H.B.M.C. wrote: That's just your longwinded way of saying that AoS needn't be balanced, right Talys?
Since GW is a miniature making company in the first place, balancing is something that could be done by the gaming community. There are a few approaches like http://www.scrollbuilder.com/
You are correct. It can done. Some might even consider this "value added", as it increases the amount of time you have to invest in the hobby. It turns off others however, as most expect a product to function out of the box, and not require a lot of finesse and user modification to make its function approximate what they were sold. Even though the fan-based fixes can be comprehensive, and can be widely adopted - they are by no means universally adopted, nor do they absolve the manufacturer from responsibility for providing a functional product in the first place.
It'd be like a car company only providing one engine type for their entire range, regardless of vehicle function. Sure the car drives, but it doesn't function properly in its advertised role. Sure you could fix it using aftermarket parts, but you shouldn't have to. The fact that GW's competitors are all doing it properly really highlights GW's "Meh: take it or leave it" approach towards rules writing.
Talys wrote: For instance, I would rate "success" in terms of number of fans, profitability, and longevity, weighted in that order. But other people might have a totally different method of prioritization.
GW has spent the Kirby Years at war with its fandom, and overall profitability during the post LOTR boom has been decreasing, despite raised margins on kits and aggressive cost cutting. By your metrics, GW hasn't really been a "success" in the last few years. But then again... we can't see all the data can we. GW has longevity, so they must be doing everything right.
Looks like Rowntree is starting his stint in the right direction. I actually took a second, third and FOURTH look at those $100 bundles. NOTE: Still didn't buy though, as during the Age of Strife (the Kirby Years), I built up an impressive backlog of Heretical Miniatures from the Eye of Chaos.
They're all good points. Success is also relative. Successful versus your own best year? Versus a competitor, and so on.
Could GW be MORE successful? One would think so. How successful is it versus its competitors? I have no idea how much money Fantasy Flight Games and Privateer Press make, so from a profit standpoint, it's impossible to tell; and from a number of fans, well, GW's fanbase -- from what it sounds like on the Internet, anyhow -- is shrinking, but we don't know how it stacks up against the competitors.
Success is also about reaching the goals you set for yourself, whatever they are. By that measure, I'd call, for instance, Dreamforge a success. You don't need to sell tons of stuff and become a huge international force to be reckoned with, to be successful.... if that's not what you want.
Incidentally, products can mature or fade away from the spotlight and still be considered hugely successful. For instance, Apple has just dramatically cut its number of iPhone 6S/6S+ to be manufactured, because the demand for these phones is quite weak. Windows must fight to stay relevant into today's marketplace. Both are generating less profits and buzz than they did in their best years. Yet nobody would call either the iPhone or Windows anything other than wildly successful.
It all goes back to it being hard to say whether one company is more successful than another, without first defining what that means. It's much easier to figure out what companies and products AREN'T successful: if they don't make money, don't have supporters, and die, you can strike them off the list
Talys wrote: For instance, I would rate "success" in terms of number of fans, profitability, and longevity, weighted in that order. But other people might have a totally different method of prioritization.
GW has spent the Kirby Years at war with its fandom, and overall profitability during the post LOTR boom has been decreasing, ...
People keep saying this, but it is not true.
Profitability was better in the last annual report than for 10 years.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That's just your longwinded way of saying that AoS needn't be balanced, right Talys?
Since GW is a miniature making company in the first place, balancing is something that could be done by the gaming community. There are a few approaches like http://www.scrollbuilder.com/
They are a games company.
Balancing the rules is their job.
It is like contracting a company to build a road, and they drop off 55 tons of asphalt, 25 tones of concrete, and a cement mixer - but no steamroller, and then don't build the road.
They are not doing their job.
The Auld Grump
*EDIT* Weird - typing that out made me realize that is what is bothering me - that they just plain aren't doing what is admittedly the most time consuming part of their job - balancing the rules and the lists.
And it offends me.
It offends me that they have a job, and are being lax about performing it - in the exact same way that getting cold french fries at a McDonald's would offend me.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That's just your longwinded way of saying that AoS needn't be balanced, right Talys?
Since GW is a miniature making company in the first place, balancing is something that could be done by the gaming community. There are a few approaches like http://www.scrollbuilder.com/
They are a games company.
Balancing the rules is their job.
It is like contracting a company to build a road, and they drop off 55 tons of asphalt, 25 tones of concrete, and a cement mixer - but no steamroller, and then don't build the road.
They are not doing their job.
The Auld Grump
Aye.
I'll believe GW are a model company when I can buy a 40k civilian model that doesn't have game rules. Or a bust. Or a 52mm display piece. Or even if they just moved back to metal away from mass produced plastic.
PsychoticStorm wrote: I will believe it only when the stop publishing rules for models and produce only scale models and fluff books.
As long as the produce rules I have the same minimal expectations I have from all game companies, produce a working balanced game.
This. I'll believe the "primarily a model company" line when they put their money where their mouths are and drop the games entirely. No more rules, period. Just model kits and fluff books. No purpose for their kits beyond painting and display.
Of course, that won't happen. GW's kits aren't good enough to keep up with those intended for serious scale modelers. I'm not even talking about Gundam kits (which are still a fair comparison). Even Forgeworld kits look like toys next to something like this or this.
PsychoticStorm wrote: I will believe it only when the stop publishing rules for models and produce only scale models and fluff books.
As long as the produce rules I have the same minimal expectations I have from all game companies, produce a working balanced game.
This. I'll believe the "primarily a model company" line when they put their money where their mouths are and drop the games entirely. No more rules, period. Just model kits and fluff books. No purpose for their kits beyond painting and display.
Of course, that won't happen. GW's kits aren't good enough to keep up with those intended for serious scale modelers. I'm not even talking about Gundam kits (which are still a fair comparison). Even Forgeworld kits look like toys next to something like this or this.
That would be nice then i don't need a squad or an army, just one of everything i like, that is what they want right?
PsychoticStorm wrote: I will believe it only when the stop publishing rules for models and produce only scale models and fluff books.
As long as the produce rules I have the same minimal expectations I have from all game companies, produce a working balanced game.
This. I'll believe the "primarily a model company" line when they put their money where their mouths are and drop the games entirely. No more rules, period. Just model kits and fluff books. No purpose for their kits beyond painting and display.
That's not the way it works. The "gw hobby" if you want to call it that (ie, the hobby as GW imagines it), isn't one one where people are buying one of each model and painting them, and going "nice space marine, bro".
It's about aspiring to the type of army collections that GW showcases -- after all, how else is someone going to spend tens of thousands of dollars with GW over years and decades? In order to have those collections make sense, you need a context; hence the game rules, and also a purpose to buy and build the each brand new model, which, of course, is ever-more-powerful than its predecessor. And bigger.
Having the aspirational army, you then go and play with some or all of it. Or none of it. But the game is clearly part of the hobby, in GW's mind, because it gives hobbyists a context in which to build what would add up to a house in some parts of the world, or at least a really nice sports car
In case there's any confusion as to what I mean...
Does it really matter that it's impossible to actually play a game with all those models?
I find it ironic that you say GW's rules are meant to give you an army structure to aspire to even if just collecting, then as an example show a AoS army which the rules, by their very nature, have zero structure to what comprises an army.
I mean, I get the argument, but the example was terrible.
No not really, GW may think and wish whatever it wants, but if they want to be a models company, well they have to compare to the other model companies out there.
GW does not need the rules to make modelers collect armies all they need is fluff to give them context to do what you say.
The fact is GW's models and fluff does not stand on their own, they are not that good to make the sales they need, the game is what sells the models and the fluff is what retains the customers.
GW may lie to themselves and to their investors all they want, they are a games company selling toy soldiers nothing more nothing less.
-Loki- wrote: I find it ironic that you say GW's rules are meant to give you an army structure to aspire to even if just collecting, then as an example show a AoS army which the rules, by their very nature, have zero structure to what comprises an army.
I mean, I get the argument, but the example was terrible.
AoS does have army lists. There is a set of scrolls for every legacy army, and a growing set of scrolls for the Chaos and Sigmarine forces.
-Loki- wrote: I find it ironic that you say GW's rules are meant to give you an army structure to aspire to even if just collecting, then as an example show a AoS army which the rules, by their very nature, have zero structure to what comprises an army.
I mean, I get the argument, but the example was terrible.
AoS does have army lists. There is a set of scrolls for every legacy army, and a growing set of scrolls for the Chaos and Sigmarine forces.
That's not structure, it's just a shopping list. Structure is telling you how many of each of those units in what combinations make a list. That's what AoS lacks.
It's enough structure for someone who doesn't know or maybe care about a tight, formal army list (like in DBA or FoG) to justify buying a particular set of models for their army.
-Loki- wrote: I find it ironic that you say GW's rules are meant to give you an army structure to aspire to even if just collecting, then as an example show a AoS army which the rules, by their very nature, have zero structure to what comprises an army.
I mean, I get the argument, but the example was terrible.
An "aspirational army" in AoS, that is, a set of models to represent a complete army, would be the Warrior Chamber -- the AoS equivalent of a Space Marine Chapter.. So you need a Lord-Celestant, Lord Relictor, Auxiliary command, 3 angelos retinues, 6 paladin retinues, 9 redeemer retinues, and 6 justiciar retinues. In the warscrolls, it tells you how much of each model you'd take in each, how they can be equipped, and so on. By the time you're finished (and sixty years older...) you'll have something that looks like what they lay out on the table. Well, the Stormcast part anyhow
Now, obviously, 99.9% of AoS players will opt instead to buy a car or a couple of years of tuition. More realistically, the rules in AoS, have things Warscroll Battalions, like Thuderstrike Brotherhood or Heroes of the Host, that are essentially the AoS version of Formations. You take 1 X 1 Y and 0-1 Z, and you get special abilities A B and C.
Bottom line is, just because there aren't points, and just because you can take models from different factions and mix them together to play doesn't mean that there's no army structure. It's no different, really, than Armies on Parade that you see on White Dwarf, where space marine armies have Imperial Knights and other Titans. It's no different than having a Treeman Ancient in your Stormcast army.
So, to fulfil all that for the collector, all one needs is one of these...
Not a rule in sight.
The rules are not necessary to give a collector the structure to collect a force, a few fluffy art pieces detailing an army's disposition at this or that battle, an image of the whole structure of the organisation, some photographs of models in those sorts of arrangement and you're done, your collectors are inspired. There are people out there who will go to the lengths necessary to model not only a specific model of vehicle, but a specific individual vehicle, these guys aren't being driven to do so because that specific plane, boat etc has unique in game bonuses, but because they're inspired by the history and achievements of that one individual, so why will GW "modellers" be any different?
The rules give people an excuse for buying a new unit because they are going to actually use it in a game.
Here's the psychology:
1. Look at this awesome army! You could have one like it!!
2. Fluff reasons for why the fortress has eight pointed walls, and the Sigmarines are coloured gold.
3. War scrolls for buying army units. Buy a Lord on a Dragon. Buy a flying squad. Buy a giant goo monster.
4. Game rules for playing with them.
You may not like various aspects of this but this is the GW offering and it's certainly successful with a lot of people.
Personally, I would point to the continuing decline in sales (though not profits) since GW changed 40K over to this style of HHHobby, and say that it may not have a long term future. But, OTOH, it may do, because sales may stabilise at a lower level, say £100M a year, that still pays out £12M profit, which would be a pretty good business.
I feel GW could be even more successful with a wider, more balanced portfolio of games.
Because their fluff isn't as good as history? Hard to be inspired by (pick your color armor) space marine conquers x planet singlehandedly...especially when you play a xenos army. FW does a better job at it but the books are still very Mary Sue.
Which all feeds back into the original point that whatever GW or certain people say, they are not a model company, they're a model gaming company,
Their games are an integral part of what they do, and a declining revenue stream suggests that the quality of those rules needs to be of at least a certain standard in order for a percentage of their customers to continue to invest in their collections.
Yes, whether they like it or not, they are a company that produces mediocre games and some nice models. Until recently that was enough but they have real competition now in the form of several, smaller games makers who beat them in one or several aspects to the point it has been cutting into their bottom line. It's change or die for GW and they appear to be honestly trying to change; whether what they're doing is enough remains to be seen.
agnosto wrote: Yes, whether they like it or not, they are a company that produces mediocre games and some nice models. Until recently that was enough but they have real competition now in the form of several, smaller games makers who beat them in one or several aspects to the point it has been cutting into their bottom line. It's change or die for GW and they appear to be honestly trying to change; whether what they're doing is enough remains to be seen.
The thing is: what exactly is the aim of this change? Do they really want to drive away the "competitive crowd" and keep the unshakable die hard fans that will buying the ever more expensive kits? Do they truly think that willingly leaking away a fair percentage of their customer base to their competitors and hope for the best is a sane path to go?
"They're not a gaming company!" is a load of nonsense.
As long as they're releasing rules, they're a game company, and it is their job to create rules that work, not half-ass it whilst hiding behind the "We're a model company!" shield.
It's a mini Dakka meme, one poster (who's many faces seem to have finally stopped showing up) tried a bizarre argument in defence of GW's prices once upon a time.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Consequently any argument which seems to rely rather hard on non sequitur or leaps of logic can be termed "minimum wage."
agnosto wrote: Yes, whether they like it or not, they are a company that produces mediocre games and some nice models. Until recently that was enough but they have real competition now in the form of several, smaller games makers who beat them in one or several aspects to the point it has been cutting into their bottom line. It's change or die for GW and they appear to be honestly trying to change; whether what they're doing is enough remains to be seen.
The thing is: what exactly is the aim of this change? Do they really want to drive away the "competitive crowd" and keep the unshakable die hard fans that will buying the ever more expensive kits? Do they truly think that willingly leaking away a fair percentage of their customer base to their competitors and hope for the best is a sane path to go?
Personally I don't think they have the talent to turn things around and be competitive but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't try. It's a toy company. Until recently it was run completely by a man in his late 60s but the new CEO is in his 40s. I'm not being ageist, older people are usually risk averse in business and most companies stack management so that counter points are present, GW doesn't really do that so they keep trying the same tactics hoping that it eventually works...yeah. They need a major shakeup and some new blood in management.
agnosto wrote: Yes, whether they like it or not, they are a company that produces mediocre games and some nice models. Until recently that was enough but they have real competition now in the form of several, smaller games makers who beat them in one or several aspects to the point it has been cutting into their bottom line. It's change or die for GW and they appear to be honestly trying to change; whether what they're doing is enough remains to be seen.
The thing is: what exactly is the aim of this change? Do they really want to drive away the "competitive crowd" and keep the unshakable die hard fans that will buying the ever more expensive kits? Do they truly think that willingly leaking away a fair percentage of their customer base to their competitors and hope for the best is a sane path to go?
Personally I don't think they have the talent to turn things around and be competitive but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't try. It's a toy company. Until recently it was run completely by a man in his late 60s but the new CEO is in his 40s. I'm not being ageist, older people are usually risk averse in business and most companies stack management so that counter points are present, GW doesn't really do that so they keep trying the same tactics hoping that it eventually works...yeah. They need a major shakeup and some new blood in management.
agnosto wrote: Yes, whether they like it or not, they are a company that produces mediocre games and some nice models. Until recently that was enough but they have real competition now in the form of several, smaller games makers who beat them in one or several aspects to the point it has been cutting into their bottom line. It's change or die for GW and they appear to be honestly trying to change; whether what they're doing is enough remains to be seen.
The thing is: what exactly is the aim of this change? Do they really want to drive away the "competitive crowd" and keep the unshakable die hard fans that will buying the ever more expensive kits? Do they truly think that willingly leaking away a fair percentage of their customer base to their competitors and hope for the best is a sane path to go?
Personally I don't think they have the talent to turn things around and be competitive but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't try. It's a toy company. Until recently it was run completely by a man in his late 60s but the new CEO is in his 40s. I'm not being ageist, older people are usually risk averse in business and most companies stack management so that counter points are present, GW doesn't really do that so they keep trying the same tactics hoping that it eventually works...yeah. They need a major shakeup and some new blood in management.
The more important issue rather than his age is his experience. His experience is very GW-centric, and whilst it's good that he's had wide exposure to all areas of the business, he's got limited exposure to outside/different ways of thinking. I do think that it's unusual for a company of GW's size to have appointed him through the path he's followed and I suspect that it's a contributory factor to the position they find themselves in.
agnosto wrote: Yes, whether they like it or not, they are a company that produces mediocre games and some nice models. Until recently that was enough but they have real competition now in the form of several, smaller games makers who beat them in one or several aspects to the point it has been cutting into their bottom line. It's change or die for GW and they appear to be honestly trying to change; whether what they're doing is enough remains to be seen.
The thing is: what exactly is the aim of this change? Do they really want to drive away the "competitive crowd" and keep the unshakable die hard fans that will buying the ever more expensive kits? Do they truly think that willingly leaking away a fair percentage of their customer base to their competitors and hope for the best is a sane path to go?
Personally I don't think they have the talent to turn things around and be competitive but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't try. It's a toy company. Until recently it was run completely by a man in his late 60s but the new CEO is in his 40s. I'm not being ageist, older people are usually risk averse in business and most companies stack management so that counter points are present, GW doesn't really do that so they keep trying the same tactics hoping that it eventually works...yeah. They need a major shakeup and some new blood in management.
The more important issue rather than his age is his experience. His experience is very GW-centric, and whilst it's good that he's had wide exposure to all areas of the business, he's got limited exposure to outside/different ways of thinking. I do think that it's unusual for a company of GW's size to have appointed him through the path he's followed and I suspect that it's a contributory factor to the position they find themselves in.
That's a very good point. It's hard to do new things if your only experience is unidirectional.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Azreal13 wrote: No, apparently they're not a gaming company because minimum wage.
Or rather because of the price of sheep in Botswana.
Azreal13 wrote: Ah, the Botswanian Ovine Conjecture. Yes, yes.
*strokes beard, puffs pipe. *
(I'll get back on topic shortly...)
No worries, I think we've ran this one into the ground and now it's just a matter of waiting til the 12th for the report. I'm curious as to how big of a drop in sales we'll see; I'll conjecture 6-8% year-on-year.
Azreal13 wrote: Ah, the Botswanian Ovine Conjecture. Yes, yes.
*strokes beard, puffs pipe. *
(I'll get back on topic shortly...)
No worries, I think we've ran this one into the ground and now it's just a matter of waiting til the 12th for the report. I'm curious as to how big of a drop in sales we'll see; I'll conjecture 6-8% year-on-year.
I don't even think Kirby can find the niche language to describe 6-8% as a "small decline". I expect to see nothing worse than 3%.
TRADING UPDATE ON THE CLOSE OF THE HALF YEAR ENDED
29 NOVEMBER 2015
Games Workshop Group PLC announces that trading in the six months to 29 November 2015 at constant currency has been broadly in line with the Board’s expectations and 2014/15 first half performance.
Over the six month period we have seen modest sales growth at constant currency. However, the adverse impact of a stronger pound will result in a small decline in reported sales for the period.
The Company’s half yearly report for the six months to 29 November 2015 will be released on 12 January 2016.
Azreal13 wrote: No, apparently they're not a gaming company because minimum wage.
And unemployed Cypriots.
*EDIT* It really was a most bizarre argument... he has been on my Ignore list for so long that I never noticed that he had stopped posting.
On topic - it is interesting to note that what seems to be garnering the best responses on the 'Best Idea' thread are all things that GW has gone back to doing, not actually 'new ideas'.
The sad thing is that I agree that those are all good ideas.
Specialist Games - check! (This one even has me interested.)
Bundles with a discount - check! (Not buying any - but it is still a very good idea. If Fantasy were still a thing, I might have been moved to get some Empire or Tomb Kings... for Kings of War.)
Year's Best Sellers - well... a tiny check. (I don't much care - but others seem enthused, and it isn't an actively bad idea.)
Locally... AoS is doing much worse than I had expected - I had thought that there would be at least a brief period of 'Let's try this out!' - instead there was the sound of the community going 'Meh', followed by nothing.
Well, Kirby did brush off the 10% drop we saw last year by saying they were doing well and then some drivel about crops burning and plague or some such.
Well, Kirby did brush off the 10% drop we saw last year by saying they were doing well and then some drivel about crops burning and plague or some such.
In fairness, I think a more accurate paraphrase of what he said was "the numbers are bad but we're going to measure the health of the business in a completely different way that you'll just have to take my word for............so, moving on....", and by the time everyone had finished looking up unusual words, porcine healthcare and wondering who in the American legal system was setting fire to his allotment the world had moved on
Keep in mind that it's a company's management's job to spin the facts in the most favorable light. Kirby, or any other CEO/CFO/Board Director would not be doing their job if they didn't point out the reasons why their stock is a good buy. You don't have to drink their Kool-Aid
I agree with KK completely that putting aside profit, declining revenue is a possible indicator that the market as a whole doesn't buy GW's perception of what the hobby should be. Especially when you combine it with much higher prices, the revenue declines mean that the unit sales are substantially lower: ie, fewer fans, or fans buying numerically fewer kits. I think this is a much stronger argument for a different direction than anything else, and to embrace aspects of the hobby other than exactly what GW perceives that the hobby or game should be.
To play the devil's advocate, however, it is entirely possible that GW *IS* maximizing its profits. Perhaps if it gave us the game at the prices that the majority of Dakka seem to want (a game I'm sure I'd personally enjoy, and prices that I'd like more), that GW would actually make less money than it does today. I don't discount the possibility that they're right, but we'll never know.
On a totally different note, despite being reasonably well-read in history and generally interested in actual events on our world, both present and past, I find zero appeal in historical miniatures or miniatures that model reality (like present-day airplanes). It's because to me, hobby is escapism, and I want to model or play the part of a Hollywood-style heroic band or villainous army, with over-the-top weaponry and legendary powers. Every day, when I look out the window or walk outside, I can enjoy the amazing marvels of reality -- and there's an endless amount there to love -- so I don't need more of it when I sit down in my hobby room
Well, Kirby did brush off the 10% drop we saw last year by saying they were doing well and then some drivel about crops burning and plague or some such.
In fairness, I think a more accurate paraphrase of what he said was "the numbers are bad but we're going to measure the health of the business in a completely different way that you'll just have to take my word for............so, moving on....", and by the time everyone had finished looking up unusual words, porcine healthcare and wondering who in the American legal system was setting fire to his allotment the world had moved on
You're much more forgiving than I am. As an investor, I don't want the Chairman of my company to sound like a senile old man, sitting in an empty house, shouting at invisible cats. Rountree was the EOY report's saving grace and the only reason that I kept my money with GW. I'm glad that I did because the stock is doing quite well. They're a financially strong company but you can only slide in sales so long before it hits the bottom line and we're approaching that time in the next several years if things don't turn around.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Talys wrote: Keep in mind that it's a company's management's job to spin the facts in the most favorable light. Kirby, or any other CEO/CFO/Board Director would not be doing their job if they didn't point out the reasons why their stock is a good buy. You don't have to drink their Kool-Aid
I agree with KK completely that putting aside profit, declining revenue is a possible indicator that the market as a whole doesn't buy GW's perception of what the hobby should be. Especially when you combine it with much higher prices, the revenue declines mean that the unit sales are substantially lower: ie, fewer fans, or fans buying numerically fewer kits. I think this is a much stronger argument for a different direction than anything else, and to embrace aspects of the hobby other than exactly what GW perceives that the hobby or game should be.
To play the devil's advocate, however, it is entirely possible that GW *IS* maximizing its profits. Perhaps if it gave us the game at the prices that the majority of Dakka seem to want (a game I'm sure I'd personally enjoy, and prices that I'd like more), that GW would actually make less money than it does today. I don't discount the possibility that they're right, but we'll never know.
On a totally different note, despite being reasonably well-read in history and generally interested in actual events on our world, both present and past, I find zero appeal in historical miniatures or miniatures that model reality (like present-day airplanes). It's because to me, hobby is escapism, and I want to model or play the part of a Hollywood-style heroic band or villainous army, with over-the-top weaponry and legendary powers. Every day, when I look out the window or walk outside, I can enjoy the amazing marvels of reality -- and there's an endless amount there to love -- so I don't need more of it when I sit down in my hobby room
Yes, they should spin things, but they should appear professional in the process not like an insane asylum resident who is completely out of touch with reality. The Chairman's preamble made it sound like there was no issue at all, not recognition that things had turned sour, nothing. Spin it, yes, but at least recognize that there is room for growth.
In retail, you never really maximize your profits; the company is either growing or dying, that's it. I don't want upper management to pander to me or talk to me like I'm a simpleton, I want management to show they are grounded in reality and have a plan for success. Not even Rountree showed he had an inkling of an idea but he at least said something other than inanities about crops withering, etc.
Talys wrote: Keep in mind that it's a company's management's job to spin the facts in the most favorable light. Kirby, or any other CEO/CFO/Board Director would not be doing their job if they didn't point out the reasons why their stock is a good buy. You don't have to drink their Kool-Aid
I agree with KK completely that putting aside profit, declining revenue is a possible indicator that the market as a whole doesn't buy GW's perception of what the hobby should be. Especially when you combine it with much higher prices, the revenue declines mean that the unit sales are substantially lower: ie, fewer fans, or fans buying numerically fewer kits. I think this is a much stronger argument for a different direction than anything else, and to embrace aspects of the hobby other than exactly what GW perceives that the hobby or game should be.
To play the devil's advocate, however, it is entirely possible that GW *IS* maximizing its profits. Perhaps if it gave us the game at the prices that the majority of Dakka seem to want (a game I'm sure I'd personally enjoy, and prices that I'd like more), that GW would actually make less money than it does today. I don't discount the possibility that they're right, but we'll never know.
On a totally different note, despite being reasonably well-read in history and generally interested in actual events on our world, both present and past, I find zero appeal in historical miniatures or miniatures that model reality (like present-day airplanes). It's because to me, hobby is escapism, and I want to model or play the part of a Hollywood-style heroic band or villainous army, with over-the-top weaponry and legendary powers. Every day, when I look out the window or walk outside, I can enjoy the amazing marvels of reality -- and there's an endless amount there to love -- so I don't need more of it when I sit down in my hobby room
My view is that GW have increased profits despite declining sales by becoming a lot more efficient. Some of this is things like dumping metal, which probably saved them £1M a year in materials costs, and was a good move. There isn't really a downside to it, except Finecast. They had to get rid of Bitz as well, but this has been slightly compensated by putting more spare weapons and kit into various boxed sets.
GW also closed all the regional HQs and moved lots of shops to smaller locations with less staff and shorter opening hours. These actions, while very money saving, may end up biting GW in the bum as they lose touch with local markets and lose the network effect of shops as hobby centres and attractors to passing trade. Time will tell.
But anyway, in theory the organisational and production efficiencies can be applied to any new products that GW put out, so it should be a good idea to publish a wider variety of games as they would be more profitable than 10 years ago, and I would expect sales to increase by attracting more customers.
I do think pricing is a definite problem too. Therefore I am pleased to see that in the past year or two, GW have adopted a policy of bringing out more games, freezing prices on old kits and applying price rises to new kits that have value, creating genuine bundle deals, and even publishing softback versions of books at a lower price, because these are all things I have suggested in the past. It's great to know that the new CEO has been taking my advice.
@Talys, it's interesting what you say about liking fantasy games that take you away from everyday life. I like history and historical games for the same reason. But I don't play anything more modern than Vietnam.
@Baragash - Spinning financials aren't the *only* job of management But it's certainly one of them; at the end of the day, driving share price is a main function a public-company CEO. Raising money, providing vision, all that kind of wonderful stuff, too, of course.
@agnosto - There aren't many CEOs that go on record saying that the ship's sinking. Stephen Elop comes to mind, with his "burning oil rig" analogy with Nokia. For people who have zero interest in wargaming and are strictly looking for an investment, I'm not so sure that Kirby or Roundtree sound implausible at all. I don't think GW is a terrible investment, anyhow, though as I've said many times, I don't think it's an ideal public company in the first place.
@KK - Yeah, the bundles like the Start Collecting, and many of the box sets seem to be movement in the right direction to attract new players and to entice existing players to give something else a shot. We'll see how it all pans out in the long run.
I personally also think that it's possible to keep the crazed model collectors very happy while making the game significantly better, if not perfect. The funny thing is, I like what they did in 2014 with factions like Dark Eldar and Blood Angels and I also like what they did in 2015 with factions like Mechanicus and Dark Angels. But... I can't believe they did them both within the same edition, LOL. If they keep going with the 2015 game (which I actually like better than the 2013-2014 game), and actually finish up all the factions, I think fans will remember 7+ edition as a good time for 40k, if GW manages to do all the factions without hitting the reset button again.
Prediction... in 2022, people will look back and say, "40k was such a great game in 2017! GW is ruining it all! At least back then everyone's titans were pretty much balanced!"
There are worlds of difference between, "it's going down, panic!" and the realization that people can read the damn report and see there are issues so here's what we're going to do to turn it around.
I have and continue to make a decent chunk of change from my ownership of GW stock so I'm not saying they're a weak company. That said, I'm also not blind and certainly not ignorant enough to assume it's all sunshine and roses.
Talys wrote: @Baragash - Spinning financials aren't the *only* job of management But it's certainly one of them; at the end of the day, driving share price is a main function a public-company CEO. Raising money, providing vision, all that kind of wonderful stuff, too, of course.
That is completely incorrect.
Management spinning the numbers is one of the fundamental issues raised in the Corporate Ethics element of accounting studies. The numbers are a report to the shareholders, that is, the owners of the company. They are not meant to be "spun", they are meant to a balanced an unbiased representation of the company's performance and position ("true and fair" view is the official term).
The reason they are spun is because there is a fundamental disconnect in the incentives of the agents involved. Management a) want to keep their jobs and b) often receive shares as part of their renumeration package, hence they are doubly incentivised to present the results in the most positive possible light without breaching statutory rules, and to engage in inconsistent or obfuscationary practices.such as recutting data or declaring certain data formations aren't representative of the way the company is run (GW has done this on several occasions in the last 10-15 years).
Having an artificially high share price can also harm shareholders (for example by discouraging or preventing takeover bids which would actually allow shareholders to realise the value of capital growth).
@agnosto - as I'm certain you're aware, a company doesn't have to be sunshine and roses to be an amazing investment -- it just has to be priced at less than what you think it's worth. Conversely, a lot of companies that are doing great are terrible investments, because they're overpriced.
@Baragash - Sounds like academia In the real world, professional CEOs and CFOs of public companies are hired and paid disproportionately humongous salaries because of their ability to increase the value of the stock, with any ability or understanding of the company's core business being a plus, rather than a requirement. For little public companies (or private companies aspiring to become public), often, NOTHING matters other than the CEO's ability to raise capital (ie their ability to dog and pony shows). The company could be in the business of selling eggs, and the CEO could be incapable of distinguishing a male from a female chicken, and it wouldn't matter as long as they could raise the next $10 million.
Sure, we can argue about how this is not how things should work, how it contributes to bubbles that burst, yadda yadda yadda... but hey... it's the way the world goes round and round and how trillions of dollars change hands. GW is just a little, mostly insignificant piece of that cog
Anyways, I've rarely read preambles in annual reports from profitable public companies that were doom and gloom. I don't believe that GW is in imminent peril of anything, and we'll see in a week or so, but I figure they sold hundreds of millions more dollars of little toy soldiers and pocketed a nifty sum that they'll just pay out to their shareholders. Considering that half of the period was a grand experiment that, in my opinion was risky, if they're profitable at all, I think management and shareholders will be satisfied.
Games Workshop Group PLC ("Games Workshop" or the "Group") announces its half-yearly results for the six months to 29 November 2015.
Highlights:
Six months to
Six months to
29 November
30 November
2015
2014
Revenue
£55.3m
£56.5m
Revenue at constant currency*
£56.9m
£56.5m
Operating profit pre-royalties receivable
£4.7m
£5.5m
Royalties receivable
£1.5m
£0.7m
Operating profit
£6.2m
£6.2m
Pre-tax profit
£6.3m
£6.3m
Cash generated from operations
£8.6m
£7.8m
Basic earnings per share
14.9p
14.5p
Dividend per share declared in the period
20p
36p
Kevin Rountree, CEO of Games Workshop, said:
"We have made some good progress on our strategic initiatives all focused on delivering long term growth. Whilst we are disappointed with the decline in return on capital reported in the period, we are all confident that we are focused on delivering the necessary changes to address this decline.
In the period we launched some great new products and our new visitor centre has performed well.
December sales were below expectations across the Group. At this stage in the Company's financial year, the Company's internal projections indicate that pre-tax profit for the year to 29 May 2016 is unlikely to exceed £16 million. A further update will be made when appropriate. "
We have made some good progress on our strategic initiatives all focused on delivering long term growth. Whilst we are disappointed with the decline in return on capital reported in the period, we are all confident that we are focused on delivering the necessary changes to address this decline.
In the period we launched some great new products and our new visitor centre has performed well.
We are focused on delivering value. Our key measure of our performance is return on capital. During the period our return on capital fell from 38% at November 2014 to 36%. This was driven by both an increase in average capital employed** and a decline in operating profit before royalties receivable.
Trading update
December sales were below expectations across the Group. At this stage in the Company's financial year, the Company's internal projections indicate that pre-tax profit for the year to 29 May 2016 is unlikely to exceed £16 million. A further update will be made when appropriate.
Sales
Reported sales fell by 2.2% to £55.3 million for the period. On a constant currency basis, sales were up by 0.7% from £56.5 million to £56.9 million; split by channel this comprised: retail £23.0 million (2014: £23.4 million), trade £22.3 million (2014: £22.0 million) and mail order £11.6 million (2014: £11.1 million).
Retail
This channel showed growth in non-core retail but was offset by declines in our core retail business. However on a constant currency basis sales were broadly in line with last year. We opened, including relocations, 22 one man store format stores and three multi man format stores in the period. We also started our trial of four multi man format stores in high footfall locations; Sydney, Munich, Paris and Copenhagen. After closing 13 stores, our net total number of stores at the end of the period is 430.
The key priority is store manager recruitment. On 9 November 2015, I appointed an expert in recruitment to my management team. This person will ensure we have a constant supply of retail store managers and trade recruiters and account developers. She will also work with me to review our global people strategy.
Trade
All key territories were broadly in line with last year. In the period, our net number of trade outlets increased by 61 accounts.
To broaden our core trade product reach, in the period, we have designed a small new product range and are at present actively signing up distribution agents to sell this product into North America. We continue to work on other product formats to optimise other opportunities.
Mail order
Sales in our online shops were up 5.3%.
Non-core
This includes licensing, digital, export, the visitor centre, non-strategic trade accounts, book trade, magazine and mass-market opportunities. Non-core sales were down by 2.5% from £7.8 million to £7.6 million due to declines in sales in digital, export and the book trade offset by growth in visitor centre and non-strategic trade sales. In the period, royalties receivable from licensing increased from £0.7 million to £1.5 million.
Operating profit
Core business operating profit (operating profit before royalty income) fell by £0.8 million to £4.7 million (2014: £5.5 million). On a constant currency basis, core business operating profit increased by £0.1 million to £5.6 million. The net impact in the six months to 29 November 2015 of exchange rate fluctuations was a loss of £0.9 million. It is not the Group's policy to hedge against foreign exchange exposure.
Operating expenses increased by £0.3 million due to an investment in sales facing activities relating to new retail store costs. Costs remain a key area of focus.
Capital employed
Average capital employed** increased by £3.3 million to £40.8 million. The book value of tangible and intangible assets increased by £2.6 million, mainly due to the refurbishment of the visitor centre whilst trade and other receivables increased by £1.0 million, inventory increased by £0.6 million, provisions fell by £0.6 million and current liabilities increased by £1.5 million.
Cash generation
During the period, the Group's core operating activities generated £6.6 million of cash after tax payments (2014: £5.5 million). The Group also received cash of £1.1 million in respect of royalties in the year (2014: £1.0 million). After purchases of tangible and intangible assets and product development costs of £6.3 million (2014: £5.1 million) and dividends of £6.4 million (2014: £11.5 million) there were net funds at the end of the period £7.8 million (2014: £8.4 million).
Projects
We have three major projects being implemented currently:
European ERP system replacement (enterprise resource planning) - on track.
Forge World mail order store - this store was launched in August 2015 on time and within cash limits.
Mail order warehouse system replacement - complicated project currently postponed until after the busy December trading period.
Risks and uncertainties
The board has overall responsibility for ensuring risk is appropriately managed across the Group. As discussed in the 2015 annual report, the top five risks to the Group are reviewed at each board meeting. The risks are rated as to their business impact and their likelihood of occurring. In addition, the Group has a disaster recovery plan to ensure ongoing operations are maintained in all circumstances. The principal risks for the balance of the year are the same as those identified in the 2015 annual report and are discussed below:
ERP change. This is a complicated project with the risk of widespread business disruption if it is not implemented well.
Store manager recruitment. This comprises both recruitment of managers for new stores as well as replacing poor performing managers. Retail is our primary method of recruiting new customers and so we need great managers in all our stores.
Supply chain. We are changing our mail order warehouse system. This is part of an ongoing programme of continuous improvement for these warehouse systems. As with any system change there are risks associated with the transition.
Range management. We constantly review our range to ensure that we are exploring all opportunities.
Distractions. Anything else that gets in the way of us delivering our goals.
The greatest risk is the same one that we repeat each year, namely, management. So long as we have great people we will be fine. Problems will arise if the board allows egos and private agendas to rule. I will do my utmost to ensure that this does not happen.
Going concern
After making appropriate enquiries, the directors have a reasonable expectation that the Group has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. For this reason they have adopted the going concern basis in preparing this condensed consolidated interim financial information.
Statement of directors' responsibilities
The directors confirm that this condensed consolidated interim financial information has been prepared in accordance with IAS 34, 'Interim Financial Reporting', as adopted by the European Union, and that the interim management report herein includes a fair review of the information required by DTR 4.2.7 and DTR 4.2.8, namely: an indication of important events that have occurred during the first six months and their impact on the condensed set of financial statements, and a description of (i) the principal risks and uncertainties for the remaining six months of the financial year; (ii) material related-party transactions in the first six months and (iii) any material changes in the related-party transactions described in the last annual report.
There have been no other changes to the board since the annual report for the year to 31 May 2015. A list of all current directors is maintained on the investor relations website at investor.games-workshop.com.
Most companies do some spinning when they have to announce bad results.
Yesterday M&S, a major UK clothes retail chain, announced bad Christmas results and blamed it on weather, discounting by rivals, and lack of stock. M&S had a 30% off sale in December.
Weather certainly is a factor, but it's not hard to see that everyone can't be suffering from rivals discounting if they are discounting themselves, and it's hard to understand why you would run out of stock if your problem is you aren't getting enough customers into your shops.
In other words, the spin is obvious bs and I think most people are intelligent enough to see this sort of malarkey in any company report, including the GW one.
Kilkrazy wrote: In other words, the spin is obvious bs and I think most people are intelligent enough to see this sort of malarkey in any company report, including the GW one.
Talys wrote: @Baragash - Sounds like academia In the real world, professional CEOs and CFOs of public companies are hired and paid disproportionately humongous salaries because of their ability to increase the value of the stock, with any ability or understanding of the company's core business being a plus, rather than a requirement. For little public companies (or private companies aspiring to become public), often, NOTHING matters other than the CEO's ability to raise capital (ie their ability to dog and pony shows). The company could be in the business of selling eggs, and the CEO could be incapable of distinguishing a male from a female chicken, and it wouldn't matter as long as they could raise the next $10 million.
Are you for real?
Apart from patronising me with "in the real world" about the job I do for a living, that is utter tripe.
Kilkrazy wrote: Most companies do some spinning when they have to announce bad results.
Yesterday M&S, a major UK clothes retail chain, announced bad Christmas results and blamed it on weather, discounting by rivals, and lack of stock. M&S had a 30% off sale in December.
Weather certainly is a factor, but it's not hard to see that everyone can't be suffering from rivals discounting if they are discounting themselves, and it's hard to understand why you would run out of stock if your problem is you aren't getting enough customers into your shops.
In other words, the spin is obvious bs and I think most people are intelligent enough to see this sort of malarkey in any company report, including the GW one.
This has been one of the mildest winters, we've had for years.
Spin doesn't always work.
Marks and Spencer chief executive Marc Bolland to quit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35249317 Marks and Spencer chief executive Marc Bolland is to step down in April, the company said as it announced its Christmas results.
Mr Bolland will be succeeded by Steve Rowe, executive director of general merchandise.
Third-quarter sales of general merchandise were down by 5.8% for the thirteen weeks to 26 December.
Kilkrazy wrote: Most companies do some spinning when they have to announce bad results.
Yesterday M&S, a major UK clothes retail chain, announced bad Christmas results and blamed it on weather, discounting by rivals, and lack of stock. M&S had a 30% off sale in December.
Weather certainly is a factor, but it's not hard to see that everyone can't be suffering from rivals discounting if they are discounting themselves, and it's hard to understand why you would run out of stock if your problem is you aren't getting enough customers into your shops.
In other words, the spin is obvious bs and I think most people are intelligent enough to see this sort of malarkey in any company report, including the GW one.
This has been one of the mildest winters, we've had for years.
Spin doesn't always work.
Marks and Spencer chief executive Marc Bolland to quit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35249317 Marks and Spencer chief executive Marc Bolland is to step down in April, the company said as it announced its Christmas results.
Mr Bolland will be succeeded by Steve Rowe, executive director of general merchandise.
Third-quarter sales of general merchandise were down by 5.8% for the thirteen weeks to 26 December.
Actually, the mild winter is what M+S were blaming, nobody bought new warm winter clothes.
"The greatest risk is the same one that we repeat each year, namely, management. So long as we have great people we will be fine. Problems will arise if the board allows egos and private agendas to rule. I will do my utmost to ensure that this does not happen."
Kilkrazy wrote: Most companies do some spinning when they have to announce bad results.
At first glance the results don't seem that bad to me? Perhaps we can get an analysis from someone who is more familiar with reading financial reports?
To me it looks like overall revenue is fine, 2.2% decrease but 0.7% increase at constant currency. It's hard to grow when you have a strong currency and rely heavily on international sales.
Slight increase in trade, decrease in retail and increase in mail order.
The increase in royalties propped them up a bit, $800k increase in royalties accounts for ~1.5% of their revenue, so without that revenue would have dropped by 3.5% (or a 0.7% drop at constant currency).
It's not bad, but it's not exactly great, either. The half year report includes the release of both AoS (where new editions of games usually bump up sales) and the Calth game - i.e., plastic Heresy, which in the past has been alluded to as GW's panic button.
Reasons it's not great
-revenue has remained flat, despite the average price per SKU almost certainly increasing
-profit is down significantly on the same income, the licensing revenue from all that shovelware has really dug them out of a hole.
-dividend is almost half what it was last year.
- Rountree has already effectively issued a profits warning, and declared December sales (not included in these figures) were below expectations.
Reasons it's ok
- They're not sliding anywhere near as quick as they were
- They're still making a profit, even if it isn't so much from minis and games
- Rountree is making some good noises, for the second report in a row. He mentions a focus value, admits disappointment over performance, and, possibly, tacitly implies Kirby was a douchebag.
Kilkrazy wrote: Most companies do some spinning when they have to announce bad results.
At first glance the results don't seem that bad to me? Perhaps we can get an analysis from someone who is more familiar with reading financial reports?
To me it looks like overall revenue is fine, 2.2% decrease but 0.7% increase at constant currency. It's hard to grow when you have a strong currency and rely heavily on international sales.
Slight increase in trade, decrease in retail and increase in mail order.
The increase in royalties propped them up a bit, $800k increase in royalties accounts for ~1.5% of their revenue, so without that revenue would have dropped by 3.5% (or a 0.7% drop at constant currency).
The problem I have at first glance is the difference between Retail and Trade. Sales in retail are sales to customers, sales in trades are sales to independent stores, meaning that for Trade whatever happen to a product afterward (whether it sales immediately or spend a year on the shelves) is irrelevant to GW.
Now if you release a new product and see independent stores massively investing in it. Trade will go up. But, if the product ends up not selling well to the final customers, that won't change anything for Trade but Retail will not see a similar increase or even see a decrease.
So if big releases like BoC or AoS were to underperform in a visible way, it would appear on the report in the same way we are currently seeing. But it would be worse for the following 6 months. As if the products underperformed then Trade accounts will stop investing in it and you will start to see Trade following the same pattern as Retail unless you release another new Product to force stores to invest (and even so chances are they'll be wary and no longer order as massively as they could, whatever you release).
So yeah I'm just theorycrafting from behind my screen but I think the next 6 months will be quite telling. And considering GW is unhappy with their December numbers, it doesn't start well.
Talys wrote: @agnosto - as I'm certain you're aware, a company doesn't have to be sunshine and roses to be an amazing investment -- it just has to be priced at less than what you think it's worth. Conversely, a lot of companies that are doing great are terrible investments, because they're overpriced.
Spoiler:
@Baragash - Sounds like academia In the real world, professional CEOs and CFOs of public companies are hired and paid disproportionately humongous salaries because of their ability to increase the value of the stock, with any ability or understanding of the company's core business being a plus, rather than a requirement. For little public companies (or private companies aspiring to become public), often, NOTHING matters other than the CEO's ability to raise capital (ie their ability to dog and pony shows). The company could be in the business of selling eggs, and the CEO could be incapable of distinguishing a male from a female chicken, and it wouldn't matter as long as they could raise the next $10 million.
Sure, we can argue about how this is not how things should work, how it contributes to bubbles that burst, yadda yadda yadda... but hey... it's the way the world goes round and round and how trillions of dollars change hands. GW is just a little, mostly insignificant piece of that cog
Anyways, I've rarely read preambles in annual reports from profitable public companies that were doom and gloom. I don't believe that GW is in imminent peril of anything, and we'll see in a week or so, but I figure they sold hundreds of millions more dollars of little toy soldiers and pocketed a nifty sum that they'll just pay out to their shareholders. Considering that half of the period was a grand experiment that, in my opinion was risky, if they're profitable at all, I think management and shareholders will be satisfied.
Talys, I don't know if you're elaborately trolling people or genuinely serious in this pants on head posts.
This is what a statement from a company should look like when addressing negative financial results:
Kevin Rountree
We have made some good progress on our strategic initiatives all focused on delivering long term growth. Whilst we are disappointed with the decline in return on capital reported in the period, we are all confident that we are focused on delivering the necessary changes to address this decline.
In the period we launched some great new products and our new visitor centre has performed well.
December sales were below expectations across the Group. At this stage in the Company’s financial year, the Company’s internal projections indicate that pre-tax profit for the year to 29 May 2016 is unlikely to exceed £16 million. A further update will be made when appropriate.
That's spin and anyone who a) invests and/or b) is in the business world knows what this means.
This, however, is insane and has no place in financial reports:
Kirby
As I write the world is tumbling in chaos around us. Pundits discover they cannot predict elections, the Americans ride to the rescue of world football (thank you, Uncle Sam), Sunderland escape relegation, again, the UK will split up into its consistent parts, it will leave Europe; and yet we struggle on. Babies get born, the rain falls the sun shines and the plants grow, our chickens keep laying, and Games Workshop still employs over 1,500 people, supporting 1,500 families all over the globe, making the best miniatures money can buy, providing one of the best investments in our owners' portfolios, and having a great deal of fun doing it.
I have never said that they should run around with their hair on fire but at least talk about the finances of the company.
infinite_array wrote: It's not bad, but it's not exactly great, either. The half year report includes the release of both AoS (where new editions of games usually bump up sales) and the Calth game - i.e., plastic Heresy, which in the past has been alluded to as GW's panic button.
But in order to release AoS they didn't have 40k releases for a while, so in that sense it's not terrible.
Calth was only out for 2 weeks of that reporting period. I don't know how well it sold but I always tend to think it takes more than a single product to make a significant bump (or drop) on revenue. If Calth is successful it'll probably show up in the next report more as people who didn't buy it in the first 2 week buy it and then proceed to expand the forces with other purchases.
I think GW purposefully released AoS and Calth in the same reporting period so that mugs like us couldn't do a decent analysis of what is going on
Kilkrazy wrote: Most companies do some spinning when they have to announce bad results.
At first glance the results don't seem that bad to me? Perhaps we can get an analysis from someone who is more familiar with reading financial reports?
To me it looks like overall revenue is fine, 2.2% decrease but 0.7% increase at constant currency. It's hard to grow when you have a strong currency and rely heavily on international sales.
Slight increase in trade, decrease in retail and increase in mail order.
The increase in royalties propped them up a bit, $800k increase in royalties accounts for ~1.5% of their revenue, so without that revenue would have dropped by 3.5% (or a 0.7% drop at constant currency).
The problem I have at first glance is the difference between Retail and Trade. Sales in retail are sales to customers, sales in trades are sales to independent stores, meaning that for Trade whatever happen to a product afterward (whether it sales immediately or spend a year on the shelves) is irrelevant to GW.
Now if you release a new product and see independent stores massively investing in it. Trade will go up. But, if the product ends up not selling well to the final customers, that won't change anything for Trade but Retail will not see a similar increase or even see a decrease.
So if big releases like BoC or AoS were to underperform in a visible way, it would appear on the report in the same way we are currently seeing. But it would be worse for the following 6 months. As if the products underperformed then Trade accounts will stop investing in it and you will start to see Trade following the same pattern as Retail unless you release another new Product to force stores to invest (and even so chances are they'll be wary and no longer order as massively as they could, whatever you release).
So yeah I'm just theorycrafting from behind my screen but I think the next 6 months will be quite telling. And considering GW is unhappy with their December numbers, it doesn't start well.
But "retail" doesn't include mail order, when you add "mail order" and "retail" together, it was flat (or very slight increase).
I'm not sure GW would be unhappy with AoS "only" doing as well as 40k as from reports we have WHFB was doing significantly worse than 40k. So they managed to release AoS, diversifying their sales beyond 40k without losing out massively.
If AoS maintains popularity it'll mean GW has more than just the 40k channel making money, which is a good thing. I tend to think it won't maintain popularity, but that's all just speculation, this report in and of itself doesn't seem all that terrible.
Quick look and a couple of thoughts before I have to run to some meetings:
-The odd thing here is that their tactic with webstore exclusives seems to be working. 5.3% growth is respectable.
-Retail sales continue to be an issue. They opened 22 new stores and sales were flat. I think that we've all beat that particular horse to death but they apparently haven't learned why sales are down in that stream. Hmmmm. Seriously, operating expenses, driven by their retail activities, went up .3m but were flat. I hope someone's asking some hard questions there but somehow I doubt it.
- They've doubled licensing revenue so people must be buying all that shovelware that's been coming out.
-Inventory increased by .6m. By itself this doesn't necessarily mean much unless it's all boxes of AoS models.
-Cash is king and their net cash fell by .6m. Something I never thought about before is that we can know how much they spend on product development (6.3m) for next time people assume making model molds costs 100s of thousands of pounds...not so much.
Edit:
Overall, some negatives but the financial picture remains healthy; no doom and gloom here. Good news is that the sales slide has slowed so that means their potential market has bottomed out (or nearly) or we might see them turn things around in the 2nd half for positive growth. I'm happy that I was wrong on my dire prediction earlier in the thread of 6-8% loss.
December sales were below expectations across the Group. At this stage in the Company’s financial year, the Company’s internal projections indicate that pre-tax profit for the year to 29 May 2016 is unlikely to exceed £16 million. A further update will be made when appropriate.
I missed that bit. That doesn't sound great, so they're expecting 2015/16 to be slightly worse profit-wise than 2014/15, though still not as bad as 2013/2014 which I think was their worst year in recent times.
infinite_array wrote: It's not bad, but it's not exactly great, either. The half year report includes the release of both AoS (where new editions of games usually bump up sales) and the Calth game - i.e., plastic Heresy, which in the past has been alluded to as GW's panic button.
But in order to release AoS they didn't have 40k releases for a while, so in that sense it's not terrible.
Calth was only out for 2 weeks of that reporting period. I don't know how well it sold but I always tend to think it takes more than a single product to make a significant bump (or drop) on revenue. If Calth is successful it'll probably show up in the next report more as people who didn't buy it in the first 2 week buy it and then proceed to expand the forces with other purchases.
I think GW purposefully released AoS and Calth in the same reporting period so that mugs like us couldn't do a decent analysis of what is going on
It doesn't really matter when customers bought BaC. It gets added to the accounts as they're ordered from trade/GW shops. So, if BaC had an initial run of 10k units at a trade price of £50 per unit, that's £500k straight to the accounts as soon as it gets ordered, regardless of whenever Timmy buys his. Same goes for AOS. If they made 25k copies that went to trade accounts (i.e., independent shops) that's still 25k copies worth of money in for GW, regardless of how many actual people buy the sets. If it's a flop, it won't show up until indies stop ordering (or send them back, if they have deals like that).
infinite_array wrote: It's not bad, but it's not exactly great, either. The half year report includes the release of both AoS (where new editions of games usually bump up sales) and the Calth game - i.e., plastic Heresy, which in the past has been alluded to as GW's panic button.
But in order to release AoS they didn't have 40k releases for a while, so in that sense it's not terrible.
Calth was only out for 2 weeks of that reporting period. I don't know how well it sold but I always tend to think it takes more than a single product to make a significant bump (or drop) on revenue. If Calth is successful it'll probably show up in the next report more as people who didn't buy it in the first 2 week buy it and then proceed to expand the forces with other purchases.
I think GW purposefully released AoS and Calth in the same reporting period so that mugs like us couldn't do a decent analysis of what is going on
It doesn't really matter when customers bought BaC. It gets added to the accounts as they're ordered from trade/GW shops. So, if BaC had an initial run of 10k units at a trade price of £50 per unit, that's £500k straight to the accounts as soon as it gets ordered, regardless of whenever Timmy buys his. Same goes for AOS. If they made 25k copies that went to trade accounts (i.e., independent shops) that's still 25k copies worth of money in for GW, regardless of how many actual people buy the sets. If it's a flop, it won't show up until indies stop ordering (or send them back, if they have deals like that).
It depends how much independents bought. Sales from retail and mail order don't get added until a customer actually buys them, sales from trade get added when store buy it.
The previous year Space Hulk came out as well which was also a big seller. As far as independents buying boxes is concerned I almost would have though Space Hulk would have had more copies ordered than Calth. I know my local FLGS bought a giant stack of Space Hulk but a much smaller stack of Calth That said I didn't really follow the release of Calth because it doesn't interest me, maybe I underestimate it.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: But "retail" doesn't include mail order, when you add "mail order" and "retail" together, it was flat (or very slight increase).
From what I see Retail+Mail Order went from 34,536 to 32,841 so still quite a fall. I am amazed by how much they do via Mail Order thought, it's more than half Retail and I never realized that until today.
infinite_array wrote: It's not bad, but it's not exactly great, either. The half year report includes the release of both AoS (where new editions of games usually bump up sales) and the Calth game - i.e., plastic Heresy, which in the past has been alluded to as GW's panic button.
Nah, the plastic thunderhawk gunship is the break glass in emergency only.
When GW start selling that, run for the hills, because the end times are upon us
AllSeeingSkink wrote: But "retail" doesn't include mail order, when you add "mail order" and "retail" together, it was flat (or very slight increase).
From what I see Retail+Mail Order went from 34,536 to 32,841 so still quite a fall. I am amazed by how much they do via Mail Order thought, it's more than half Retail and I never realized that until today.
If you visit a modern GW shop it will be clear why web store sales are so high. The shops only stock part of the range for each army. This forces people to order any other items needed. These orders can only be done through the web store. Whether it's for actual postal delivery, or delivery to store for collection, the result is the same. The web store is a channel for a lot of orders because it's the only way.
This isn't a bad thing in itself, but it isn't a reflection of the web store as a major success in online retail design so much as a consequence of people being forced to do business there.
One might say that GW are doing a good job in the Clicks And Bricks line.
Funny to see GW in this afternoons Evening Standard on the way home. Unfortunately it's a profits warning, sales are up but profit will fall short of £17M expected.
In a less anachronistic fashion from the previous incumbent Roundtree has released comments to the press too
Seems to be in line with true general downturn this winter but we will see I guess in 6months.
I will wait for the full report, but personally (although I am not an investor) I am not worried about a small decline in profits. The important thing is that the decline in sales is slowing down.
Overall, some negatives but the financial picture remains healthy; no doom and gloom here.
This seems to be it.
It looks like a half-year of almost-flat numbers, with (another) slight fall in revenue but the royalties from videogames have managed to compensate for that.
In a wider timescale it's hard to judge, overall I believe it's another step in their slow decline trend (the biggest fish is stagnant in a growing pond), but for now at least it seems they've managed to slow the rate at which they were falling. Also, at least there seems to be someone competent in charge now (however I'm skeptical about to what degree he has the means to fix GW's main issues).
Considering Rountree's words about the dissappointing December, I guess they'll try to put out some eye-catchy releases in the following monts (could the new bundles have already been a result of that?). We'll see.
Bundles are something you can put together very quickly. You just need to design and print new boxes, and have the content kits on hand. It's much easier than designing a new kit from scratch.
Kilkrazy wrote: Most companies do some spinning when they have to announce bad results.
At first glance the results don't seem that bad to me? Perhaps we can get an analysis from someone who is more familiar with reading financial reports?
To me it looks like overall revenue is fine, 2.2% decrease but 0.7% increase at constant currency. It's hard to grow when you have a strong currency and rely heavily on international sales.
Slight increase in trade, decrease in retail and increase in mail order.
The increase in royalties propped them up a bit, $800k increase in royalties accounts for ~1.5% of their revenue, so without that revenue would have dropped by 3.5% (or a 0.7% drop at constant currency).
The problem I have at first glance is the difference between Retail and Trade. Sales in retail are sales to customers, sales in trades are sales to independent stores, meaning that for Trade whatever happen to a product afterward (whether it sales immediately or spend a year on the shelves) is irrelevant to GW.
Now if you release a new product and see independent stores massively investing in it. Trade will go up. But, if the product ends up not selling well to the final customers, that won't change anything for Trade but Retail will not see a similar increase or even see a decrease.
So if big releases like BoC or AoS were to underperform in a visible way, it would appear on the report in the same way we are currently seeing. But it would be worse for the following 6 months. As if the products underperformed then Trade accounts will stop investing in it and you will start to see Trade following the same pattern as Retail unless you release another new Product to force stores to invest (and even so chances are they'll be wary and no longer order as massively as they could, whatever you release).
So yeah I'm just theorycrafting from behind my screen but I think the next 6 months will be quite telling. And considering GW is unhappy with their December numbers, it doesn't start well.
Add to this that the terms for returns of Age of Sigmar were very generous - which means that stores were willing to take a chance on the game, but will be returning unsold stock rather than holding on to it.
Which can bite a company in the butt. (One of the many things leading to the demise of TSR was large amounts of returns on generous terms. (Hmmh... I typed 'lager terms'.... The Drunken Kings game is tonight....))
*EDIT* It also hurt that TSR warehoused the returns - which left them with a vast amount of inventory of zero value. Reading Dancey's report on the demise of TSR is painful. TSR would have been better served by destroying the returned product, or by allowing retailers to strip the paperbound adventures and supplements.
Two of the local stores have just returned most of their stock of AoS. The third store did not go as deep, and is holding on to them... if they do not sell then the models will be used by the store owner for his 40K armies. (He plays Blood Angels and Khorne... must like the color red....)
People with better economic knowledge than me are saying that this is not that bad, which is fair enough, but what's the next rabbit that GW are going to pull out of the hat?
We've had the knight, anecdotal evidence says that AOS has done a Titanic impression, HH has been tried, and I doubt if 40k players will be happy at a new version...
infinite_array wrote: It's not bad, but it's not exactly great, either. The half year report includes the release of both AoS (where new editions of games usually bump up sales) and the Calth game - i.e., plastic Heresy, which in the past has been alluded to as GW's panic button.
Nah, the plastic thunderhawk gunship is the break glass in emergency only.
I think we've just seen the next one...
notprop wrote:Funny to see GW in this afternoons Evening Standard on the way home. Unfortunately it's a profits warning, sales are up but profit will fall short of £17M expected.
The group also said its visitor centre in Nottingham — Warhammer World — did well.
It boasts a café selling pancakes (or Dwarf-flattened Elf Cakes) for £5.50 and Urgluk Gitmasha’s Hot Sausage — two sausages, chips and beans — for £4.75.
Diversification! I expect the pancakes to show up in my local Centra before the next 6-month report. Where I'll look at them. Then buy the cheaper ones.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: People with better economic knowledge than me are saying that this is not that bad, which is fair enough, but what's the next rabbit that GW are going to pull out of the hat?
We've had the knight, anecdotal evidence says that AOS has done a Titanic impression, HH has been tried, and I doubt if 40k players will be happy at a new version...
What now for GW?
Looking forward, I expect a further uptick in royalty income when Total War: Warhammer is released (it's not yet, right?). The next year and a 1/2 - two years is going to be make or break time for AoS; either it will outperform WHFB or it won't and 3 years is the norm to shake out adoption dips.
I'm not sure of Rountree's current strategy to open more shops, it seems a bit daft to me considering falling retail sales while trade and online continue flat or mild growth YoY. I've said this before but they need a diversified strategy when it comes to their retail arm; they can't apply the UK approach of opening shops everywhere to huge territories like the US and Canada. Open some nice, well-staffed, stores in large population centers (the old battle bunkers comes to mind) and then develop trade policies that encourage further trade sales growth. In essence, go back to the days when trade partners did their recruiting for them. This may entail a hard look at their recent web-exclusive strategy which has served to increase web sales but at the cost of trade and retail growth. Really, if you're going to be an e-tailer, don't open physical shops, jump one way or the other.
infinite_array wrote: It's not bad, but it's not exactly great, either. The half year report includes the release of both AoS (where new editions of games usually bump up sales) and the Calth game - i.e., plastic Heresy, which in the past has been alluded to as GW's panic button.
Nah, the plastic thunderhawk gunship is the break glass in emergency only.
I think we've just seen the next one...
notprop wrote:Funny to see GW in this afternoons Evening Standard on the way home. Unfortunately it's a profits warning, sales are up but profit will fall short of £17M expected.
The group also said its visitor centre in Nottingham — Warhammer World — did well.
It boasts a café selling pancakes (or Dwarf-flattened Elf Cakes) for £5.50 and Urgluk Gitmasha’s Hot Sausage — two sausages, chips and beans — for £4.75.
Diversification! I expect the pancakes to show up in my local Centra before the next 6-month report. Where I'll look at them. Then buy the cheaper ones.
Those Dwarf-Flattened Elf Cakes will sell like hotcakes!
I'd make a snarky comment about tourist food... but the best darned corned beef hash that I ever had was at Disney World.... (Seriously, if you ever go to Disney, try out the hash.... It's been decades, but I still remember it and my mouth waters. )
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: People with better economic knowledge than me are saying that this is not that bad, which is fair enough, but what's the next rabbit that GW are going to pull out of the hat?
We've had the knight, anecdotal evidence says that AOS has done a Titanic impression, HH has been tried, and I doubt if 40k players will be happy at a new version...
What now for GW?
Looking forward, I expect a further uptick in royalty income when Total War: Warhammer is released (it's not yet, right?). The next year and a 1/2 - two years is going to be make or break time for AoS; either it will outperform WHFB or it won't and 3 years is the norm to shake out adoption dips.
I'm not sure of Rountree's current strategy to open more shops, it seems a bit daft to me considering falling retail sales while trade and online continue flat or mild growth YoY. I've said this before but they need a diversified strategy when it comes to their retail arm; they can't apply the UK approach of opening shops everywhere to huge territories like the US and Canada. Open some nice, well-staffed, stores in large population centers (the old battle bunkers comes to mind) and then develop trade policies that encourage further trade sales growth. In essence, go back to the days when trade partners did their recruiting for them. This may entail a hard look at their recent web-exclusive strategy which has served to increase web sales but at the cost of trade and retail growth. Really, if you're going to be an e-tailer, don't open physical shops, jump one way or the other.
Informative reply. Thanks. Regarding new stores in North America, somebody was saying that GW are building new stores in places where the old stores failed.
Mikhalia was also saying that in his area, he's retired more GW stores than social security, so he's none to bothered
As for AOS, well, If AOS turns out to be a success, then I'll change my name to Tom Kirby, and you can quote me on that
Kilkrazy wrote: Most companies do some spinning when they have to announce bad results.
Yesterday M&S, a major UK clothes retail chain, announced bad Christmas results and blamed it on weather, discounting by rivals, and lack of stock. M&S had a 30% off sale in December.
Weather certainly is a factor, but it's not hard to see that everyone can't be suffering from rivals discounting if they are discounting themselves, and it's hard to understand why you would run out of stock if your problem is you aren't getting enough customers into your shops.
In other words, the spin is obvious bs and I think most people are intelligent enough to see this sort of malarkey in any company report, including the GW one.
This has been one of the mildest winters, we've had for years.
Spin doesn't always work.
Marks and Spencer chief executive Marc Bolland to quit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35249317 Marks and Spencer chief executive Marc Bolland is to step down in April, the company said as it announced its Christmas results.
Mr Bolland will be succeeded by Steve Rowe, executive director of general merchandise.
Third-quarter sales of general merchandise were down by 5.8% for the thirteen weeks to 26 December.
Actually, the mild winter is what M+S were blaming, nobody bought new warm winter clothes.
Not cold enough people don't buy winter clothes, To cold people stayed in sales are down, there's always an excuse.
It's the wrong sort of snow, was a good one.(British rail)
agnosto wrote: Quick look and a couple of thoughts before I have to run to some meetings:
-The odd thing here is that their tactic with webstore exclusives seems to be working. 5.3% growth is respectable.
-Retail sales continue to be an issue. They opened 22 new stores and sales were flat. I think that we've all beat that particular horse to death but they apparently haven't learned why sales are down in that stream. Hmmmm. Seriously, operating expenses, driven by their retail activities, went up .3m but were flat. I hope someone's asking some hard questions there but somehow I doubt it.
- They've doubled licensing revenue so people must be buying all that shovelware that's been coming out.
-Inventory increased by .6m. By itself this doesn't necessarily mean much unless it's all boxes of AoS models.
-Cash is king and their net cash fell by .6m. Something I never thought about before is that we can know how much they spend on product development (6.3m) for next time people assume making model molds costs 100s of thousands of pounds...not so much.
Edit:
Overall, some negatives but the financial picture remains healthy; no doom and gloom here. Good news is that the sales slide has slowed so that means their potential market has bottomed out (or nearly) or we might see them turn things around in the 2nd half for positive growth. I'm happy that I was wrong on my dire prediction earlier in the thread of 6-8% loss.
Inventory is usually equipment or facilities, which means they invested in some infrastructure whether it's storage or new mould making equipment who knows.
That their cash on hand decrease is the same as their inventory increase means they spent cash to invest in their own growth, so there won't be future cost of paid off debt later to minimize future profits most likely.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: People with better economic knowledge than me are saying that this is not that bad, which is fair enough, but what's the next rabbit that GW are going to pull out of the hat?
We've had the knight, anecdotal evidence says that AOS has done a Titanic impression, HH has been tried, and I doubt if 40k players will be happy at a new version...
What now for GW?
I certainly am not trained in finance beyond an intro course in high school and college but my amateur reading is that they pretty much treading water. Indicators like sales and profits are down but when you remove factors largely beyond their control (like their favorite "constant currency" conversion) it isn't as bad on paper (but the "constant currency" conversion doesn't help them in practice as the money is still gone). They had this mediocre year AFTER pulling several emergency parachute cords though. Most popular line Space Marine codex rehash? Pulled. Knight model and codex rehash? Pulled. Entirely new flagship game line launch? Pulled. Horus Heresy marines in plastics? Pulled. Continued rehash of 1-2 year life cycle books? Pulled. And all that barely kept them in the same spot. And their new flagship line didn't have a SINGLE model in their OWN top 28 most popular list by whatever metrics they chose to use.
Distractions. Anything else that gets in the way of us delivering our goals.
What a strange statement to have in a financial report especially as its in their top 5 threats is it a reference to the CH debacle and online retailer sales battles?
If a company lists inventory as just inventory it can include all number of things, if it were listed as 'merchandise inventory' it would be stock on hand ready to sale alone.
With the amount of Sigmar that was released in the half-year (and lack of 40k releases), this is a fantastic half-year statement for GW.
On the other hand, the stock tumbled, probably on the forecast that Christmas sales (which aren't reflected in the statements) are apparently weak, which could mean, maybe: Calth didn't sell as well as we all thought it might; the new Sigmar releases don't have the type of sales potential as 40k, at least at this point (duh); the lack of 40k releases does have profit repercussions for the Christmas season; those Start Collecting sets might have been better released as Christmas gifts. Though my wife is free to buy me one or more of them as Valentine's gifts?
It make actually throw the stock into a weak buy in my opinion; the price will be adjusted for the lower December sales, and with Sigmar not trashing the half-year, the fundamentals for the business look good moving forward.
A few interesting little points that I picked up at a glance...
- EPS is up - GW actually generated a lot more cash in this half year compared to the same period last year (8.5m vs 7.8m), and paid less taxes. - Profit, compared with last year, is actually UP (though essentially flat) - Revenues essentially flat - Since prices of GW products didn't really go up (excluding single character clam packs that aren't huge sellers) in 2015, that infers that unit volumes are relatively stable - The two regions with the largest drops are non-UK European retail and Australia - Once again, they're just paying out their profits (meaning, they don't have anything constructive to do with cash)
In financial statements of assets inventory are all assets owned, including facilities and equipment.
When a company's cash decreases equal it's inventory increase its not because they bought .6m of their own product and put it in an inventory room, it's because they purchased new equipment or facilities.
Azreal13 is correct. Current assets, which include Inventory, always refer to goods for resale, not capital assets. Facilities and equipment are non-current assets, which would fall under the entry of "Property, Plant, and Equipment - 22,588 Note 9".
In financial statements of assets inventory are all assets owned, including facilities and equipment.
When a company's cash decreases equal it's inventory increase its not because they bought .6m of their own product and put it in an inventory room, it's because they purchased new equipment or facilities.
There's a couple of places where this is broken down but I was originally looking for how much they claim in inventory provisions, the write-off for obsolete inventory (non-sold or obsolete product). This amount was 286,000 pounds compared to last year's 163,000 pounds. (page 11) That is actual product either sitting idle or destroyed.
Interesting to note in the same area that closing stores cost them 377,000 pounds for the 1st 1/2 of the year, compared to 236,000 for the entirety of last year. How much money are they going to throw away on a losing enterprise? I look at it this way, the retail chain cost the company -2.535 million pounds after you look at operating profits (and that's before taxes). While their trade accounts generated an operating profit of +5.789 million.
@agnosto - we could debate it all day, but I think the retail stores are worth a lot more than their bottom line impact on the financial statements.
It's one of GW's biggest advantages of their competitors (if you want to play there, you must play GW games), it's a form of advertising, and it provides goodwill as a lot of people who don't have access to another hobby store within range will go to the GW. I my area for example, the GW store is in a high density suburb where there isn't another viable hobby shop within 20 minutes by car, and 45 minutes by bus (there is one closer with very bare gaming tables, but 95% of its inventory is CCGs,). Plus, GW gaming tables are pretty nice: they're good quality tables, not just folding things that you see in some stores, of the right size for games of 40k (6x4), and they have painted terrain boards and terrain pieces for patrons to use at no charge.
One could make an argument for making the retail chain much more efficient by deleting all the stores that aren't profitable -- some stores in high traffic areas are obviously going to be a lot more profitable than others -- but I think having a store where it might be difficult for an independent to stay in business (because it would only be marginally profitable, if at all) is a valuable service for people who live in that area. Remember, people may see something in the store, and later buy it online, or from an independent (at a discount) too.
The 377k for closing when divided by 13 stores is only 29k per store. That's really quite efficient, when you factor in things like paying out leases, transporting unsold inventory and furnishings, travel for a regional manager, and the costs associated with taking everything down and packing it up.
I went back and edited my post after reading the pdf and not just using the quoted info from this thread.
However as inventory is listed as all inventory and not just merchandise inventory it also includes all raw materials for production and packaging to make said merchandise. Not solely merchandise for sale.
The increase in obsolete product are most likely from release of AoS when they recalled all the wfb items which were not selling from retailers. this obsolete merchandise would also fall under inventory, unless stated otherwise.
Yes, inventory would most certainly include styrene and extra printed packaging. It would also include unmatched sprues -- for example, a product may require 3 sprues, and for whatever reason if there aren't enough of sprue #2 (quality control, for example, or damage post production), they will have fewer units of the finished product to box up.
I also don't believe that GW includes the costing method of their inventory, so you don't know how much actual inventory that number represents. Most likely, it will be a factor of raw materials and labor, but it's important to note that an Imperial Knight is probably worth barely more than a Razorback, since they cost about the same amount to produce (it's just polystyrene, a cardboard box, and a bit of time). However, all of it will be stuff that will ultimately move through sales channels, rather than fixed assets like molds or tools.
blaktoof wrote: The increase in obsolete product are most likely from release of AoS when they recalled all the wfb items which were not selling from retailers. this obsolete merchandise would also fall under inventory, unless stated otherwise.
There was no recall of anything by GW. If it's not getting out of a stockist module, you won't send anything back and even so the amount of products you can send each year is limited, no matter how many you have.
Anyway changes to the stockist program were minimal with the release of AoS. Recently went out the Dragon Princes and DE Warlocks or whatever they're called, and before that the Phoenix and the Chaos Chariot from what I remember. Not much more for 2015. That reminds me how obsolete and useless the Fantasy part of the modules is...
If a company lists inventory as just inventory it can include all number of things, if it were listed as 'merchandise inventory' it would be stock on hand ready to sale alone.
Inventory isn't capital equipment, though.
Anyway, if GW had to recall a load of unsuccessful WHFB kits they can either rework them as AoS, by repacking with circular bases, or write them off as a loss, and reduce their tax liability.
Sinful Hero wrote: "The greatest risk is the same one that we repeat each year, namely, management. So long as we have great people we will be fine. Problems will arise if the board allows egos and private agendas to rule. I will do my utmost to ensure that this does not happen."
Is this a snipe at King Kirby?
So do we still think Roundtree is Kirby's sock puppet?
Essentially GW was flat for the half year and given ICV2 was reporting the non-collectible market was flat earlier in the year, GW is performing with the market. Though with the comment of December being disappointing, that would indicate Calth was not the hit people expected it to be. But also, AoS was not the failure people proclaimed it to be either. With 3 months dedicated to AoS, there should have been a far larger drop.
Talys wrote: @agnosto - we could debate it all day, but I think the retail stores are worth a lot more than their bottom line impact on the financial statements.
It's one of GW's biggest advantages of their competitors (if you want to play there, you must play GW games), it's a form of advertising, and it provides goodwill as a lot of people who don't have access to another hobby store within range will go to the GW. I my area for example, the GW store is in a high density suburb where there isn't another viable hobby shop within 20 minutes by car, and 45 minutes by bus (there is one closer with very bare gaming tables, but 95% of its inventory is CCGs,). Plus, GW gaming tables are pretty nice: they're good quality tables, not just folding things that you see in some stores, of the right size for games of 40k (6x4), and they have painted terrain boards and terrain pieces for patrons to use at no charge.
One could make an argument for making the retail chain much more efficient by deleting all the stores that aren't profitable -- some stores in high traffic areas are obviously going to be a lot more profitable than others -- but I think having a store where it might be difficult for an independent to stay in business (because it would only be marginally profitable, if at all) is a valuable service for people who live in that area. Remember, people may see something in the store, and later buy it online, or from an independent (at a discount) too.
The 377k for closing when divided by 13 stores is only 29k per store. That's really quite efficient, when you factor in things like paying out leases, transporting unsold inventory and furnishings, travel for a regional manager, and the costs associated with taking everything down and packing it up.
I would argue that it's an inefficient model. I believe that a better model would be regional service and hobby centers like battle bunkers that could house regional sales reps to service and support independent stockists. The problem with the US is that the majority of the country isn't high-density enough, in my opinion, to support a GW; in such cases, it's better to have something like the old Outrider system to work with FLGSs and community members and to drive recruitment. The regional hubs could be places with large gaming space, showcase halls, etc in which GW could hold monthly/quarterly/whatever events to draw people from the surrounding area and show community support.
One man stores are not the answer. Opening 20 stores and closing 13 (not sure on numbers, just used as an example) is sporadic and shows lack of planning. What do they do when they pull out to support the people that they did draw in? Those people mind wind up with a bad customer experience and then become ex-customers.
Sinful Hero wrote: "The greatest risk is the same one that we repeat each year, namely, management. So long as we have great people we will be fine. Problems will arise if the board allows egos and private agendas to rule. I will do my utmost to ensure that this does not happen."
Is this a snipe at King Kirby?
So do we still think Roundtree is Kirby's sock puppet?
Essentially GW was flat for the half year and given ICV2 was reporting the non-collectible market was flat earlier in the year, GW is performing with the market. Though with the comment of December being disappointing, that would indicate Calth was not the hit people expected it to be. But also, AoS was not the failure people proclaimed it to be either. With 3 months dedicated to AoS, there should have been a far larger drop.
It does look like Rountree is putting a different stamp on things.
It's hard to tell without comprehensive data. You could easily come to the conclusion that you did OR you could say that AoS was a great failure but that 40K picked up the slack. Without further data, it's hard to know.
agnosto wrote: I would argue that it's an inefficient model. I believe that a better model would be regional service and hobby centers like battle bunkers that could house regional sales reps to service and support independent stockists. The problem with the US is that the majority of the country isn't high-density enough, in my opinion, to support a GW; in such cases, it's better to have something like the old Outrider system to work with FLGSs and community members and to drive recruitment. The regional hubs could be places with large gaming space, showcase halls, etc in which GW could hold monthly/quarterly/whatever events to draw people from the surrounding area and show community support.
One man stores are not the answer. Opening 20 stores and closing 13 (not sure on numbers, just used as an example) is sporadic and shows lack of planning. What do they do when they pull out to support the people that they did draw in? Those people mind wind up with a bad customer experience and then be
Yup, I like I said, we could debate it all day. I do believe that there are reasonable and compelling arguments on both sides of the GW retail fence.
I think it was 22 and 13. A big part of it, I believe, is staffing the store (based on management's comments). I don't think it's a crazy high paying job, and getting someone to run the thing, especially the one-man deals, probably isn't the most rewarding experience in the universe and something that someone will want to stay at forever. I also don't think one-man stores are the greatest thing in the world; on the other hand, if I lived in an area with no hobby shop, a one man store would be certainly better than nothing. If only to buy paint and supplies, but also as somewhere to game, because those spots are probably sparse in some areas.
The GW stores aren't really dropped in the middle of nowhere in the US (or Canada). There seem to be a few in the high profile stores in top notch locations and the rest seem to be slightly off the beaten track. Probably cost of rent is a big factor. But you're not seeing them in Cannelton, Indiana, if you know what I mean (no offence to anyone who lives there -- just an example of a really small town).
At the end of the day, I think that if GW removed all its stores, it might see some profitability increases, but surely, there would be a decrease in revenue. That would probably mean less spending in hobby in total, but more money spent on companies other than GW, and I don't think that's would be a good thing for GW.
Being that the majority of those months didn't see 40k releases then you'd be hard pressed to support it.
How did sales compare to the year in which 8th edition was released?
Essentially GW was flat for the half year and given ICV2 was reporting the non-collectible market was flat earlier in the year, GW is performing with the market. Though with the comment of December being disappointing, that would indicate Calth was not the hit people expected it to be. But also, AoS was not the failure people proclaimed it to be either. With 3 months dedicated to AoS, there should have been a far larger drop.
It does look like Rountree is putting a different stamp on things.
It's hard to tell without comprehensive data. You could easily come to the conclusion that you did OR you could say that AoS was a great failure but that 40K picked up the slack. Without further data, it's hard to know.
My gut tells me that AoS did better than the Interwebz thought and that Calth did a little worse than the conventional wisdom. But really, like agnosto says, who knows -- we don't have the data to tell us. But it's very likely that the AoS quarter-year was not a disaster of totally epic proportions. What will tell us more is the release cadence in the coming year and subsequent year -- if the Fantasy/40k split is anywhere close to even (like 2015), Sigmar is probably overperforming conventional wisdom expectations; if the release cadence is more reminiscent of 2014, it means that the models GW has already committed to are being stretched out so that fewer investments are required in the long run for a product line that isn't doing well.
Obviously, if AoS gets a major rules reboot in 2016, that would be a huge indicator, too.
As a customer who often buys multiple high value bundle boxes, I would say:
- There aren't a lot of reasons to buy more than 2 kits of AoS, but the models for either Chaos or Sigmarites are pretty useful to play with (and good model value) if you buy 2 boxes.
- Most people won't have a lot of reasons to buy multiple Betrayal at Calth, because most of the plastic goes towards the 30 tactical marines, and there aren't a lot of people who want more than 30 tactical marines. There are certainly not a lot of people who want more than 60 of them (2 boxes).
- I've said this before: Betrayal at Calth is a good deal, and highly attractive to people who like 30k, want to get started in 30k, or like Mk4 -- but it's not a great starter box to begin a 40k army, or, really, to add to a 40k army, because the only useful models are 3 tactical squads and a chaplain for $150 MSRP. Really, who cares about the contemptor, terminators, and terminator captain as far as 40k gaming goes. You also don't get any grav weapons.
agnosto wrote:
It does look like Rountree is putting a different stamp on things.
Signs look hopeful.
It's hard to tell without comprehensive data. You could easily come to the conclusion that you did OR you could say that AoS was a great failure but that 40K picked up the slack. Without further data, it's hard to know.
Yup. Folk were predicting a slight initial upswing from AoS, ages ago. But how much of it was from panic buying WFB, or the sales of the starter set (especially to SM players), or whatever, wasn't and isn't known. It'll need another few reports to see how things really go.
blaktoof wrote: The increase in obsolete product are most likely from release of AoS when they recalled all the wfb items which were not selling from retailers. this obsolete merchandise would also fall under inventory, unless stated otherwise.
There was no recall of anything by GW. If it's not getting out of a stockist module, you won't send anything back and even so the amount of products you can send each year is limited, no matter how many you have.
Anyway changes to the stockist program were minimal with the release of AoS. Recently went out the Dragon Princes and DE Warlocks or whatever they're called, and before that the Phoenix and the Chaos Chariot from what I remember. Not much more for 2015. That reminds me how obsolete and useless the Fantasy part of the modules is...
the recall of product only happened at GW stores, not FLGS it seems. It also included a lot of finecast along with significant WFB product and other outdated items.
The word "recall" might have poor connotations. All GW was doing is moving all of its web-exclusive products from the shelves of (its own) retail stores back to their central warehouse -- presumably, so that they could be more efficient and not stock as much stuff that doesn't move very quickly.
From the GW retail store customer's standpoint, the impact is very minimal, because you can still order the web-exclusive product to that same store with no shipping or other costs, even if what you want is a single $5 pot of edge paint or web-only color. Plus, they ship extremely quickly.
the recall of product only happened at GW stores, not FLGS it seems. It also included a lot of finecast along with significant WFB product and other outdated items.
Indeed that's true, I think at least once a year if not more they do recalls in their own stores. Thought in this case it shall be noted that whether the item is on a store shelves or back at the warehouse it's still part of the same inventory so it will not alter the report.
I've also heard the rumour that a few US stores took many AoS boxes at the condition they could send them back if they didn't sell. But, assuming this is true, AFAIK no similar deal was done in Europe.
Talys wrote: The word "recall" might have poor connotations. All GW was doing is moving all of its web-exclusive products from the shelves of (its own) retail stores back to their central warehouse
Nope, they will also send back current, non obsolete, kits. AFAIK everything is automatized so that each store will receive its specific list of items to send back depending on its own stocks and sales numbers.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: But "retail" doesn't include mail order, when you add "mail order" and "retail" together, it was flat (or very slight increase).
From what I see Retail+Mail Order went from 34,536 to 32,841 so still quite a fall. I am amazed by how much they do via Mail Order thought, it's more than half Retail and I never realized that until today.
I was looking at constant currency, which went from 34.5 to 34.6.
@Wulfson - perhaps it's a bit of a regional thing. Here, "recall" implies that there's something wrong with the product, like an auto recall, where you bring the product back and they fix it, or a food recall, where you bring it back for a refund.
This is, "Product A isn't selling in Store B, so ship it back" -- which is more stock balancing than recalling product.
Even ignoring constant currency, I'm really surprised at how well GW did in the half-year. I was expecting much worse with all those months of Sigmar; even though I like the AoS models, games, terrain, etc. I've never thought them to be super exciting sellers in the hobby shop. Then again, I would not have guessed Smaug to be the top seller. Maybe AoS and 40k both bombed, and GW sold 100,000 units of Smaug!!
Hey KilKrazy, remember this, from a couple of pages ago:
Kilkrazy wrote: In other words, the spin is obvious bs and I think most people are intelligent enough to see this sort of malarkey in any company report, including the GW one.
Well...
Talys wrote: With the amount of Sigmar that was released in the half-year (and lack of 40k releases), this is a fantastic half-year statement for GW.
@HBMC - Really? Did you expect this half-year statement to be better than it is? I mean, seriously, no matter what they did that was a focus on Fantasy, I would have expected a weaker half-year compared to last year's, not one that was essentially flat.
Note that KK also said:
Kilkrazy wrote: I will wait for the full report, but personally (although I am not an investor) I am not worried about a small decline in profits. The important thing is that the decline in sales is slowing down.
I'm not trying to speak for Kilkrazy, but if I hear him correctly, I don't believe that he thinks this is a bad half-year report either.
Talys wrote: @HBMC - Really? Did you expect this half-year statement to be better than it was? I mean, seriously, no matter what they did that was a focus on Fantasy, I would have expected a weaker half-year, not one that was essentially flat.
Well, back on topic, I thought AoS would sell well initially because it's an exciting new game and a good value amount of figures in the box. However there clearly was a bad reaction too. These half year results could reflect excellent sales of the starter, to be followed by the game bombing in the second half of the year that started in December. Obviously we won't know about that for another six months.
The real test is whether the new game can sustain and increase sales over the next 18 months. I always said GW would give it two years.
Another possibility is AoS sold terrible, Calth sold extremely well, but everyone bought their copy in the first 2 weeks (Nov) and didn't have any money left to spend on GW in December so sales were flat for Christmas
Comparing reaction on DakkaDakka to the two games, Battle of Cattle and 30K generally seemed to get a very enthusiastic reaction from a relatively small number of users. AoS seemed to get an enthusiastic reaction from a larger number of users but this was balanced by about equal numbers of users deriding it and switching from WHFB to KoW.
So on that basis my guess is that AoS sold a lot better during the six months than BofC did during the two weeks.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Another possibility is AoS sold terrible, Calth sold extremely well, but everyone bought their copy in the first 2 weeks (Nov) and didn't have any money left to spend on GW in December so sales were flat for Christmas
Putting aside the AoS vs Calth thing, it's entirely possible that you're correct about Calth stealing some sales from GW's Christmas window. I mean, it came out late enough that people could have bought it early to give as a gift, or as a gift to themselves.
Not that this means anything in the grand scheme (ie don't read too much into it), but the store I most often frequent bought 80 copies of Calth at launch and has sold most of them by the end of Boxing Week.
I certainly am not trained in finance beyond an intro course in high school and college but my amateur reading is that they pretty much treading water. Indicators like sales and profits are down but when you remove factors largely beyond their control (like their favorite "constant currency" conversion) it isn't as bad on paper (but the "constant currency" conversion doesn't help them in practice as the money is still gone). They had this mediocre year AFTER pulling several emergency parachute cords though. Most popular line Space Marine codex rehash? Pulled. Knight model and codex rehash? Pulled. Entirely new flagship game line launch? Pulled. Horus Heresy marines in plastics? Pulled. Continued rehash of 1-2 year life cycle books? Pulled. And all that barely kept them in the same spot. And their new flagship line didn't have a SINGLE model in their OWN top 28 most popular list by whatever metrics they chose to use.
Well, people have said this every year - that they have pulled all the stops and can't possibly have anything left to release next time. I'm pretty sure they can come up with some big releases this year too.
Overall, the report is like 3-4 previous ones: ok but not spectacular. They're not declining (or at least not very quickly) but are not growing either. Maybe most noteworthy thing is that their present level to which they dropped few years ago, and was supposed to be just a temporary glitch, has become a new normal and the big turnaround is nowhere to be seen.
Overall, the report is like 3-4 previous ones: ok but not spectacular. They're not declining (or at least not very quickly) but are not growing either.
Well, their revenue declined. slower than last report, but decline is still decline.
I wouldn't call this report "Good," but more like "Not bad."
As for the success or failure of AOS, it's too early to tell.
Edit:
And (just my opinion) relaunching the game that started the company and have no noticeable rise in revenue is what I'd call a moral failure.
IMHO, going on a new player drive as they are with the new bundles is the right direction. The prices on the newest bundles are low enough that even the most jaded GW haters are giving them a second look. They may not be buying, since many of them have moved on to other games with rules that actually work... but they definitely took notice. If the Specialist Games relaunch results in some usable small scale game with tight rules, and the price point is at the same level as these new bundles... they will probably come back in some fashion.
I feel that GW is a Porsche being sold at Ferrari prices but then they put under the hood a 4 cylinder econobox engine. Selling at Porsche prices is a start, fixing the engine problem is the next hurdle.
Yeah but today they put up a box of 10 monopose Dwarfs for AUD$100, so we can pretty much forget about GW changing their ways.
Does it count as monopose if there are multiple weapon options and the ability to mix and match beards and loin cloths? I was under the impression monopose meant that they could only be built one way, not that you could build it many different ways, but that the elbows were always in the same position.
I assume HBMC means the Berserkers, since he said 10 models for AUD$100. I actually thought they were pretty varied in WD#102, and since all of the pieces are interchangeable (different weapon poses & configurations with different bodies) I'd definitely call it posable multipart. Like, some of the bodies are running, while others are advancing or guarding; some of the weapons are raised, others slashing, and some at the ready. It's also good use of plastic, as the "trailing bits" off the axes don't really work in any other medium, if you game with them at all (they'll just break off).
On the other hand the 5 model Hearthguard for AUD $70 looks a lot more "monopose-ish". By that, I mean that although they're technically multipart, multipose, at least in the photography they look very repetitive. Of the 5 models they showcase, two have the left foot forward instead of the right, and the weapons are very subtly differently posed (little different angle, flame effects, etc.), but extremely similar. Hard to tell without seeing the sprue, though. It could be, they just picked 5 combinations that happen to look same-y.
I take is point though -- even excluding the Australian luxury pricing, those models aren't cheap. $60 for the berserkers and $40 for the hearthguard puts them at $6 and $8 respectively for ppm for "small" models. In comparison, Blood Angels Tacticals are only $4.30 per model and the harlequin troupe are $6.70 per model.
Yeah but today they put up a box of 10 monopose Dwarfs for AUD$100, so we can pretty much forget about GW changing their ways.
Does it count as monopose if there are multiple weapon options and the ability to mix and match beards and loin cloths? I was under the impression monopose meant that they could only be built one way, not that you could build it many different ways, but that the elbows were always in the same position.
When I say "monopose" I mean they can only be posed one way. These Dwarfs are monopose because the feet, legs, torso and arms up to the wrists are a single piece, so they can only have 1 pose, but with multiple weapon options. The same as I'd consider the Savage Orc models as being monopose (even though they can be equipped in various ways, the actual pose is fixed).
I'm not opposed to monopose models.... but I don't like the poses of the new stunties, the musculature is terrible and the price is a bit insane for a something that is monopose.
H.B.M.C. wrote: They are grotesque minis. They're the new plastic Minotaurs. And the Savage Orcs cost less than half what these Dwarves cost.
Crap. I hadn't seen these yet. Do they have the special rule AND THEY SHALL KNOW NO CLOTHES?
On the upside, the older dwarf models (ahem Duardin) might end up in a discount (ahem clearance) box set... Maybe 1x Runelord, 1x Gyrocopter, 1x Dwarf Warriors, 1x Thunderers
keezus wrote: On the upside, the older dwarf models (ahem Duardin) might end up in a discount (ahem clearance) box set... Maybe 1x Runelord, 1x Gyrocopter, 1x Dwarf Warriors, 1x Thunderers
This is very true. I have a shelf-full of old fantasy Chaos models now, because they were so stupidly discounted that I couldn't help myself. I think it was like 50% off, but the prices were really old stickers, so it was more like 70% off of the current price.
Overall, the report is like 3-4 previous ones: ok but not spectacular. They're not declining (or at least not very quickly) but are not growing either. Maybe most noteworthy thing is that their present level to which they dropped few years ago, and was supposed to be just a temporary glitch, has become a new normal and the big turnaround is nowhere to be seen.
True, but that new normal seems very similar to the pre-2011/2012 normal, but more profitable. Not terribly bad, in the long-term, even though the they surely would've preferred the 2011/2012 spike to be the new normal.
I live in a small town in the frozen NE of the uk it is by many metrics one of the poorest areas in the uk.
We have a GW and 2 flgs a total of around 137ish calth sets were sold in the first weekend. They outsold AoS starters in there opening weekend by about 9 to 1.
A couple of my frends blew there gaming budgets for both Nov and Dec buying multiple calth sets.
Anecdotal I know but I am pretty certain Calth pulled gw's ass out of the fire, at the cost of esential cannibalizing there december sales.
I am curious what the next 6 months Calth is going to be, could be a number of boxes like the new starters which actually provide some value, might be bloodbowl or.another boxed game we live in interesting times.
The good news for GW is that the GBP has gone down from about $1.55 to about $1.45 USD, so if that exchange rate keeps up, they can expect a 2% increase in sales revenue due to exchange rates, everything else being equal.
Of course, the Euro could spoil this, or improve things for GW.
This doesn't solve the problem of how to get more customers and get customers spending more money.
We have a GW and 2 flgs a total of around 137ish calth sets were sold in the first weekend. They outsold AoS starters in there opening weekend by about 9 to 1.
A couple of my frends blew there gaming budgets for both Nov and Dec buying multiple calth sets.
Anecdotal I know but I am pretty certain Calth pulled gw's ass out of the fire, at the cost of esential cannibalizing there december sales.
Blimey.
I think 2016 is definitely a plastic Thunderhawk year. Or... given GW's tendency to go Heresy and pull out old ideas lately, a plastic Mk1 Land Raider year.
I don't think it's ever been much fun being a store manager and these days it is a lot harder than it was 10 years ago:
Demanding sales targets. Competition from your own company's website. Not enough news about forthcoming releases. Not many assistant staff. Out of the way locations. Etc.
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think it's ever been much fun being a store manager and these days it is a lot harder than it was 10 years ago:
Demanding sales targets. Competition from your own company's website. Not enough news about forthcoming releases. Not many assistant staff. Out of the way locations. Etc.
And from what anecdotal evidence has been saying in past dakka discussions - they have been robbed of the traditional salesman's tool of giving discounts on purchases or offering free goodies if a customer spends a lot.
Years ago, I remember maxing out on an undead army at a GW store, and I asked the manager if he could throw in a paintbrush and some pots paint for free. Within reason of course.
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think it's ever been much fun being a store manager and these days it is a lot harder than it was 10 years ago:
Demanding sales targets. Competition from your own company's website. Not enough news about forthcoming releases. Not many assistant staff. Out of the way locations. Etc.
And from what anecdotal evidence has been saying in past dakka discussions - they have been robbed of the traditional salesman's tool of giving discounts on purchases or offering free goodies if a customer spends a lot.
Years ago, I remember maxing out on an undead army at a GW store, and I asked the manager if he could throw in a paintbrush and some pots paint for free. Within reason of course.
No problem whatsoever.
Do they still do this? Can they still do this?
No, if they did do it and HQ found out they would probably consider it theft and terminate the manager for gross misconduct.
Working for GW is akin to living in Stalin's Russa. If you have opinons of your own it is best to keep them to yourself. If you fail to meet the.ridiculous targets your gone. If your beating your target's you are under suspicon of fiddling. Your best chance of survival is to cow tow to a superior and drink the kool aid. Also GW managers just disappear to be replaced by another I find it best not to get attached to them.
As ":heretical" can this question sound, do they really need the stores? the rest of the world has shown they are quite useless, they never promoted the hobby in countries they never existed, or were one store ever existed and the hobby grew quite well.
For over a decade they seem to me to be a dead weight dragging company expenses were the money could have been invested in marketing and other products to make them more competitive.
Also other companies manage to do well without them and I am not sure they need stores to grow to a bigger size.
I don't believe they should have them, I think that a worldwide network of indie retailers is the better way to have done things, and I believe the ridiculous level of control they've apparently determined to exercise over the "GW brand" is inappropriate for this industry.
However, I think the decision to be both retailer and manufacturer, however many years ago that started, has ultimately painted them into a corner where to actually now remove them would do more harm than good. I think nowadays the quality of their product doesn't stack up well enough to modern competition to sell well enough in a open ecosystem to support GW, and they need to recruit people into a closed ecosystem and make the higher margin direct sales generate in order to keep on.
Plus the rollout of more and more one man stores has been oft trumpeted in recent reports as the key to the future, to do a u-turn now would both be embarrassing and damaging for them.
I think nowadays the quality of their product doesn't stack up well enough to modern competition to sell well enough in a open ecosystem to support GW, and they need to recruit people into a closed ecosystem and make the higher margin direct sales generate in order to keep on.
Heh, I think thats probably why I didn't get the GW store assistant job I applied for. I talked in my covering letter about how I'm getting more active at my club, joined the committee, helping to run games, doing demo games of the SBG and SAGA using my LOTR SBG minis, I'm running D&D games using LOTR minis. Trying to spin it and make a positive out of using their models to play other games - if they're telling the truth when they say "We're a model company", they shouldn't have a problem with that.
I wouldn't have had much else to talk about otherwise.
"Hey, I've never played Warhammer Fantasy or Age of Sigmar, I haven't played Warhammer 40K since 2012 and my favourite GW game is the system and miniature range that is the least profitable for you and which you no longer support, the SBG. Give me a job!"
Guess I didn't come across as enough of a fanboy. I'm by no means part of that "closed ecosystem".
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think it's ever been much fun being a store manager and these days it is a lot harder than it was 10 years ago:
Demanding sales targets. Competition from your own company's website. Not enough news about forthcoming releases. Not many assistant staff. Out of the way locations. Etc.
On the other hand, this can be said of almost any retail manager position. It isn't a lot of fun being a store manager at a clothing store, radio shack ("the source"), best buy, or McDonald's, either. Generally, they're positions that require a ton of work and responsibility and pay not nearly as much as many office jobs with similar workload/responsibility.
Competing with your own website is something that lots of people have to do now. At least, however, they don't have the GW problem of, "why is your product cheaper at [fill in the name of indie store 10 minutes away]"?
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PsychoticStorm wrote: For over a decade they seem to me to be a dead weight dragging company expenses were the money could have been invested in marketing and other products to make them more competitive.
Also other companies manage to do well without them and I am not sure they need stores to grow to a bigger size.
They're not really exclusionary: it's not as if gw is running retail, so there isn't enough money to invest in mew games or marketing. Almost every year, gw has illions of dollars left over, and they turn around and just give it back to their shareholders. If they had an intelligent plan for reinvesting it (growth), I'm pretty sure shareholders would be on board. I'm personally surprised that GW doesn't release other games/spinoffs, as that's usually good money. And who knows, some games turn out to be surprising blockbusters.
Doing well is a pretty relative term. We have no idea, really, how big FFG or PP are, or how big they'd be if they had hundreds of retail stores across the world. There are examples of manufacturers that do retail really well, like Apple, and ones that did it pretty poorly, like Nokia.
Personally, I don't see GW stores as a blight upon the universe. I don't shop there, because all of the prices are higher, but for people who find them convenient and like their gaming facilities, I'm sure they are a positive. Plus, like I've said, I'm sure some hobby dollars would go to other companies if GW stores closed up. GW stores give GW the ability, in a market where there aren't a lot of stores to start with, and where at least some of their customers cant travel far, the ability to display their version of the hobby with absolute control and without competition.
So the kid whose parents are at the mall anyways will see the GW store, go in, and maybe get interested in a GW product, whereas an indie might have gotten the kid interested in any number of other products... or maybe nothing at all, as there aren't a ton of Indies in high profile locations (expensive rent), and most generic toy stores and shopping center game stores don't sell miniature warfare materials and hobby supplies anymore.
I think GW desperately needs the shops because they have very few marketing channels and wargames are so experiential that this is a very important one. However, I'm not convinced the current policy of moving shops to small, under-staffed locations with low footfall is a good strategy in this respect, and I also believe that rather than being purely experiential marketing locations, the shops could actually sell a wider variety of wargame stuff if GW produced it.
I would agree that the huge territories to be covered make it unrealistic for GW to do everything with their own branded shops, so they need to harness the opportunity of independents. This is something they seem to have been good at in the past, and to have got bad it in the last 10 years, like a lot of things.
@kk - I also agree that small stores in obscure locations make no sense. Slightly off the beaten track is okay, if it gets enough traffic, but those mall locations are where you catch people who will spend more than they need to, and where independents generally can't afford to be.
Spend a fraction of the cost for retail stores marketing and advertising and they'd be on TV and in trade mags around the world. As a shareholder, I don't feel that the stores are good value and I've shared as much with GW (little good it will do me). There are more efficient ways to recruit new customers.
Edit:
You have to know the location or be actively looking for the only GW in my entire state to actually find it. If the other stores are in similar locations, it's little wonder they're losing money.
If the company is going to have a loss-leader, I'd rather it be a gateway/intro product than an anachronistic dependence on a failed business model.
I think GW should take the store mentality of having a big presence in the retail space to the media world and get more stuff like Duncan, but for battle reports and whatnot. They could become a top battle report channel overnight with their resources and could portray their games exactly how they want to.
coldgaming wrote: I think GW should take the store mentality of having a big presence in the retail space to the media world and get more stuff like Duncan, but for battle reports and whatnot. They could become a top battle report channel overnight with their resources and could portray their games exactly how they want to.
It's just a question of what they want to do, versus what they don't. The cost of having a battle report channel at the same quality as Duncan's guides on WarhammerTV isn't even a rounding error compared to the cost of operating one nice store. If GW wanted to, they could have fabulous gaming resources and gaming community outreach. It wouldn't be expensive. But GW seems to go out of its way to have nothing to do with the scene.
I mean, forget about a 40k batrep... when was the last time you saw a photo in White Dwarf (or Visions) that looked anything like a actual gaming table? In the next 10,000 pictures you'll see new releases, dioramas, painting contest entries, painting guides, modelling subassemblies, and all that kind of thing, and never one actual *game* of 40k or AoS. The only thing that I've seen in years that resembles a game I'd play are the boardgames, where they lay out models in a way consistent to how it's played that game -- like execution force, space hulk, or Calth.
Kilkrazy wrote: Comparing reaction on DakkaDakka to the two games, Battle of Cattle and 30K generally seemed to get a very enthusiastic reaction from a relatively small number of users. AoS seemed to get an enthusiastic reaction from a larger number of users but this was balanced by about equal numbers of users deriding it and switching from WHFB to KoW.
So on that basis my guess is that AoS sold a lot better during the six months than BofC did during the two weeks.
As I mentioned above - this coming quarter will also see the returns of unsold AoS - for some stores this is going to be a majority of their initial orders of the game. (Two stores are each returning sixteen out of twenty boxes in my local area. A third store only stocked two, hasn't sold any, but the owner doesn't care - he plans to buy them himself if they don't sell soon, and turn them into 40K figures.)
So, the initial wholesale purchases were strong, but, again, on a local level, consumer response has been poor.
I am pretty sure that at least half of the boxes that were sold are destined for 40K armies. (Which has no bearing on the sale - a purchase is a purchase - but does not speak well for the survival of the game itself.)
One of the other details that makes the webstore preferable from GW's standpoint - sales direct to the consumer are not likely to be returned at the end of the quarter.
Which may also explain some of GW's attitude towards FLGS - they cannot be certain of the money until the allotted time for returns is past.
They should bring back Warhammer Fantasy as a mass battle ruleset to be played parallel to Age of Sigmar, which should be treated as a skirmish game like the SBG.
They should also give a big discount on Core troops, like the January bundles they did for 40K and AOS. Core troops should be cheap, so new players can quickly build the core of their army. Its the Heroes, Elites and Monsters that should be expensive.
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think it's ever been much fun being a store manager and these days it is a lot harder than it was 10 years ago:
Demanding sales targets. Competition from your own company's website. Not enough news about forthcoming releases. Not many assistant staff. Out of the way locations. Etc.
I know my local observations don't apply globally, but funnily enough 10-20 years ago (before my local GW went 1 man and moved out of the main shopping centre to a quiet location down the street) they had a huge turnover of staff. If you didn't come in for a few months then there'd be a new staff member and an old one would have dropped off. There was also a policy of never talking about other games, ever, for any reason.
When they first moved to a 1 man store and out of the prominent area, it was a ghost town for a while, the new manager was awkward with customers and it seemed like the store was struggling. But he's been there for the whole time now, 3 or 4 years I guess, the store is really booming again. He's passionate about GW games but will also discuss other games (he'll always bring it back round to trying to sell you a GW game, but I can't blame him for that, it's his friggin job ). When describing features in GW games he's often used other games as examples, "Have you played X-wing/ Warmahordes/etc, it's kind of like that but like this".
If he quits/gets fired it'll be interesting to see if the store turns in to a ghost town again.
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Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: They should bring back Warhammer Fantasy as a mass battle ruleset to be played parallel to Age of Sigmar, which should be treated as a skirmish game like the SBG
They've burned that bridge when they shifted to circular bases. It was when we first started seeing circular bases that the petrol was being poured on GW's funeral pyre, the moment they started releasing models with circular bases was when they lit the match and threw it on.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: They should bring back Warhammer Fantasy as a mass battle ruleset to be played parallel to Age of Sigmar, which should be treated as a skirmish game like the SBG
They've burned that bridge when they shifted to circular bases. It was when we first started seeing circular bases that the petrol was being poured on GW's funeral pyre, the moment they started releasing models with circular bases was when they lit the match and threw it on.
Not true. They can reuse the movement trays from the old and defunct LOTR War of the Ring mass battle game. They still sell the movement trays AFAIK. That would let players build up an army slowly, using it for the skirmish game, then ranking their models up using movement trays once they've collected enough models.
I started wargaming with the SBG. I have never used a square base, and never will, because I prefer the look of round bases and figure I can just use movement trays if I ever want to do mass battle games, which aren't my thing anyway. Warbases have a good range of MDF trays.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: They should bring back Warhammer Fantasy as a mass battle ruleset to be played parallel to Age of Sigmar, which should be treated as a skirmish game like the SBG
They've burned that bridge when they shifted to circular bases. It was when we first started seeing circular bases that the petrol was being poured on GW's funeral pyre, the moment they started releasing models with circular bases was when they lit the match and threw it on.
Not true. They can reuse the movement trays from the old and defunct LOTR War of the Ring mass battle game. They still sell the movement trays AFAIK. That would let players build up an army slowly, using it for the skirmish game, then ranking their models up using movement trays once they've collected enough models.
I started wargaming with the SBG. I have never used a square base, and never will, because I prefer the look of round bases and figure I can just use movement trays if I ever want to do mass battle games, which aren't my thing anyway.
Maybe, I will admit I never really liked LOTR's movement trays, I guess it could be an option though.
I have little doubt that if GW kept the battle bunker in Richmond open, I'd still be playing 40k and probably WFB as well. (well, okay, not after AOS) But the multiple staff were amazing and really spread their passion to anyone that came into the store.
TheWaspinator wrote: The Age of Sigmar starter can be easily bought for 40% off on eBay. I really doubt that its selling well for full MSRP anywhere.
It's sold at full MSRP at all the GW stores
Mind you, hardly any store sells any GW stuff at full MSRP that isn't GW. The shops that I frequent always keep 1-4 of AoS Starter on the shelf (depending on the store), and I see the inventory dip down from time to time. They're not flying off the shelf (at least, I don't think they are), but then again, neither is Dark Vengeance, and Isle of Blood wasn't a super seller either.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: They should bring back Warhammer Fantasy as a mass battle ruleset to be played parallel to Age of Sigmar, which should be treated as a skirmish game like the SBG.
They should also give a big discount on Core troops, like the January bundles they did for 40K and AOS. Core troops should be cheap, so new players can quickly build the core of their army. Its the Heroes, Elites and Monsters that should be expensive.
The problem is they can't, not if their motivations for AoS are what they appear to be.
They want a game with an entirely trademarkable background, entirely copyrightable aesthetic, low shelf impact, and high per-box margins. That means they can't "bring back" Fantasy in terms of the background, nor can they stop phasing out the elements of the WHFB model line that have obvious historical or public-domain fictional aspects to their design, nor even can they stop their focus on "bigger-but-less-for-more-money" model design, because all of those things are integral to what AoS "is" from a retail sales perspective.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you entirely, and frankly I'm baffled as to why they didn't try the current strategy of heavily discounted starter and digital content bundles before they willfully vandalised the brand their company was built on, but they've chosen their course and unless AoS has been an utter, total, unmitigated disaster(as opposed to the basic disappointment, from their perspective, the anecdotal evidence would suggest) I wouldn't expect to see GW producing a WHFB reboot(or even a similar style of game) for at least 5 years, more likely 10+. If we're lucky, someone at FW will persuade GW to allow them to revive Realhammer, but it will hardly be cheap to buy full armies in resin at FW prices, and I'm not even sure there's anyone at FW who gives enough of a gak about Realhammer to push for it.
Kilkrazy wrote: Comparing reaction on DakkaDakka to the two games, Battle of Cattle and 30K generally seemed to get a very enthusiastic reaction from a relatively small number of users. AoS seemed to get an enthusiastic reaction from a larger number of users but this was balanced by about equal numbers of users deriding it and switching from WHFB to KoW.
So on that basis my guess is that AoS sold a lot better during the six months than BofC did during the two weeks.
As I mentioned above - this coming quarter will also see the returns of unsold AoS - for some stores this is going to be a majority of their initial orders of the game. (Two stores are each returning sixteen out of twenty boxes in my local area. A third store only stocked two, hasn't sold any, but the owner doesn't care - he plans to buy them himself if they don't sell soon, and turn them into 40K figures.)
So, the initial wholesale purchases were strong, but, again, on a local level, consumer response has been poor.
I am pretty sure that at least half of the boxes that were sold are destined for 40K armies. (Which has no bearing on the sale - a purchase is a purchase - but does not speak well for the survival of the game itself.)
One of the other details that makes the webstore preferable from GW's standpoint - sales direct to the consumer are not likely to be returned at the end of the quarter.
Which may also explain some of GW's attitude towards FLGS - they cannot be certain of the money until the allotted time for returns is past.
The Auld Grump
This is a reason why canning all the regional HQs may have been a bad thing. It reduces the contact GW has with independents, which makes it harder for indies to gauge new releases. This is of course made worse by GW's policy of no marketing information until a week before release. Indies may be led to over-order or under-order. Either mistake can be seriously bad business for GW. Without a returns policy they are liable to under order. With a returns policy they are liable to over order.
The thing about the web store is that it isn't worth anything for marketing unless people already know about the games and are searching for them on line. So it's not much use for recruitment.
@KK - Maybe it's different in other regions, but here, a GW rep (usually the same one) calls the independents every week to take their order, chat them up, and that kind of thing. The store I frequent passes on any feedback we have, and handles any questions/problems. Obviously, for all we know, the feedback could go in one ear and out the other, and they could just be making the motions.
For a long time, I recall he was asking my store why they thought Fantasy Battle didn't sell (for them, that is), and what they thought could be done to increase those numbers.
@AuldGrump - I don't think there's a limit to the time they have to return product, but the dollar limit is really quite small (I can't recall the exact dollar amount, but I remember it was really tiny). Printed products, on the other hand, including both codex and magazines, can all be returned AFAIK.
There's a great story about Lord Marks, who was one of the two original proprietors of the Marks & Spencer chain that has been in trouble for some years from falling sales.
Back in the early days Marks used to insist some of his junior executives and managers came with him on Saturday morning trips to stores. When he went into the store, he would stand still for a few minutes doing nothing.
His aides didn't know what this was for, until they realised he was listening to the ringing of the tills. If the ringing was brisk he knew things were going well. If not, he would try to investigate, talk to customers, junior staff, check the shelves, and so on.
The point of this anecdote is to illustrate that personal contact is a different thing to ringing someone up once a week.
PsychoticStorm wrote: As ":heretical" can this question sound, do they really need the stores?
Yes and no. They need them to have a wider public footprint, most people in the UK have at least heard about Games Workshop simply because of their shops. On the other hand they are a massive cost and they could easily bring in sales from other channels.
It would probably be a good idea to sink the 'one man store' idea and open/maintain flagship store in large urban areas while closing all the shops in towns or duplicate stores. I used to live in Middlesbrough and there were 6 GW's within an hours drive, I have no idea if this is still the case, they could easily had opened a large regional store in Newcastle or York and closed all the rest.
PsychoticStorm wrote: As ":heretical" can this question sound, do they really need the stores?
Yes and no. They need them to have a wider public footprint, most people in the UK have at least heard about Games Workshop simply because of their shops. On the other hand they are a massive cost and they could easily bring in sales from other channels.
It would probably be a good idea to sink the 'one man store' idea and open/maintain flagship store in large urban areas while closing all the shops in towns or duplicate stores. I used to live in Middlesbrough and there were 6 GW's within an hours drive, I have no idea if this is still the case, they could easily had opened a large regional store in Newcastle or York and closed all the rest.
I agree. Large stores with gaming and modelling/painting space available to book and enough staff to interact with customers without having to constantly go back to the till when someone wants to buy something would be a good store.
They should also reduce the minimum spend to qualify for free shipping from their webstore.
Talys wrote: @KK - Maybe it's different in other regions, but here, a GW rep (usually the same one) calls the independents every week to take their order, chat them up, and that kind of thing. The store I frequent passes on any feedback we have, and handles any questions/problems. Obviously, for all we know, the feedback could go in one ear and out the other, and they could just be making the motions.
For a long time, I recall he was asking my store why they thought Fantasy Battle didn't sell (for them, that is), and what they thought could be done to increase those numbers.
@AuldGrump - I don't think there's a limit to the time they have to return product, but the dollar limit is really quite small (I can't recall the exact dollar amount, but I remember it was really tiny). Printed products, on the other hand, including both codex and magazines, can all be returned AFAIK.
I gather that the terms for returns of AoS were quite a bit more generous than GW's normal terms - GW wanted the game to have a strong store presence.
I think that having so many boxes might have hurt sales - that it would have been better to give an illusion that the game was in demand.
But, well, Christmas. (The really depressing thing - none of the games sold for Christmas... I think that by the time folks were thinking about Christmas presents the game had already picked up a bad reputation.)
I'll be honest - I wasn't impressed with the box contents. The humanoid Chaos folks weren't bad, most of the animalistic beasts are good - but that big galmy humanoid Khorne beast... just looked stupid.
I think that the Sigmarines turned a lot of people off. Yay... faceless armored Übermensch... again.
*EDIT* BaC on the other hand has sold very well - but the stores stocked less of it, in part because of the piles of AoS they had taking up so much space....
Not surprised at the half year results. There was that bad one a year or two ago, with sales down by a quarter et al. That one was a proper black eye. This one - more of the usual - cutting back a bit, but overall - ok. Not great, but ok.
I think Aos has probably sold a bit more than people realise, but I think it's too specialised to become the second flag bearer. 40k, and it's heresy spin off seem to be holding the ship steady.
I gather that they are opening a store in my area pretty soon - which is kind of a kick in the teeth to the GW only store that is already in the area. (Hey! You're doing well! Now move over chump, it's our turn.)
I don't know if will be one of their one man wonders or not.
Kilkrazy wrote: It was always GW's strategy to see places where shops were doing well and open up very nearby.
Which is illustrative of the whole problem of their store approach. They should be identifying stores that sell a lot of product and helping them to sell more. They could offer prize support for tournaments, or banners for in the store, or whatever. Anything to aid/encourage the store to sell more. As it is, they compete with their ostensible partners, while incurring the extra costs of store overhead and ill will from the store owners and, potentially, the community.
Kilkrazy wrote: It was always GW's strategy to see places where shops were doing well and open up very nearby.
Which is illustrative of the whole problem of their store approach. They should be identifying stores that sell a lot of product and helping them to sell more. They could offer prize support for tournaments, or banners for in the store, or whatever. Anything to aid/encourage the store to sell more. As it is, they compete with their ostensible partners, while incurring the extra costs of store overhead and ill will from the store owners and, potentially, the community.
To be fair though, this isn't anything against GW now. As KK said, it's always been their approach. I saw it first hand in the late 90's when they moved into a town with a GW scene around an FLGS.
Ironically, while the FLGS moved to another town, it was alive and kicking until very recently when the owners simply sold it to retire. The GW that moved into the town has been gone for years.
Kilkrazy wrote: It was always GW's strategy to see places where shops were doing well and open up very nearby.
Which is illustrative of the whole problem of their store approach. They should be identifying stores that sell a lot of product and helping them to sell more. They could offer prize support for tournaments, or banners for in the store, or whatever. Anything to aid/encourage the store to sell more. As it is, they compete with their ostensible partners, while incurring the extra costs of store overhead and ill will from the store owners and, potentially, the community.
To be fair though, this isn't anything against GW now. As KK said, it's always been their approach. I saw it first hand in the late 90's when they moved into a town with a GW scene around an FLGS.
Ironically, while the FLGS moved to another town, it was alive and kicking until very recently when the owners simply sold it to retire. The GW that moved into the town has been gone for years.
That doesn't seem to be uncommon in Australia, if a GW opens a store on the same street as a FLGS it's the GW that withers and dies.
Kilkrazy wrote: It was always GW's strategy to see places where shops were doing well and open up very nearby.
Which is illustrative of the whole problem of their store approach. They should be identifying stores that sell a lot of product and helping them to sell more. They could offer prize support for tournaments, or banners for in the store, or whatever. Anything to aid/encourage the store to sell more. As it is, they compete with their ostensible partners, while incurring the extra costs of store overhead and ill will from the store owners and, potentially, the community.
To be fair though, this isn't anything against GW now. As KK said, it's always been their approach. I saw it first hand in the late 90's when they moved into a town with a GW scene around an FLGS.
Ironically, while the FLGS moved to another town, it was alive and kicking until very recently when the owners simply sold it to retire. The GW that moved into the town has been gone for years.
That doesn't seem to be uncommon in Australia, if a GW opens a store on the same street as a FLGS it's the GW that withers and dies.
I'm not sure what part of Australia you live in, but most FLGS's in Melbourne's east have closed. The only one within cooee of me that sells GW products is Box Hill, then I believe that's pretty much it until you get to the city unless I'm forgetting a store. There's 3 GW stores east of Melbourne. So that's about a 1000 sq km area with about 1.5 million people that has 3 GW stores and only 1 FLGS carrying GW stock
Right now my FLGS is generally pretty busy and I never see anyone in the GW down the street which is also in a better (but not great) location. The FLGS also doesn't have GW on the shelves anymore, or didn't when I was there last. They seem to be making their money on Magic, X-Wing, Warmachine and Infinity. Oh, and WW2 historicals. I think Flames of War is at the top.
There's a few stores that sell Magic in the east of Melbourne. Only that one store I mentioned that sells actual wargames.
I think it's a crap time to be a hobby store in general in Australia, companies have inflated the prices so much over here that many people will do anything to save a few bucks, which usually means not buying from a physical store.
It actually impresses me GW have managed to keep 3 stores open in the area. I don't know how popular 2 of them are, but the one in Ringwood seems to have really picked up recently. I think it just comes from the owner creating a good space for gaming and painting and players in turn buying from him even though they could get it cheaper online.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: There's a few stores that sell Magic in the east of Melbourne. Only that one store I mentioned that sells actual wargames.
I think it's a crap time to be a hobby store in general in Australia, companies have inflated the prices so much over here that many people will do anything to save a few bucks, which usually means not buying from a physical store.
It actually impresses me GW have managed to keep 3 stores open in the area. I don't know how popular 2 of them are, but the one in Ringwood seems to have really picked up recently. I think it just comes from the owner creating a good space for gaming and painting and players in turn buying from him even though they could get it cheaper online.
I'm sorry to say it but I am so glad I moved to Queensland a few years back then, Victoria sounds like it's terrible for wargaming.
I was actually in Geelong for the holidays and thought I'd check out their gaming stores since I saw they got a Good Games and a GW since I lived there. The GW was huge compared to my local, but with not a single person in there despite the busy boxing day shopping going on around it and I'm not sure if they had other tables to bring out for gaming, but despite the huge size for a one man store it still only had the 1 gaming table there I saw. The Good games turned out to be an internet cafe with board games that had bought into the GG name.
When I arrived on the Gold Coast we had a gaming club that only played a couple of different games. Now I can find games for over a half dozen systems at any one of four stores without having to go into Brisbane.
jonolikespie wrote: I'm sorry to say it but I am so glad I moved to Queensland a few years back then, Victoria sounds like it's terrible for wargaming.
Nah, it's just terrible for wargaming shops There are communities that play damned near anything, but I guess you have to be able to find them. I guess most people buy stuff online because I know there's communities for games that aren't even sold in the singular FLGS There's a couple of clubs (which admittedly I haven't been a part of for the past few years since I was living in the USA) which seemed to have broader tastes and smaller groups that play other stuff as well.
Also this is specifically talking about Melbourne's east, I live in the outer east so it takes me too long to travel to the western side of Melbourne, it could be a gold mine of FLGS's over there, I've never bothered travelling an hour and half to check it out
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think it's a crap time to be a hobby store in general in Australia, companies have inflated the prices so much over here that many people will do anything to save a few bucks, which usually means not buying from a physical store.
Strange. I've been broadening my collection quite a bit, even going into boardgames, and I have noticed that outside of GW, I barely make any saving, even before shipping, looking overseas. The prices here are about right with exchange rates. Sure people look for bargains, but that's just the nature of this hobby everywhere. Ask people overseas and the first thing they look for is discounted stores.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think it's a crap time to be a hobby store in general in Australia, companies have inflated the prices so much over here that many people will do anything to save a few bucks, which usually means not buying from a physical store.
Strange. I've been broadening my collection quite a bit, even going into boardgames, and I have noticed that outside of GW, I barely make any saving, even before shipping, looking overseas. The prices here are about right with exchange rates. Sure people look for bargains, but that's just the nature of this hobby everywhere. Ask people overseas and the first thing they look for is discounted stores.
Yeah I guess I was more thinking over the past few years before the AUD when down the toilet (sort of 2010-2014), that's when most the local stores around here closed (not saying that's the ONLY reason). It's only really 2015 that things have started to balance out, and even then a lot of stuff is still cheaper to import (most of the WW2 stuff I've been collecting is still cheaper from Firestorm than it is from TCC). I haven't been buying GW stuff lately so I'm not sure what the deal is there, but there used to be local online stores as well that offered bigger discounts than an FLGS could happily sustain.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think it's a crap time to be a hobby store in general in Australia, companies have inflated the prices so much over here that many people will do anything to save a few bucks, which usually means not buying from a physical store.
Strange. I've been broadening my collection quite a bit, even going into boardgames, and I have noticed that outside of GW, I barely make any saving, even before shipping, looking overseas. The prices here are about right with exchange rates. Sure people look for bargains, but that's just the nature of this hobby everywhere. Ask people overseas and the first thing they look for is discounted stores.
Yeah I guess I was more thinking over the past few years before the AUD when down the toilet (sort of 2010-2014), that's when most the local stores around here closed (not saying that's the ONLY reason). It's only really 2015 that things have started to balance out, and even then a lot of stuff is still cheaper to import (most of the WW2 stuff I've been collecting is still cheaper from Firestorm than it is from TCC). I haven't been buying GW stuff lately so I'm not sure what the deal is there, but there used to be local online stores as well that offered bigger discounts than an FLGS could happily sustain.
New trading terms restricted online only stores from selling GW. So a few closed, IIRC. Some are still around. But really, GW's Australian pricing has gone so fething bonkers that even with a discount, they're still insane prices. This is most notable on their new large kits, but some other oddities slip thorugh. $80au for a box of Tau Firewarriors is just laughable even with a 20% discount.
Talys wrote: With the amount of Sigmar that was released in the half-year (and lack of 40k releases), this is a fantastic half-year statement for GW.
On the other hand, the stock tumbled, probably on the forecast that Christmas sales (which aren't reflected in the statements) are apparently weak, which could mean, maybe: Calth didn't sell as well as we all thought it might; the new Sigmar releases don't have the type of sales potential as 40k, at least at this point (duh); the lack of 40k releases does have profit repercussions for the Christmas season; those Start Collecting sets might have been better released as Christmas gifts. Though my wife is free to buy me one or more of them as Valentine's gifts?
It make actually throw the stock into a weak buy in my opinion; the price will be adjusted for the lower December sales, and with Sigmar not trashing the half-year, the fundamentals for the business look good moving forward.
A few interesting little points that I picked up at a glance...
- EPS is up
- GW actually generated a lot more cash in this half year compared to the same period last year (8.5m vs 7.8m), and paid less taxes.
- Profit, compared with last year, is actually UP (though essentially flat)
- Revenues essentially flat
- Since prices of GW products didn't really go up (excluding single character clam packs that aren't huge sellers) in 2015, that infers that unit volumes are relatively stable
- The two regions with the largest drops are non-UK European retail and Australia
- Once again, they're just paying out their profits (meaning, they don't have anything constructive to do with cash)
A decent report considering last year was mostly about things other than 40K ( AoS, Calth ) if you factor in that there is now more competition in the field than ever before.
I heard from a local FLGS manager that in an email from GW they had somehow "indirectly" stated that AoS was a flop, which I'm sure surprises no one. Hopefully they will learn from this mistake, as there isn't that much wrong with the models ( they are of good quality afterall ) but more so with the rules, which are practically nonexistent.
Perhaps they will have to admit that being just a miniatures company isn't quite enough and make better investment in rules in the future. Ofcourse, the rules weren't the only bad bit about AoS, axing Warhammer as we know it probably played even a bigger part. There are also multiple small signs about changing philosophy, like the Calth box and the new starter boxes which have better value than anything they ever offered for the last decade. I hope the new management can change things further. But any big changes we do will take a long time to become visible to consumers.
jonolikespie wrote: That doesn't seem to be uncommon in Australia, if a GW opens a store on the same street as a FLGS it's the GW that withers and dies.
Heh. That's the truth.
I mean, Para GW store vs the gaming store right next to it.
jonolikespie wrote: That doesn't seem to be uncommon in Australia, if a GW opens a store on the same street as a FLGS it's the GW that withers and dies.
Heh. That's the truth.
I mean, Para GW store vs the gaming store right next to it.
He could of left out the flgs part and it would still be the truth, if GW open a store, it withers and dies.
In the good old days of the 80s and 90s, GW sold a wide range of games and related products that competed directly on all levels with independents. It's since GW became a Warhammer monoculture that their competition strategy has stopped being so successful. It's possible that neither GW selling only GW stuff, nor a local shop selling no GW stuff, can be successful in the same town. But it depends on the local environment. In my nearest lareg town, Reading in Berkshire (population about 250,000) there is a GW and an indy shop (Eclectic Games) both apparently doing pretty well. Reading has a huge university, though, and several local wargame clubs, to help sustain demand.
jonolikespie wrote: That doesn't seem to be uncommon in Australia, if a GW opens a store on the same street as a FLGS it's the GW that withers and dies.
Heh. That's the truth.
I mean, Para GW store vs the gaming store right next to it.
He could of left out the flgs part and it would still be the truth, if GW open a store, it withers and dies.
I'd suggest GW stores have done pretty well in Australia over the years otherwise GW wouldn't have bothered opening so many of them. If memory serves, they have vastly more stores per head of population than anywhere but the UK and each major city has several stores, most US cities I went to only had 1 or 2 stores. According to the GW store locator there's 6 stores within 50km of Melbourne's CBD, and I know 1 store that isn't on that list, so 7 stores. That's the same number of stores that is servicing NYC AND Philly AND Baltimore AND Washington DC. So there's the same number of stores servicing 4 million Australians as there is servicing roughly 40 million 'muricans.
So for some reason GW has decided that their stores are a good idea in Australia. I imagine they did REALLY well in the 90's and early 00's.
jonolikespie wrote: That doesn't seem to be uncommon in Australia, if a GW opens a store on the same street as a FLGS it's the GW that withers and dies.
Heh. That's the truth.
I mean, Para GW store vs the gaming store right next to it.
He could of left out the flgs part and it would still be the truth, if GW open a store, it withers and dies.
I'd suggest GW stores have done pretty well in Australia over the years otherwise GW wouldn't have bothered opening so many of them. If memory serves, they have vastly more stores per head of population than anywhere but the UK and each major city has several stores, most US cities I went to only had 1 or 2 stores. According to the GW store locator there's 6 stores within 50km of Melbourne's CBD, and I know 1 store that isn't on that list, so 7 stores. That's the same number of stores that is servicing NYC AND Philly AND Baltimore AND Washington DC. So there's the same number of stores servicing 4 million Australians as there is servicing roughly 40 million 'muricans.
So for some reason GW has decided that their stores are a good idea in Australia. I imagine they did REALLY well in the 90's and early 00's.
Historically GWs response to stores not doing well has been to open more of them
Or rather, more accurately, under Kirby they believed the store on every street corner method that worked for them in the UK would work in the rest of the world despite vastly different population densities and areas to cover. For at least a few years there at the height of that they were throwing stores out left right and center without them pulling their weight, but were assuming the problem was that there weren't enough stores to reach critical mass.
jonolikespie wrote: That doesn't seem to be uncommon in Australia, if a GW opens a store on the same street as a FLGS it's the GW that withers and dies.
Heh. That's the truth.
I mean, Para GW store vs the gaming store right next to it.
He could of left out the flgs part and it would still be the truth, if GW open a store, it withers and dies.
I'd suggest GW stores have done pretty well in Australia over the years otherwise GW wouldn't have bothered opening so many of them. If memory serves, they have vastly more stores per head of population than anywhere but the UK and each major city has several stores, most US cities I went to only had 1 or 2 stores. According to the GW store locator there's 6 stores within 50km of Melbourne's CBD, and I know 1 store that isn't on that list, so 7 stores. That's the same number of stores that is servicing NYC AND Philly AND Baltimore AND Washington DC. So there's the same number of stores servicing 4 million Australians as there is servicing roughly 40 million 'muricans.
So for some reason GW has decided that their stores are a good idea in Australia. I imagine they did REALLY well in the 90's and early 00's.
Historically GWs response to stores not doing well has been to open more of them
Or rather, more accurately, under Kirby they believed the store on every street corner method that worked for them in the UK would work in the rest of the world despite vastly different population densities and areas to cover. For at least a few years there at the height of that they were throwing stores out left right and center without them pulling their weight, but were assuming the problem was that there weren't enough stores to reach critical mass.
Not really, GW were closing stores for a while in the USA while still opening them in Oz, I think they are just now embarking on another push to open stores in the USA (presumably they think they have a better idea of how to do it now).
I can definitely believe some stores have been successful in Australia. My local GW has been up and down over the years, a hive of activity in the 90's, dying out a bit in the late 00's and early 10's and now it's picked up again.
Kilkrazy wrote: Bundles are something you can put together very quickly. You just need to design and print new boxes, and have the content kits on hand. It's much easier than designing a new kit from scratch.
Especially when you are sitting on TWICE as much inventory as you were a year ago...
I'm just glad to see it seems like Roundtree isn't a Kirby drone like so many were worried about and also glad to see he seems to have some sense of how to run a gaming business.
I'm in the same camp of believing that a 6-month period halfway devoted to Fantasy and a near flat line vs. the last report/year is a good indicator that they are improving.
Hulksmash wrote: I'm just glad to see it seems like Roundtree isn't a Kirby drone like so many were worried about and also glad to see he seems to have some sense of how to run a gaming business.
I'm in the same camp of believing that a 6-month period halfway devoted to Fantasy and a near flat line vs. the last report/year is a good indicator that they are improving.
While I'm not one to get overly optimistic, you're right that it does seem they've flipped on the retro-rockets to try and slow their descent
That said, it wasn't a good report from what I can tell - they have a lot of work to do if they want to truly turn things around, IMHO.
It takes a couple of years minimum to turn around a large company. For example, if Rountree decides to open more large hobby centres, he first needs to convince the board (who've spent the past 10 years closing large hobby centres) then there is a long process to identify likely sites, acquire retail space, fit it out, recruit and train staff, etc.
Kilkrazy wrote: Bundles are something you can put together very quickly. You just need to design and print new boxes, and have the content kits on hand. It's much easier than designing a new kit from scratch.
Especially when you are sitting on TWICE as much inventory as you were a year ago...
T
That's a worrying figure; so does that mean they produced the same amount of stuff and sold half of it, or is it likely they ramped up production expecting a boost that never came?
Or worse, they've reduced production and still aren't selling it?
Kilkrazy wrote: It takes a couple of years minimum to turn around a large company. For example, if Rountree decides to open more large hobby centres, he first needs to convince the board (who've spent the past 10 years closing large hobby centres) then there is a long process to identify likely sites, acquire retail space, fit it out, recruit and train staff, etc.
IIRC he does open two "experimental" hobby centers in Australia from all places.
I found the mention funny, they already had those in the past and closed them, dressing them as an experiment to reopen such stores is hiding behind ones fingers.
Imagine what the GW report would look like if written by Warren Buffet.
It would highlight the Horus Heresy and 30k developments calling out successes from the authors and designers, acknowledge weaknesses in the launch process of AoS, and discuss the approach for the new stores and why good store managers are tough to find . It would probably invite all the shareholders to warhammer world for the AGM for a special shareholders weekender.
Kilkrazy wrote: Bundles are something you can put together very quickly. You just need to design and print new boxes, and have the content kits on hand. It's much easier than designing a new kit from scratch.
Especially when you are sitting on TWICE as much inventory as you were a year ago...
T
That's a worrying figure; so does that mean they produced the same amount of stuff and sold half of it, or is it likely they ramped up production expecting a boost that never came?
Or worse, they've reduced production and still aren't selling it?
It could mean any number of things, unfortunately we don't know without further data.
Any half-year or annual report is a snapshot of a moment in time, so the situation presented is in some ways artificial.
One guess is that they built a lot of Battle of Cattle boxes and stockpiled them ahead of launch. The stockpile of inventory would have quickly been converted into sales during December, but this would not show up in the report, as it closed on 26th November..
Kilkrazy wrote: Any half-year or annual report is a snapshot of a moment in time, so the situation presented is in some ways artificial.
One guess is that they built a lot of Battle of Cattle boxes and stockpiled them ahead of launch. The stockpile of inventory would have quickly been converted into sales during December, but this would not show up in the report, as it closed on 26th November..
Half-Year Report wrote:To broaden our core trade product reach, in the period, we have designed a small new product range and are at present actively signing up distribution agents to sell this product into North America. We continue to work on other product formats to optimise other opportunities.
Is this referring to Age of Sigmar, or something else that is coming...?
Half-Year Report wrote:To broaden our core trade product reach, in the period, we have designed a small new product range and are at present actively signing up distribution agents to sell this product into North America. We continue to work on other product formats to optimise other opportunities.
Is this referring to Age of Sigmar, or something else that is coming...?
I'd assume since AoS is using the old fantasy kits it's not really a "new" product range. I'd think it's something else-perhaps involving the specialist games?
Wasn't there a rumour about something new 40K related back before Christmas in News and Rumours? Something about people being called in to be trained on it in order to be able to sell into channels?
Azreal13 wrote: Wasn't there a rumour about something new 40K related back before Christmas in News and Rumours? Something about people being called in to be trained on it in order to be able to sell into channels?
Kilkrazy wrote: In the good old days of the 80s and 90s, GW sold a wide range of games and related products that competed directly on all levels with independents. It's since GW became a Warhammer monoculture that their competition strategy has stopped being so successful. It's possible that neither GW selling only GW stuff, nor a local shop selling no GW stuff, can be successful in the same town. But it depends on the local environment. In my nearest lareg town, Reading in Berkshire (population about 250,000) there is a GW and an indy shop (Eclectic Games) both apparently doing pretty well. Reading has a huge university, though, and several local wargame clubs, to help sustain demand.
From what I've seen of their management, GW would probably be able to make some serious gains if they decided to become a hobby store company rather than a model company (of course neither is actually a GAMES company but whatever). They make good money on their supplies from what I've heard, so why not double down on that? Retail chain management from a business perspective is also easier than running a creativity based business. There's a lot more availability in the management department for them to rob from other companies as well.
So I agree, I think they should drop the GW only marketplace, and retool all their Games Workshop stores into just general FLGS. if its profitable for all the individual FLGS, then they could make some serious gains. And maybe their upper management wouldn't have to be so embarrassed about being a toy company anymore (the impression I get from all their financial reports), since they'd be a toy retailer instead. They may see losses on their own merchandise, but if they're as good of sales company as they think they are, then they should see some pretty serious gains in general sales. And if you can sell 1 inch tall plastic dwarves for $6 each, hell I'm sure you can find a way to sell X-Wing miniatures too.
A good deal of what GW is doing now would have done them a lot more good if they had done it five years ago.
Bundles with a discount, Specialist Games, BaC - all are good moves, but with the possible exception of BaC, they would have been better to help prevent GW from getting to the point where they are.
I was skeptical of Rountree - I am among the people that thought that he would be nothing but another footstool for Mr. Kirby.
But is seems that he has a bit more push than I had expected.
Again, something that would have been good four or five years ago.
agnosto wrote: I vote with my wallet. If they produce a product that is a good value (to me) and that I'm interested in, I buy it to reward their good behavior.
Case-in-point, the new "get started" bundles. The price was right (at discount) and so bought some.
The problem historically is that GW seems dense when it comes to such things and incapable of realizing why items sell so well.
GW is a miniatures company, not a market research company, so obviously they wouldn't care how to make product sell well.
agnosto wrote: I vote with my wallet. If they produce a product that is a good value (to me) and that I'm interested in, I buy it to reward their good behavior.
Case-in-point, the new "get started" bundles. The price was right (at discount) and so bought some.
The problem historically is that GW seems dense when it comes to such things and incapable of realizing why items sell so well.
GW is a miniatures company, not a market research company, so obviously they wouldn't care how to make product sell well.
agnosto wrote: I vote with my wallet. If they produce a product that is a good value (to me) and that I'm interested in, I buy it to reward their good behavior.
Case-in-point, the new "get started" bundles. The price was right (at discount) and so bought some.
The problem historically is that GW seems dense when it comes to such things and incapable of realizing why items sell so well.
GW is a miniatures company, not a market research company, so obviously they wouldn't care how to make product sell well.
Sorry, what?
To quote Kirby, "Market research is otiose in a niche".
agnosto wrote: I vote with my wallet. If they produce a product that is a good value (to me) and that I'm interested in, I buy it to reward their good behavior.
Case-in-point, the new "get started" bundles. The price was right (at discount) and so bought some.
The problem historically is that GW seems dense when it comes to such things and incapable of realizing why items sell so well.
GW is a miniatures company, not a market research company, so obviously they wouldn't care how to make product sell well.
agnosto wrote: I vote with my wallet. If they produce a product that is a good value (to me) and that I'm interested in, I buy it to reward their good behavior.
Case-in-point, the new "get started" bundles. The price was right (at discount) and so bought some.
The problem historically is that GW seems dense when it comes to such things and incapable of realizing why items sell so well.
GW is a miniatures company, not a market research company, so obviously they wouldn't care how to make product sell well.
That makes no sense.
Of course not, that's why he said it; he's the king of random comments in a document that should discuss the business.
Really? I thought the sarcasm was good and to the point.
GW's main argument in everything is "they are a miniatures company" and Kirby has defiantly proclaimed that market research is useless putting the two together you have the above comment.
GW's main argument in everything is "they are a miniatures company" and Kirby has defiantly proclaimed that market research is useless putting the two together you have the above comment.
Simple, elegant and sarcastic.
If it was sarcasm, then I applaud it. But lately its hard to tell what's purposefully absurd when defending GW.
GW's main argument in everything is "they are a miniatures company" and Kirby has defiantly proclaimed that market research is useless putting the two together you have the above comment.
Simple, elegant and sarcastic.
If it was sarcasm, then I applaud it. But lately its hard to tell what's purposefully absurd when defending GW.
GW's main argument in everything is "they are a miniatures company" and Kirby has defiantly proclaimed that market research is useless putting the two together you have the above comment.
Simple, elegant and sarcastic.
If it was sarcasm, then I applaud it. But lately its hard to tell what's purposefully absurd when defending GW.
The report has a line of "basic earnings per share" - 14.9p and another line "dividend per share in the period" 20p
Does the first line take the profits and divide them out through the shares? And if it does, then they are paying out a lot of money that they didn't make this year. And they did the same thing last year (14.5p earned, 36p paid).
Which means they are shrinking the company overall.
For those wondering, it was sarcasm, making light of how GW constantly tries to claim it isn't a game company, but rather a minis company so things like rule sets and FAQs are an after thought. The second part is about them stating they don't do market research on their product as a whole, with some rumours going as far as GW does market research by walking into a store, sees one table available in the store with two people playing and eight watching, and then concludes that only 20% of people buying their product play the game. Seriously though, they simultaneously state that they don't do market research, while also claiming percents of how many people play versus how many only collect. So they either do market research or they literally make up those numbers, and I no longer know which is the case with them.
Also, thank you to the person who first understood what I was getting at, and for those who appreciated the humour of it. I grew up watching Daria D:
The report has a line of "basic earnings per share" - 14.9p and another line "dividend per share in the period" 20p
Does the first line take the profits and divide them out through the shares? And if it does, then they are paying out a lot of money that they didn't make this year. And they did the same thing last year (14.5p earned, 36p paid).
Which means they are shrinking the company overall.
Am I reading this right?
Unless someone with actual business experience wants to come and tell me I'm an idiot, yes I believe that is the correct understanding. This is a company that has in the past borrowed money to pay out dividends and in recent years has found itself in a position where if it doesn't pay them out investors will drop the stock, causing the price of the stock to fall.
The report has a line of "basic earnings per share" - 14.9p and another line "dividend per share in the period" 20p
Does the first line take the profits and divide them out through the shares? And if it does, then they are paying out a lot of money that they didn't make this year. And they did the same thing last year (14.5p earned, 36p paid).
Which means they are shrinking the company overall.
Am I reading this right?
It's not that simple, because you can't view an income statement, balance sheet, or statement of cash flows in isolation meaningfully. There are many factors: you need to compare the number of shares outstanding, extraordinary charges, amount of cash on hand, receivables, conversion of inventory, disposition of equipment, capital and non-capital asset accumulation, and so on.
Generally, if you see a company pay out more in dividends than it earned, you should ask, "how?". The most obvious thing to check is the company's cash equivalents (current assets) -- if this has gone down, the company is accomplishing higher dividends by paying out cash it has on hand, and that may be okay, or it may be a terrible idea, depending on whether the company needs the money. Irrelevant in GW's case, because its current assets actually increased by a million GBP in the period. So, the most obvious second possibility is simply that the company's cashflow outperformed its earnings,
Comparing EPS (earnings per share) in Period 1 versus Period 2 is less useful than comparing revenues , because at the minimum you'd also have to ask how many shares there were outstanding. If the earnings per share were lower, but there were more shares, that's neither here nor there. And if EPS went up, but the company bought back some shares, that wouldn't be anything to get excited over either.
Anyways, the short answer is that there's really no short answer. Instead of looking at the dividends per share as a measure of the company expanding or contracting, at a minimum, look instead at the change in position of cash, receivables and current assets (which generally went up compared to 2014); look at the revenues, and consider the difference in capital spending (if a company buys equipment that's good for 20 years and therefore has less cash, that's not necessarily a bad thing). Even that is grossly oversimplified, as there can still be good reasons why something is the way it is.
In GW's case, there may be some contraction that you can infer, depending on how you define it, based on essentially flat sales versus increased prices (implying that they're selling fewer models/books), but it's not something we have data on, and might not be accurate. You can't reasonably deduce that the company is shrinking (or at least, I can't) from glancing at the financial statements. It's looks pretty much "more of the same" to me.
Talys wrote: In GW's case, there may be some contraction that you can infer, depending on how you define it, based on essentially flat sales versus increased prices (implying that they're selling fewer models/books), but it's not something we have data on, and might not be accurate.
Might not be accurate? What are the other possible outcomes? That they produced some sort of loss leader and sold a billion copies, so sales volume is WAY up, but profits from sales are flat? We know GW doesn't produce any products like this and they noted that losses in core retail were offset by non-core (i.e. licensed product). I'm not sure how much clearer this needs to be.
Give up, he'll just write a wall of text about how duck migration patterns mean GW actually pulls in billions of pounds in profits. Geez, I own stock and I don't even go through the mental gymnastics involved in some of these posts.
Edit.
In answer to the question about eps vs dividends. EPS is calculated after preferred stock dividends are paid so what likely happened is GW EPS is flat then preferred stock dividends were paid which resulted in an EPS lower than dividend.
Half-Year Report wrote:To broaden our core trade product reach, in the period, we have designed a small new product range and are at present actively signing up distribution agents to sell this product into North America. We continue to work on other product formats to optimise other opportunities.
Is this referring to Age of Sigmar, or something else that is coming...?
I'd assume since AoS is using the old fantasy kits it's not really a "new" product range. I'd think it's something else-perhaps involving the specialist games?
Not really a new product line in part, but a new IP.
Sales income is down while prices are up. We can infer that sales numbers are down but we don't know for certain, though it's hard to think of another reason.
Profits are up because, for one thing, GW have improved their COGS from 25% to 20% of retail price.
Kilkrazy wrote: Sales income is down while prices are up. We can infer that sales numbers are down but we don't know for certain, though it's hard to think of another reason.
Profits are up because, for one thing, GW have improved their COGS from 25% to 20% of retail price.
Yep. You speak the truth good sir. Efficiencies are great ways for companies in decline to pinch pennies and pad their balance sheet. Whatever his other deficiencies, Kirby has been very good at finding opportunities to improve efficiency.
“The role I had in the studio was with staff working on game development and design, and they’d pretty much decided that game development and design wasn’t of any interest to them. The current attitude in Games Workshop is that they’re not a games company, it’s that they’re a model company selling collectibles. That’s something I find wholly self-deceiving and couldn’t possibly agree with.”
-- Rick Priestly
frozenwastes wrote: “The role I had in the studio was with staff working on game development and design, and they’d pretty much decided that game development and design wasn’t of any interest to them. The current attitude in Games Workshop is that they’re not a games company, it’s that they’re a model company selling collectibles. That’s something I find wholly self-deceiving and couldn’t possibly agree with.”
-- Rick Priestly
Talys wrote: In GW's case, there may be some contraction that you can infer, depending on how you define it, based on essentially flat sales versus increased prices (implying that they're selling fewer models/books), but it's not something we have data on, and might not be accurate.
Might not be accurate? What are the other possible outcomes? That they produced some sort of loss leader and sold a billion copies, so sales volume is WAY up, but profits from sales are flat? We know GW doesn't produce any products like this and they noted that losses in core retail were offset by non-core (i.e. licensed product). I'm not sure how much clearer this needs to be.
Well, first of all, you need to define what contraction is. In 2014 if someone bought 4 boxes of tactical marines (40 models or 4 kits) and in 2015 they bought 1 imperial knight, at essentially the same selling price but at a vastly smaller cost, is this "contraction"? I don't think so?
To me, contraction could be either: in 2014, someone buys 4 boxes of models at $30; in 2015, someone buys 3 boxes of models at $40. Or, in 2014, there are 10,000 people spending $500; and in 2015, there are 5,000 people spending $1,000.
If GW is shifting from small, cheaper models to bigger more expensive models that have a lower cost of goods sold, determining contraction is difficult. Or, for that matter, producing expensive single characters (whether characters or Primarchs). Or $500 Smaug models -- Is someone buying a copy of Smaug contraction, when compared to ten $50 boxes of Skaven? We could talk in circles about that -- you could easily say, "but the person who buys Smaug isn't going to buy another $500 model next year!". But you could be wrong, too; they might buy a $2,000 Warlord. And maybe the next year, whatever next bigger and more expensive model GW produces.
By the way, when I said that we can infer contraction based on higher prices/lower volumes, I actually meant, there is *probably* some level of contraction in the playerbase and some level of contraction in units sold, but we don't know this as a fact. I don't believe that there's any question that GW's business is changing from making small models and games for them to something else (which I think is what a lot of people just hate, because they want a wargame for small models). I think that the number of hobbyists interested in this is smaller, too, though each of the hobbyists that is their target is probably more profitable, but I have no proof of any of this, hence, I theorize contraction in the fanbase.
To take an analogy, if a coffee shop goes from selling coffee to selling coffee and food, and over the years shift to more food products and less coffee, based solely on financial statements, it's very hard to compare one year to the last and say, "is this company growing or shrinking", because you have no idea what percentage of their revenue is derived from coffee versus food between one year and the next. Plus, is growth defined as more customers, or customers spending more on each visit? I'm sure you see what I mean.
Joyboozer wrote: That it's got nothing to do with the price of tea in China?
If that was directed at me, I think that whether GW is expanding or contracting, and to what degree, is a legitimate question relevant to their financials.
If that was directed at me, I think that whether GW is expanding or contracting, and to what degree, is a legitimate question relevant to their financials.
Once you factor out the increased licensing revenue from shovelware, they had a decrease in profits and revenue whilst increasing prices on pretty much every new release. Therefore, in their core business they are selling less. How can that be anything other than contracting?
Of course, if Warhammer: Total War takes off, it might eclipse model sales, so I guess if they were to shift to an IP company you could argue they were expanding, right up until Warhammer: Total War goes out of fashion and they tank entirely because they'd have nothing else to throw at the wall to see what sticks.
Like I said, it depends on what you mean by "contracting". If it's defined as profit from models, under constant currency (which is a legitimate use of it, when evaluating whether a company is growing or shrinking), profits haven't changed much either way.
We could surmise: "GW sold fewer models and made more money off of them. Therefore they are contracting."
But that MIGHT not be an accurate conclusion. Like I said, it's one thing if sales went from 4 tactical boxes at $30 to 3 tacticals at $40. But it's a whole other thing people are buying titans at $120 instead. Is someone buying a titan instead of 4 boxes of troops "contracting"?
I think that's not a useful comparison, because they're different things. Ultimately, if GW can make a good business out of selling a lot of titans to people who used to buy tacticals, shareholders and management wouldn't consider that a contraction of any sort, especially since titans better differentiate GW from its competitors.
You could also define contracting as a reduction in playerbase; and even though I (personally) suspect this is true, we don't have anything but anecdotal observation for this.
You could also define contracting as a reduction in the number and reach of retail stores, in which case GW is actually expanding, globally (more stores), or perhaps contracting, globally (less total staff in those stores... maybe?). Or you could say, number of stores in the world where GW can be bought; and I have no idea about how this has grown or shrunk.
Unless GW is a magic, special unicorn and somehow universal business principals and terms don't apply, contraction will mean a general economic decline and indicate one of the 4 stages of the business cycle (expansion, peak, contraction, trough). I would argue that since their income is still in decline, they haven't quite reached trough yet, though this report seems to indicate they might be close. Once their revenue levels off, how long they remain static will depend on policies moving forward but I'm not too concerned as Mr. Rountree has already outlined some of the company's growth plan. Of course, whether it all works or not will be the proof in the proverbial pudding.
If you're talking about the business cycle, GW is a pretty good example of a company that has a period of relatively rapid expansion, followed by many consecutive periods decline (or at least, stagnation). Of course, looking at trends that span decades, it's not like a company can only have one boom cycle; given that GW has proven to be a pretty durable company, at some point, they'll probably have a hit (even if it's just by luck) and they'll start that cycle anew.
But I when I was talking about contraction, I was not referring to the business cycle - I was speaking to the growth or decline of the customer base, global reach, revenues, profits, offerings, and facilities.
It's clear that sales have declined, and profits have increased. This is probably due to fewer customers (it's not likely due to more customers spending less money each) while GW have improved their COGS significantly from about 25% to about 20%.
Facilities fluctuates. I think they have more shops now than a few years ago, but they are smaller with fewer staff. OTOH they had more shops maybe 10 years ago than now, and they tended to be larger and in more attractive locations. This is of course a general picture.
The number of regional facilities and HQs has been drastically cut. GW closed all the regional offices including the US based manufacturing and distribution centre.
Design studio staff numbers have increased a lot.
IDK about the number of offerings. It would vary a lot over 10 years due to dropping and specialist games, introducing The Hobbit, dropping WHFB and introducing AoS. They've got more terrain kits and varieties of paint. At a guess there are probably more SKUs available now than 10 years ago.
Talys wrote: If you're talking about the business cycle, GW is a pretty good example of a company that has a period of relatively rapid expansion, followed by many consecutive periods decline (or at least, stagnation). Of course, looking at trends that span decades, it's not like a company can only have one boom cycle; given that GW has proven to be a pretty durable company, at some point, they'll probably have a hit (even if it's just by luck) and they'll start that cycle anew.
But I when I was talking about contraction, I was not referring to the business cycle - I was speaking to the growth or decline of the customer base, global reach, revenues, profits, offerings, and facilities.
Which are all part of a normal business cycle and actually part of the contraction period of the cycle. We've seen GW contract over the last several years and we've read what the new CEO states that they plan to do about it but before these planned changes take effect, we'll see thing bottom out (trough) and then the climb can start (expansion). They'll start to expand first which will cause the rate of contraction to ease and then, hopefully, reverse. How long the trough lasts depends on how well the planned changes are received by customers.
Talys wrote: If you're talking about the business cycle, GW is a pretty good example of a company that has a period of relatively rapid expansion, followed by many consecutive periods decline (or at least, stagnation). Of course, looking at trends that span decades, it's not like a company can only have one boom cycle; given that GW has proven to be a pretty durable company, at some point, they'll probably have a hit (even if it's just by luck) and they'll start that cycle anew.
But I when I was talking about contraction, I was not referring to the business cycle - I was speaking to the growth or decline of the customer base, global reach, revenues, profits, offerings, and facilities.
Their period of rapid expansion ended 12 years ago. Nearly a third of the life of their company ago... How long do we keep referring to the LOTR bubble or blaming it for their problems?
agnosto wrote: Unless GW is a magic, special unicorn and somehow universal business principals and terms don't apply, contraction will mean a general economic decline and indicate one of the 4 stages of the business cycle (expansion, peak, contraction, trough). I would argue that since their income is still in decline, they haven't quite reached trough yet, though this report seems to indicate they might be close. Once their revenue levels off, how long they remain static will depend on policies moving forward but I'm not too concerned as Mr. Rountree has already outlined some of the company's growth plan. Of course, whether it all works or not will be the proof in the proverbial pudding.
The GW growth plan
1. Raise prices
2. Release stuff faster
3. Build crappy new website
4. Switch all stores to 1 man stores with restrictive hours and 1/10th the stock level of the FLGS across the street
5. Can fantasy and replace it with the most universally hated war game in the history of the hobby
They started this plan 2 years ago and their revenue/profit have continued to drop. Their "growth strategies" somehow manage to double down on a lot of the policies that made them lose customers to begin with. Until their growth strategy includes "ask the customers what they want, then listen to them" and "write MUUUUCCCHHH better rules" I don't have much confidence in the direction of the company or upper management.
A part of the GW growth plan that contributes to the higher profit margins that doesn't seem to be acknowledged is the shift from a company that sells lots of small models to fewer small models and more larger (and more profitable) models.
I think it's also a source of angst amongst players who really don't like playing with or against large models (or perhaps have no desire to build or buy the expensive large models). But clearly, this is a part of GW's direction.
@Trasvi - I wasn't referring to LoTR (or any other particular point in GW's history), but LoTR certainly shouldn't be "blamed" for anything. They made a ton of money off it, and it paid for lots of manufacturing upgrades and filled the coffers, providing many lasting benefits to the company. Something doesn't have to last forever to be good.
Could GW drop all infantry and character models from their sales catalogue and make money just selling the £30+ kits like Tyrannofex, Nagash, Knight Titan and Archaon? I doubt it.
While those models probably have a higher profit margin then the infantry kits, most people buy them as part of a conceptual system that involves a skirmish game and fluff.
OTOH the recent new kits show that GW is agressively upping the price on even standard infantry and character kits when new releases or revised sets give them the opportunity.
I've mentioned the Machine Cult Adeptus Techpriest before, a clamshell character kit (monopose plastic single infantry figure; £22 is a startling retail price.
The new Tau Firewarriors are £30 for 10, compared to £12 for 12 when the earlier version of the kit was first out. To be fair, some of the price increase is inflation over 14 years, higher VAT, and they had to make new moulds, and they are nice figures.
The new Dwarfadin Fyreslayers are £30 or more for a box of six. They are part of the trend for very high prices of the AoS infantry sets.
I don't agree or disagree. I think that the advent of the larger models is due to several core issues one of which is lack of new blood. GW doesn't aggressively recruit new customers via traditional, formal or informal, channels of marketing. They have, and still do, depend on word of mouth and their one-man stores to introduce new people to their products. One result from losing customers AND moving stores to less expensive, less trod areas is less exposure to people who are not already aware of them.
These factors, combined with more competition in the market means less new people. Veterans generally already have all the troops and other small models that they need so they're pretty much just selling to the few new people and veterans starting a new army.
They still sell, create, and update smaller kits. They have reworked older kits like space marines and firewarriors and added new bits to encourage veterans to refresh their collections. Not offering bit sales also serves this purpose, even with newer, big kits like the imperial knights. Until a third-party vendor starts selling carapace weapons, I'm stuck either paying too much on eBay or butt whole new kits to get those weapons.
Yes, people get stuck on the large, flashy kits but they still make small kits. Just look at the releases over the past year, for every large kit, there's a small kit released too.
I would like to try to re-cap on the executive decisions that got GW plc from the largest games company in a state of growth. to a model selling company with over a decade of falling sale volumes...
Accountant 1,' We make more profit on the WHFB and 40k ;lines of product.'(Fact)
Sales manager A.(If we stop selling all the other ranges all our customers will buy WHFB or 40k instead, and so we make more profit.'(Flawed logic.)
Accountant 1.'Exactly !'
Oooops!
This move drove off all the customers who wanted skirmish games ,specialist boxed games, and large battle games using smaller minatures.(And sensible sized playing areas.)
And realizing the demand for the type of games GW plc shunned, other companies made these sort of games and made lots of ex GW gamer and collectors happy.
Then
Accountant 2 .'New customers spend more than veteran customers.And new customers have spent a lot of money before they realize how much work they have to put in to get a playable game.'(Fact.)
Sales manager B.'So if we ignore game play issues and the things the veteran customers want fixed, we can focus on churning and burning new customers and make more money.'(Flawed logic.)
Accountant 2 'Exactly.'
Ooops!
With no external marketing, GW relied on positive word of mouth from the veterans to help draw new customers in to GW plc .)
Realizing the complete lack of interest in veteran customers and game play,the main recruiters for GW products (after GW stores .)Now actively drive potential customers into other companies customer base , those companies who actively communicate with customers and invest in sorting out game play issues.
Having effectively halved their potential customer base, GW have had to up retail prices and cut costs to try to maintain flat revenue of falling sales volumes.This raised the barrier to entry driving away a lot of potential new players.So the churn and burn of new players in reduced numbers is no longer enough to sustain GW.
So to prop up the the falling sales volumes , they have released large kits to appeal to veteran collectors.The die hard GW fans who will pay any price for a few pence worth of plastic because it is sold by GW plc.
So by choosing the path of least effort for the GW Chairman /C.E.O, GW plc has slipped into a state of decline while Mr T.Kirby is counting his millions ....
I am really struggling to see how anyone can turn this sort of decline around without action based on serious market research.
Kilkrazy wrote: Could GW drop all infantry and character models from their sales catalogue and make money just selling the £30+ kits like Tyrannofex, Nagash, Knight Titan and Archaon? I doubt it.
While those models probably have a higher profit margin then the infantry kits, most people buy them as part of a conceptual system that involves a skirmish game and fluff.
Oh, I totally agree. I'm in that category, too: I enjoy both small and large models, and my conceptual army (and models I want to field) includes both. I think it's one of the reasons that Apocalypse in 40k is a bigger money maker than titans in Epic: people like the infantry and smaller vehicle sized models.
I was just pointing out that a lot of the money being spent and profit being generated is going towards those bigger models (not to mention product development and launch windows). Once upon a time a Ghostkeel-sized model would have been a really special model that you'd have one or two of; now, it's something you squad up, and it's considered a medium-sized model. I think as time progresses, we'll see relatively fewer genuinely new small model troop kits, though a lot will be reboots and retools.
I think that character models are a whole other thing. I suspect GW loves a successful character model -- the cost is probably really small, and the profit margin must be huge, though I doubt they sell a ton of them.
Kilkrazy wrote: The new Tau Firewarriors are £30 for 10, compared to £12 for 12 when the earlier version of the kit was first out. To be fair, some of the price increase is inflation over 14 years, higher VAT, and they had to make new moulds, and they are nice figures.
The new Dwarfadin Fyreslayers are £30 or more for a box of six. They are part of the trend for very high prices of the AoS infantry sets.
Keep in mind that there's now a great way to get the Firewarriors -- the Get Started box is only £50, includes 3 Crisis suits, the 10 fire warriors, and the new Ethereal model. Plus a whole bunch of drones. It doesn't really get much better than that.
With the dwarfs, I think you have them a bit mixed up. The Vulkite Berserkers (axe guys) are 10 for £35, and the Hearthguard (polearm guys) are 6 for £25. Still, point taken: that's WAY more than Skitarii Vanguard and Infiltrators, or Blood Angels Tacticals or Harlequin Troupe. I'm not convinced that all new 10 man troops and 5-6 man elites are going to be at these prices, though the dwarf models seem to be selling like hotcakes (to my surprise), so, sadly, it may encourage this pricing level. Maybe they'll come as a bundle in a Start Collecting box at some point, and make it more attractive.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think the new GW thing is to get people to buy the troops in Start Collecting boxes, and then transition to all the big, hugely expensive stuff (and character models) after. The Start Collecting boxes generally give people a taste of the bigger kits, as well as an introduction to the difference between a character sprue and a troop model.
agnosto wrote: Yes, people get stuck on the large, flashy kits but they still make small kits. Just look at the releases over the past year, for every large kit, there's a small kit released too.
Yeah, for sure. The ratio used to be much different though: look back at when Wraithknight came out; I don't even recall if there was another giant model that year. In the last two years, it seems like GW is popping out centerpiece models at the rate of one a month, not including Forge World.
Yeah, for sure. The ratio used to be much different though: look back at when Wraithknight came out; I don't even recall if there was another giant model that year. In the last two years, it seems like GW is popping out centerpiece models at the rate of one a month, not including Forge World.
Yep. I think there's a lot to it though; what I described above, greater margin for each sale, perfection of CAD model design and manufacturing which allows for the bigger kits, all contribute to the wealth(?) of big kits. Keep in mind that GW has only been in the CAD design game for a relatively short while.
I think it's also a source of angst amongst players who really don't like playing with or against large models (or perhaps have no desire to build or buy the expensive large models). But clearly, this is a part of GW's direction.
I don't mind playing against big models, but hot damn are they terrible to take places. Especially GW big models. A bolt action tank goes into the foam fine. So do my star destroyers and mon calamari cruisers ( I use KR foam for those though). But my arachnarok? What a pain. And the newer big models are even MORE fiddly than my old spider. Like, how does anyone take Nagash, anywhere? Some sort of custom laser cut packing foam?
Kilkrazy wrote: Could GW drop all infantry and character models from their sales catalogue and make money just selling the £30+ kits like Tyrannofex, Nagash, Knight Titan and Archaon? I doubt it.
While those models probably have a higher profit margin then the infantry kits, most people buy them as part of a conceptual system that involves a skirmish game and fluff.
Oh, I totally agree. I'm in that category, too: I enjoy both small and large models, and my conceptual army (and models I want to field) includes both. I think it's one of the reasons that Apocalypse in 40k is a bigger money maker than titans in Epic: people like the infantry and smaller vehicle sized models.
Citation needed. I loathe even the idea of 40KApoc, I can't wait to get hold of Epic, assuming they don't feth it up. You mustn't conflate poor sales through lack of support or promotion and commercial potential.
I was just pointing out that a lot of the money being spent and profit being generated is going towards those bigger models (not to mention product development and launch windows). Once upon a time a Ghostkeel-sized model would have been a really special model that you'd have one or two of; now, it's something you squad up, and it's considered a medium-sized model. I think as time progresses, we'll see relatively fewer genuinely new small model troop kits, though a lot will be reboots and retools.
Yes, because there's little design space left at the infantry level without retreading old ground, or butchering fluff beyond what even GW may currently balk at (some Tau assault Firewarriors or similar.) That's an issue inherited from a 30+ year old system lacking granularity, compounded by an apparent dearth of real visionary talent remaining at the studio.
Couple that with increasing efficiencies in both design and production methods and vomiting out some giant death robot is the no brainer decision.
Although it has always been thus, it's just that 20 years ago it was Dreadnoughts and Predators, and now it's Imperial Knights and Riptides.
I think that character models are a whole other thing. I suspect GW loves a successful character model -- the cost is probably really small, and the profit margin must be huge, though I doubt they sell a ton of them.
Quite, which is why we're only seeing them now that CAD design and improvements in the production process have dropped the overhead low enough to allow the replacement of metal and/or resin in this role. Just a shame they couldn't spend just as midge more to give them pose ability and options.
Kilkrazy wrote: The new Tau Firewarriors are £30 for 10, compared to £12 for 12 when the earlier version of the kit was first out. To be fair, some of the price increase is inflation over 14 years, higher VAT, and they had to make new moulds, and they are nice figures.
The new Dwarfadin Fyreslayers are £30 or more for a box of six. They are part of the trend for very high prices of the AoS infantry sets.
Keep in mind that there's now a great way to get the Firewarriors -- the Get Started box is only £50, includes 3 Crisis suits, the 10 fire warriors, and the new Ethereal model. Plus a whole bunch of drones. It doesn't really get much better than that.
With the dwarfs, I think you have them a bit mixed up. The Vulkite Berserkers (axe guys) are 10 for £35, and the Hearthguard (polearm guys) are 6 for £25. Still, point taken: that's WAY more than Skitarii Vanguard and Infiltrators, or Blood Angels Tacticals or Harlequin Troupe. I'm not convinced that all new 10 man troops and 5-6 man elites are going to be at these prices, though the dwarf models seem to be selling like hotcakes (to my surprise), so, sadly, it may encourage this pricing level. Maybe they'll come as a bundle in a Start Collecting box at some point, and make it more attractive.
To the best of my knowledge, we have absolutely no guarantees the Start Collecting bundles are hanging around, GW suffers from ADD with this sort of thing historically, and the best you can argue is that these help with the price for now. Frankly, the Start boxes are just about in the price band of what the models should cost for me to buy them, but they're not enough of a draw to get me buying again.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think the new GW thing is to get people to buy the troops in Start Collecting boxes, and then transition to all the big, hugely expensive stuff (and character models) after. The Start Collecting boxes generally give people a taste of the bigger kits, as well as an introduction to the difference between a character sprue and a troop model.
Yeah, there's no better way of curing sticker shock than giving a false impression of the cost of your product..
agnosto wrote: Yes, people get stuck on the large, flashy kits but they still make small kits. Just look at the releases over the past year, for every large kit, there's a small kit released too.
Yeah, for sure. The ratio used to be much different though: look back at when Wraithknight came out; I don't even recall if there was another giant model that year. In the last two years, it seems like GW is popping out centerpiece models at the rate of one a month, not including Forge World.
I expect you'll see a correlation between the implementation of new design and production processes and the production of large kits, new software and new factory floor toys, coupled with an increase in competence using them = more big ass gak.
Kilkrazy wrote: The new Tau Firewarriors are £30 for 10, compared to £12 for 12 when the earlier version of the kit was first out. To be fair, some of the price increase is inflation over 14 years, higher VAT, and they had to make new moulds, and they are nice figures.
The new Dwarfadin Fyreslayers are £30 or more for a box of six. They are part of the trend for very high prices of the AoS infantry sets.
Keep in mind that there's now a great way to get the Firewarriors -- the Get Started box is only £50, includes 3 Crisis suits, the 10 fire warriors, and the new Ethereal model. Plus a whole bunch of drones. It doesn't really get much better than that.
Of course, that's completely ignoring the old, 2006 battleforce, that was £50 on release, which included a Crisis Suit Commander, 12 Fire Warriors, 12 Kroot, 3 Stealthsuits, 6 drones, and a Devilfish.
Heck, following inflation, it'd be £60-£65 in today's currency. Twice as many models, and a vehicle. That's the kind of crazy, in-house inflation GW's suffered from over the past decade.
Talys wrote: Oh, I totally agree. I'm in that category, too: I enjoy both small and large models, and my conceptual army (and models I want to field) includes both. I think it's one of the reasons that Apocalypse in 40k is a bigger money maker than titans in Epic: people like the infantry and smaller vehicle sized models.
Citation needed. I loathe even the idea of 40KApoc, I can't wait to get hold of Epic, assuming they don't feth it up. You mustn't conflate poor sales through lack of support or promotion and commercial potential.
Really? Is it controversial to say that Imperial Knights and Forge World titans, some of the best-selling models for GW and FW, make more money today than their Epic counterparts (accounting for currency, inflation, etc.)? Or even, collectively, that the epic-sized models outsold the current Titan size models in revenue or profit?
I'm not saying it's a better game. Just that they make more money off of them. I can't imagine that if GW were making millions and millions of dollars of profit off of Epic they'd have ditched it.
Azreal13 wrote: Yes, because there's little design space left at the infantry level without retreading old ground, or butchering fluff beyond what even GW may currently balk at (some Tau assault Firewarriors or similar.) That's an issue inherited from a 30+ year old system lacking granularity, compounded by an apparent dearth of real visionary talent remaining at the studio.
Couple that with increasing efficiencies in both design and production methods and vomiting out some giant death robot is the no brainer decision.
Although it has always been thus, it's just that 20 years ago it was Dreadnoughts and Predators, and now it's Imperial Knights and Riptides.
Putting aside that a lot of people actually like the new models (and spend money on them), you're absolutely right about the up-scaling of the game, from infantry to bigger infantry (terminators), to little stompies (dreadnoughts), to tanks, to flyers, to bigger stompies (riptides), to bigger flyers, and now to huge stompies (stormsurges). Capped by Forge World with epic, ginormous stompies (Ta'unar, Revenants, Reavers, Warlords, etc.). Probably an Emperor titan next year. Followed by a model with retractable casters that will have a selling feature of being able to fit in a room with an 8' ceiling.
Obviously, this isn't for everyone, which is why you see a some people leave 40k. Like I said, some people don't like the game filled of giant stompies (like you, right?), other people have zero interest in modelling them, and so on and so forth. I don't think there's ever going to be a reset button on 40k (or AoS) to return it to a primarily infantry and small vehicle game; even the Start Collecting boxes have big models like Hive Tyrant and Carnosaur. So outside of groups that simply choose not to field the large models, 40k will just not be a game for these fans. Though I don't think it's out of the question that GW release some other game primarily for small model fans, like a Mordheim reboot.
What will be interesting to me is, in the decades to come, whether a setting like WMH will look like it does today, or if it too will upsize (both in the number of models and size of models). If it doesn't, it will interest me greatly to see how PP keeps existing players spending money on models, because at the end of the day, that's pretty important. Or if their route will be to allow WMH to become a mature product, and start a new, exciting game.
Azreal13 wrote: To the best of my knowledge, we have absolutely no guarantees the Start Collecting bundles are hanging around, GW suffers from ADD with this sort of thing historically, and the best you can argue is that these help with the price for now. Frankly, the Start boxes are just about in the price band of what the models should cost for me to buy them, but they're not enough of a draw to get me buying again.
Of course, GW can do something dense and kill off something popular However, they've told their independents that these are regular order items that aren't going anywhere. I don't think they're part of the extended range, though (the stuff they must stock).
Yeah, there's no better way of curing sticker shock than giving a false impression of the cost of your product..
I think it's more like getting people addicted to cheaper plasti-crack. It's no different than WMH single faction starter boxes, which are also a great deal and in that general price range.
Talys wrote: Oh, I totally agree. I'm in that category, too: I enjoy both small and large models, and my conceptual army (and models I want to field) includes both. I think it's one of the reasons that Apocalypse in 40k is a bigger money maker than titans in Epic: people like the infantry and smaller vehicle sized models.
Citation needed. I loathe even the idea of 40KApoc, I can't wait to get hold of Epic, assuming they don't feth it up. You mustn't conflate poor sales through lack of support or promotion and commercial potential.
Really? Is it controversial to say that Imperial Knights and Forge World titans, some of the best-selling models for GW and FW, make more money today than their Epic counterparts (accounting for currency, inflation, etc.)? Or even, collectively, that the epic-sized models outsold the current Titan size models in revenue or profit?
I'm not saying it's a better game. Just that they make more money off of them. I can't imagine that if GW were making millions and millions of dollars of profit off of Epic they'd have ditched it.
I'm saying you're making assumptions by comparing two things that have never sold side by side, one of which suffered chronically from being abandoned as a consequence of Kirbyism and stem from very different periods in their history, with absolutely no hard numbers to back up either the sales of the current models or the demand for new Epic models should they become available. I'm not even necessarily disagreeing with you, but I can say I'm not in the market for a Titan or Imperial Knight, but I'd be very keen to spend on Epic.
As much as I loved epic (and currently enjoy Drop zone commander), I gotta agree with Talys on this one. From what I've seen Imperial Knights alone are more popular than the entirety of Epic. Small scale just doesn't have as many adherents. But I think if they come back and make a new Epic by focusing on Titans, it could have some serious potential. I'm betting they'll shoot for a scale between 40k dreadnoughts and maxing out at Imperial Knight size for Imperators. It'll be a doubly whammy of not needing to interact with the old school Epic, and being a small number of large (but expensive) models. If they base it on BFG rules, you'll have a pretty interesting game. And it'll match GW's love of big fat models, and they'll be able to sell all kinds of new terrain at the new scale.
If I was them, I'd use 10mm. The Titans will be suitably large, but not too large, and the terrain will be useable for a few other 10 mm scifi games that are out there. Good double whammy.It'll piss the few remaining epic fans right off, but GW doesn't care about their current fans, as AoS shows. They just care about that next dollar.
Small scale has plenty of adherents across wargaming generally, but the problem from GW's angle is that you can't sell a 6mm space marine tank for £40. People would just look at you strangely when they see it is only about 15mm long.
GW's cunning plan is to get people to buy lots of SM tanks, giant stompies, etc, at very high prices (£35 being about the minimum, running up to £100 per kit) and then cram them on to the table for a game in 28mm scale.
To me as a gamer that's a non-starter because the in-game distances don't make sense. Wargames need room for manoeuvre and you can't get it when the board is so crowded. If I wanted to play that style of Apoc game I would do it with substitute models from other companies, that are much cheaper and for a modeller, fun to modify..Or I would use a different rule set and play in the garden where I would have enough space. I used to do this with Battletech models in 1/72 scale.
However I am a wargamer hobbyist who used to play some 40K, rather than a GW HHHobbyist. I am not GW's target market.
The Starter Boxes are to me a clear indication that GW have started to feel the pinch caused by low take-up of armies at the now very high standard retail prices. Consequently they have cleverly make some good value bundle deals that allow them to sell a new army to people without reducing the price of the individual boxed kits. I am pleased that they have taken up my suggestion in that regard, and I believe it will be successful, because I myself have been induced to start Lizard Men by the good value Seraphon starter..
I've always thought 15mm was the perfect scale for a wargame of the scale 40k wants to be (ie, several tanks on the field at once, large walkers, several squads). But it's probably too close to 28mm for GW to do it.
I was at a Warmaster tournament a couple of weekends ago at one of the Online discounters and they were struggling to meet demand for the Starter boxes. Anecdotal but seemingly a popular release. Someone obviously feels that a cheaper back bone to an army with expensive add-ons is the way to go. Simple enough logic, lets hope they continue it.
RE Epic, as popular as it would be with me I con only see it being a second string product line. That's not a bad thing, GW need other differential lines to reinforce their turnover and grow it (the market for 28mm is only so big after all). A new scale would burn too many existing Epic gamers and goes against what GW know; updated kits of existing units still sell, everyone wants the new shineys.
I think this report combined with the recent SGS news and Starter releases represents an interesting transitional period for GW. They're image with gamers seems to quickly being rehabilitated (although it will take allot to finish the make over!) and again anecdotally I'm seeing an upturn of WH40K and AoS being played at clubs.
Warmaster was 10mm, I think 15mm is better because you can actually see the detail on human sized models. If you want to play with really large numbers of troops or larger vehicles/monsters then 6mm is good but I don't like the way infantry just becomes blobs at that scale.
There's a surprising amount of availability in 10mm historicals.
I never really saw the point of the scale, because there already was 6mm and 15mm, 10mm arguably becoming an awkward neither fish nor fowl scale, especially when scale creep starting to make them more like 12mm. (At the same time, scale creep was making some 15mm ranges more like 18mm.)
Warmaster Historical like most Ancient rules works just as well with 2mm, 6mm, 10mm, 15mm or 25mm figures, subject to suitable adjustments given in the rules, of measurements.
Of course Warmaster uses 40mm x 20mm base sizes so the scale is irrelevant really but as a scale 10mm works perfectly as a scale for Fantasy gaming.
It's small enough to give you a huge battle field to manoeuvre on and big enough to allow you to make out the differences in types of infantry or cavalry units and importantly allow the player to view their similarity with their bigger 28mm Warhammer versions.
6mm should never be blobs. Even given GWs tentative steps into plastic back in the day, a Tactical Space Marine still clearly looked like a Tactical Space Marine and was easily differentiated from an Assault Marine never mind an Ork, Eldar or Squat in the same range.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I've always thought 15mm was the perfect scale for a wargame of the scale 40k wants to be (ie, several tanks on the field at once, large walkers, several squads). But it's probably too close to 28mm for GW to do it.
Well 3rd ed 40kwas a 15mm WWII ruleset that had to be modified when the original 3rd ed (a revised 2nd ed) was rejected by the accountants who wanted a rule system that would encourage more sales.
WW2 traditionally was played either with 20mm (to match the easily available 1/72 scale model kits for vehicles) or 6mm scale to allow for realistic weapon ranges.
notprop wrote: Of course Warmaster uses 40mm x 20mm base sizes so the scale is irrelevant really but as a scale 10mm works perfectly as a scale for Fantasy gaming.
It's small enough to give you a huge battle field to manoeuvre on and big enough to allow you to make out the differences in types of infantry or cavalry units and importantly allow the player to view their similarity with their bigger 28mm Warhammer versions.
6mm should never be blobs. Even given GWs tentative steps into plastic back in the day, a Tactical Space Marine still clearly looked like a Tactical Space Marine and was easily differentiated from an Assault Marine never mind an Ork, Eldar or Squat in the same range.
Smaller scale is also soooo much easier to paint.
I didn't mean blobs as in you can't tell them apart, I meant blobs as in they don't look human, they just look like blobs with the general features of a face smooshed in to them. Sure, a Guardsman still looks different to a Space Marine.... they just don't look like Guardsmen and Space Marines
15mm is pretty much the smallest models where an individual model can still look decent (in my opinion at least). You can still have some character to the faces, even a lot of 15mm models look wonky.
15mm also lets you fit quite a lot of models on the table still. If I really wanted to fit even more models on the table I'd just accept that the individual models aren't going to look that good and go down to 6mm rather than stopping at 10mm.
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jonolikespie wrote:
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I've always thought 15mm was the perfect scale for a wargame of the scale 40k wants to be (ie, several tanks on the field at once, large walkers, several squads). But it's probably too close to 28mm for GW to do it.
Well 3rd ed 40kwas a 15mm WWII ruleset that had to be modified when the original 3rd ed (a revised 2nd ed) was rejected by the accountants who wanted a rule system that would encourage more sales.
I could believe that, which probably makes sense why I think it'd be better suited to 15mm
notprop wrote:Given its similarity to the editions that came before it I'd be surprised in that (not in rules for sales but the 15mm bit).
2nd -> 3rd was a pretty big change, it kept some things (hits, wounds, saves) but the entire turn structure changed, the CC system changed, modifiers were dropped, a lot of weapons which previously had unique profiles got lumped under "close combat weapon" or "power weapon". It was a change which made army sizes much larger.
I've got some pretty cool looking 12mm stuff. Sure you can't paint eyes on them but they've got sculpted faces.
Some of my 6mm stuff from the 90's was truly awful though; I've found a pile of it but since it's out of the bag I can't even tell what era they are meant to be from.
notprop wrote: Given its similarity to the editions that came before it I'd be surprised in that (not in rules for sales but the 15mm bit).
Rick Priestly himself said that in a podcast interview a year ago, they planned to make 3rd edition a tied up and balanced 2nd edition and all the work was done in that direction and suddenly really close to the printing deadline (I remember 6 or 9 months) the accounting demanded the new edition to need twice as many models to play... Rick out of time brought in his homebrew WW2 15mm rules he had for playing games at his home with his friends and 40k 3rd edition (and every edition after it) was born.
notprop wrote: Given its similarity to the editions that came before it I'd be surprised in that (not in rules for sales but the 15mm bit).
Rick Priestly himself said that in a podcast interview a year ago, they planned to make 3rd edition a tied up and balanced 2nd edition and all the work was done in that direction and suddenly really close to the printing deadline (I remember 6 or 9 months) the accounting demanded the new edition to need twice as many models to play... Rick out of time brought in his homebrew WW2 15mm rules he had for playing games at his home with his friends and 40k 3rd edition (and every edition after it) was born.
That is hilarious. The last piece of real game development GW did on 40k was Rick throwing his homebrew WW2 rules in to 40k at the last minute. It's so sad it has to be true
Well, I take that with a small pinch of salt. I remember playing early WHFB and playing later 40K and finding them very similar in overall concept.
No doubt some of the details were different, such as Move stat. But anyway, if Rick Priestly had a set of 15mm WW2 rules that he used for the basis of 3rd edition 40K, his WW2 rules were pretty similar to the existing Warhammer rules.
Talys wrote: A part of the GW growth plan that contributes to the higher profit margins that doesn't seem to be acknowledged is the shift from a company that sells lots of small models to fewer small models and more larger (and more profitable) models.
I think it's also a source of angst amongst players who really don't like playing with or against large models (or perhaps have no desire to build or buy the expensive large models). But clearly, this is a part of GW's direction.
IMHO, this is an outgrowth of Kirby's belief that GW customers exist in a vacuum and as a captive audience, they will love and buy the larger models at the higher price instead of abandoning the hobby. This is also an outgrowth of the assumption that the big flashy models will draw in new customers. I think that the latter gamble might have blown up in their face (especially in light of the new heavily discounted "Start Collecting" boxes. Take the best selling Imperial Knight as an example...
Imperial Knight: US MSRP: $157 (Swank display piece or a part of a larger army. Game play requires additional rules / codex to use)
vs
Warmachine: All In One boxes: MSRP: $129.99-$144.99 (Complete 35 point army + Physical rulebook) Total: $144 Malifaux: 2P Starter (MSRP $65) + Crew Box (MSRP $50) + $50 for 1-2 character boxes to fill in your list to 50 soulstones. Total: $165 Infinity: eRulebook (Free!) + Starter (~$54) + Line Infantry Box (~$38), Specialist Box (~$43) + Remotes (~$43): Total: $178 (Note, I used Combined to price these, as they have new and therefore more expensive boxes. I'm also being conservative, here, you can play Infinity for less if you are more judicious about your box choices).
If you want a big stompy display piece, you will still probably buy the Knight - however it's a pretty big assumption that its coolness/bigness is enough to provide sufficient value for it to compete with competitor's products - considering that you can buy a competitive army (at tournament size in Malifaux/Infinity) for its cost +/- $20usd.
Small scale has plenty of adherents across wargaming generally, but the problem from GW's angle is that you can't sell a 6mm space marine tank for £40. People would just look at you strangely when they see it is only about 15mm long.
GW's cunning plan is to get people to buy lots of SM tanks, giant stompies, etc, at very high prices (£35 being about the minimum, running up to £100 per kit) and then cram them on to the table for a game in 28mm scale.
To me as a gamer that's a non-starter because the in-game distances don't make sense. Wargames need room for manoeuvre and you can't get it when the board is so crowded. If I wanted to play that style of Apoc game I would do it with substitute models from other companies, that are much cheaper and for a modeller, fun to modify..Or I would use a different rule set and play in the garden where I would have enough space. I used to do this with Battletech models in 1/72 scale.
However I am a wargamer hobbyist who used to play some 40K, rather than a GW HHHobbyist. I am not GW's target market.
Top post.
AllSeeingSkink wrote:they just look like blobs with the general features of a face smooshed in to them.
I think it's a mistake to focus too much on facial features at 6-10mm, as a sculptor. One thing I'll give GW props for is that their smaller scale stuff often looked a lot better than other 6-10mm ranges out there, which tends to look a bit rushed and 'chewed', IMO. Epecially when they try to cram on a lot of details and textures. (To Herzlos - there were some funky 6mms in the noughties, too. Following Epic:A's demise there were some churned out by a big-name sculptor. Those really did look like blobs) Warmaster and Epic, from what I could see, took a bit more care in the overall shapes and proportions. 'Course, using 3-ups for any plastics would've helped.
I also think it's a mistake to focus too much on facial features at 6-10mm, as a gamer too. If you're worried about individual infantrymen when there's three to four hundred on the table, you're doing it wrong. (WFB's big mistake, too)
Vermis wrote: I think it's a mistake to focus too much on facial features at 6-10mm, as a sculptor...
...
I also think it's a mistake to focus too much on facial features at 6-10mm, as a gamer too.
But that's why I like 15mm scale. The models are big enough that you can, if you want, spend some time making them look good when viewed up close. But they're also small enough that you can just put some base colours down and a wash and they'll look fine when you have a hundred or two on the table top (where as 28mm looks a bit crap when you do that). You can also actually fit quite a few of them on a 4x4 table.
You go much smaller than that and the individual models start to look pretty average which I think makes it a harder sell.
At 15mm an average sized tank is about the size of an infantryman in 40k, so you can have tank squadrons and such but the infantry still looks cool. 10mm and lower, the vehicles look ok but the infantry has gotten to the point where details are getting lost.
I'd think the main motivation for going down to 10mm and 6mm would be to have significantly larger things represented (Titans and aircraft), so 6mm Epic made sense, though I didn't love the infantry there. Warmaster I think would have been better at 15mm.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: But that's why I like 15mm scale. The models are big enough that you can, if you want, spend some time making them look good when viewed up close. But they're also small enough that you can just put some base colours down and a wash and they'll look fine when you have a hundred or two on the table top (where as 28mm looks a bit crap when you do that). You can also actually fit quite a few of them on a 4x4 table.
You go much smaller than that and the individual models start to look pretty average which I think makes it a harder sell.
At 15mm an average sized tank is about the size of an infantryman in 40k, so you can have tank squadrons and such but the infantry still looks cool. 10mm and lower, the vehicles look ok but the infantry has gotten to the point where details are getting lost.
I'd think the main motivation for going down to 10mm and 6mm would be to have significantly larger things represented (Titans and aircraft), so 6mm Epic made sense, though I didn't love the infantry there. Warmaster I think would have been better at 15mm.
I think you're missing the point of smaller scales. 10mm and downwards, you stop focusing on the individual models and start focusing on what a base or unit looks like. The spectacle no longer comes from how good looking a 6mm model is, but how many of them you can fit on a table at one time, something that the smaller scales will always beat the larger scales at. You don't even need Titans and aircraft - if you want to do huge scale engagements with infantry, tanks, and artillery, 6mm is always a better choice, especially when considering space.
My 50+ year old eyes struggle to make out the face on a 28mm figure at arms length.
The point of 6mm is to make units look like real units with lots of troops in ranks, etc. Or for moderns, to make tanks look like they are shooting at each other from a range of 1,000 metres instead of 100 metres.
Oh, and my complaint about non-GW 6-10mm was a bit premature. I should have added that a lot of new stuff is better and getting better, and some of the old stuff isn't too bad either. I have a few bags of Heroics & Ros colonial British that should be acting as Epic praetorian guard some day. They don't even have faces, and they're brilliant.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: But that's why I like 15mm scale. The models are big enough that you can, if you want, spend some time making them look good when viewed up close
With modern 6mm stuff you could, if you really wanted, do that as well.
I am currently painting up an Epic Ork army using stuff from Troublemaker games and individual warbikers have fully sculpted facial features, even if the actual face is only about 1mm long. I say fully although you can't actually see eyes given the sheer tininess of them. I have just painted them green and given them a brown wash and that works well enough for me.
This army will be huge when its finished, it would probably fully cover a deployment zone in warbikes and Orky vehicles. I wold only consider doing this army in 6mm, anything larger and the 'scale' gets losts.
Keep in mind that there's now a great way to get the Firewarriors -- the Get Started box is only £50, includes 3 Crisis suits, the 10 fire warriors, and the new Ethereal model. Plus a whole bunch of drones. It doesn't really get much better than that.
Talys, although I can't always understand your continual defense of GW and its business practices, you usually write well thought out pieces and make good points.
The quote above however makes you sound like a well versed red shirt. :-(
I agree though, the £50 starter sets are good IF you get them at 20% off. They're not some kind of fantastic bargain though - just closer to the prices they ought to be for what you get.
10 years ago, three crisis suits and 12 fire warriors and eight drones would have cost you £42. Factor in the increase of VAT and inflation, and £50 for the Tau Starter is actually a pretty good deal.
What makes them a great deal is that crisis suits are now £15 each, and fire warriors are now £30 for 10, so you would have to pay £75 to buy the same kits separately.
Two or three of those starter sets are a good basis for the core of a Tau army.
Two or three of those starter sets are a good basis for the core of a Tau army.
At GW's ridiculously inflated prices.
Compared to the various Bolt Action deals from Warlord, GW's attempt is trifling indeed. For £75 will get you 60 28mm multipart plastic infantry, 4 metal infantry, a metal support weapon and crew, a plastic tank and a plastic halftrack/armoured car. You could easily make a 1k list out of that.
You could make the augment that because this is for historical miniatures it will always be cheaper, perhaps even that GW's offering are in some way a 'premium' product but I find those arguments spurious. When the Perrys can turn out very high quality miniatures for 55 pence a miniature (£1.60 for cavalry) GW have absolutely no excuse other than being able to get away with it (sort of).
Kilkrazy wrote: 10 years ago, three crisis suits and 12 fire warriors and eight drones would have cost you £42. Factor in the increase of VAT and inflation, and £50 for the Tau Starter is actually a pretty good deal.
What makes them a great deal is that crisis suits are now £15 each, and fire warriors are now £30 for 10, so you would have to pay £75 to buy the same kits separately.
Two or three of those starter sets are a good basis for the core of a Tau army.
No, that does not make the current bundle price a 'great deal' - it means that the price increases have far outstripped inflation - and that the standard price is a terrible deal.
The crisis suits should not be fifteen quid a pop.
Compared to the various Bolt Action deals from Warlord, GW's attempt is trifling indeed. For £75 will get you 60 28mm multipart plastic infantry, 4 metal infantry, a metal support weapon and crew, a plastic tank and a plastic halftrack/armoured car. You could easily make a 1k list out of that.
You could make the augment that because this is for historical miniatures it will always be cheaper, perhaps even that GW's offering are in some way a 'premium' product but I find those arguments spurious. When the Perrys can turn out very high quality miniatures for 55 pence a miniature (£1.60 for cavalry) GW have absolutely no excuse other than being able to get away with it (sort of).
While I do think GW price are way too high, Warlord themselves have been saying that historical models are cheaper than sci fi because of additional design costs in response to criticism of their GoA prices. So other sci fi/fantasy games might be better comparisons.
Warmaster Historical like most Ancient rules works just as well with 2mm, 6mm, 10mm, 15mm or 25mm figures, subject to suitable adjustments given in the rules, of measurements.
Scalewise, if you play Epic using 40K range measurements, weapon ranges actually start to make some sense.
Rick Priestly himself said that in a podcast interview a year ago, they planned to make 3rd edition a tied up and balanced 2nd edition and all the work was done in that direction and suddenly really close to the printing deadline (I remember 6 or 9 months) the accounting demanded the new edition to need twice as many models to play... Rick out of time brought in his homebrew WW2 15mm rules he had for playing games at his home with his friends and 40k 3rd edition (and every edition after it) was born.
That is very interesting... We had been working on a 40K version 2.5 to fix all of the problems l (well, many of them anyway) and were expecting something similar for third edition. We were shocked at 3rd and it did not take very many games before we threw in the towel and quit playing based on how bad the system was.
Two or three of those starter sets are a good basis for the core of a Tau army.
At GW's ridiculously inflated prices.
Compared to the various Bolt Action deals from Warlord, GW's attempt is trifling indeed. For £75 will get you 60 28mm multipart plastic infantry, 4 metal infantry, a metal support weapon and crew, a plastic tank and a plastic halftrack/armoured car. You could easily make a 1k list out of that.
You could make the augment that because this is for historical miniatures it will always be cheaper, perhaps even that GW's offering are in some way a 'premium' product but I find those arguments spurious. When the Perrys can turn out very high quality miniatures for 55 pence a miniature (£1.60 for cavalry) GW have absolutely no excuse other than being able to get away with it (sort of).
There are plenty of valid reasons for GW to charge more, whether one accepts them peraonally is another matter.
Historical models will always be cheaper because there is so many alternatives; be it other companies or other scales. I find it raisable that anyone would play 28mm WW2 when 20mm (1/72) is so much cheaper and traditionally the preferred scale for the period.
Lets be honest here, beyond competition, historical games do not have to design the setting, design the models and are easier to market, have great movies to promote them and many books to reference to.
A non historical game has to do all the above from scratch and some its impossible to do, GW is way to expensive for what they offer, but, they could never be as cheap as historicals are.
On bringing up AoS and 30k sales given the 15% decline in profit when you take out royalties for video games, I think it's also a good idea to look at what 40k product launched at the beginning of this period.
Codex: Space Marines.
Space Marines are their heavy hitter. So we have a 30k release, a reboot/new edition of fantasy and a new codex for their most popular product line.
Flat and falling revenues. Profit down on their core business. Retail locations doubling the amount of money they are losing in a six month period to over 2 million pounds (fortunately their web store sales covered this decline-- see the notes at the end of the report).
At first I thought it was a neutral report, but now I'm not so sure. Looks like it's been another period of slow inexorable decline.
PsychoticStorm wrote: Lets be honest here, beyond competition, historical games do not have to design the setting, design the models and are easier to market, have great movies to promote them and many books to reference to.
A non historical game has to do all the above from scratch and some its impossible to do, GW is way to expensive for what they offer, but, they could never be as cheap as historicals are.
See, while I broadly agree with what you're saying, absolutes like "never" make my teeth itch a little.
While you've neatly summarised the costs going against a non-historical (and I'd guess non-licenced would apply too in this case) in GW's specific case, they've got an awful lot of economies too. Owning their own equipment, having a design studio on staff rather than paying by piece designed, the general economies of being a much larger business than anything else in the sector, owning a setting which will have long since recouped any investment in creative design..
It all comes back around to the same things, their utter conviction that everything they make will be eagerly snapped up, regardless of price, and the massive investment in a retail chain which, to my mind, provides a spectacularly poor ROI.
They look like they've finally woken up to the former, did anyone else notice the new Chaos AOS book is only £20 and is over 300 pages? The latter.. not so much. But then that's a much deeper hole to dig out of with more possible solutions.
notprop wrote:I find it raisable that anyone would play 28mm WW2 when 20mm (1/72) is so much cheaper and traditionally the preferred scale for the period.
PsychoticStorm wrote: Ok I withdraw "never" and yes, I agree increasing the cost of decade(s) old molds is questionable.
Not just old moulds, the setting itself has been static in the main since 2nd, the rules essentially the same since third (and if the story about them being Rick's home brew set originally is true, probably cost feth all to develop.)
It's all just been padding, rewriting, patching and fiddling for almost 20 years, and that can't take a massive investment to sustain.
Regarding the pricing of the Start Collecting sets and the Tau box -- Yes, I'm mentally applying a discount of 25%, but I do that for pretty much all the GW stuff, because that's a discount that is pretty easy to get in North America. I think it's pretty easy to get a discount of some kind in the UK, too and the tax is built into those prices. Frontline Gaming makes it so that anyone can get there anywhere in the USA; if anyone needs tips on where/how to get a good discount on the West Coast of Canada, PM me. There are really good discounts to be had (25% and better locally) if you're smart with your hobby shopping.
Yeah, models exist that are cheaper, and if you like the historicals, you'll probably spend significantly less on the hobby per model. But you can say that compared to pretty much all of the scifi/fantasy comparables, like PP, Malifaux and Infinity. Are all sci-fi models overpriced? They cost more, but that doesn't mean the same thing, because the people buying them don't see them as equivalents.
Azreal13 wrote: They look like they've finally woken up to the former, did anyone else notice the new Chaos AOS book is only £20 and is over 300 pages? The latter.. not so much. But then that's a much deeper hole to dig out of with more possible solutions.
It's a great deal, IMO, and paperback, too, something that a lot of players have asked for. However, let's be honest -- a lot of people (me included) won't buy it at *any* price, because you can get all the game-related stuff in it for free; and the app is actually pretty good.
If GW made all the game parts of the 40k books free, I'd only buy books for maybe 5 or so factions (the ones I'm actively building armies for), even if they were similarly priced to the Chaos AOS book.
Talys wrote: Regarding the pricing of the Start Collecting sets and the Tau box -- Yes, I'm mentally applying a discount of 25%, but I do that for pretty much all the GW stuff, because that's a discount that is pretty easy to get in North America. I think it's pretty easy to get a discount of some kind in the UK, too and the tax is built into those prices. Frontline Gaming makes it so that anyone can get there anywhere in the USA; if anyone needs tips on where/how to get a good discount on the West Coast of Canada, PM me. There are really good discounts to be had (25% and better locally) if you're smart with your hobby shopping.
This is a fallacy though. In order to fairly discuss price, you have to eliminate all possible ways of alternate purchase and focus solely on RRP. You must not, at least when attempting to have any sort of balanced discussion, start throwing around discounts. The RRP is the reference point you need to use, otherwise we then get into the realms of buying second hand etc. Which are all perfectly sound buying strategies, but the logical conclusion is "I'm twice the size of the local GW manager, I'll just go in, trap him in the toilet and help myself, yay, free GW!"
Base your arguments on what GW is asking, not what you pay.
@Azreal13 - MSRP is fine to discuss pricing if everyone sells stuff at MSRP, or if everyone applies discounts at similar levels. Street price is more relevant when discounts are commonplace, and when discounts are at dissimilar levels. The price I'm talking about isn't what I pay: it's what most people can readily purchase product for, hassle free.
If people commonly buy GW models at 10-25% discount, but they commonly get less of a discount on some other models, that should be taken into consideration. It's especially true if in Europe you can get such discounts for web purchases from independents, and in North America, you can get such discounts from a trusted vendor that will ship to most of the areas that are interested in hobby.
To look at it another way, my buying decision between a GW model and a Forge World model should include the 25%+ discount I'll get on the GW model, and the shipping and customs premiums I must pay on the FW model. A $100 GW model will cost me less than $75, whereas a $100 FW model will cost me more than $125 ($10 customs + 15% handling). That's a 40% difference on out of pocket, street price!
I do realize that not all regions have similar discounts, or perhaps discounts at all, and perhaps North America and Europe are fortunate in this sense -- but these are pretty big regions that cover an awful lot of GW players. I also realize that a big chunk of people just pay full MSRP to GW, even though discounts are available. But that's their prerogative.
In my particular case, I cannot get the type of discounts I receive on GW products on many other hobby brands. It's worth mentioning that PP products are generally available at similar discounts, too. Presumably, because they are also quite profitable.
In a similar way, if you're shopping for an airbrush or compressor, you look at the price you can get it for at the cheapest place that sells them, not at the manufacturers' suggested retail price. Otherwise, very few people would ever consider an airbrush like Iwata -- where street prices from accessible vendors like Amazon can be half or less of what MSRP is.
But I can buy my Infinity at 10% off so your argument is invalid.
Discounts are far from unique to GW.
The whole point of MSRP is that it is the base line, the thing to compare to, so we should be comparing it otherwise this is going to devolve into people linking different stores offering different discounts for different products.
@jonolikespie - I can buy my Infinity at a discount too (though a much smaller discount than GW). I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, because even at full MSRP, GW models are cheaper per model than Infinity models discounted. Anyways, I'm just saying it's useful to compare street prices. People do it all the time for all sorts of things, and some brands of product are just a lot more discounted than other brands. I think a reasonable shopper comparing alternatives would acknowledge that, for example, iPhones are barely ever discounted, while Android phones are often available at much lower than MSRP.
I'm not sure why we're talking about it in this context. I had originally said that MSRP $85 is a pretty good price for Start Collecting boxes. I never even mentioned discounts. Someone else did. Yes, separately, I conceded that mentally, I factor in a 25% discount, because that's an easy thing to get. Not just for me; for most GW customers in NA/Europe.
I wasn't really comparing it to other product, but if you want to, compare it to Warmachines starter boxes. It would be a fair comparison, either at MSRP, or at 25% discount, since both can be readily purchased at that price. For the record, I think Warmachines starter boxes (yes, at street prices....) are a really attractive price for the models too.
It is perfectly legitimate for people to think that boxes of models with about the number and sort of boxes in Warmachines starter boxes or GW starter boxes, at whatever discount they can buy them for are still way overpriced. I think, however, it would be disingenuous for someone to say, "I'd happily pay $60 for this box, but It's overpriced at $85. But I'm going to call this product overpriced because of the MSRP, even though it's sitting in front of me at $60, and I can buy as many more as I want for that."
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Jehan-reznor wrote: Talys there are places that don't do much discounts Like Japan, MSRP is i have to go by.
Yeah, and I did mention this as well. It's mostly North America and Europe that this is the case, I think. Perhaps in Japan, other brands of models also have a smaller, or no, discount, too?
infinite_array wrote: I think you're missing the point of smaller scales. 10mm and downwards, you stop focusing on the individual models and start focusing on what a base or unit looks like.
Oh I understand it, sorry if that wasn't clear, I just don't particularly like it. Sorry I didn't mean to take the thread off topic with my rantings.
PsychoticStorm wrote: Lets be honest here, beyond competition, historical games do not have to design the setting, design the models and are easier to market, have great movies to promote them and many books to reference to.
None of which justifies little plastic people costing approximately 700% more than similar (in tangible terms) kits from other manufacturers. A modest price difference would be justified due to slightly larger scale for instance (although I'm not convinced that would really cost all that much more) but as it stands GW are really taking the piss.
There is more conceptual design work with fantasy/SciFi miniatures and games but on the other hand historicals requires a lot more research so its not quite as easy as that.
notprop wrote:I find it raisable that anyone would play 28mm WW2 when 20mm (1/72) is so much cheaper and traditionally the preferred scale for the period.
One word: polyvinyl.
Then don't buy the first crap someone of Dakka told you about. Plenty of good product in Resin, plastic and metal.
PsychoticStorm wrote: Lets be honest here, beyond competition, historical games do not have to design the setting, design the models and are easier to market, have great movies to promote them and many books to reference to.
None of which justifies little plastic people costing approximately 700% more than similar (in tangible terms) kits from other manufacturers. A modest price difference would be justified due to slightly larger scale for instance (although I'm not convinced that would really cost all that much more) but as it stands GW are really taking the piss.
There is more conceptual design work with fantasy/SciFi miniatures and games but on the other hand historicals requires a lot more research so its not quite as easy as that.
It's a different market. There isn't any justification, nor is one necessary: Why are Marvel comic books way more expensive per page than Manga titles? Why are are hockey jerseys with a NHL team's name embroidered on it 1000% more expensive than a practice jersey? Why is one doodled with "Wayne Gretzky" worth 10,000% more? They used to just all wear wool sweaters.
The answer is really simple: scifi/fantasy gaming and collectible miniatures are sold for the price that the market will bear. If there weren't enough people willing to pay more than $1 per miniature, the price of the miniatures would either fall to $1, or companies and artists would produce video games and movies instead. But as long as enough people are willing to pay $60 for a Warjack, $150 for a Knight, and $500 for Smaug, that's the price that they'll be sold for.
The world doesn't generally revolve around companies trying to make modest profits; in almost every industry, it revolves around companies trying to maximize their profits. That's as true for lettuce and milk as it is toy soldiers. You may bemoan this and say, "the world shouldn't work like that"... but the people making toy soldiers aren't trying to make the world a better place -- they're trying to make as much money as they can, presumably doing something they enjoy.
The reason that miniature prices don't offend me is because I don't treat GW or PP or Corvus Belli like a bunch of hobbyists doing things for fun; I treat them like a company that produces cell phones or television sets or shows movies on the big screen. If the price is right and I like the product, I'm in; if it's not, I'll pass. I mean, I don't get offended at Sony for making 4k TVs for more than I'm willing to pay, or at Apple for producing a 6S+ that's nearly indistinguishable from its predecessor, or at Miramax for producing a bad movies that are $15 a ticket watch on IMAX. I just shrug and don't give them my money.
As I said in the half that it was not quoted, they are way overpriced (and the market seems to reflect it), but, there are reasons why they can be more expensive than historicals and I would find it acceptable.
And please do not paraphrase me, I do mean I find acceptable fantasy and sci fi miniatures to be more expensive than historicals, I do not find GW's prices acceptable.
