It's a conundrum isn't it? In theory Warhammer 40k "has objectively terrible rules" but vastly outsells other wargames. The rules are so terrible that people even buy non-GW models to use in their 40k games (I have done this, no, I'm not 100% clear on why), so it's not entirely about the models either. Dakka is full of people eyeing proxies.

 Nurglitch wrote:
It's a conundrum isn't it? In theory Warhammer 40k "has objectively terrible rules" but vastly outsells other wargames. The rules are so terrible that people even buy non-GW models to use in their 40k games (I have done this, no, I'm not 100% clear on why), so it's not entirely about the models either. Dakka is full of people eyeing proxies.

Point of fact, GW doesn't 'vastly outsell' other companies and took a back seat to Xwing for several years.

Oh, come on.

I've been largely on your side of the argument across this and the IP threads, but unless you're going to put an unfair definition on what GW's market is, I'd bet that at the moment they're worth more than the rest of the market totalled.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oh, come on.

I've been largely on your side of the argument across this and the IP threads, but unless you're going to put an unfair definition on what GW's market is, I'd bet that at the moment they're worth more than the rest of the market totalled.

No, but I'll point out that Star Wars was, for a very long time, vastly more popular and mainstream than 40k. And has several war games. GW was so pissed about it that they shitcanned FFGs 40k license following the beginning of that trend. Before it happened, I'm guessing they thought very much as you do.

Not Star Wars, XWing. X Wing was, for maybe 18 months back in around 2016-2018, maybe, based on less than precise data, more popular than some of GW's games for a bit.

That day has long passed, GW will likely turnover more than £360m this year if they grow by even a tiny amount.

The only non-GW game that maybe makes a dent in that is Crisis Protocol and maybe maybe Legion. X Wing, Warmahordes, Malifaux, Infinity, Guild Ball are all spent forces or never-were forces at this scale.

Simply put, for GW to not be in an organic monopoly at this point requires the fantasy miniatures gaming market to be worth £3/4 billion, and I just don't think that's feasible.

I can't prove it isn't, any more than you can prove it is, there isn't enough public domain data available, but it doesn't feel credible.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Not Star Wars, XWing. X Wing was, for maybe 18 months back in around 2016-2018, maybe, based on less than precise data, more popular than some of GW's games for a bit.

That day has long passed, GW will likely turnover more than £360m this year if they grow by even a tiny amount.

The only non-GW game that maybe makes a dent in that is Crisis Protocol and maybe maybe Legion. X Wing, Warmahordes, Malifaux, Infinity, Guild Ball are all spent forces or never-were forces at this scale.

Simply put, for GW to not be in an organic monopoly at this point requires the fantasy miniatures gaming market to be worth £3/4 billion, and I just don't think that's feasible.

I can't prove it isn't, any more than you can prove it is, there isn't enough public domain data available, but it doesn't feel credible.

You rather left out a BIG player in Fantasy Miniatures. Oh, and Legion actually came in 4th in the first quarter, hot on the heels of 40k, AoS, and D&D.

Please stop leaning on ICV2 so hard, it's not accounting data, it doesn't have numbers and it undermines any argument you try and make based on it.

If I missed a large player then don't be coy and make your case, but if it's WizKids it's because I don't think they're direct competition. No doubt you'll have an opinion on why they should be, but again, neither of us can make anything definitive because it's a grey area and where the lines are is a matter of opinion and therefore not really productive to debate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A quick Google provides nothing official, but seems to place WizKids' turnover at a little under or over £7m.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Please stop leaning on ICV2 so hard, it's not accounting data, it doesn't have numbers and it undermines any argument you try and make based on it.

How so? It's a survey of FLGS about sales.

 Azreal13 wrote:

If I missed a large player then don't be coy and make your case, but if it's WizKids it's because I don't think they're direct competition. No doubt you'll have an opinion on why they should be, but again, neither of us can make anything definitive because it's a grey area and where the lines are is a matter of opinion and therefore not really productive to debate.

Other than GW pulling Wizkids 40k lines like they did with FFG? Hilariously, some of them were for the same games. So, regardless of what you OR I think, GW clearly sees them as competition.

 Phobos wrote:
LMAO this thread.

Of COURSE they get paid crap. The dude even outright said why in the tweets - because the quality of the output is by and large irrelevant. As long is it mostly kinda sorta works, that's enough. Like it or not, GW can get a bunch of literal single digit age children to write the rules for Warhammer 40K 10th edition and it wouldn't impact sales one iota.

Couple that with the fact that there is an endless horde of neckbeards who would gleefully shank their own parents for a chance to work designing games for GW; and it becomes fiscally irresponsible to pay anything more than trash tier wages for that job.

And unions, oh boy... you guys crack me up. It's like listening to my kid who never worked a day in his life tell me why employers won't care about tattoos on someones face.

Got to admit I'm baffled by this thread as well.

Its been common knowledge that games industry pays for squat since... the early 1980s? I've known lots of gamers that wanted to work for GW, TSR, Privateer, Wizards, Paizo, whomever. Then they go to a few conventions, have a few conversations and the talk stops. For the truly devoted, maybe it shifts to pie-in-the-sky talk about maybe running their own company some day. A lot of that has shifted to kickstarter or self-publishing these days, but largely people get discouraged about working for beans in a tiny industry that generally requires friends on the inside to get in.

I'm seriously shocked by the surprise.

Edit: I'm not saying its right or moral or whatever. I'm just literally shocked that people did not know this.
It was legitimately career advice that I got in late high school/college that it was a fething terrible life decision.

And well known in the _pre-internet_ gaming community. Devs would talk about sharing a bed in hotel rooms at cons, living day to day off bread and ramen and other horror stories like that, still living basically the 'friend's couch' college 'lifestyle.' The ones who didn't had real jobs and freelanced projects from games/settings/rules they worked on in their spare time.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Please stop leaning on ICV2 so hard, it's not accounting data, it doesn't have numbers and it undermines any argument you try and make based on it.

How so? It's a survey of FLGS about sales.

 Azreal13 wrote:

If I missed a large player then don't be coy and make your case, but if it's WizKids it's because I don't think they're direct competition. No doubt you'll have an opinion on why they should be, but again, neither of us can make anything definitive because it's a grey area and where the lines are is a matter of opinion and therefore not really productive to debate.

Other than GW pulling Wizkids 40k lines like they did with FFG? Hilariously, some of them were for the same games. So, regardless of what you OR I think, GW clearly sees them as competition.

That's an assumption totally without basis. We have no insight into the whys and wherefores of why any license has been terminated to my knowledge? Do you have any evidence to suggest it wasn't, for instance, GW insisting on more product being produced and WizKids being unwilling or unable to meet the demand? Please note, not reasons why you don't think it's likely, I means evidence, such as a press release or similar outlining why an agreement to extend the licence wasn't reached?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That ICV2 is a survey is precisely why you shouldn't rely on it. It isn't anything more than a collation if people's impressions. It's not quantified, nor does it take account of any other channel but the stores that are surveyed. Is it possibly indicative? Maybe? But it is not definitive.

 Nurglitch wrote:
It's a conundrum isn't it? In theory Warhammer 40k "has objectively terrible rules" but vastly outsells other wargames. The rules are so terrible that people even buy non-GW models to use in their 40k games (I have done this, no, I'm not 100% clear on why), so it's not entirely about the models either. Dakka is full of people eyeing proxies.

Always ends up being that’s what others are playing, so I guess I will too… It gets tiring trying to get people to play other games. Saying that I think it’s why player retention is awful compared to good rule sets, say some of the historicals stuff where people will play a rule set for a decade or more quite happily. 40K seems to go through phrases of the player base melting away. I always wonder what would happen if GW used a better rule set. Sadly I reckon it would result in lower numbers joining as the learning curve would be steeper and all the chrome people love (e.g. choosing which pistol for 1-5 points from a selection of 4 to take for example) is very very rare in good wargames rules.

BaronIveagh wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Please stop leaning on ICV2 so hard, it's not accounting data, it doesn't have numbers and it undermines any argument you try and make based on it.

How so? It's a survey of FLGS about sales

FLGS and US only, yet Europe (UK+EU) still makes more money and I have seen people claiming that Warhammer Fantasy was never popular (and no one played it) because of ICV2 number, ignoring the bigger market for GW

selling more in the US via FLGS does not tell a lot for the situation if another game is coming close to 40k or is ahead of it
if one game is going thru the roof in Asia, it does not matter how much people in the US play 40k

 Azreal13 wrote:
If I missed a large player

Depends on the market we are talking
GW has their dominant position in SciFi & Fantasy miniature gaming yet you don't see them in the stores selling fantasy toys, scale models or RPG and Boardgames
FFG came from the RPG side and most RPG/Boardgame stores stock their miniature games because they stock all their products (the local store still has Runewars on the shelf) and get people into wargaming that had nothing do to with this before

the Worldwide RPG market is ~10-15 billion, the boardgame market is ~10-13 billions, and GW (and miniature gaming) is not seen as a core player in the tabletop market at all, so selling models for RPGs, boardgames or strategy games is a much bigger market (even the display model market is bigger hence why GW wants to be a model company and sell stuff that looks good on the shelf and were people only buy 1 unit of each type)


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The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Nurglitch wrote:
It's a conundrum isn't it? In theory Warhammer 40k "has objectively terrible rules" but vastly outsells other wargames. The rules are so terrible that people even buy non-GW models to use in their 40k games (I have done this, no, I'm not 100% clear on why), so it's not entirely about the models either. Dakka is full of people eyeing proxies.

Always ends up being that’s what others are playing, so I guess I will too… It gets tiring trying to get people to play other games. Saying that I think it’s why player retention is awful compared to good rule sets, say some of the historicals stuff where people will play a rule set for a decade or more quite happily. 40K seems to go through phrases of the player base melting away. I always wonder what would happen if GW used a better rule set. Sadly I reckon it would result in lower numbers joining as the learning curve would be steeper and all the chrome people love (e.g. choosing which pistol for 1-5 points from a selection of 4 to take for example) is very very rare in good wargames rules.

disagree here, for example Star Wars Legion, X-Wing TMG, Crisis Protocol all have better rules than GW has, and no one has a problem learning them or learning the game

I remember the time when GW rules were that bad that people started playing other games and there was a vocal minority that argued to stay with GW to avoid fragmentation etc.

I also know a lot of people who would stop playing 40k if they needed to pay the original prices, not the 20% off from vendors but getting the stuff for cheap from Russia/China or 3D printers and free rules
paying for rules at all and paying more than 300€ for an army is a no-go for a lot of people here and they just play 40k because everyone is doing and they like the background (~1/3 of the playerbase around would not play if they were forced to buy a Codex instead of getting them for free in the web)

ICV2 offers a hideously inaccurate snapshot of the market.

First, it only covers North America. And then it only covers independent sellers - on a voluntary basis.

From GW’s annual report, we can see they identify 55% of their sales being through independent sellers. So straight off the bat, ICV2 is missing 45% of GW’s sales.

Unfortunately I can’t currently find the territory breakdown on said Annual Report. But if memory serves, North America is around 1/3rd of GW’s income. Which makes the amount of GW specific data we know not to be reflected in ICV2 pretty significant.

The other games? I suspect there’s chunks of that data missing too - but likely to a lesser degree, given FFG et al don’t offer direct sales, or have their own high street presence.

So it seems safe to conclude the ICV2 is actually kinda worthless when looking for the top seller, because so much information is simply not taken into account.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
ICV2 offers a hideously inaccurate snapshot of the market.

First, it only covers North America. And then it only covers independent sellers - on a voluntary basis.

From GW’s annual report, we can see they identify 55% of their sales being through independent sellers. So straight off the bat, ICV2 is missing 45% of GW’s sales.

Unfortunately I can’t currently find the territory breakdown on said Annual Report. But if memory serves, North America is around 1/3rd of GW’s income. Which makes the amount of GW specific data we know not to be reflected in ICV2 pretty significant.

The other games? I suspect there’s chunks of that data missing too - but likely to a lesser degree, given FFG et al don’t offer direct sales, or have their own high street presence.

So it seems safe to conclude the ICV2 is actually kinda worthless when looking for the top seller, because so much information is simply not taken into account.

Whilst its a fair point I still can't shake the feeling that getting knocked off the ICV2 throne by tiny spacesheeps (along with a year or two of poor sales for GW all round) and GW taking a long hard look at themselves are not connected

I mean, it’s possible. Certainly competition tends to be good for the companies and the market.

However, we also don’t know the margin of difference.

If the top five are, hypothetically….

1. 40K
2. AoS
3. X-Wing
4. Y-Wing
5 Z-Wing

How close are those placing? If (again entirely hypothetically) 40K and AoS comprise 70%? All the other games are sharing a slice of the remaining 30%.

Perhaps X-Wing has 20% of that - they’re still flagging well behind 40k and AoS in this hypothetical scenario.

Add in we know significant portions of GW’s sales aren’t covered, and suddenly the challengers start to look pretty weedy.

If my maths is right (and I’ll try to explain, and fully accept I’m probably wrong!), we could be missing something like 80% of GW’s total sales on ICV2. I came to that figure thusly….

North America makes up 39% of GW’s global sales, according to their year end results. See page 7.

And from the same document, we’re told Trade (as in non-GW owned outlets) make up 55% of sales globally.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to combine the two data points into North American Trade Sales, so I’ll treat (for sake of argument) the 55% as universal. I accept the Trade percentage is probably higher in the USA because it has FLGS over GW stores, but I can only work with the data points I’ve got.

So, North America is 39% of global sales. But, 45% of those North American sales are GW Direct (online or in-store). Which, and here’s where my maths is likely super wonky, means ICV2 can only possibly capture sales data for 21.45% of GW’s global sales.

Hence its really not a reliable source for, well, anything.

do we know the how much the US account for FFG/AMG or WizKids sales?

as the numbers are not even comparable as relativ to each other to account which one sales better without such information

Not to the best of my knowledge.

FFG are of course owned by Asmodee, who I believe to be French. So it seems possible they’ll publish similar financial results to GW.

I don’t know if they break down their income via wholly owned subsidiaries. And given GW don’t break down their sales volumes by game, it seems unlikely Asmodee or FFG would break it down by game system. Simply because it’s not really of interest to share holders.

I did find this https://cdn.svc.asmodee.net/corporate/uploads/Templates/Asmodee_group_companies_EN.pdf

Which is a listing of all the companies under Asmodee Group. But I can’t see FFG listed separately. But according to the Wiki, it’s owned by Asmodee Editions. There are a couple under that name listed (Spanish and US).

Beyond that my brain goes all fuzzy. The only thing close to a financial statement comes from here https://incfact.com/company/asmodeenorthamerica-roseville-mn/

Which says Asmodee have an income between $100m and $500m. You’ll forgive me for not treating that as particularly valuable data given the wide variance.

I then found this https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.fantasy_flight_publishing_inc.d0bf56bc09d879baef34d3b5fe5c7de1.html which claims FFG has an income of $13.6m USD. Sadly I can’t see where they got that figure from, so again salt at the ready.

If that figure can be treated as at all accurate? They remain small fry to GW, given that $13.6m isn’t just X-Wing - but every FFG published game.

Anecdote isn't evidence etc - but while I wouldn't lean on ICV2 to be precise, I think you can say GW was in something of a rut from 2012~ through to 2017. Sales were stagnant while X-Wing, Warmahordes etc were clearly on the rise. I can fully believe that at some point in 2014-2016 X-Wing took the crown from 40k as the most sold miniatures game across the world. GW didn't kill off Fantasy and go for a total re-write 40k just for the fun of it.

Equally however I'm very doubtful however on ICV2's claims that X-Wing was still outselling 40k in the immediate post-8th release rush (i.e. Fall 2017). Maybe that took some time to gather steam - but I feel it doesn't mirror things in the UK at all - and we know GW's sales in 2017 were up 33% on 2016 primarily as a result of that release. Moreover by by Spring 2018 the ICV2 has X-Wing failing to even be in the top 5 - which feels like a somewhat implausible fall from grace.

Some solid digging there Doc, the FFG figure seems shockingly low to the point I suspect some sneaky accountancy hoodoo amongst Team Asmodee set up

@ Tyel, XWing falling so hard is on FFG topping GW by making twice the mistakes in half the time...also 2018 was an edition switch which clearly harmed sales

Who can tell! I mean, it’s possible, and again I cannot verify the info I dug up beyond GW’s financials (given they’re independently vetted before publishing as part of U.K. law) so definite pinches of salt.

I mean, the websites I linked to could be about as familiar with the truth as wegotthiscovered for all I know!

Google Trends is an interesting way to determine not sales, but interest through searches. Many games have specific categories on Trends that pick up most mentions of this (the tag reads "Game" or "subject" instead of "search term" - Warhammer 40000, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warmachine, Hordes, Star Wars Legion, X-Wing, among others have gotten this. Try a search - remember to not use abbreviations because it doesn't really work unless the abbreviation has gotten a tag that actually matches the game you are searching for.

With what I can see from my searches, sci-fi and fantasy miniatures gaming consists of an enormous pool of Warhammer 40,000 searchers and a pack of other games that go up and down but individually don't make up 1/20 of 40k searches at any point in time and usually are far below that. The only exception is Warhammer Fantasy Battle, which peaked in 7th edition and then gradually fell of but surprisingly stilll has more searches than any other game except 40k. Since it is a spesific search term, it excludes Age of Sigmar and other Warhammer games.

Trends is fascinating sometimes. Using local data, I can spot the point when different games where introduced to Norway and even when recruitment drives started working for different systems. It will never do more than show you how many people search for stuff, and I suspect a lot of hits originate from non-miniature gamers, but when we used it, for fun, to measure ad campaign effectiveness at my workplace, it was surprisingly consistent when compared with data from professional systems for measuring interest.

What I found, Asmodee Group in France has 60 employees and makes 50 millions in sales
Same for Asmodee North America

while the corporate website says 750 people among all studios and parts of the group, and 2nd biggest publisher in 2018

french Wikipedia lists a turnover of 442 millions (€) in 2017 for Asmodee Editions, Bloomberg wrote revenue was 550kk € in 2019

 BaronIveagh wrote:


Point of fact, GW doesn't 'vastly outsell' other companies and took a back seat to Xwing for several years.

Sure. But X-Wing also collapsed fairly quickly again after the novelty and "oh-shiny-new-excitement" had worn of, largely because it had vastly inferior rules and was a worse game than anything GW ever published.

The same "game" without the Star Wars IP to prop it up in its various incarnations from Star Trek/Wings/Sails/Dragons/whatever of Glory never made a dent.

If the actual game had ever been worth a damn, Star Wars and FFG idiocy be damned, it'd still be dominating the scene in one of its many off-shots/precursors with WWII planes or whatever.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:


Point of fact, GW doesn't 'vastly outsell' other companies and took a back seat to Xwing for several years.

Sure. But X-Wing also collapsed fairly quickly again after the novelty and "oh-shiny-new-excitement" had worn of, largely because it had vastly inferior rules and was a worse game than anything GW ever published.

lol

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:


Point of fact, GW doesn't 'vastly outsell' other companies and took a back seat to Xwing for several years.

Sure. But X-Wing also collapsed fairly quickly again after the novelty and "oh-shiny-new-excitement" had worn of, largely because it had vastly inferior rules and was a worse game than anything GW ever published.

The same "game" without the Star Wars IP to prop it up in its various incarnations from Star Trek/Wings/Sails/Dragons/whatever of Glory never made a dent.

If the actual game had ever been worth a damn, Star Wars and FFG idiocy be damned, it'd still be dominating the scene in one of its many off-shots/precursors with WWII planes or whatever.

This take is so wrong it is hilarious. X-Wing remained the second best selling game for years until recently when AOS overtook it. The fact that FFG/Asmodee distribution is horrible has done more to limit its sales (and like wise Legion) than any other factor. Shops around the world sell out of their stock very rapidly and cannot get restocks for ages.
X-wing also has a better and tighter ruleset than any GW game since... forever? I struggle to think of any that have been so well balanced and when it did have balance issues they released a 2nd edition that did away with most of the problems without creating too many new ones (Nantex spam being about the only exception).

For the record as well, Asmodee do do direct sales, the SW mini games are now made by AMG not FFG and Asmodee itself is owned by a private equity company (PAI Partners) so you will not be able to get financial reports like you can for GW unless you are a member.

Which leads to the actual point of the thread, GW paying so poorly. With the switch from FFG to AMG it has been shown that Asmodee subsidiaries also pay poorly, they also required a load of their staff to move across the country or loose their jobs. Many people just outright lost their jobs. The last of the lead developers for Legion has just been fired and he did move across the country.

So this does not seem to be a GW problem but a systemic one within the industry.

just to compare Asmodee Editions with GW, over all products, licences, boardgames, miniature games, models, RPGs GW made 440kk € in its best year during the pandemic, AE made 550kk € the year before the pandemic

GW might outsell them in their main market regarding models, but are still behind in total sales on the tabletop market

 kodos wrote:
just to compare Asmodee Editions with GW, over all products, licences, boardgames, miniature games, models, RPGs GW made 440kk € in its best year during the pandemic, AE made 550kk € the year before the pandemic

GW might outsell them in their main market regarding models, but are still behind in total sales on the tabletop market

Asmodee primarily do board games though. This is what I’ve been trying to illustrate, as we simply have no way of knowing how much of Asmodee’s income is from FFG, and what percentage of that might be X-Wing. The data just isn’t available.

One can’t point to Asmodee’s bottom line and conclude “X-Wing outsells every other war game in the world”. Because Asmodee sells a lot of varied products in various market niches. And it’s all piled together when it comes to year end totals.

GW however? We have somewhat more granular information on their annual report - but not down to which game system or systems is doing the heavy lifting, because they choose not to present that information.

I’m sure GW will know that - but we can only speculate.

well, this is the problem we don't know what making the most money

Asmodee making more with boardgames and less with miniature games and for GW it is the other way around

GW models tend to be more expensive so Asmodee is selling models for less turnover?

Asmodee miniature games are played more among boardgame players were GW takes from wargaming players?

GW customer playing all their games making the number of players lower, while Asmodee customers either play Legion, X-WING or MCP?

we don't know and all of those would be interesting to know for a conclusion on what game sells more

Indeed. I also wonder how much the license costs them each year, because that’s all cutting into profit margin.

Certainly licenses are tricksy things. You can be doing perfectly well, only to have someone come along when it’s renewal time and make a better offer to the Licensor.

And they vary in risk to Licensors. GW arguably face a higher risk than Disney here.

A single notoriously crap adaptation of GW’s properties could affect the wider perception of GW.

A single notoriously crap Star Wars miniatures game*, don’t think Disney would care over much, as it’s not going to dent the wider popularity.

*I am not calling any existing SW crap.

It took EA of all people to make Lucasfilm step up and go "Hey! Enough of that crap!".

On the other hand, there are tons of shovelware 40k games that no one cares about, so I don't think dud licensed products hurt GW at all.

'Shovelware' describes 90% of the board game market these days, product-wise.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Nurglitch wrote:
It's a conundrum isn't it? In theory Warhammer 40k "has objectively terrible rules" but vastly outsells other wargames. The rules are so terrible that people even buy non-GW models to use in their 40k games (I have done this, no, I'm not 100% clear on why), so it's not entirely about the models either. Dakka is full of people eyeing proxies.

Point of fact, GW doesn't 'vastly outsell' other companies and took a back seat to Xwing for several years.

Point of fact, this is based on icv2 which collects data from voluntarily reported data from retailers, distributors, and publishers. The retailers are US based (i.e. excludes the European market) while only a small few European distributors are included. From what I have been told (having spoken with someone who works for icv2), GW doesn't really provide them any data. In other words, its unlikely that XWing ever actually outsold 40k, as the GW based data is very incomplete (considering about half of GWs sales alone are through its own retail stores and online site).

So yes, GW does vastly outsell other companies in the industry (excluding companies like Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast, Konami, and Nintendo which are more diversified in their business operations). Only Asmodee is larger, but also has a much larger and more diversified portfolio of IPs and titles than GW does. At the time that X-Wing peaked 40k on the icv2 charts, 40k was basically GWs only major product line as it came as WHFB was axed and AoS was just starting to be launched - I.E. we have a pretty good idea of how well 40k was selling. With some analysis of the half and full year financial reports from GW, we find that they brought in 175 million GBP during the 2015 calendar year, excluding December 2015 - dividing that number by 11 and adding it back in to try to account for the missing month, we get 191 million GBP for calendar 2015 - which may be undercounting it as there is presumably a revenue spike that coincides with the holidays. With some digging, Asmodee brought in 270 million EUR for the same calendar year, excluding acquisitions and mergers (Asmodee purchased FFG in 2014, so no X-Wings sales are included in that figure). Google tells me the average exchange rate for 2015 was 1GBP = 1.37 EUR, so multiply 191 x 1.37 means GW generated 263 million EUR in revenue.

So thats the basis of comparison - GW, which was mostly 40k at the time, at 263 million EUR vs Asmodee, which was X-Wing and a plethora of other games and brands, at 270 million EUR. Even if we assume only 90% of GWs revenue was attributable to 40k, thats still around 236 million EUR from 40k. I very much doubt that X-Wing generated 87.6% of Asmodees revenue in that calendar year.

In fact, we know that it probably didn't as Asmodees 2014 revenue, excluding mergers and acquisitions, was $175 million EUR - Asmodee also acquired Days of Wonder in the same year so we don't have a direct resource for what FFGs revenue on its own was, but Asmodees proforma revenue including both companies was 212 million EUR. Subtracting that from 175 million we get 37 million EUR - so in 2014 X-Wing generated 37 million EUR in revenue *at most*, assuming Days of Wonder generated 0 EUR in revenue and FFGs revenue was 100% sourced from X-Wing (which is basically impossible). Its highly unlikely that X-Wing sales multipliied 7x over the course of a year - which is basically what would need to happen for X-Wing to have outsold 40k, based on the very generous assumption that X-Wing fully accounted for that 37 million difference in revenue. Even if we assume that only half of GWs revenue was attributable to 40k (i.e. 131.5 million EUR), X-Wing would still need to have multiplied its sales 3.5x over the course of a year to match it - not impossible, but unlikely, and again based on an extremely generous assumption of what X-Wings sales actually were.

Again, point of fact, GW (and 40k specifically) *DOES* vastly outsell the competition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Please stop leaning on ICV2 so hard, it's not accounting data, it doesn't have numbers and it undermines any argument you try and make based on it.

If I missed a large player then don't be coy and make your case, but if it's WizKids it's because I don't think they're direct competition. No doubt you'll have an opinion on why they should be, but again, neither of us can make anything definitive because it's a grey area and where the lines are is a matter of opinion and therefore not really productive to debate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A quick Google provides nothing official, but seems to place WizKids' turnover at a little under or over £7m.

Yeah, thats wrong. Wizkids revenue last year was considerably more than that (I'm not going to tell you how I know nor exactly how much, other than the fact that its some multiple of that number), but GWs revenues are still several times greater than that.

Voss wrote:

Got to admit I'm baffled by this thread as well.

Its been common knowledge that games industry pays for squat since... the early 1980s? I've known lots of gamers that wanted to work for GW, TSR, Privateer, Wizards, Paizo, whomever. Then they go to a few conventions, have a few conversations and the talk stops. For the truly devoted, maybe it shifts to pie-in-the-sky talk about maybe running their own company some day. A lot of that has shifted to kickstarter or self-publishing these days, but largely people get discouraged about working for beans in a tiny industry that generally requires friends on the inside to get in.

I'm seriously shocked by the surprise.

Edit: I'm not saying its right or moral or whatever. I'm just literally shocked that people did not know this.
It was legitimately career advice that I got in late high school/college that it was a fething terrible life decision.

And well known in the _pre-internet_ gaming community. Devs would talk about sharing a bed in hotel rooms at cons, living day to day off bread and ramen and other horror stories like that, still living basically the 'friend's couch' college 'lifestyle.' The ones who didn't had real jobs and freelanced projects from games/settings/rules they worked on in their spare time.

Back in the late '90s, there was an ad in White Dwarf for trainee games dev positions. I don't remember the actual numbers, but they offered a trainee-level salary and a room in a share house. As a teenager at the time, it sounded like a pretty sweet deal...

 insaniak wrote:

Back in the late '90s, there was an ad in White Dwarf for trainee games dev positions. I don't remember the actual numbers, but they offered a trainee-level salary and a room in a share house. As a teenager at the time, it sounded like a pretty sweet deal...

The equivilant position at other companies can make in the high five to low six figure range now, depending on the company and game. But it's also not an entry level position. GW offered an effectively unpaid internship.

Also, just, FYI, at the time you're referring to, Video Game leads made 50k a year and that was considered a stupendous amount of money. Artists and animators could make just above minimum wage. Now it's... significantly higher than that at most reputable studios.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Do GW still offer large scale staff discounts on product?

I understand they fire folks who resell stuff on ebay, if that's your question.

I can confirm, at least as of a few years ago, GW employees could get in significant trouble with their management if they were caught re-selling items that they bought with their discount. I received a rather nice honorarium from a former (and at the time current) GW employee for serving as a middleman when he wanted to sell an army he’d bought using his discount without GW management finding out.

Valete,

JohnS

Voss wrote:

 Phobos wrote:
LMAO this thread.

Of COURSE they get paid crap. The dude even outright said why in the tweets - because the quality of the output is by and large irrelevant. As long is it mostly kinda sorta works, that's enough. Like it or not, GW can get a bunch of literal single digit age children to write the rules for Warhammer 40K 10th edition and it wouldn't impact sales one iota.

Couple that with the fact that there is an endless horde of neckbeards who would gleefully shank their own parents for a chance to work designing games for GW; and it becomes fiscally irresponsible to pay anything more than trash tier wages for that job.

And unions, oh boy... you guys crack me up. It's like listening to my kid who never worked a day in his life tell me why employers won't care about tattoos on someones face.

Got to admit I'm baffled by this thread as well.

Its been common knowledge that games industry pays for squat since... the early 1980s? I've known lots of gamers that wanted to work for GW, TSR, Privateer, Wizards, Paizo, whomever. Then they go to a few conventions, have a few conversations and the talk stops. For the truly devoted, maybe it shifts to pie-in-the-sky talk about maybe running their own company some day. A lot of that has shifted to kickstarter or self-publishing these days, but largely people get discouraged about working for beans in a tiny industry that generally requires friends on the inside to get in.

I'm seriously shocked by the surprise.

Edit: I'm not saying its right or moral or whatever. I'm just literally shocked that people did not know this.
It was legitimately career advice that I got in late high school/college that it was a fething terrible life decision.

And well known in the _pre-internet_ gaming community. Devs would talk about sharing a bed in hotel rooms at cons, living day to day off bread and ramen and other horror stories like that, still living basically the 'friend's couch' college 'lifestyle.' The ones who didn't had real jobs and freelanced projects from games/settings/rules they worked on in their spare time.

People struggle to understand the factors that determine wages and they get angry at value free judgements.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Back in the late '90s, there was an ad in White Dwarf for trainee games dev positions. I don't remember the actual numbers, but they offered a trainee-level salary and a room in a share house. As a teenager at the time, it sounded like a pretty sweet deal...

The equivilant position at other companies can make in the high five to low six figure range now, depending on the company and game.

What world are you living in? First claiming that GW doesn't outsell its competitors, and now this?

I know what Wizkids, FFG, and a number of other publishers and design studios pay their designers - none of them come close to 6 figures unless they also happen to own the business as a whole EDIT - or you happen to be like Eric Lang or another well known designer with name recognition.

Ain't nobody paying the typical line developer anywhere near 6 figures though, especially not a trainee.

A designer with name recognition…like James Hewitt?

For what it’s worth, I was a GW Store Management trainee for about 6 months back in 2010.

For me it was a pretty sweet deal, as I’d previously been homeless and working just one day a week.

I got on the training course thanks to being right place, right time and getting a lucky break running the Epsom Store (which had become staff less) for a few weeks and doing really well.

For the six months, my bed and board was paid. Well, bed and breakfast. As was my travel to the various stores (Stockport, Blackpool and Northampton, all quite far from my home town).

Now, none of the hotels were exactly glamourous. Indeed the one in Stockport happened to be Britain’s second worst hotel by rating. But they did what they needed to do - bed, brekkie, roof over my head.

Could they have spent more on nicer accommodation? Sure. But it was still a significant expenditure on their part (6 months of hotel stays adds up). And with ultimately no return on that money, as I promptly failed the course and ended up on my surprise path to success and comfort.

Now, when the training group were in Nottingham together, we did share rooms. But never beds.

Of course, given my unique situation at the time, I was over the moon just to have somewhere defined to stay each night. And I was given a dinner allowance to be claimed back via expenses. I think it was something like £5 snacks allowance, and perhaps £10 (might’ve been £15?) for my dinner per working day.

Nothing extravagant, but not exactly penny pinching either.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Back in the late '90s, there was an ad in White Dwarf for trainee games dev positions. I don't remember the actual numbers, but they offered a trainee-level salary and a room in a share house. As a teenager at the time, it sounded like a pretty sweet deal...

The equivilant position at other companies can make in the high five to low six figure range now, depending on the company and game. But it's also not an entry level position. GW offered an effectively unpaid internship.

How is trainee-level salary (for a trainee level job) and a room in a shared house an unpaid internship?

I worked for GW on and off for quite some time. Starting in the late 1980's, right up to the early 2000's.

The pay was pretty average for retail at the time to be honest. What wasn't average was the expectation to work outside of my contracted hours.

I have a couple of bad stories to tell about my time with GW which were the reason I left, but having worked in various other industries since I have just as many comparable stories.

So, my time at GW was very hit and miss. As a young, single person starting out they were a great company to work for as long as you were willing to dedicate most of your time to them.

If you were a little older, and therefore had other responsibilities outside work, or were not single, I would say the experience would be very different.

I experienced both during my time with them.

However, where GW excels (in my opinion) is in its training. I received some of the best, on the job, training of my long working life and most of it I still use today.

I worked in almost every department at one stage of my time with GW and ended up with a lot of transferable skills, and for the most part had a whale of a time working for them. I just couldn't afford to stay with them if I wanted to do anything with my life, like buy a house, have kids etc.

Obviously my experience is anecdotal, but I still keep in touch with many of my former GW colleagues and look back both fondly and not so fondly on my time there.

I can't say that about any other job I have had.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
A designer with name recognition…like James Hewitt?

James has only really picked up name recognition after Adeptus Titanicus released, at which point he was no longer working for GW. Even still, James is still relatively unknown outside of our small corner of the hobby. Hes no Eric Lang, Reiner Knizia, Jamey Stegmaier, Uwe Rosenberg, Richard Garfield, Vladimir Chvatil, etc. who will sell a half million copies of a board game (which if you know anything about the industry - is a lot) just by virtue of their name being on the box. If you step outside of the GW bubble most people wouldn't know who James is, even within the world of wargaming. Hell - most people *IN* the GW bubble don't know who James is either, I could say his name out loud to anyone playing Titanicus or Necromunda locally and 99 times out of 100 the person I'm speaking to wouldn't even know that they are playing a game he designed.

In terms of wargaming, seeing Rick Priestly, Alessio Cavatore, or Andy Chambers name on a ruleset has a similar effect. Ash Barker, Mike Hutchinson, and Joseph McCullough are other good examples of wargame designers who have picked up a lot of name recognition and will sell games by virtue of their pedigree (Mike courtesy of Gaslands, Joe for Frostgrave/Rangers of Shadow Deep/Stargrave/Oathmark, and Ash probably more because of GMG than the games hes designed, though Gamma Wolves has given him a big leg up).

Not to say James doesn't deserve the recognition - hes a fantastic designer, but his authorship hasn't necessarily been well advertised (partly a side effect of working for GW in the post-Mat Ward era, no doubt) and so he hasn't quite managed to get the same level of outreach as indy game designers who are in a position to put their own names on the cover of their games, or even former GW game designers who got top billing in the inside covers of the rulebooks, etc. until people started sending them death threats. Likewise I think most of his work through Needy Cat or general freelancing has been contract work for other firms, who aren't necessarily going to advertise his name for him either as they are more concerned with selling a product than they are advertising the designers - Hellboy for example is a game that sold itself on the basis of its IP and Mike Mignolas name/artwork, rather than on the basis of who designed it (and in the case of a licensed game like that they probably wouldn't want James name on the cover anyway - again, selling a product/brand, not the designer).

Probably also doesn't help that if you google "James Hewitt" you're more likely to find results pertaining to a certain English military officer who had an affair with a certain princess than you are to find anything about board games (hence why James goes by James M. Hewitt).

I think you forgot someone on your list of people who can move a game......


<--------


Oh, I guess maybe you didn't forget. Awkward!



On a more serious tone, I think Dan Mersey (and Rampant in the title) can move rulebooks better than Ash Barker.

On the other hand, maybe if the gentleman had had billing on the products he designed/developed maybe his name would move boxes. By repute all his games for GW are very good.

 Easy E wrote:
I think you forgot someone on your list of people who can move a game......

<--------

Oh, I guess maybe you didn't forget. Awkward!

On a more serious tone, I think Dan Mersey (and Rampant in the title) can move rulebooks better than Ash Barker.

I'll be honest and say I haven't played any of your games, though I do check Blood and Spectacles to read your thoughts and design philosophy on occasion (it helped me bide the time while Delta Vector was on hiatus for most of the past 12-18 months).

Hurry up and get Castles in the Sky out and that might change

As for Dan Mersey/Rampant - I think "Rampant" is more the selling point than Mersey is. I'll be honest again and say I didn't even know his name until you posted it, I'm sure its on the rulebook somewhere but I never really paid much attention to it and he doesn't seem to be as vocal/well publicized as Barker/Hutchinson/McCullough.

 Nurglitch wrote:
On the other hand, maybe if the gentleman had had billing on the products he designed/developed maybe his name would move boxes. By repute all his games for GW are very good.

Absolutely - I know reading my posts is a slog, but I did kind of address the point in the 2nd to last paragraph.

All that being said, I use to live in the town FFG was from when it was starting to build and develop games. I was in a pretty decent low-level management job and grinding up the ladder at the time so I took a peak at what they were offering.

It was not enough to lure me away from my low-level management track role. I seem to recall it being in the high 20 to mid 30K range USD. However, that is a really shaky memory and that was a long time ago.

The real issue here, IMHO, is not that James was paid so low but that he was unable to advance. We all make our own choices when we take a job, regardless of salary, but we normally do so thinking "But if I nail it that'll improve over time"

That's driven by how the business works; efficiency and sales. You are either a cost to the business, therefore you should be ever more efficient and, or you are a salesman for the product and therefore you need to sell more.

This has the knock on effect that getting good at your job either way is literally the purpose of you being there. It doesn't matter how good you get, you are simply meeting the demands of the role, and will not be recognised for it.

You only have to read the Glassdoor reviews to see this in full effect; their trade sales function apparently doesn't offer commission according to reports on there.

I understand from a friend GW also recently published a pay policy for the first time. That policy doesn't talk about how you progress, but links performance to pay. However, it only does so in a negative sense - if you are underperforming or have been through a disciplinary, you will lose out on general staff rewards (bonus/annual pay rise).

They told me it offers no way for them to be rewarded for over-performing (i.e. promotion). With staff budgets already set for the year ahead, it doesn't matter what a member of staff does or how they perform; their reward is already pre-determined unless they apply for a new role and negotiate an increase as part of that. We've heard how that worked out for James.

James' experience in 2016/17 is absolutely indicative of current GW practices, by all accounts.

It's becoming more normal

My place recently did a job sweep, and stripped down the bands in each team. If your band was taken out, you're gone.
But, it left nowhere to go for those left. I've got to the top of my band, and the promotion bands have gone.

Ateanos wrote:
The real issue here, IMHO, is not that James was paid so low but that he was unable to advance. We all make our own choices when we take a job, regardless of salary, but we normally do so thinking "But if I nail it that'll improve over time"

Actually, the fact that he was paid what appears to be dogsh... by UK standards is a problem. Pay fair wages or die.

Well, the awful thing about it is that there really isn't much justification for the low wages at GW. Its profit margins are absurd - 42% IIRC, thats siginficantly higher than in most other industry sectors that pay out average salaries that are a multiple of what James and co. are being paid.

Reading and interpreting their most recent financial report (they don't outright state the cost of wages/payroll anywhere that I could find for the company as a whole, but they do detail payroll costs for the design studio (10 million GBP), manufacturing team (also 10 million GBP), and some others), it really does sound like they could raise wages for their non-executive corporate employees (i.e. no retail staff) several times over and still maintain a 25% profit margin.

But Chaos..... think of the dividend pay out! <faints>

As an investor, the dividend payout is pretty great

chaos0xomega wrote:
As an investor, the dividend payout is pretty great

I sold mine anyway. I try to keep my investments in causes I can support.

Didn't they institute an ownership buy-in with matching corporate funds? Like some percentage of the employee's pay could go to stock or somesuch?

 Nurglitch wrote:
Didn't they institute an ownership buy-in with matching corporate funds? Like some percentage of the employee's pay could go to stock or somesuch?

I believe they have a shareshave scheme yes… the thing is these are fantastic when your earnings are such that you have a little bit extra each month that you can invest or save, but not really viable when you are already struggling to make ends meet. If you’re going to put £500 away each month in savings it’s a no brainer to put it in the sharesave scheme, less so when that £500 going missing means you can’t buy food. Normally dividends are reinvested as more stock with these schemes, with the idea that it builds until you cash out at retirement, rather than a monthly income.

Perks are great once they are on top of a good basic salary… otherwise it’s a smoke screen to hide the awful pay.