circles.
I do not know if D&D 5e can turn things around, and I have no real interest in it - but they have not offended me this time around, and are trying to mend fences.
GW, by comparison, tend to pull down websites rather than admit that maybe, just maybe, they have put their foot in it.
5e is solid. It's like a lighter version of 3rd mixed with AD&D ideas. I may not play it, but I think it's quite possible or likely that they'll retake the top spot. Albeit of a very small market.
Yeah... instead of there being a 500 pound gorilla in the RPG industry there ended up being a 240 pound gorilla, a 220 pound gorilla, and enough monkeys as will fit in a large barrel.
WotC damaged the market a good deal - I suspect that Pathfinder and 4e put together were not as big as the 3.X/D20 market.
GW, on the other hand, literally believes, at the highest level, that they don't need to concern themselves with what the market wants. 4e was a mistep for WotC because they thought they could tell everyone what they should want out of D&D. It didn't work, so they went back and asked. And did a ton of market research, public play testing and focus group work.
And that, right there, is the reason that I have not given up all hope for WotC.
At least they have admitted that they made some big mistakes.
And I found it amusing that they stole a bolt from Paizo's quiver, and did a public playtest. They learned!
But the thing is, for me, that I do not like 5e as much as I do Pathfinder, or even 3.X.
On the flip side... conversion is a major selling point this time around - so folks will be able to buy Pathfinder adventures and use them with 5e.
Compare that with 4e, where WotC told folks not to bother converting, and to just start over from scratch.
GW's product line is dwindling down to being just 40k and if they keep thinking that knowing what the market wants is not necessary, what will they do if their 40k plan stops working? If their customers continue to show them that they aren't interested in greater and greater numbers.
There were some interpretations of Kirby's preamble that it was actually a answering back to other board members that didn't recognize his genius. A polemic against concerns raised by his fellow board members.
For the sake of anyone who still enjoys 40k, I hope this is right. That the yes-man corporate culture isn't 100% absolute at GW. That if they can get a good new CEO, that even with Kirby still on board as chair, they can go in a new direction and start listening to the customers again and asking the market what it really wants.
I seem to recall that White Dwarf had surveys, back in the 3e days.... GW had a tool for market research, and used it.
Now... not so much.
So, yeah, both WotC and GW have suffered from hubris - but WotC has realized this, and is trying to fix things - they are willing to admit that they need to fix things and regain the trust of their customers.
Realizing that there is a problem is the first step in mending it.
WotC also isn't just D&D. It also isn't just WotC.
Even if they managed D&D so badly it was entirely dropped - the brand would still have enough legs that they could come in with a new team and reboot it from within the company.
GW on the other hand is a one trick pony...and the pony has a broken leg. If they can't turn things around, then the chances of Warhammer and 40K continuing on become much less likely. It could very easily go the way of any number of other games (defunct and only supported by old gamers) or end up in a holding company's portfolio of IP (like what happened with Mutant Chronicles).
In the UK - they probably have better name recognition...but I don't know if it would have the same brand identity for a company that is capable of producing to actually care enough to invest in the brand.
Even if they managed D&D so badly it was entirely dropped - the brand would still have enough legs that they could come in with a new team and reboot it from within the company.
GW on the other hand is a one trick pony...and the pony has a broken leg. If they can't turn things around, then the chances of Warhammer and 40K continuing on become much less likely. It could very easily go the way of any number of other games (defunct and only supported by old gamers) or end up in a holding company's portfolio of IP (like what happened with Mutant Chronicles).
In the UK - they probably have better name recognition...but I don't know if it would have the same brand identity for a company that is capable of producing to actually care enough to invest in the brand.
See, that's the thing that keeps popping into my mind. If GW does go belly up, will anyone pick up the games? Everyone seems so sure, but I'm not. Except for some moderately-successful video games, neither 40K nor WHFB have ever had much success outside of the wargaming hobby. Not sure about the UK, but here in the US, the brand recognition is zero. The whole hobby for that matter is practically unknown outside of those who already participate.
I mean, D&D only barely survived TSR going under, and it's a cultural touchstone. What are the chances that 40K survives, to say nothing of Fantasy?
Even if they managed D&D so badly it was entirely dropped - the brand would still have enough legs that they could come in with a new team and reboot it from within the company.
Demonstrably true - that is exactly what they are trying to do with 5e, and signs point to at least a partial success.
Or even an external reboot under a different name, given the success of Pathfinder.
WotC overestimated brand loyalty, and underestimated system loyalty - and badly underestimated the loyalty that the OGL/D20 License had generated.
Plenty of folk are willing to point at Pathfinder and say 'That is D&D.' Not 'That is like D&D' but D&D itself. (And plenty of others were more than willing to point at 4e and say 'That isn't D&D'.)
GW on the other hand is a one trick pony...and the pony has a broken leg. If they can't turn things around, then the chances of Warhammer and 40K continuing on become much less likely. It could very easily go the way of any number of other games (defunct and only supported by old gamers) or end up in a holding company's portfolio of IP (like what happened with Mutant Chronicles).
In the UK - they probably have better name recognition...but I don't know if it would have the same brand identity for a company that is capable of producing to actually care enough to invest in the brand.
Nor is their pony all that unique and outstanding a member of its species - thus the lack of success with the Chapterhouse suit.
Though... I have to admit that the Space Wolf sled... thingy... is... unique?
I... don't think that they have to worry much about other folks trying to copy that one....
Guildsman wrote: Except for some moderately-successful video games, neither 40K nor WHFB have ever had much success outside of the wargaming hobby.
They haven't... but they could have.
Imagine what the Ultramarines movie could have been if it had been handled by Pixar or Dreamworks, Or by the guys who did 'Under The Red Hood'.
It's entirely likely that an outside investor would see the potential inherent in the IP, at least for 40K. The Warhammer world, not so much. There's not really much that (to an outsider) really distinguishes it from any other generic Elves-Dwarves-and-Dragons fantasy setting.
40k has huge possibilities outside of tabletop gaming, it's a shame GW hasn't capitalised on them. Space marines the t-shirts, space marines the breakfast cereal, space marines the FLAME THROWER!
Yonan wrote: 40k has huge possibilities outside of tabletop gaming, it's a shame GW hasn't capitalised on them. Space marines the t-shirts, space marines the breakfast cereal, space marines the FLAME THROWER!
Instead we have Space Marine: the BLAME THROWER! (It wasn't our fault! It was the antiquated legal system!)
There were some interpretations of Kirby's preamble that it was actually a answering back to other board members that didn't recognize his genius. A polemic against concerns raised by his fellow board members.
I would say that I definitely got a sense of that; that his 'stepping down' is not his decision at all and he was taking swipes at the board here and there. He seemed to be talking back to them in a public forum in an almost "you'll be sorry" sort of tone. The Preamble was so uncouth that I struggled to read through it.
After another pass (I tried to see if it might be easier to digest after all this discussion), I find it interesting he comments on the recruiting process and the qualities he looks for in certain candidates:
Tom Kirby wrote:We got a great (not good, great) new board member. She is still
surprised that I did not read her CV (exasperated would be a more accurate word) but there was no need. Her letter told us what
kind of person she was: sincere, open-minded, a learner, excited at the opportunity. The interview told us she had all the qualities
needed. It mattered not one jot what her CV said. Appointing NXDs because of their careers rather than who they are is at the
heart of the rot in the corporate world.
That's it Tom, let's hire people with a firm handshake and a good suit. To hell with their credentials - as long as they can say, "Yes, Mr. Kirby!" Isn't that about right?
Yonan wrote: 40k has huge possibilities outside of tabletop gaming, it's a shame GW hasn't capitalised on them. Space marines the t-shirts, space marines the breakfast cereal, space marines the FLAME THROWER!
I am really honestly surprised that this is not a thing already and could be as simple or elaborate as they want.
Get the faction logos from the rule book and stick them on a plain shirt then run a big "choose you side" campaign to sell them. Easy money.
Yonan wrote: 40k has huge possibilities outside of tabletop gaming, it's a shame GW hasn't capitalised on them. Space marines the t-shirts, space marines the breakfast cereal, space marines the FLAME THROWER!
A weird, more subtle trait of GW is while they're greedy, they're greedy on their own terms and will not want to make more money if it means they have to admit they're wrong or actually change their ways. It's why they don't advertise, cut themselves off from social media, or expand their IP in any way. It's also why they deliberately drive away veteran gamers and hobbyists. Because they don't want your money, or at the very most simply want you to quietly insert it via a website. All of these things would give them more money, regardless of changing anything else about themselves. However they don't do it, because the weird culture the execs surround themselves with has dictated that advertising is bad, veteran customers are the enemy, and the IP is something they can only exclusively dictate.
GW is 1 part spiteful, 1 part bitter, 1 part greedy, 3 parts paranoid, a good many parts incompetent, but perhaps most of all stubborn.
Yonan wrote: 40k has huge possibilities outside of tabletop gaming, it's a shame GW hasn't capitalised on them. Space marines the t-shirts, space marines the breakfast cereal, space marines the FLAME THROWER!
That last one would probably be really popluar with the kids
TheAuldGrump wrote: Though the folks at Paizo maintain that Pathfinder outstripped 4e much earlier - and in that... my local market seems to agree with. Mid to late 2010. (See if you can find the audio files for Aunt Lisa's Story Hour - a lot of fun to listen to.) *EDIT* Link!
ICv2 first published Pathfinder as being the number 1 RPG in 2nd quarter, 2011. Essentials was released September, 2010. It was indeed in response to falling sales though. I was talking about the people not believing ICv2, even though pathfinder was likely already outselling them before the q2, 2011 report that made that public knowledge.
Yeah... instead of there being a 500 pound gorilla in the RPG industry there ended up being a 240 pound gorilla, a 220 pound gorilla, and enough monkeys as will fit in a large barrel.
I actually think this is a lot better and hope the miniature market continues to be more fragmented with more companies entering all the time. With each financial report we see that GW is giving up more and more market share and with each price hike on new releases, companies without GW's potential economies of scale advantage can enter the market with healthy margins.
WotC damaged the market a good deal - I suspect that Pathfinder and 4e put together were not as big as the 3.X/D20 market.
The most damaging release for the RPG market was the 3.5 release. It pretty much invalidated huge swathes of the OGL product lines and started an industry wide contraction that left very few survivors in 2008 compared to just a few years earlier. Then with 4E's narrow focus and the abandonment of 3.x to Pathfinder, they damaged it further.
It's one reason I'm glad GW never did go "open" with their stuff. A minor tweak can leave stores with old versions on their shelves in a real industry damaging way. With them keeping it all locked down, if a store or customer gets shafted by a minor edition change in a small time frame (like 7th edition), they can just move on to another game. When everyone gets shafted because the new rules invalidate hundreds of titles on the shelf, the whole industry can contract.
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Guildsman wrote:See, that's the thing that keeps popping into my mind. If GW does go belly up, will anyone pick up the games? Everyone seems so sure, but I'm not.
I don't think it would really get picked up. People keep talking about it like it's some great amazing property. It didn't save THQ from bankruptcy and Warhammer Online failed to dent WoW at all and slowly died. Now it's all tablet shovelware and tiny board game and rpg license revenue.
I actually think GW's greatest two assets are it's customer base who keeps lapping their stuff up and their in house tooling and plastic production. Imagine what could be accomplished with a leadership team that was about making great games and offering great value.
I agree with frozenwastes about the long term value of the GW game fluff.
The revenue figures show that the vast bulk of sales are game books and model kits. Black Library and so on account for only a small amount despite being on sale in regular bookshops. (Like Halo and Assassin's Creed books.) That means the background has little traction outside the player community.
I could imagine another company taking over the games, which have significant physical assets. I can't see a company purchasing the IP purely to make films and books.
Yonan wrote: 40k has huge possibilities outside of tabletop gaming, it's a shame GW hasn't capitalised on them. Space marines the t-shirts, space marines the breakfast cereal, space marines the FLAME THROWER!
A weird, more subtle trait of GW is while they're greedy, they're greedy on their own terms and will not want to make more money if it means they have to admit they're wrong or actually change their ways. It's why they don't advertise, cut themselves off from social media, or expand their IP in any way. It's also why they deliberately drive away veteran gamers and hobbyists. Because they don't want your money, or at the very most simply want you to quietly insert it via a website. All of these things would give them more money, regardless of changing anything else about themselves. However they don't do it, because the weird culture the execs surround themselves with has dictated that advertising is bad, veteran customers are the enemy, and the IP is something they can only exclusively dictate.
GW is 1 part spiteful, 1 part bitter, 1 part greedy, 3 parts paranoid, a good many parts incompetent, but perhaps most of all stubborn.
In many ways it seems like GW doesn't want to make money.
It is like GW has a big barrel full of gold, but it is completely full.....and that is a problem.
Games Designer; "We could do X, Y or Z. This could make us a boat-load of money......and we could use a boat-load of money about now. *glances at financial report*"
Tom Kirby; "...And where should we store all this money, smart arse (*sotto voce* -until we pay out the next installment of my pension dividends)?"
Games Designer; "Well, we could just buy another barrel....."
Tom Kirby; "Are you insane?? Do you think barrels are free? We cannot afford more expenses!"
Games Designer; "But we could just get a cheap barrel from down the road"
Tom Kirby; "Have you completely lost the plot, son? We do not use generic barrels. We only use Barriculum Imperialis™ because that is made by us and owned by us.
Remember we are not making 90% of potential income. We are losing 10%!!!.....and we simply have no room in the production schedule right now."
Games Designer; "Surely, sir, the tiny added expense is easily covered by some of the money in the new barrel"
Tom Kirby; "No! Either we get all the money....or we are not interested at all!"
Games Designer; "But, sir! We could licence the Flightpath™ system from Fantasy Flight Games, grab the models from the now-defunct Aeronautica Imperialis game over at Forgeworld, throw some rules together and ride the current popularity wave from X-wing and Attack Wing! This would give us a needed financial boost!"
Tom Kirby; "No! The added expense of licencing would kill our children and strike the sun from the sky!"
Games Designer; "*Mutters* It seem to work for WizKids with Attack Wing....."
Tom Kirby; "What was that?!?!"
Games Designer; "Nothing, sir....."
Tom Kirby; " AAAAAAAALLLLLLL THEEEEE MOOOONEEEEYYYY.......or NONE!" *storms out while muttering about idiots*"
GW wouldn't even have to licence the X-Wing system to make an Aeronautica game. They could easily invent their own similar system using the same basic ideas.
Steelmage99 wrote:Games Designer; "But, sir! We could licence the Flightpath™ system from Fantasy Flight Games, grab the models from the now-defunct Aeronautica Imperialis game over at Forgeworld, throw some rules together and ride the current popularity wave from X-wing and Attack Wing! This would give us a needed financial boost!"
Such a Please don't bypass the language filter like this. Reds8n good idea. If GW came out with Flightpath system with the Aeronautica models for $15 a pop like X-Wing... I would buy all of them.
Kilkrazy wrote:I could imagine another company taking over the games, which have significant physical assets. I can't see a company purchasing the IP purely to make films and books.
GW still being profitable despite everything they've done over the years shows that they have a loyal customer base and their business of making and selling miniatures is worthwhile.
Kilkrazy wrote:GW wouldn't even have to licence the X-Wing system to make an Aeronautica game. They could easily invent their own similar system using the same basic ideas.
At this point I don't trust their studio to do anything like that. Whoever is doing their brand management has such a one track approach there's no room for any innovation. The current GW is not the GW that playtested Mordheim and Battlefleet gothic through White Dwarf before releasing the final game.
Seeing the price for the new Space Wolf codex (are all that price now?) as being £30 kinda sums it all up. You can get a nice full colour rulebook for that price. With a lot of systems, tabletop or RPG, that's all you need book wise. Added to this the Bolt Action kindle version and it makes GW look totally out of touch.
Kilkrazy wrote: I agree with frozenwastes about the long term value of the GW game fluff.
The revenue figures show that the vast bulk of sales are game books and model kits. Black Library and so on account for only a small amount despite being on sale in regular bookshops. (Like Halo and Assassin's Creed books.) That means the background has little traction outside the player community.
I could imagine another company taking over the games, which have significant physical assets. I can't see a company purchasing the IP purely to make films and books.
Well, there was a time when BL was releasing a NY Times Bestseller every other month. But then they decided they didn't need any of that.
As Rick Priestly has said in a podcast (can't remember whose was it) Kirby's GW is run by the accountant department and not from the game design, when you have such gems as "why did warmaster stoped having generals blisters? Well the accountants found out that generals didn't sell as much as units, which is logical since you needed only one and decided t cut them and focus only on regiment blisters" and "Our focus was to make 3rd edition a better version of 2nd edition, we made the rules and playtested it and then the decision came from above that we need to make a game that needs more miniatures, out of time I adapted my home-brew 15mm WW2 rules I use to play in my house and here you have WH40k 3rd edition".
I guess his NDA ended.
The reports indicate everything we have hypothesized and see evolve over the years, GW's market-share is shrinking and they depend more and more on a smaller core that will buy no mater the price or quality, are they in a bad position? They have the bulk, the infrastructure and customer loyalty to turn the ship around to a safe harbor, even if the ship has already hit the rocks, the fear is purely that they are not capable of doing it, delusional on their IP strength, fearful of competition, closing to themselves more and more and run by the accountants not the game designers with a corporate attitude of "fitting in" (essentially yes men) having a priority over everything else, I am not sure they are capable of turning the ship, even if the ship is perfectly capable of turning and has ample of time.
This financial year had all their heavy hitters, most direct sales ever and the fastest release pace we have ever seen and this is their result, most worrying of all is they felt they needed to secure a 4m loan, (which eventually they did not use) presumably for the website upgrade, how unconfident were they for their results that they felt this was necessary.
For me GW's strategy and corporate culture are their biggest enemies, been a manufacturer and retailer at the same time actively antagonizing the retailers that far outnumber their own retail potential is a bad thing, limiting themselves to a small selection of core systems also hurts them, I feel they have set a sales low and if a game system does not pass it, even if it is self sustaining, they do not bother anymore.
it's apparently not hard to make the bestsellers list; assuming you're selling to fans waiting on the book your initial spike on release might do it.
You might have a point about the hardbacks though; the books are pretty decent, but the paperback price is quite high for them, let alone the hardback price.
I've seen it implied that they changed the distribution which is why it dropped off the bestseller list, I think Reinholt knows what, if anything, happened.
The best seller list is only a ranking. It's possible that other books started selling more, e.g. 50 Shades of Grey, and climbed up the list above the 40K books.
I would guess pricing had a lot to do with it though.
Given the huge amount of excitement that was in the Black Library thread back before the move to hardbacks and the general mood of 'here is the new list of books' 'meh, I might pick X or Y up when it comes out in softcover in a years time' that has been there since I think the switch is what shot them in the foot there.
Once upon a time I would have the next 6 months of releases already bought in my mind and devour each one when it came out, now I have passed the latest HH book in softcover at my FLGS a couple of times and haven't bothered getting it though. That's anecdotal, but it also seems to be the same lack of enthusiasm that I see when I talk to others who I know used to love those books, and they are the same kind of conversations we where having 3 years ago about the direction GW was heading (and look where we are with that now.)
So no evidence, but it just feels like the lead up to these terrible financials did.
I recognise the same psychological symptoms in myself regarding various kinds of purchases. I eagerly anticipate them, and when the item comes for some reason of other I do not or cannot buy it straight away. The eagerness to purchase fades and soon I put it on a sort of mental "would like" list and forget about it. It turns out that life goes on without the previously "essential" new thing.
This is fairly standard consumer psychology, and it is why companies do marketing, advertising, price promotions and so on, to build up that sense of anticipation and take advantage of it at launch.
Financial pressure? They don't seem to think themselves they have much financial pressure, given that they just handed out dividend.
Closing regional HQs. Moving to one man stores. Taking on £4.5m in "exceptional costs". Pulling a lot of products from the channel to sell direct to make more margin. No, they are feeling the financial pressure and it is obvious.
I guess that your definition of 'financial pressure' is somewhat different. For me, "financial pressure" means acute shortage of funds or cash flow, or near-term prospect in failing to meet obligations. Given that GW is debt free, has cash in hand and is profitable, saying that they have "financial pressures" is quite a stretch, even if company's outlook otherwise is not wholly positive.
A popular strategy for companies is to assume that the company is in "crisis" all the time, and improvements in efficiency must be thought up even during the "good times": Japanese car manufacturers particularly were famous of this. In one post-LOTR collapse financial report Kirby acknowledges how the company had got "lazy and fat", and describes how he got a dressing-down from an important but frustrated investor for failing to take up proper measures. I am sure he doesn't want to relive that again.
As the CHS lawsuit showed, most of GWs sales of a product come from it's initial release. So they have constantly escalated pricing on new releases, with each batch higher than the previous one. As I have indicated on many other threads here prior to these financials in discussions about companies in panic mode/death spiral, heavy price increases are actually the common reaction at this point. This is one early sign I have long looked for when analyzing troubled companies. When I see constant hikes of 50%+ (and GW has done 70%-100% in quite a few cases this last year), that is generally a warning sign. No sane company, in good shape, pushes 50% price increases in one go on customers.
Of course,there are also cases where new products have lower prices - for example new Ogryns, Meganobz, Mek w/ Shokk attack gun (though only a little) etc. But sure thing, it is more common that the new products have higher prices: in this they follow same pricing strategy as many other miniatures manufacturers, most notably Privateer Press. Did you see their latest release? Blightblades are $35 for six plastic infantry miniatures, and Flameguard Cleansers are $75 for ten metal minis! I guess they are in panic mode too?
Also, I would like some examples about this supposed tendency of companies increasing the prices when they are doing poorly. Because most of the time I have observed the opposite, company responds to lower sales by aggressive pricing. Examples of that are not hard to find: for example number of car manufacturers have responded that way whenever the going gets tough: Saab, General Motors, Ford, even Toyota. Or lets take Nokia, when their smartphone sales began to plummet, they responded by lowering their prices. That's why Lumia is cheaper than iPhone or Galaxy.
Backfire wrote: Rushing products - IIRC, they aren't actually releasing any more miniatures annually than they did before. They are just spread along the year more evenly. They are producing more codices and supplements, though.
Decline in quality - in what way? Technically, no. Artistically, that is always debatable.
Quality of printed books has gone down the tubes in the last year. Riddled with stupid mistakes and very little "crunch" and lots of fluff. Even the 7th edition books have a lot of errors and holes.
Printing quality of the books has in fact gone signifantly up (although of course the price has too). Even starter set nowadays features all-colour mini-rulebook etc. DV has clearly higher quality contents than AOBR did.
In my experience, new codecies do not have any more errors than the old ones. It is true that erratas have got longer - but this is because GW hired a new guy to make erratas few years ago who actually addressed more mistakes and rules issues, than the previous FAQs which were very sparse and almost useless.
As for the quality of the miniatures - they have gone down to (and I am not talking aesthetically, which is subjective). Special plastic characters used to have options with them (see "Space Marine Commander"), now they are all mono-pose with no options. The Imperial Knight? Poor engineering versus kits such as those from DreamForge, yet GW is supposed to produce "the best miniatures in the world". Aesthetically one may prefer the Imperial Knight, but at least with DreamForge you have pose-able legs, detachable and pose-able weapon arms.
Okay now we're getting into silly territory. To what old GW miniature exactly Imperial Knight is inferior? Stompa, or Dreadknight, both even more 'stiff' than the Knight? Now if you had just said that they are price gouging horribly with the Knight, no disagreement. I think they were surprised how well Riptide sold, and thought "hey, are we selling these too cheap?"
As for the Space Marine commander, wasn't he always one of the very few (if not the only one?) in his kind? Sure, the new monopose plastics do not have options (or have only an extra head), but that's because they have been designed to replace old metal/Finecast monopose characters. Reason they are monopose is that you can get a better sculpt that way than multipose. Lets face it, although the SM Commander has nice set of options, sculpt-wise the mini is very blah, and basically can be replicated with regular SM parts.
Backfire wrote: Duh, in 5th and 6th edition releases, they released the edition quite early in the financial year, complete with starter set (which is probably their biggest selling single product). Now, they had just a week or two worth of sales of the basic rulebook, and no starter set.
Actually, the typical releases for 40k were in July (3rd-July 1998, 4th-July 2004, 5th-July 2004) except for 6th edition which was in June and 7th edition which was in May. In other words, 40k editions were always released at the near beginning of their corporate reporting year where 7th was rushed out to catch the end of the year. It is pretty obvious from looking at the 7th edition books as well, that it was rushed out the door to make the end of year period.
Yes, that's what I was saying about the editions, hence the numbers are not any way comparable. Anyway, it's doubtful that 7th edition will result to big sales bump, given how quickly it came after 6th, and lack of new starter set. I have read 7th edition book only once, does it have huge errors? For what I looked, it seemed better written than the 6th edition rulebook - now THAT was a rush job. I don't even understand how they messed it up so bad, given more than ample time. I suspect there were some issues behind the scenes.
Two large distributors/stores have reported that Infinity Operation: Icestorm pre-orders (only available for two weeks now and still three weeks to go) has already outsold 40k 7th edition by 2 to 1 (with more time to go) and another one reported Dystopian Wars outselling 40k 7th edition by a factor of 7 to 1.
So in other words the evidence is anecdotal and may have very mundane explanation (very active Spartan Games community in one town etc). My local FLGS does not carry either Infinity or Spartan Games, not even Warmachine.(In fact I would be surprised if there are more than ten Spartan Games players in the entire country). They do have X-wing, which seems to be selling nicely, and Flames of War, which seems like it doesn't. FWIW, neither Spartan Games or Corvus Belli made it to icv2's Top 5 miniature games list this spring.
One of them is the largest online independent gaming store in Europe. I would expect their sales to be a pretty good reflection of what's happening on the whole. Particularly because they sell virtually every major and minor gaming system. At what point does evidence go from being anecdotal to empirical?
Genuinely curious at which point evidence becomes accepted. I'd have thought that a statement from the biggest indie out there would count for something.
The guy from the Future of Games Worshop series has been talking in one of his Beeble Babbles (shameless plug here, they are awesome). If you're not interested in the whole thing the relevant stuff starts at about 1:08 ish.
He makes a couple of comments in particular, like that he is getting a proper analyst friend to look over the report in depth when he can and his prediction is that GW will start closing stores if things don't suddenly get better.
Evidence becomes accepted when it supports the position you already hold.
The ICV2 seems a fairly good survey of the retail market even though they don't publish specific detailed figures. We already know that GW's sales have declined because their own financial report says that definitively. If the ICV2 survey seems to confirm the point, this is supportive of ICV2.
The guy from the Future of Games Worshop series has been talking in one of his Beeble Babbles (shameless plug here, they are awesome). If you're not interested in the whole thing the relevant stuff starts at about 1:08 ish.
He makes a couple of comments in particular, like that he is getting a proper analyst friend to look over the report in depth when he can and his prediction is that GW will start closing stores if things don't suddenly get better.
I signed up to the Kickstarter project as I thought the models looked great
jonolikespie wrote: The guy from the Future of Games Worshop series has been talking in one of his Beeble Babbles (shameless plug here, they are awesome). If you're not interested in the whole thing the relevant stuff starts at about 1:08 ish.
He makes a couple of comments in particular, like that he is getting a proper analyst friend to look over the report in depth when he can and his prediction is that GW will start closing stores if things don't suddenly get better.
Thanks for the link and the time, which to be specific is 1:09:20 (direct link to the time).
Interesting watch so far! I'll sub to this guy I think.
Thanks for the link and the time, which to be specific is 1:09:20 (direct link to the time).
Interesting watch so far! I'll sub to this guy I think.
Somewhere around 1:31 (wow it's long) they mention Allen Merit being... very not good for the company, and they both apparently have personal experience there. I found that quite interesting since there was quite a bit of discussion in the Chapterhouse thread about how.. not good he seemed.
Yeah the CHS certainly brought to light a lot of "not good" things in the GW mindset and upper management. Merritt is still there? Not the guy given the golden handshake in Jan?
I think you're thinking of Mark Wells. The guy who was the CEO who seemed to be nothing more than a puppet for Kirby to get around those pesky laws about not being chairman and CEO.
Also found it funny to hear his first thought on seeing Kirby's ramble was 'he's drunk'.
Mark Wells was at GW for 13 years as CEO and left in 2013. I don't think he was merely a "sock puppet".
Alan Merrett has been with GW for much longer, since the Bryan Ansell days in fact. He came to be Head of Intellectual Property and played a significant role in the still unresolved Chapter House case.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I think the HH books were consistently bestsellers from A Thousand Sons up until they started the hardcover releases.
I just felt the need to address this, as it gives a misleading impression of the books' popularity.
Out of all of these books, only three stayed on the NYT Bestseller list for two weeks, and none stayed on the list for any longer. This indicates that they had a strong fanbase that snapped up the books when they first came out, but never had any sort of broad market appeal.
If that kind of book had a broad market appeal then Black Library would contribute more revenue. Last year Black Library, Forge World, digital sales and Warhammer World all put together contributed £14.48 M, which was 11.7% of the total.
Kilkrazy wrote: If that kind of book had a broad market appeal then Black Library would contribute more revenue. Last year Black Library, Forge World, digital sales and Warhammer World all put together contributed £14.48 M, which was 11.7% of the total.
I'd love to see a breakdown of these in % or British Pound Moneys.
Kilkrazy wrote: If that kind of book had a broad market appeal then Black Library would contribute more revenue. Last year Black Library, Forge World, digital sales and Warhammer World all put together contributed £14.48 M, which was 11.7% of the total.
Agreed.
The reason I addressed the comment was because of the context of broad market appeal and awareness of the GWWH40K IP. A comment had been made that it was unlikely that a company would buy the 40K IP to make movies or books, and someone responded with the fact that several of the HH books made the NYT Bestseller list. My point (which is largely supported by the revenue from the Black Library) was that these appearances on said list were blips and not indicative of sufficient broad market appeal to justify someone seeking ownership of said IP specifically for selling novels.
I don't think GW is smart enough to capitalize on the IP. They want people to buy the figures (and the terrain, and the RoB board) and that's it.
A smart thing would have been to keep around the clothing novelties, go into video games - imagine an Assassin's Creed (or even Metroid!) type of game with a Callidus Assassin (with gigantic breasts in a tight bodysuit, of course), a Halo-like Space Hulk game, a CoD-like game, etc. Do a virtualized 40k type of game, that lets you play 40k on the computer against others. A 40k MOBA. You get the idea.
They should have been milking this stuff for years to be more than just a tabletop game.
WayneTheGame wrote: I don't think GW is smart enough to capitalize on the IP. They want people to buy the figures (and the terrain, and the RoB board) and that's it.
A smart thing would have been to keep around the clothing novelties, go into video games - imagine an Assassin's Creed (or even Metroid!) type of game with a Callidus Assassin (with gigantic breasts in a tight bodysuit, of course), a Halo-like Space Hulk game, a CoD-like game, etc. Do a virtualized 40k type of game, that lets you play 40k on the computer against others. A 40k MOBA. You get the idea.
They should have been milking this stuff for years to be more than just a tabletop game.
Indeed, their way of selling 40k is a bit dumb.
Have a look at the new SW codex. SW players will just buy the new models (flyers and the murder Dread) but generally nothing else. This is not much.
WayneTheGame wrote: I don't think GW is smart enough to capitalize on the IP. They want people to buy the figures (and the terrain, and the RoB board) and that's it.
A smart thing would have been to keep around the clothing novelties, go into video games - imagine an Assassin's Creed (or even Metroid!) type of game with a Callidus Assassin (with gigantic breasts in a tight bodysuit, of course), a Halo-like Space Hulk game, a CoD-like game, etc. Do a virtualized 40k type of game, that lets you play 40k on the computer against others. A 40k MOBA. You get the idea.
They should have been milking this stuff for years to be more than just a tabletop game.
I do not believe the IP is all that strong, to be frank. Not wanting to rehash the arguments about provenance, but at heart WHFB and 40K both are rather derivative and do not have much in them to attract the general reader/viewer.
That said, I think is some hope that the new character Murderwolf, who murders people with his Murderclaws while in a frenzy of Murderlust, could ignite a much wider interest.
TheAuldGrump wrote: Though the folks at Paizo maintain that Pathfinder outstripped 4e much earlier - and in that... my local market seems to agree with. Mid to late 2010. (See if you can find the audio files for Aunt Lisa's Story Hour - a lot of fun to listen to.) *EDIT* Link!
ICv2 first published Pathfinder as being the number 1 RPG in 2nd quarter, 2011. Essentials was released September, 2010. It was indeed in response to falling sales though. I was talking about the people not believing ICv2, even though pathfinder was likely already outselling them before the q2, 2011 report that made that public knowledge.
Yeah... instead of there being a 500 pound gorilla in the RPG industry there ended up being a 240 pound gorilla, a 220 pound gorilla, and enough monkeys as will fit in a large barrel.
I actually think this is a lot better and hope the miniature market continues to be more fragmented with more companies entering all the time. With each financial report we see that GW is giving up more and more market share and with each price hike on new releases, companies without GW's potential economies of scale advantage can enter the market with healthy margins.
WotC damaged the market a good deal - I suspect that Pathfinder and 4e put together were not as big as the 3.X/D20 market.
The most damaging release for the RPG market was the 3.5 release. It pretty much invalidated huge swathes of the OGL product lines and started an industry wide contraction that left very few survivors in 2008 compared to just a few years earlier. Then with 4E's narrow focus and the abandonment of 3.x to Pathfinder, they damaged it further.
Though, again to be fair, WotC did spend a fair amount of ink telling folks that if they had 3e then they really didn't need to switch to 3.5.
That 3.5 was just minor 'improvements' and was by and large compatible with minor changes (with a conversion document available). (I do not agree with all of the changes - in particular that everything suddenly had squared off base sizes.)
Given that Pathfinder changes things further, and that I can do conversions from 3e to 3P on the fly... it seems an accurate enough claim.
In this case the crash was driven by the customers, not just the publisher.
But at least those stupid grav chariots make sense in a blood sport exhibition - much less on a far future battlefield. People expect gladiators to die....
The Auld Grump, and I hate the danged triangular fur that GW seems to like so very much these days....
The HH books was a great idea and I thought there was a release plan. Say 10 - 15 books and then we got to the big battle on Earth, but no. Once GW sussed that they were popular they just kept churning them out with no end in site
AFAIK, Mark Wells was bought in by Tom Kirby to take up the position of C.E.O ,in 2008 .Because it is considered a 'conflict of interest ' (illegal?) for the same person to be company chairman AND C.E.O.
After the awful results of GW plc in 2007, Kirby was advised NOT to continue as C.E.O.AND Chairman , as he would not be supported by shareholders.Apparently ?
Mark Wells, just followed the instructions of the company Chairman ( Tom Kirby,) and cut costs,and raised retail prices.
Mark Wells has since been awarded about £500k , by GW plc.(Not sure if it was severance pay, or compensation for 'constructive dismissal'?)
Is the proposed option for GW plc to buy back £4 M of shares , to let Tom Kirby off load a good amount of his shares without loosing value through 'trading' them?
I get the sense Tom Kirby is getting his golden parachute ready...
He has managed to get over £6M out of GW plc since 2007, when he admitted the GW corporate management were '..fat and lazy..'
By continuing to take EXACTLY the same' fat and lazy' actions !
Wolfstan wrote: The HH books was a great idea and I thought there was a release plan. Say 10 - 15 books and then we got to the big battle on Earth, but no. Once GW sussed that they were popular they just kept churning them out with no end in site
I would definitely like to see the HH come to a conclusion. I love it, but I also want to see the ending. In my life time.
Wolfstan wrote: The HH books was a great idea and I thought there was a release plan. Say 10 - 15 books and then we got to the big battle on Earth, but no. Once GW sussed that they were popular they just kept churning them out with no end in site
I've read the first three, which I thought were quite good really, there are so many now I don't really know where to go next so just haven't bothered.
I wanted to read the story of the heresy from start to finish, but, and I may be wrong as I have long given up following it all, what it actually is is just a never ending series of stories from that time.
Wolfstan wrote: The HH books was a great idea and I thought there was a release plan. Say 10 - 15 books and then we got to the big battle on Earth, but no. Once GW sussed that they were popular they just kept churning them out with no end in site
I read the first couple ones, but I just found them extremely boring and, I think pretentious is the word that I'm looking for to describe the style in which they were written.
It's a bit like the Forgeworld releases, at this rate GW will go bust before they do an Emperor figure.
I think FW going under if GW fall would be a real loss though. That's were the good stuff is being made now and there's a different attitude by the staff towards letting out peeks of new material, having open days, attending events. Stuff that GW main has decided is worthy of them.
I loved the first 3 books. As I've said before I found myself telling Horus to listen to reason. There has been some good ones and indifferent ones since then. However they should of decided on a 10 - 15 book arc and stuck to it. Everything else should come under some sort of sub HH header.
Lanrak wrote: AFAIK, Mark Wells was bought in by Tom Kirby to take up the position of C.E.O ,in 2008 .Because it is considered a 'conflict of interest ' (illegal?) for the same person to be company chairman AND C.E.O.
It is neither, it is just considered not best practice and a little frowned upon, but ultimately it is the hands of the individual organisation.
Mark Wells has since been awarded about £500k , by GW plc.(Not sure if it was severance pay, or compensation for 'constructive dismissal'?)
It is referenced as "compensation" not "renumeration" and is accounted for in the next accounting period along from when he left. I'm not sure what it represents either, but it certainly smells off.
Is the proposed option for GW plc to buy back £4 M of shares , to let Tom Kirby off load a good amount of his shares without loosing value through 'trading' them?
I get the sense Tom Kirby is getting his golden parachute ready...
Yep, it would certainly look that way, he's approaching retirement age after all. I agree the buy back could certainly be some or all of his shares. That he wants to cash in now, and not sit back, claim a dividend and let the shares naturally accumulate in value may tell it's own story.
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Wolfstan wrote: I loved the first 3 books. As I've said before I found myself telling Horus to listen to reason. There has been some good ones and indifferent ones since then. However they should of decided on a 10 - 15 book arc and stuck to it. Everything else should come under some sort of sub HH header.
I've gone from reading almost exclusively BL books to only reading the MMPB HH novels, none of the ebooks, novellas or wider Universe stuff for 40K or Fantasy (and I was one sat hitting F5 when Promethean Sun was about to go on sale to get a signed, LE copy, and for Aurelian, not bothered since.)
The transition to HB knocked me off the treadmill where I'd get the latest HH, finish it, pick up some other BL novel before the next HH was due out, read the next HH book... etc, etc. The gap between MMPB was so long during the transition, and I was so irritated by that, I went elsewhere, discovered some new, non BL authors and rediscovered some old ones who had put new stuff out while I'd been married to BL.
So in the space of around 4 years since I fully re-engaged with wargaming, GW, in one form or another, have managed to transition from receiving near 100% of the cash I spent on models and books to, in all likelihood, around 10-20%. I can't believe I'm such a special snowflake that others haven't got similar stories.
So in the space of around 4 years since I fully re-engaged with wargaming, GW, in one form or another, have managed to transition from receiving near 100% of the cash I spent on models and books to, in all likelihood, around 10-20%. I can't believe I'm such a special snowflake that others haven't got similar stories.
GW saw that the HH novels were a cash cow and is going to milk it for all that it's worth. My fear is that it will turn into the 41st millennium and the story never progresses, just endless, mindless fluff.
Azreal13 wrote: It is referenced as "compensation" not "renumeration" and is accounted for in the next accounting period along from when he left. I'm not sure what it represents either, but it certainly smells off.
Just as a point of note the £569k compensation for loss of office was paid and accounted for in the 12/13 year, it just restates the figures for the previous year in the report. This is confirmed if you look at the figures in last years report. Compensation for loss of office is a term often used for termination of employment or for people taking early retirement, whether this was Mark Wells' choice or not is up for discussion but for information purposes these are the terms for Executive Director service contract in the Remuneration Report.
Each of the executive directors has a service agreement with the Company which is capable of termination by either party on giving 12 months’ notice. If the Company gives notice then the Company reserves the right to pay salary in lieu of notice. The service agreements are silent regarding the payment that may be due in the event of early termination by the Company.
There is no specific service contract information for the CEO so this should apply. Now they may have decided to give him greater than 12 months pay in lieu, but there was nothing specific in any of the reports since he left (not that necessarily should have been). I believe he was on a Salary of £266k at the time of resignation, he earned £177k for the 8 months worked until his resignation, but obviously the £569k payment is over twice what it would seem he should receive if it was pay in lieu of notice.
It's hard to come to any real conclusion on this as while it might have been it push, he also might have wanted to jump and asked for enough money to do so quietly, or anything in between.
Musashi363 wrote: GW saw that the HH novels were a cash cow and is going to milk it for all that it's worth. My fear is that it will turn into the 41st millennium and the story never progresses, just endless, mindless fluff.
While I'm aware that there's always the possibility of procrastination or even a total about-face, I've seen comments from several of the authors (ADB, and Abnett and McNeill IIRC) to the effect that there's already a plan in place for how to progress the main narrative and for the end-game.
Of course, that will just be on the novels, and it doesn't preclude any number of audio dramas, special, limited edition ebooks and novellas, plus numerous anthologies reprinting them all in collective works in the meantime.
Azreal13 wrote: It is referenced as "compensation" not "renumeration" and is accounted for in the next accounting period along from when he left. I'm not sure what it represents either, but it certainly smells off.
Just as a point of note the £569k compensation for loss of office was paid and accounted for in the 12/13 year, it just restates the figures for the previous year in the report. This is confirmed if you look at the figures in last years report. Compensation for loss of office is a term often used for termination of employment or for people taking early retirement, whether this was Mark Wells' choice or not is up for discussion but for information purposes these are the terms for Executive Director service contract in the Remuneration Report.
Each of the executive directors has a service agreement with the Company which is capable of termination by either party on giving 12 months’ notice. If the Company gives notice then the Company reserves the right to pay salary in lieu of notice. The service agreements are silent regarding the payment that may be due in the event of early termination by the Company.
There is no specific service contract information for the CEO so this should apply. Now they may have decided to give him greater than 12 months pay in lieu, but there was nothing specific in any of the reports since he left (not that necessarily should have been). I believe he was on a Salary of £266k at the time of resignation, he earned £177k for the 8 months worked until his resignation, but obviously the £569k payment is over twice what it would seem he should receive if it was pay in lieu of notice.
It's hard to come to any real conclusion on this as while it might have been it push, he also might have wanted to jump and asked for enough money to do so quietly, or anything in between.
Agreed, but I'm struggling to come up with many theories that are totally reasonable and innocent though.
Musashi363 wrote: GW saw that the HH novels were a cash cow and is going to milk it for all that it's worth. My fear is that it will turn into the 41st millennium and the story never progresses, just endless, mindless fluff.
While I'm aware that there's always the possibility of procrastination or even a total about-face, I've seen comments from several of the authors (ADB, and Abnett and McNeill IIRC) to the effect that there's already a plan in place for how to progress the main narrative and for the end-game.
Of course, that will just be on the novels, and it doesn't preclude any number of audio dramas, special, limited edition ebooks and novellas, plus numerous anthologies reprinting them all in collective works in the meantime.
I too share this concern. I think the people driving the boat don't always share the navigator's view. The writer's may have a view, but if the bean counter's won't let them implement it, it doesn't really matter. HH jumped the shark for me quite awhile ago.
Lanrak wrote: AFAIK, Mark Wells was bought in by Tom Kirby to take up the position of C.E.O ,in 2008 .Because it is considered a 'conflict of interest ' (illegal?) for the same person to be company chairman AND C.E.O.
After the awful results of GW plc in 2007, Kirby was advised NOT to continue as C.E.O.AND Chairman , as he would not be supported by shareholders.Apparently ?
... ...
According to his LinkedIn page he was CEO at GW from 2000 to 2013.
sciencemile wrote: I'd pay money for some official Aquila/Khorne/Slaanesh/etc Necklaces. Or the Inquisitorial Collar Pin.
Inquisitorial/Admech neckchain, IG dog tags etc...
But that will never happen (again) because it's logical and makes sense. Kirby doesn't support stupid notions like common sense.
Or T-shirts, they tired once back in the day with meh worthy designs and then gave up on it entirely. Brand the gak out of it. Dice, shirts, iPhone cases, stickers.
So in the space of around 4 years since I fully re-engaged with wargaming, GW, in one form or another, have managed to transition from receiving near 100% of the cash I spent on models and books to, in all likelihood, around 10-20%. I can't believe I'm such a special snowflake that others haven't got similar stories.
For some Vets in our gaming group, the similar holds. They mainly spend their money for WM/H.
@Azreal13
I stand corrected on the same person being C.E.O.and Chairman of the board of the same company.Is 'not best practice' and 'just frowned upon'.
(But GW plcs poor performance in 2007, put Tom Kirby in the spot light, as it were, and investors were not happy about him holding both positions.AFAIK.)
@Azreal13
I stand corrected on the same person being C.E.O.and Chairman of the board of the same company.Is 'not best practice' and 'just frowned upon'.
(But GW plcs poor performance in 2007, put Tom Kirby in the spot light, as it were, and investors were not happy about him holding both positions.AFAIK.)
Probably he joined GW in 2000 and was appointed CEO in 2008.
@Azreal13
I stand corrected on the same person being C.E.O.and Chairman of the board of the same company.Is 'not best practice' and 'just frowned upon'.
(But GW plcs poor performance in 2007, put Tom Kirby in the spot light, as it were, and investors were not happy about him holding both positions.AFAIK.)
Probably he joined GW in 2000 and was appointed CEO in 2008.
I'm sure he held a head of retail or equivalent position near the beginning, that's the capacity in which I believe he visited the store I red-shirted in the one time I met him.
The pace of codex updates is really astonishing.
Now SW. Then GK in a few weeks.
GW obviously thinks that this will increase sales.
Thoughts?
Vet players will generally only buy the new stuff. In terms of SW, flyers and Murder*.
On the other hand, the number of players starting SW will be rather limited due to prices and LE of the starter box Sanctus Reach.
I'm hoping to get back into playing 40k using the 40k in 40min rules, but this will be with the old rules & codex. If I go ahead I will buy some of the new SW basic units, but that's as far as it goes.
wuestenfux wrote: The pace of codex updates is really astonishing.
Now SW. Then GK in a few weeks.
GW obviously thinks that this will increase sales.
Thoughts?
Actually, I believe that's what they have to do to get rid of these "Codex Inequities" with the new edition.
For V7 to work, you must have all the books aligned. Indeed, since you can take everything you want from everywhere, if something isn't adapted to the new rules, it will not work.
But to accelerate game rules pace, you must accept the fact you will have less new models. For the sake of the game, they are forced to do that.
Well, 40k is more and more the core business of GW.
What I don't understand why they don't give Fantasy a chance to grow or restart with releasing a new rule book.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, 40k is more and more the core business of GW.
What I don't understand why they don't give Fantasy a chance to grow or restart with releasing a new rule book.
No market research = they don't understand what to do to give it that chance. Much easier to blame it on (paraphrasing) "cyclical changes in taste".
wuestenfux wrote: The pace of codex updates is really astonishing.
Now SW. Then GK in a few weeks.
GW obviously thinks that this will increase sales.
Thoughts?
Vet players will generally only buy the new stuff. In terms of SW, flyers and Murder*.
On the other hand, the number of players starting SW will be rather limited due to prices and LE of the starter box Sanctus Reach.
There are several factors involved.
Doubling the cost of codexes will not have increased sales numbers. The evidence suggest if anything it reduced overall sales (total value of sales fell last year.)
Let us assume there is a codex that in the normal run of things would come up for a new edition in mid-2016. Say it is Dark Eldar for the sake of the argument.
If GW bring out a new DE codex now rather than in 2016, obviously there are some DE players who will buy it now despite the price. Equally obviously though they won't buy it in 2016. So, in a sense, GW would be cashing in their codex chips early. There are about 12 (?) factions or codexes in 40K. There is no particular reason why they could not all be issued at the same time. The problem for GW is that if all the players who want the new edition buy it in 2014, the sales will collapse in 2015 unless they invalidate the codexes with a new rules edition. Which to some degree is what they did with 7th edition coming less than two years after 6th edition. It is like spending money with a credit card.
Overall I strongly approve of codexes being updated to the latest edition of the rules as quickly as possible. It is only fair that all armies in a supposedly competitive, balanced game (ha ha) should be operating in the same rule system. I do not believe players will stand for buying a new codex for their army every year or two, though, just because GW might want to issue a new rulebook every 23 months.
Possibly GW plan to fill in with digital releases and other add-on packs. ATM the digital publishing is a tiny fraction of the overall sales but it probably will grow, though how big is guesswork.
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what they decide to do when they catch up to the new codices in the cycle. Do they think that CSM players are going to buy a new codex less than 3 years after their last one?
Come to think of it, that thing's such a pile of crap that it might work in that instance. I guess the real question is what about DA or Chaos Demons?
If they keep up at the current rate, they're going to hit the same wall that the rules are starting to hit: people aren't going to buy the same books every 2 years.
The release schedule doesn't bother me in the slightest - I think it's great on it's own. I do think the quality of the codices has decreased lately, but I blame that more on the shift to the "DLC" model. A basic codex is sold with the hope that more exciting DLC will be guaranteed purchases - GW doesn't seem to realise that poor codices instead makes many people not buy them thus defeating the purpose.
If the rule quality was good I'd buy the codices for my armies without much complaint. If they were also cheap I'd likely buy many or all of them, likely inspiring me to start more armies. As KilKrazy has said before- expensive (and bad) codices costs GW model sales.
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what they decide to do when they catch up to the new codices in the cycle. Do they think that CSM players are going to buy a new codex less than 3 years after their last one?
Indeed, this will become interesting.
Maybe they will first release some digital supplements.
If it doesn't work, they will release 8th ed.
GW / Kirby was right in a limited way about their customer base: for items they like, cost does not factor in... much.
BUT, it is the non-essential items that no longer are bought.
I used to like getting all the codex's so I can keep up on all the rules of armies I may fight, now, I try to find means to read them without buying them since I do not "need" them.
GW paint, not essential, many good brands out there and with better paint containers that do not dry out as readily.
The new clippers and mold line remover are really good products, they work great, but my goodness the price! Other tools will do...
Rucksack, figure storage cases, terrain, glue, dice, tape measures, all stuff you can get elsewhere of better quality for a lower price.
There were discussions of wanting various clothing/jewelry items people would like, could you imagine what they would cost in GW prices? $50 for a T-shirt with an Ultramarine symbol on it?
I guess in summary, GW management does not distinguish between core "must have items" being priced to what the market can bear vs. the "nice to have" and them being geared toward being a little more competitive while justifying a slightly higher price by being collectors items with their branding on them. Many opportunities for profit but no real plan on how they fit in their niche.
I still have that quote rattling around in my head: "We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants." It takes a particularly brilliant company to anticipate what the consumer wants without knowing their wants, culture or habits.
To lead the consumer, develop their tastes and develop excitement takes intense market research and marketing campaigns, bah, you get the point... arrogance and bluster seems to rule the day and we will see the golden parachute utilized before Kirby would admit he may be wrong.
I think one thing that is being overlooked with the accelerated release schedule is people buying power and/or painting backlog will not keep up with the new pace.
Assumption 1: Most people in the hobby are on some kind of fixed allotment of how much they can spend either by choice or by lack of finances.
Assumption 2: Some portion of people also tend to look at the big pile of NIB models in the corner and at some point decide to put on the breaks until they can catch up
Let's assume I am the most hardcore 40K fan out there and am completely happy with the game in its current state. Even if I want to make purchases as they come out, at some point the release schedule is going to out run my wallet and/or my desire to keep piling models up in the corner. Let's just look at the last 12 months and assume I have $750 allocated to put into the my SW army above and beyond painting supplies and other incidentals. Prices are all MSRP because I want to support my local FLGS or GW.
New Codex: $49.50
All dataslates: $10
1x Murderfang - $54
2x Stormwolf - $162
Brethern of the Fell-Handed: $162
7th edition codex - $85
Codex: Imperial Knights - $41
Imperial Knight - $140
That is $703.50 prior to sales tax, which is $745.71 after 6% sales tax. Eight months into the year, I'm done and can't buy anything else. Anything that comes out this year that I want, starts building a backlog into next year, meaning I either don't start a new army or I choose to limit my SW purchases, which makes me unhappy.
Let's assume that I own 2 separate armies or want to take advantage of my allies. This means every year, I'm probably going to have spend $100 just in books and another $50 to $100 in supplements. At some point, the money reaches critical mass and people throw their hands up and walk away.
I also think $750 per year is pretty liberal for most people. Assuming little Johnny gets $10 per week in allowance, but doesn't have to cover cloths or food. It's pure spending money. That is only $520 per year, which I doubt they are going spend all on GW products.
Barfolomew wrote: I think one thing that is being overlooked with the accelerated release schedule is people buying power and/or painting backlog will not keep up with the new pace.
Assumption 1: Most people in the hobby are on some kind of fixed allotment of how much they can spend either by choice or by lack of finances.
Assumption 2: Some portion of people also tend to look at the big pile of NIB models in the corner and at some point decide to put on the breaks until they can catch up
Let's assume I am the most hardcore 40K fan out there and am completely happy with the game in its current state. Even if I want to make purchases as they come out, at some point the release schedule is going to out run my wallet and/or my desire to keep piling models up in the corner. Let's just look at the last 12 months and assume I have $750 allocated to put into the my SW army above and beyond painting supplies and other incidentals. Prices are all MSRP because I want to support my local FLGS or GW.
New Codex: $49.50
All dataslates: $10
1x Murderfang - $54
2x Stormwolf - $162
Brethern of the Fell-Handed: $162
7th edition codex - $85
Codex: Imperial Knights - $41
Imperial Knight - $140
That is $703.50 prior to sales tax, which is $745.71 after 6% sales tax. Eight months into the year, I'm done and can't buy anything else. Anything that comes out this year that I want, starts building a backlog into next year, meaning I either don't start a new army or I choose to limit my SW purchases, which makes me unhappy.
Let's assume that I own 2 separate armies or want to take advantage of my allies. This means every year, I'm probably going to have spend $100 just in books and another $50 to $100 in supplements. At some point, the money reaches critical mass and people throw their hands up and walk away.
I also think $750 per year is pretty liberal for most people. Assuming little Johnny gets $10 per week in allowance, but doesn't have to cover cloths or food. It's pure spending money. That is only $520 per year, which I doubt they are going spend all on GW products.
This is a very good example when it comes to keeping up with a new release.
The next releases GK, Necrons, and BA will badly hurt my wallet.
This is a very good example when it comes to keeping up with a new release.
The next releases GK, Necrons, and BA will badly hurt my wallet.
Let's look at my actual situation. I quit the game in early 5th edition. If I want get back into the game now as a CSM player, I at minimum should buy the following:
$184 before I can even play the game. This right here is enough for me to go feth that and go play something else.
Models I would like to get:
Herald of Khorne: $22.25
2x Flesh Hounds of Khorne: $99
Helbrute: $54
Vindicator: $57.75
Land Raider: $76
Aspiring Champion: $20
Huron Blackheart: $19.25
Sorcerer: $19.25
$367.50 for models I like the looks of, but if I want to be competitive, I need to buy 2 sets of models I think look aweful (Obliterators and Helldrakes), which set me back $381 of which one can only be ordered direct (Obliterators).
Also agree, that "critical mass" I have observed in my own spending habits.
I feel that badly enough with some X-wing models still in unbroken blister packs (for shame!).
I have one Imperial Knight I REALLY want to take the time and put together and paint well but my "core armies" are keeping me away as I paint so I can get in the gaming time and have the pretty army we all appreciate.
The backlog could comfortably take me to late spring next year (??!!).
So I am again at the point where only core codex's or rules changes would be a must buy.
I can find money for the occasional good blister pack character or a particularly cool model but that is it and very few and far between.
GW really needs to find a way to catch the eye of new customers with a ton of starter money to make their condensed release dates viable.
I am not sure where you find that kind of consumer but if you do not perform market research, wishful thinking is as good as anything else.
This is a very good example when it comes to keeping up with a new release.
The next releases GK, Necrons, and BA will badly hurt my wallet.
Let's look at my actual situation. I quit the game in early 5th edition. If I want get back into the game now as a CSM player, I at minimum should buy the following:
$184 before I can even play the game. This right here is enough for me to go feth that and go play something else.
Models I would like to get:
Herald of Khorne: $22.25
2x Flesh Hounds of Khorne: $99
Helbrute: $54
Vindicator: $57.75
Land Raider: $76
Aspiring Champion: $20
Huron Blackheart: $19.25
Sorcerer: $19.25
$367.50 for models I like the looks of, but if I want to be competitive, I need to buy 2 sets of models I think look aweful (Obliterators and Helldrakes), which set me back $381 of which one can only be ordered direct (Obliterators).
If you restart CSM, then the DV starter box would be an option. This will give you some nice CSM models, a Hellbrute, 20 Cultists, and a rulebook.
Don't forget CSM Bikers or Spawn which are rather popular if led by a Biker HQ.
The other thing about the accelerated pace of codex releases - even less playtesting,
Not playtesting is... bad.
Yet, somehow, a tiny company like Mantic can fit in the time to do playtesting, while the giant of the industry can't?
Something is very wrong there - and I think that it is because GW is becoming, ever increasingly, a self contained microcosm, where what is happening outside does not matter to them.
And the process of each codex is an even smaller microcosm, so there is little to no attempt for balance with the other codices.
Not new for them - the original Realms of Chaos and Waaaggh the Orks suffered from being similar microcosms. Tested only against themselves rather than against other armies in the WH40 and Fantasy universes.
Yet, somehow, a tiny company like Mantic can fit in the time to do playtesting, while the giant of the industry can't?
The Auld Grump
Agreed, it's totally silly the lack of meaningful playtesting GW uses.
Here in the Atlanta area, CMON has their HQ. They do playtesting for a variety of their upcoming games or updates on most Friday nights. They invite local players through their Facebook presence to come up to their facility for the testing sessions. CMON is a blip on the radar compared to GW, but they have a greater understanding of the need for playtesting, as well as gaining a degree of local community support by allowing local players to participate in that testing and having input into what needs to be improved or changed.
Where are people getting the idea there is an accelerated release schedule?
We aren't getting more product, we are just getting 4x one week's releases rather than 1x four weeks worth.
We still only get one new army update or equivalent per month, the Orks release seemed to go in forever, was it six weeks in a row? The fact that WHFB has very much been relegated to a distant second might make it seem like 40K is getting more stuff more often, but the reality is that any acceleration in launches is not that drastic from what we had previously, and it isn't a good excuse for the poor quality of some of the rules and other items that have been released.
Well, any sane company would. However, Gw not conducting market research probably leads them to believe that they have no spectrum. That or they're actively trying to force a certain end of their spectrum to disengage - and it's working!
Kilkrazy wrote:There used to be a codex every six months.
Indeed, but that was back in fifth? I was taking people to mean the new week-by-week schedule, which simply isn't generating more product than the old "once a month" pattern, just that it appears more frequent.
Alpharius wrote:Is GWcoldly murdering their 'veteran' consumer base for the sake of the "Two Birthdays and a Christmas" demographic?
Shouldn't their own results for the past few years show them that it isn't really working?
Shouldn't they be working to find a way to successfully work with both ends of their market spectrum?
"We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants."
Kilkrazy wrote:There used to be a codex every six months.
Indeed, but that was back in fifth? I was taking people to mean the new week-by-week schedule, which simply isn't generating more product than the old "once a month" pattern, just that it appears more frequent.
The new release pattern kicked off late last year (it was the 25 days of Advent 40k that marked my decision to stop caring).
So many excuses, usually in these things they tend to say how they are investing in some odd item to improve for the future.
You know, bother to say something like "Yeah, it is not as good now but that is because we are working toward our newest plan that will be so much better in the new year!!!"
I think Kirby was trying to cater to all those who are "smart like him" and are on the dividend gravy train: no worries, the company has lots of room for cost savings and assets to leverage, we can squeeze out a few more years of profit and pay ourselves further! Never mind crazy talk like expanding markets, new technologies and IP opportunities.
That is the concern with this report, no looking to the future.
Kirby really likes that Apple comparison but Steve Jobs actually wanted perfection out of the products they sold and the money would follow, that attitude did not seem to translate.
I get that they don't do demographic research, have no focus groups and do not ask the market what it wants.
BUT...wouldn't there own financial results tell them that what they're doing isn't really working?
I wouldn't be surprised if the never put the two together. Sure, they can see sales declining, but maybe they think the reason is not enough GW stores, or those pesky online retailers selling things at a discount, or eBay or any number of things other than their own strategy. People aren't buying enough! Make the game bigger! Nonsense like that.
So the conclusion GW comes to is they need to have more things direct only, open up more one-man shops, release more content or larger kits. And it's completely wrong, because they don't do any research or ask the market what it wants, so they have no way of knowing what's not working, only that "something" isn't, and jump to the wrong conclusions.
Either Kirby and the Kronies are completely ignorant or they know what's going on and don't care because they've already made their money.
wuestenfux wrote: The pace of codex updates is really astonishing.
Now SW. Then GK in a few weeks.
GW obviously thinks that this will increase sales.
Thoughts?
They can release new codexes as fast as they want, I still won't be buying them until they offer a softcover option.
Vet players will generally only buy the new stuff. .
This is not actually true.
A lot of vets build multiple armies, and even those who stick to the one army will generally need to buy additional stuff as new codexes rearrange their army.
Vet players will generally only buy the new stuff. .
This is not actually true.
A lot of vets build multiple armies, and even those who stick to the one army will generally need to buy additional stuff as new codexes rearrange their army.
Up until very recently, my usual pattern was to see/plan a playstyle I wanted to try out, figure out the codex that fit it best, and go buy the whole mess. That's where my CSM, Eldar, Skaven, & Necron armies all came from, but that's also what caused my IG, CSM, & Tyranid armies to grow as large as they did - potential for interesting new ways to play the army within the codex sometimes required a significant addition to the collection.
That ended last December, with the "25 days of silly new rules in a variety of hard-to-track formats."
Yep, I started playing my Marines out of the BA book, because, as Raven Guard, it allowed me to play them as I wanted without bending rules (already had ASM as troops etc)
When the last Codex SM book dropped, it fired me up to buy the models to allow me to use the variety of chapter tactics to play all sorts of flavours of Marine lists (not the smallest investment of which was a whole bundle of bikes)
The 7th book has enthused me enough about some of the copious chariot units my Daemons can field, but at this point I'm happy to hunt down second hand and alternate models, as I've had my enthusiasm repeatedly kicked in the interim to the point where I'm VERY reluctant to buy new, and even more reluctant to buy direct from GW.
I get that they don't do demographic research, have no focus groups and do not ask the market what it wants.
BUT...wouldn't there own financial results tell them that what they're doing isn't really working?
I wouldn't be surprised if the never put the two together. Sure, they can see sales declining, but maybe they think the reason is not enough GW stores, or those pesky online retailers selling things at a discount, or eBay or any number of things other than their own strategy. People aren't buying enough! Make the game bigger! Nonsense like that.
"Its all Chapter House Studios' fault, stealing revenue that rightly belongs to us."
They've produced ok rules sets, but everybody has at least one quibble with something. 
market research 
Far from the full story, and not very relevant to it. Shieldwolf orcs are still a viable alternative to 
