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Post by: Trasvi
http://investor.games-workshop.com/
After a year of speculation since the last one, what has happened to the mighty beast? Is it dying a slow death, or is it stronger than ever before?
36
Post by: Moopy
Very short answer: They didn't do as well, but not a large slide (Roughly -2.7%).
46423
Post by: Dawnstar
Basically, TL;DR:
They lost money, but not as much as everyone thought they would have
494
Post by: H.B.M.C.
And now we wait for Ouze and Sourclams to go over it. No point in commenting until then.
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Post by: Rampage
I like how Mark Wells states that the reason for the increase in the price for finecast miniatures is because more quality control is required,
'to ensure that quality standards are maintained',
when talking about avoiding miscasts.
494
Post by: H.B.M.C.
BAAHAHAHAHAH! 
So the report is written in ' Wellsian Spin'.
17349
Post by: SilverMK2
H.B.M.C. wrote:So the report is written in 'Wellsian Spin'.
It would be ironic if FineCast were spin cast
I await people to pull out the appropriate details from the report.
1021
Post by: AesSedai
Never in my life have I seen a greater attempt to polish a turd than what I just read Mark Wells 2011 preliminary announcement to the GW financial report.
Dividends are up. Huzzah.
9230
Post by: Trasvi
I'll quote myself from warseer:
OK. Most obvious thing first.
Revenue is down (2.9%). Profit is down (4.4%, after royalties and tax). Black Library and Forge World continue to perform strongly, which GW takes to be a strong indicator of the health of the hobby.
GW is paying dividends (18p) again, because they have 'truly surplus cash' that they can't think of anything more useful to do with.
Mark Wells made a huge deal about Finecast, taking a full page to talk about it. More importantly, he specifically said:
Mark Wells wrote:
However, manufacturing in resin is a very labour intensive process which involves mixing chemicals in flexible moulds that can deteriorate after a small number of casts. Quality control has to be 100% as the potential for miscasts is much higher than for metal or plastic miniatures. As a consequence the price of each kit is necessarily somewhat higher than the former metal versions and production runs are small to ensure that quality standards are maintained.
which seems to indicate that Finecast is not actually a money saving measure. He talked about how customers value the quality of the miniature above all else, that they had reached the peak of quality in metal miniatures, and that the logical progression was to resin. He said however that Mark Wells wrote:The initial production run achieved a
97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase. There is a continuous improvement programme in place to ensure that the quality level in production is improved even further. The reaction of customers and staff to Citadel Finecast has been overwhelmingly positive.
which seems different to the reports online. However, forums are ever the vocal, angry minority...
Wells also comments on the 'booming' web store - 150,000 new registrations! - yet the sales from the web store were behind last years.
Finance Review wrote:
Reported sales decreased by 2.7% to £123.1 million for the year. However, on a constant currency basis, sales were down by 2.9% from
£126.5 million to £122.8 million; progress was achieved in Emerging Markets and Japan (+2.1%) and in the Other business units (+7%) while
sales in Continental Europe (+0.6%) were flat. UK (-6.3%), North America (-4.8%) and Australia (-11.8%) were in decline.
Mentioned below is that Northern Europe is now strictly UK, whilst Scandinavia has been merged into Emerging Markets/Japan business, which slightly skews the data.
The Southern Hemisphere Embargo was not mentioned. However, the nearly 12% decline in Aus sales goes directly against last year's report of the Australian business performing strongly. Ideally, the embargo should have pushed customers from the UK market to the Australian market, but the negativity towards this seems to have decreased Aus sales even further. Australia was actually a net LOSS of 406,000, compared to last year's profit of 654,000. Sales decreased (though not significantly) in Aus, whilst operating expenses increased significantly, especially when the three major sales regions decreased expenses.
Overall, operating expenses were lower, employee numbers were lower, but wages were much higher.
Tom Kirby bought more shares in GW, paid out more dividends, and had a half-page ramble about retiring soon. He mentioned that hobby centres still need to return to growth.
Overall, despite what they said last year about not being affected by global economic conditions, I believe they *are* affected and as such they are doing pretty well to have only decreased by such a small amount. That being said, the retail model seems to continue to drain the business, and there is yet more proof that they are failing to adapt to the changed exchange rate as the Australia business makes a net loss for them this year.
Any seasoned economists have opinions?
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Post by: SilverMK2
Talking about fincast: "The initial production run achieved a
97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase"
Where did they pull 97% from?
30305
Post by: Laughing Man
SilverMK2 wrote:Talking about fincast: "The initial production run achieved a
97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase"
Where did they pull 97% from?
You can use whatever number you want when you don't actually define what a quality level is.
17349
Post by: SilverMK2
Laughing Man wrote:You can use whatever number you want when you don't actually define what a quality level is.
Pretty much what I was thinking - especially when most of the models they were using to demo finecast on their own site were full of bubbles and other miscasts
608
Post by: Hokkaido23
SilverMK2 wrote:Laughing Man wrote:You can use whatever number you want when you don't actually define what a quality level is.
Pretty much what I was thinking - especially when most of the models they were using to demo finecast on their own site were full of bubbles and other miscasts
Or perhaps - GASP - reports of Finecast flaws here and elsewhere on the ever-reliable internet were overexaggerated and full of hyperbole?
Im no GW apologist but you can't just make up financial reports, and all companies use some form of spin to paint themselves in a positive light or highlight their successes; how could you expect anything different? It seems more and more than this board is the other side of the coin, where everything GW does is portrayed as negatively as possible.
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Post by: Laughing Man
I'd be inclined to agree, except retailers don't ship their entire inventory of a product back to the manufacturer if there's only a 3% fail rate.
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Post by: Ouze
Forget the financials, did you see they claim the initial Finecast release hit a 97% quality goal? That doesn't... seem possible. Of course they don't define the metrics used.
Their numbers are better then I thought they would be. They're not great - negative growth is, by definition, "not good" - but I think they're as good as is possible during a recession, and certainly better then I expected.
I think the real report to see, of course, is next years, after all the recent bombs they dropped as of recent are felt.
I also feel I should point I don't have any special insight into this. I'm an amateur investor, but far from an expert. I think Reds8n follows this a little more then I, although I could be mistaken.
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Post by: Baragash
Define the quality level as "sent out to stores/indy" and bang, 97% no problem.
1941
Post by: Wolfstan
Rampage wrote:I like how Mark Wells states that the reason for the increase in the price for finecast miniatures is because more quality control is required,
'to ensure that quality standards are maintained',
when talking about avoiding miscasts.
That was the funniest thing in the whole report, that and the fact that Tom is going to get involved in telling staff how to sell? Sorry if that's slightly off I'm going on the quick scan I did before work this morning.
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Post by: SilverMK2
Hokkaido23 wrote:Or perhaps - GASP - reports of Finecast flaws here and elsewhere on the ever-reliable internet were overexaggerated and full of hyperbole?
Check out what I actually said - when you have a 97% "quality" rating, you don't use miscast stuff to demo your super awesome new product on your own damn site...
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Post by: Holy_doctrine
a 97% quality rating? Are you F*** kidding me? I've had to return four ***** fine cast models already.
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Post by: H.B.M.C.
Holy_doctrine wrote:a 97% quality rating? Are you F*** kidding me? I've had to return four ***** fine cast models already.
But the other 130 Finecast models you bought were fine though, right? 
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Post by: xttz
SilverMK2 wrote:Talking about fincast: "The initial production run achieved a
97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase"
Where did they pull 97% from?
He also didn't define what 'initial production run' means either. It could be the first cast from each new mould that was perfect 97% of the time, and in fact it's the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc runs that return increasing defects. This seems likely considering their main explanation for the poor start of finecast was trying to produce too much too quickly.
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Post by: kendoka
Probably counted as 3% returns from unsatisfied customers/stores demanding replacements.
20079
Post by: Gorechild
97% success rate?! In my experience (13 models) I've had 76.9% miscast rate. Either they are lying or they're using a REALLY small sample.
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Post by: lord_blackfang
97% didn't explode, disintegrate, turn into goo, or jump to warp space while being taken out of the mold...?
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Post by: reds8n
We are also in the process of renewing our successful licence deal with Fantasy Flight Publishing Inc.
which continues to release high quality products in the board game, card game and role playing
genres.
*phew*
Finally, we have renewed our highly successful Warhammer 40,000 licence deal with THQ Inc. until
2020
Good for them.
Royalties receivable £2.5
Can only see that going up next year. Even if things "wobble" and drop hugely to, say, £1 Million per annum.... that's a handy and hefty chunk of income for, on GW's part, very little work.
Black Library, which has delivered another strong performance amidst the disruption in the book trade,
has also significantly strengthened its strategic position this year by launching its first range of digital
books through the Black Library website. These downloadable eBooks proved popular immediately
and Black Library has been steadily adding back catalogue and new titles in this format. Black Library
eBooks are now also available on Apple’s iBooks store. Sales of this highly profitable format are
growing steadily with no apparent adverse effect on their paper counterparts, which continue to figure
in fantasy and science fiction bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic.
well hello ! Bet that's made a few people take notice of things, or possible advances to their current business model.
...wonder if we might see some evidence of a follow up to this at certain events later in the year ?
From a strategic perspective, Citadel Finecast has established an
even greater quality differential for Games Workshop over other miniature makers using traditional
metal manufacturing methods. Importantly, it will be difficult technically, with a high entry cost, for
anyone to try to establish manufacturing facilities to replicate product of this quality in significant
volume.
..hhmm... that's interesting.
One's tempted, given recent store openings, to wonder if this is a pre-emptative counter against any forgery/knock offs in regions that, traditionally, don't really seem all that bothered about IP and minor legal technicalities like that.
... one does wonder as well about all those companies GW are suing. What medium do they generally work in again ?
..meh, that's a bit too tinfoil hat possibly methinks.
This year a new programme will be introduced for all managers: ‘Understanding the Games Workshop
Business’. Tom Kirby will lead this programme with the objective of educating the future leaders of
Games Workshop on the critical success factors for running our niche business model. The first
modules will focus on how to identify people who ‘fit’ Games Workshop’s unique and demanding
culture. The politically correct need not apply
... STFU or GTFO.
1941
Post by: Wolfstan
I wonder how many items weren't returned due to customers not knowing their rights, not bothered or think it's the norm? I know he has to put in a load of BS, but surely he could of said something like, "our initial run wasn't up to our usual standards, but we've got a handle on it now and things should be getting better."
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Post by: H.B.M.C.
reds8n wrote:We are also in the process of renewing our successful licence deal with Fantasy Flight Publishing Inc.
which continues to release high quality products in the board game, card game and role playing
genres.
*phew*
Thank the Emperor for that.
reds8n wrote:
‘Understanding the Games Workshop Business'
Thereby implying that they currently don't understand their own business.
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Post by: Pacific
Trasvi wrote:
Tom Kirby bought more shares in GW, paid out more dividends, and had a half-page ramble about retiring soon. He mentioned that hobby centres still need to return to growth.
This sickens me.
The $600,000 from last time obviously wasn't enough, a bit more pocket money before he jumps out of the plane with his golden parachute.
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Post by: The Plastic Surgeon
Ah the Kirby Jugend program!
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Post by: Osbad
Not a lot to add to what has been said before. To be honest this is pretty close to what I was expecting when they made their preliminary announcements a while back.
For me, it will be no surprise that my main issue is the "Sales decline of 2.9%". Now that is in absolute terms. In "real" terms, (i.e. taking account of an inflation rate last year of around 4% (I''ll check the actual numbers in a minute and put up my usual graphs) that is a decline therefore of nearly 7%. Or taking into account GW's actual price inflation rate which at a wild guess looking at the Space Marine Battle Company box was something like 20% is actually equivalent to a decline in volume of 22.9%! Prices went up last May 2010 by what 20% or so. OK lets be generous and say it was an average of even only 10%, and still revenues declined by 2.9%! They're taking a bath, and their customers are deserting them in droves. And that's all there is to it. As a customer (not a shareholder) I couldn't care less how much profit they earn. That doesn't affect me. What does affect me is that GW's business is shrinking and their prices are increasing way beyond the level of background inflation. As has been said before, there is only so long before their business disappears altogether, and along with it all shareholder profits. Maybe then the myopic stock market will sit up and give Wells and Kirby the arse-kicking they thoroughly deserve!
Now, compare these to the reports we have from Privateer Press that they are working around the clock and still can't keep up with demand for their product. Similarly we get such reports from Spartan Games as well. That indicates to me that the miniature wargaming market is actually still pretty healthy, despite the recession. It is just that GW is now capturing a smaller slice of it than they have ever had.
"Return to Growth" ? That has been the GW mantra ever since 2004 and they still haven't managed it. I call baloney! "A poor first half but an improved second half" ? I've heard that all before as well, many, many times. IIRC their first half turnover was down 4% like-for-like. That meanst their second half must have improved by 1.1% (probably slightly less as their second half sales are always higher than their first half as they include Christmas and Easter sales peaks). They are trumpeting a 1% increase in sales revenue (which as I implied before is actually a 3% or greater real decline) as some sort of achievement? Really? How desperate are they for good news!?
Every year we hearthe same old desperate bulll-poo from the same tired old mouths. Every year GW teeters closer to the brink. Their licence deals are all that's keeping their fat out of the fire. Their core business is over and all but buried. You'd think some of the suits would spot that at the AGM wouldn't you? But no. All they'll care about is increased profit for this year and the dividend. It doesn't matter that the company may not be around next year or the year after - they'll have had their pound of flesh and trousered their bonuses and take what's left of their money and stick it with some other short term enterprise which they can milk till it drops...
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Post by: Kilkrazy
The chairman's remarks while interesting are not the meat of the report.
For example, 97% quality rating is utterly meaningless without an explanation, so I think it’s a waste of time to discuss it.
Looking at the figures, it doesn’t take a GW h8r boi to see bad news.
Revenue down.
Profits down.
Royalties down (sharply)
There are good things too, though.
They are making a profit.
They have plenty of cash on hand, which could be used for some productive project, although actually they plan to use it for a dividend.
Questions that need to be asked are:
What is the plan for reversing the sales volume decline that has been continuing for several years?
Why have all the initiatives of the past five years not been effective? (Staff training, etc. We've heard it all before.)
Why close 70% of Japanese shops after the business grew there?
How much does the company actually earn from Black Library, boardgames, etc? Can those niches survive without a core games business?
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Post by: Ouze
H.B.M.C. wrote:Thereby implying that they currently don't understand their own business.
I daresay, with some of the moves they've made recently, it shows. But, that's the Games Workshop HHHobby!
Kilkrazy wrote:Why close 70% of Japanese shops after the business grew there?
How much does the company actually earn from Black Library, boardgames, etc? Can those niches survive without a core games business?
I also saw, and was perplexed by that. It was the only region this year that had positive growth. Strange to cut back on that.
I also saw they didn't break down specifically which licensee segments generated what; it's all under the licenses header (as far as I can tell, anyway). I'd be curious to see what they specifically generated for the videogames.
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Post by: Kroothawk
Revenue £123.1m (2010: £126.5m)
Revenue at constant currency* £122.8m
Sales
Reported sales decreased by 2.7% to £123.1 million for the year. However, on a constant currency basis, sales were down by 2.9% from
£126.5 million to £122.8 million; progress was achieved in Emerging Markets and Japan (+2.1%) and in the Other business units (+7%) while
sales in Continental Europe (+0.6%) were flat. UK (-6.3%), North America (-4.8%) and Australia (-11.8%) were in decline.
Dividend
During the year we followed our principle of returning truly surplus cash to shareholders and paid dividends of 25 pence per share in
October 2010 and 20 pence per share in May 2011. The board now recommends a further dividend of 18 pence per share which, subject to
shareholder approval, will be paid in October 2011.
CHAIRMAN’S PREAMBLE
We like to think of ourselves as a young company, eagerly entering the world of commerce bristling with ideas and ambition. Our staff
bring the energy and optimism of youth to every problem we face, don't they? It is a salutary reminder for me to remember we will be
making 30-year-service awards at our veteran's night dinner again this year. It won't be long before I get mine. Danielle Gaudry, who
founded and ran our French business for many years and is surely the definition of that youthful vigour, retires this year. Retires.
We are no longer so young, either as a business or the people who run it. Two things flow from this.
Firstly, we now know (more by trial and error than sophisticated analysis - 'the wisdom of years') how this business works. We know what it
takes to run a good Hobby centre, we know how to run a good trade sales department, we know how to recruit people who have great
attitudes, we know how to make the best miniatures in the world and how to surprise and delight our customers over and over again. (Go
take a quick look at Citadel Finecast - awesome!) What we are now learning is how to spread that knowledge around the far flung world of
Games Workshop. We are also learning that we are not doing it fast enough or thoroughly enough.
Secondly, the generation which built Games Workshop is beginning to wonder what a 'pension' is. We wake up in the morning with the
same aches we had yesterday. We wear glasses. We have learned patience (is that always a good thing and does it come from wisdom or
exhaustion?). Some of us have a Senior Railcard. Nonetheless, we remain passionate about the potential for the Hobby and the Group.
So, in addition to the normal running of the business, we will also be turning our gaze upon the problems of succession. We will be rolling
out a programme aimed at getting everyone at Games Workshop to understand how we do business.
The challenges are as real as ever and our full responsibility is as well. Despite the exigencies of the 'real' world our destiny is still in our
own hands. We have to ensure that the best practices we know about are followed everywhere within the Group. We have done much to
improve our profitability and the return on your capital but we still have work to do on re-establishing growth, particularly in our Hobby
centres.
Dividends have returned. I am as pleased as you are. Does this herald in a new era of progressive dividends on an assured yield? Hardly. We
return truly surplus cash to shareholders. 'Truly surplus' means the cash we can not use because we have already spent all we need for the
growth of the business. It would sit in a bank account if we didn't return it. Working this way means the payment of dividends will be fairly
happenstance; I can see us having surplus cash in the future and when we have (assuming it is a sensible sum) it will be returned, not
according to a schedule, but right then and there.
Tom Kirby
Chairman
25 July 2011
My first comment: Sales down again, even with Dark Eldar release and the new Warhammer edition (where everyone has to buy new things in principle). To celebrate this: More dividends and a pay rise for Tom Kirby (£402k to £462k, about 15%). Sales declining in UK, USA and Australia, mission accomplished. Sales slightly up in Japan so we close 5 of 7 stores. Sales up in emerging markets, so we boykott mail order to them, that should teach them. Sales not declining in Central Europe, fire German sales manager immediately (yes, they did). GW celebrates its decline, shuts down further stores and inner critiques and heads straight for the next massive decline.
BTW in the old Dakka thread http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/180/380739.page 38% (of 246 votes) expected "Positive sales growth, good report", 62% "Negative/flat sales growth, bad report" , so quite a lot of people didn't expect the further decline.
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Post by: GBL
I expected the decline, i didnt expect the report to be honest.
24567
Post by: Kroothawk
"We know how to run the business." Yes, into the ground
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Post by: reds8n
This report covers up until the 29th of May 2011.
The last price adjustment and the formation of the southern hemisphere underground plastic crack trail embargoes to various parts of the world happened around then too. So we won't see the effect of them until the next half yearly report.
Be interesting to see what affect these changes have on both the Australian and the UK markets.
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-markets/stocks/summary/company-summary.html?fourWayKey=GB0003718474GBGBXSSQ3
431.50 -2.50 -0.58% - 434.00 on 25-Jul-2011
I'm guessing market is still mulling over the latest UK economy figures as a whole.
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Post by: Backfire
Osbad wrote:Not a lot to add to what has been said before. To be honest this is pretty close to what I was expecting when they made their preliminary announcements a while back.
For me, it will be no surprise that my main issue is the "Sales decline of 2.9%". Now that is in absolute terms. In "real" terms, (i.e. taking account of an inflation rate last year of around 4% (I''ll check the actual numbers in a minute and put up my usual graphs) that is a decline therefore of nearly 7%. Or taking into account GW's actual price inflation rate which at a wild guess looking at the Space Marine Battle Company box was something like 20% is actually equivalent to a decline in volume of 22.9%! Prices went up last May 2010 by what 20% or so. OK lets be generous and say it was an average of even only 10%, and still revenues declined by 2.9%!
Lets be honest here though, whilst price of some individual items may have risen as much as 20%, most of the range price stayed same, or rose only a bit. (some of those items then had increase year later). Average price over the entire range rose only few %. So whilst lack of growth in inflationary environment isn't good by any means, it isn't quite so bad as you make it to see. As for the complaints about them paying out dividends, that (or something similar to it) is what is expected from publicly traded company.
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Post by: Osbad
Backfire wrote:Lets be honest here though, whilst price of some individual items may have risen as much as 20%, most of the range price stayed same, or rose only a bit. (some of those items then had increase year later). Average price over the entire range rose only few %. So whilst lack of growth in inflationary environment isn't good by any means, it isn't quite so bad as you make it to see.
"Only a few %"? Where do you get the evidence for that from? Unless someone does a line by line product analysis we can only guess at GW's average price rise. And even then without line volume information we won't know the waited average, which is what is really needed. RPI is 5.2%. Individual line items have risen between 0% and 27% and also there have been changes in material costs (switching from metal to plastic) and in contents of line items (20 model boxes becoming 10 model boxes at >half the previous price). My guess was placed at 1/3 the highest price rise. You would estimate lower. You're as likely right as I am. But I clearly indicated it was a guess based on the fact that the number of products which did not get a price rise last year seemed to be lower than those that did, and those that did got a rise of mainly of multiples of RPI. Backfire wrote:As for the complaints about them paying out dividends, that (or something similar to it) is what is expected from publicly traded company.
Dividends are fine. Discounts are better. What is better for the investor - having your cash returned to you because (as Kirby admits) GW supposedly "can't find a good use for it". Or, just to name two things that would please customers and maybe get them coming back to GW - avoiding price rises that are multiples of the prevailing rate of inflation and exchange rates movements and also investing in better QC of (say) Finecast? Either of the latter options would have at least helped long term growth. Instead GW showers their shareholders in gold because they demand it. Of course its expected. Its one of the reasons a public share listing isn;t necessarily the best thing for the financial health of a company as it encourages investors to put their short term needs over their long term ones. Agreeing with dividend policy simply because "its what is expected from publicly traded company." is just naive. Next you'll be saying Kirby deserves his 15% payrise because GW is clearly a better company now than it was last year... If you've watched the news over the last 3 years you'll realise that CEO's being remunerated excessively and in a way that bears no relation to the financial performance of their company is also "expected"... Doesn't of course make it right though. And while I'm on, here's a couple of pictures to illustrate what's going on at GW. The first shows GW's long term income and profit trends. Income is worse than it has been in real terms (discounted by RPI rather than GW's internal rate of return, which is uncalculable from the outside) in any year from the last decade. Profit is bouncing along static and hasn't seen any significant growth in years. The best that can be said for it is that at least it isn't a loss.  The second analyses GW sales by geographic region. Again the long term problems in the US and the UK markets are shown as stark. (NB no discounting done here, these are only GBP values - so they still include inflation and exchange rate impacts - therefore overstating GW's real performance by an unknown quantity. 
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Post by: Kroothawk
1.) They claim that 2.9% IS the number with inflation considered.
2.) The latest price rise strategically focussed on introductory products like 40k starter box, all codices and army books, most batallion boxes and, with Finecast, the whole former metal range. IIRC starter box, codices and army books went up last year as well, not considering the new price level for the Fantasy rulebook and hardcover army books.
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Post by: Osbad
Kroothawk wrote:1.) They claim that 2.9% IS the number with inflation considered.
Nope. That's the adjustment (by 0.2%) for exchange rate fluctuations.
2.) The latest price rise strategically focussed on introductory products like 40k starter box, all codices and army books, most batallion boxes and, with Finecast, the whole former metal range. IIRC starter box, codices and army books went up last year as well, not considering the new price level for the Fantasy rulebook and hardcover army books.
The price increases that matter for this are those that occurred in May 2010, not 2011. Those will only impact the 2012 results. We'll find out that impact in January 2012.
In any case we re arguing over stuff it is impossible to prove. But seriously. Does anyone believe that GW's weighted average price increase was less than RPI?? Seriously? If you do, I would say the onus is on you to prove it because the obvious answer is that their price rise seems to most folks to be way above it, admittedly by an unquantifiable amount, but that's irrelevant as the RPI discount is doing GW a favour by overstating their performance.
39868
Post by: iproxtaco
The flames are lit, now watch them burn.
299
Post by: Kilkrazy
With the help of other users I got information about the price of Tau and Space Marine models over the period 2002 to 2011.
Here are some rough findings I reported in the thread in Discussions.
Kilkrazy wrote:Tau prices increased an average of 43.45% between 2002 and 2011. The kits looked at were; Devilfish, Hammerhead, Kroot, Fire Warriors, Crisis Suit, Ethereal, Broadside.
The increase varied depending on the model – Devilfish only went up 11.5% while the Hammerhead and Crisis suit went up 52% and the Ethereal doubled. (New Ethereal models were produced in 2006, and a previously “limited edition model” was put into volume production.)
Space Marines went up an average 67% between 2002 and 2011.
This is based on the following products; Rhino, Predator, Land Raider, LR Crusader, Combat Squad, Tactical Squad, Terminator Squad, Assault Squad, Dreadnought. The Crusader went up only 17% while the Combat Squad went up 158%.
Bear in mind this is not the whole range for either army.
Also understand that I don’t have the UK inflation figure for 2011 yet, or the GW annual report for 2011. Thus, I can only compare the price inflation of 2002 to 2011 with the average of UK price inflation from 2001 to 2010. This was 29%.
TL;DR -- GW prices have gone up 43--67% in the past decade, while UK inflation has been 29%.
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Post by: ceorron
reds8n wrote:
This year a new programme will be introduced for all managers: ‘Understanding the Games Workshop
Business’. Tom Kirby will lead this programme with the objective of educating the future leaders of
Games Workshop on the critical success factors for running our niche business model. The first
modules will focus on how to identify people who ‘fit’ Games Workshop’s unique and demanding
culture. The politically correct need not apply
... STFU or GTFO.
Oh I know exactly where GW are coming from on this, it is the old business culture of fear. It makes me chuckle with the excitement of the inevitable management heckle. Maybe thats just me laughing at the back of someones head. I'd love to see the GW management jumping to my words. Heheeee
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Post by: Trooper
Finances aside don't the comments of the CEO boil your blood, I know that is how they like to word things and they wont say anything negative but its a group of well written lies.
"The scale of this task is not to be underestimated, as making finely detailed resin
miniatures in these sorts of quantities has never been attempted before. The initial production run
achieved a 97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase."
Its comments like this that is find insulting.
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Post by: WarOne
Games Workshop wrote:The reaction of customers and staff to Citadel Finecast has been overwhelmingly positive.
So what, did they interview every single employee who is most certainly not going to say it sucks and get fired? And then they probably grabbed some ten year olds who have only begun to delve into the hobby, and aksed them to comment about the new Finecrap. It's amazing. Oo...it bends! And then GW poked its fingers in its ears and went la-la-la as some poor internet guy had to thank his lucky stars there was no GW forum and only a facebook page to moderate because of the amount of gak GW took a few months ago. Games Workshop wrote:Another initiative that has proven to be successful in growing our customer base has been the introduction of Facebook across our Hobby centres.
And the subsequent denial that anything was wrong. Games Workshop wrote:With Facebook becoming the new ‘word of mouth’ among many of our customers, individual Facebook accounts are being rolled out to all 392 Games Workshop Hobby centres across the world. This allows eachmanager to keep local hobbyists informed of activities and events, such as new product launches.
Really? Do you think it is a good idea to give nearly 400 people the ability to speak for GW simultaneously unless there is a mechanism in place for these accounts to simply be puppets and used by the GW HQ rather than individual GW store managers? So GW better be careful they don't piss all over a manager in case he decides to go rouge, as GW just handed the keys to a runaway drama train to any renegade employee about to be fired because he's not up to GW standards? Games Workshop wrote:We have learned from experience that an enthusiastic and hard working manager who lives close tohis or her Games Workshop Hobby centre is the most effective way for us to build a happy and loyal customer base. He or she gets to know local schools, clubs and gaming groups and provides a focal point for Hobby activity in that town, even more so when using Facebook to keep everyone in touch with what is going on locally. Over time this should lead to a larger customer base and stronger like for like growth. This growth is recognised in the manager’s performance related pay, ensuring that he or she can earn a good living in that town without the need to move on to another role.
So how much do they actually pay their managers? The NYC manager must be high fives or a low six figure, since without that kind of income, living there is very difficult. Games Workshop wrote:Good progress has been made here. Across the world, every Games Workshop Hobby centre manager now attends a Hobby skills camp once a quarter, where they are trained on Games Workshop's Ten Commandments of customer service.
Religious indoctrination. I knew it! Well, good thing they didn't say 5 Pillars of customer service. Games Workshop wrote:The number of new customer registrations on the Games Workshop webstore grew by over 150,000 across all territories. We achieved this not by offering discounts but by providing access to the full range, with good product information and a fast and reliable delivery service.
I wonder how many more customers could be had if they actually gave some sort of discount or loyalty program to entice people to buy more from the intrawebs???
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Post by: Osbad
Kilkrazy wrote:TL;DR -- GW prices have gone up 43--67% in the past decade, while UK inflation has been 29%.
That's useful to know KK. Thanks for the info. It shows that my "gut feeling" of GW average inflation being up to twice (i.e. 10% c.f. 5.2% currently) that of the economy at large. If you plug a discount rate of 50% compared to the 29% I used over the last 10 years, the graphs look even worse for GW! You have to go back to a period before their floatation to find a period where sales volumes appear as bad as they do this year in real terms. So why would anyone believe GW management when they claim to be able to deliver sales growth, when consistently ever since floatation, LOTR-bubblt aside, they have delivered the exact opposite?
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Post by: Backfire
Osbad wrote:Backfire wrote:Lets be honest here though, whilst price of some individual items may have risen as much as 20%, most of the range price stayed same, or rose only a bit. (some of those items then had increase year later). Average price over the entire range rose only few %. So whilst lack of growth in inflationary environment isn't good by any means, it isn't quite so bad as you make it to see.
"Only a few %"? Where do you get the evidence for that from? Unless someone does a line by line product analysis we can only guess at GW's average price rise. And even then without line volume information we won't know the waited average, which is what is really needed. RPI is 5.2%. Individual line items have risen between 0% and 27% and also there have been changes in material costs (switching from metal to plastic) and in contents of line items (20 model boxes becoming 10 model boxes at >half the previous price). My guess was placed at 1/3 the highest price rise. You would estimate lower. You're as likely right as I am. But I clearly indicated it was a guess based on the fact that the number of products which did not get a price rise last year seemed to be lower than those that did, and those that did got a rise of mainly of multiples of RPI.
Made a comparison of the range of my own army, Tau. Tau prices had fairly signifant hike in 2009 (don't remember the details), no or very little rise in 2010 price increase, and some in 2011 increase. In the latest increase, of the 28 items on sale, there were around five which had noticeable price increse: Hammerhead, Sky Ray, XV-8, Battleforce and Sniper Drone Team, and one where price was lowered (Codex). I may have missed increase in some minor items, but even then, it seems obvious that even with 10% (or 15%) increase in some items, overall pricing of the range increased by 5% or less. (of course for full comparison you would need to know sales volumes too, but I don't know that. Battleforce, XV-8 and Hammerhead are probably amongst the best sellers though). Marines seemed fairly similar, from what I checked. As I recall, 2010 price increase was less extensive than 2011. Not sure about that tho. But it's obvious that talk about 10% overall increase is incorrect.
Osbad wrote:
Dividends are fine. Discounts are better. What is better for the investor - having your cash returned to you because (as Kirby admits) GW supposedly "can't find a good use for it". Or, just to name two things that would please customers and maybe get them coming back to GW - avoiding price rises that are multiples of the prevailing rate of inflation and exchange rates movements and also investing in better QC of (say) Finecast? Either of the latter options would have at least helped long term growth. Instead GW showers their shareholders in gold because they demand it. Of course its expected. Its one of the reasons a public share listing isn;t necessarily the best thing for the financial health of a company as it encourages investors to put their short term needs over their long term ones.
This has nothing to do with the debate though. GW is public, no way to put that cat in the back anymore, and that's what we have to deal with. And public companies are expected to act in the interests of their shareholders, who financed the company. Dividend is not something which they can decide year in advance, the company does what it can, and then sees if it has surplus cash to pay dividends, or rebuy stock, or whatever to profit the investors. In past years, GW has sometimes not paid out dividends (after the LOTR bubble burst, and anticipated growth turned negative), and this angered the shareholders quite a bit.
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Post by: Holdenstein
Kilkrazy wrote:
What is the plan for reversing the sales volume decline that has been continuing for several years?
Why have all the initiatives of the past five years not been effective? (Staff training, etc. We've heard it all before.)
Why close 70% of Japanese shops after the business grew there?
How much does the company actually earn from Black Library, boardgames, etc? Can those niches survive without a core games business?
Good questions. As the profit remains very proportional to sales, the question is "is some of that dividend better spent recruiting new hobbyists and driving sales upwards?". Maybe the truth is more depressing and we partake in a hobby that is slowly shrinking.
Roughly £10 Million sales, £3 Million profit from BL, FW and Warhammer World combined which is surprisingly small (to me anyway). Note also that the web sales (overall) were down from last year due to the effects of Space Hulk in 2009-2010, which suggests that miniature based boardgames are a viable source of revenue.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
I've been saying for years that GW made a mistake by cutting back to the three core games.
In my view, they should leverage the very large amount of money they spend on retail locations by putting more things in shops for people to buy.
Given the tie-in with Fantasy Flight Games, you would think it would be easy to carry a range of related board games.
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Post by: carmachu
Rampage wrote:I like how Mark Wells states that the reason for the increase in the price for finecast miniatures is because more quality control is required,
'to ensure that quality standards are maintained',
when talking about avoiding miscasts.
Might need to raise it again to pay real people instead of trained monkies in quality control....because its not working out that well.
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Post by: Just Dave
Lots of post to exalt here.
Thanks for the concise analysis for the less financially minded people here guys, particularly KK, Red, Kroot, Osbad and Trasvi.
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Post by: WarOne
Kilkrazy wrote:Given the tie-in with Fantasy Flight Games, you would think it would be easy to carry a range of related board games.
Too bad they don't have a division like Hasbro has with Avalon Hill that could make the board games for them...
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Post by: lord_blackfang
carmachu wrote:Might need to raise it again to pay real people instead of trained monkies in quality control....because its not working out that well.
I don't think the monkeys were trained.
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Post by: WarOne
lord_blackfang wrote:carmachu wrote:Might need to raise it again to pay real people instead of trained monkies in quality control....because its not working out that well.
I don't think the monkeys were trained.
Or that they were real. Imaginary quality control monkeys work just as well...right?
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Post by: RiTides
Kilkrazy wrote:I've been saying for years that GW made a mistake by cutting back to the three core games.
In my view, they should leverage the very large amount of money they spend on retail locations by putting more things in shops for people to buy.
Given the tie-in with Fantasy Flight Games, you would think it would be easy to carry a range of related board games.
I think it would work... if all 3 games were performing well. However, from what I've seen, only 40k is not "on the rocks" at the moment in terms of popularity in one way or another... I say this as a fantasy player.
For example, I love the look of the new storm of magic book for fantasy- but it's the exact opposite of what players were asking for. The customer is always... what, GW?
Thanks for the detailed breakdowns of the reports so far, guys... I like reading the more knowledgeable analysis from our nerd-users  
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Post by: ironicsilence
SilverMK2 wrote:Talking about fincast: "The initial production run achieved a
97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase"
Where did they pull 97% from?
That 97% quality level means that they caught the 3% during there QA checks...which means all the flawed models people bought from stores were considered good enough to sell
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Post by: obsidianaura
With the release of Space Marine and Dark Millennium coming in the next year or two I'd say it's a safe bet that royalties will be larger come next report.
There's also the hobbit coming out eventually and that may have a positive effect.
So probably shares are as cheap to buy now as they're going to be for investors for the next few years.
One thing that I puzzled by... In regards to Independent stockists they said "and are rewarded for offering value added services to our customers."
What rewards are these? My independent LGS is constantly doing these kind of things by organising tournaments and holding classes weekly. I've never heard of them being rewarded for it though?
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Mikhaila will tell you about the free racking he gets.
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Post by: Vetric
I'm amazed at the Facebook idea. Many big retailers have developed "new media" policies for their staff that very clearly spell out saying anything negative, even on a personal webpage/blog/whatever, can get an employee in hot water. All those tweets, status updates and things are being centralized at head offices. Suddenly having 392 "official" pages is almost a guarantee for comedy gold, and a huge headache for store staff.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
WarOne wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Given the tie-in with Fantasy Flight Games, you would think it would be easy to carry a range of related board games.
Too bad they don't have a division like Hasbro has with Avalon Hill that could make the board games for them...
I'm assuming that as a start GW would stock FFG boxed sets in their shops. They have several Warhammer/ 40K/ GW titles already, and the RPGs.
Then they could move to co-productions.
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Post by: Korraz
WarOne wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Given the tie-in with Fantasy Flight Games, you would think it would be easy to carry a range of related board games.
Too bad they don't have a division like Hasbro has with Avalon Hill that could make the board games for them...
You don't exactly need a genius to do a boardgame. Any decent game designer should be able to do the basics in two lunch breaks. Both PP and Mantic have board games, for Christ's sake. Considering the crap GW players put up with, they don't even have to do any balancing whatsoever.
Then again, their current designers might be simply unable to comprehend rules that aren't written in the "And then this and this and this and you think yourself up how it works!" style, since a board game needs a basic level of coherency and tightness, and not 400 pages of special rules and amendments. And of course 6 to 8 erratas.
This report shows how consistently badly GW was doing in the past years. January will be much more interesting, since GW took it up to a whole new level of idiocy in the meantime.
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Post by: warboss
reds8n wrote: From a strategic perspective, Citadel Finecast has established an
even greater quality differential for Games Workshop over other miniature makers using traditional
metal manufacturing methods. Importantly, it will be difficult technically, with a high entry cost, for
anyone to try to establish manufacturing facilities to replicate product of this quality in significant
volume.
Interesting... so they define "high entry cost" as a couple of Polish guys working in their basement/garage on their spare time then? Because lots of little companies have *EXCEEDED* GW's recent quality of casting with Finecast. The sculpting may not be the same quality but the actual production QA is a hell of alot better.
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Post by: agnosto
Lokos good to me, I get another dividend payment. Woot. That's two payments in one calendar year, no complaints from me when a company I own stock in gives me money back and increases in share price.
Yeah, the sky's not falling quite yet. Doomsaying internet hyperbole aside.
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Post by: Adam LongWalker
I expected profitability and more loss to the customer base as compared to the previous financial reports.
Not this.
The GW Apolgists will of course try to sugar coat the results into a more favorable manner.
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Post by: Henners91
SilverMK2 wrote:Talking about fincast: "The initial production run achieved a
97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase"
Where did they pull 97% from?
Because, believe it or not, there are many a number of people (myself included) who purchased Finecast miniatures and had no problem with them.
Unfortunately, when people are satisfied, it's a lot harder to find the energy to make a forum post detailing their experience than it is when you're motivated by rage.
So yeah, the loud angry anti- GW types'll always constitute a seeming 'majority' online... *cough* H.B.M.C. *cough8
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Post by: WarOne
Vetric wrote:I'm amazed at the Facebook idea. Many big retailers have developed "new media" policies for their staff that very clearly spell out saying anything negative, even on a personal webpage/blog/whatever, can get an employee in hot water. All those tweets, status updates and things are being centralized at head offices. Suddenly having 392 "official" pages is almost a guarantee for comedy gold, and a huge headache for store staff.
All it will take is one off-hand or distempered comment on the Facebookz to get the intrawebz rattled.
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Post by: Backfire
Kilkrazy wrote:I've been saying for years that GW made a mistake by cutting back to the three core games.
In my view, they should leverage the very large amount of money they spend on retail locations by putting more things in shops for people to buy.
Given the tie-in with Fantasy Flight Games, you would think it would be easy to carry a range of related board games.
Very good point. What they are clearly lacking at the moment is "gateway game". Something akin to Space Crusade/Space Hulk to hook up new people to GW universe.
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Post by: agnosto
Backfire wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:I've been saying for years that GW made a mistake by cutting back to the three core games.
In my view, they should leverage the very large amount of money they spend on retail locations by putting more things in shops for people to buy.
Given the tie-in with Fantasy Flight Games, you would think it would be easy to carry a range of related board games.
Very good point. What they are clearly lacking at the moment is "gateway game". Something akin to Space Crusade/Space Hulk to hook up new people to GW universe.
You both bring up a very good point; though I can't imagine they would have dropped those games if they were profitable. That said, it doesn't mean something insane like that didn't happen, I just don't know.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
agnosto wrote:Backfire wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:I've been saying for years that GW made a mistake by cutting back to the three core games.
In my view, they should leverage the very large amount of money they spend on retail locations by putting more things in shops for people to buy.
Given the tie-in with Fantasy Flight Games, you would think it would be easy to carry a range of related board games.
Very good point. What they are clearly lacking at the moment is "gateway game". Something akin to Space Crusade/Space Hulk to hook up new people to GW universe.
You both bring up a very good point; though I can't imagine they would have dropped those games if they were profitable. That said, it doesn't mean something insane like that didn't happen, I just don't know.
Lots of retail chains use loss leaders to bring in custom.
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Post by: agnosto
You're right, it's like the PS3 and Xbox; both companies lose money on the core system so they can make it in other areas.
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Post by: keezus
agnosto wrote:You're right, it's like the PS3 and Xbox; both companies lose money on the core system so they can make it in other areas.
You only need to look as far as Nintendo to discover that it doesn't necessarily have to be this way.
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Post by: Osbad
obsidianaura wrote:There's also the hobbit coming out eventually and that may have a positive effect.
Everyone, including GW, seem to be taking this as money in the bank. I'm not so convinced. I'm going to put my marker down and say "The Hobbit" will probably be profitable, but not very much so, and only a fraction of the profit they got from 2002-2004. My reasoning is because:
1/ There is no BGiME this time around
2/ I don't think The Hobbit will generate the fan-merchandising-fever that LotR did first time around.
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Post by: agnosto
I think it's been said before but the current loss leaders should be the starter sets.....sort of a gateway drug. Wasn't there a rumor going around that 6th edition 40k would have more than one starter?
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Post by: Kilkrazy
The starter sets are loss leaders, but they don't seem to be working.
The info we find in the figures is that GW unit sales are declining year on year.
Things need to show a big turnaround in December, and more importantly next July.
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Post by: keezus
@agnosto: I think that setting the current starters as Loss Leaders would be a terrible choice. You would sell starters, but not necessarily sell additional product. The problem with GW IMHO, is that their core products have the perception of offering extremely poor value. When you buy into the system, all you know for sure is that you're buying some very nice, and very expensive models. Any value added services have been downloaded to the retail outlets / independent retailers - meaning that GW retains almost NO CONTROL of value added customer experience - and the part that they DO control - the ruleset - is hamfistedly put together.
Going by the video game model, without good game support, the console is going to fail regardless of how cheap it is. Unless GW fixes their "software", selling the starters at a loss is only going to exacerbate their financial woes.
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Post by: ceorron
I have been thinking about this too and I'd have to concure with that, people need another way in to the GW hobby that isn't the starter set.
Something easy for the masses that is light and self contained.
It would also be helpful if these were on the store shelves of places that arn't GW like toys are us or similar stores right next to your hasbros and such.
I'd say space hulk but thats really been done, in this case it wouldn't have been wise to have done that limited edition and done a longer run through such other retail outlets.
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Post by: Chimera_Calvin
The sad thing is that there is nothing about GW that's not fixable, you just know they won't do it... 
Oh well, at least we have <insert name of your favourite company here> and the rest of GW's competitors to fall back on for our gaming needs.
Yes, GW there are other companies out there. Realise it, grow up, adjust, compete. You know, do the things that real companies do in the marketplace and maybe, just maybe, you'll stay with us...
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Post by: Kroothawk
Backfire wrote:What they are clearly lacking at the moment is "gateway game".
Given their current state of mind, the next 40k starter box is a limited release sold out the first week
Kilkrazy wrote:The starter sets are loss leaders, but they don't seem to be working.
Are you sure that your definition of loss leader is correct, given the price of 78 € for the starter box?
Wikipedia wrote:A loss leader or leader is a product sold at a low price (at cost or below cost) to stimulate other profitable sales.
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Post by: warspawned
The starter sets are loss leaders, but they don't seem to be working.
The starter sets are balls - the minis are great, but from a starting POV they don't contain fully legal forces (HE & SM) nor do they come with any scenery of anykind, nor do they come with small campaign or scenario booklets which help teach people easily, step by step. The mini rulebooks are great but they need to produce mini fluff books as well - as a kid I had no end of fluff to read in all the different boxed games I got and that kept me interested for nigh on two decades.
I agree with KK, the more I think about it the more Specialist Games and FF games need to make an appearance in store - I don't know the deal GW has with Fantasy Flight, but if independents get their books and games in I see no reason why GW can't. GW stores are stale environments - I dislike going in there to buy anything, especially when I know I can get the product for 15-25% less. I'm amazed how they seem to bury their heads in the sands - what's the betting 40k gets 6th Edition next summer, just to keep the numbers up for another year until the Hobbit arrives? I hope they see sense and start doing Codex ebooks.
A drop of sales in the U.K, U.S and Aus (by quite a percentage) cannot be good news for GW - I'd imagaine Aus sales in particular will show a continuing decrease in sales. January's report shall be interesting reading. GW needs to do things like have the occassional sale - remember when a new hobby store opened and they had 15% discounts and offered bundle deals? The U.K high street is struggling in general. I think if they had a Summer Intro deal and Christmas/Easter Deals that will help target the kids in the holidays - if they ran a competion in White Dwarf each month and in general did things to make the hobby 'fun' again, this would also be better. They need to realise that they are a retail business like anyone else - get more variety of product and do things to make customers keep coming back to their stores - opening Facebook pages just doesn't cut it. They may be 'niche' - but they're acting like they are omnipotent in the face of decreasing sales, successful competitors and a continuing global recession 
This said all they need to do is make models of all the Primarchs and release a 5 man box of plastic Heresy-style Marines - That should give 'em a good bonus for a while - but they won't. They could have made a Limited Edition "Finecast" Horus or Sanguinius (etc) to mark Finecast's release (if it was THAT special) - how much would that have made in both money's and kudos? (bar all the returns of course ) Idiots :facepalm
Anyway - Thanks to all the economic-headed guys for their posts, I appreciate the input
You know how Kirby mentioned age a lot? Could it be that the heads at GW are simply too old and out of touch to make GW the ultimate miniature gaming behemoth it should be (not that in fantasy gaming terms it's small, but that cracks have appeared over the last 5 years or so)?
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Post by: garrapignado
I'm also angry about some of the recent decissions taken by GW but, in a more generic way, I expect they recover their common sense (and with it, their profits), because I like their games, and I don't see myself changing to another company.
This report is very interesting, as they can see some negative effects, and they have time to fix those errors.
Thanks for all these explanations.
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Post by: Bloodwin
Meh, pretty much what I expected. The figures we can never see are the number of online whiners/haters verses the number of customers that just buy a few toys every other month. I think all the finecast / regional embargo / price rises will show more next year. How they can still say finecast is fantastic is beyond me. I like the medium and it has it's quality issues but it's 98% old models, there's nothing exciting about that at all. As for the new manager training thing I think that reads various ways;
The imagery and tone of GWs product is grimdark so don't try to make it PC
The fans of GW are a niche group who are willing to pay for their product so don't try to appeal outside this niche as it's wasted effort
Don't mess with the IP too much - no alternate realities etc and be willing to lose well known developers in order to protect it
People who 'fit' in GW. That's standard management talk, it means don't hire people who will try to change the company and possibly screw up our IP money machine
Ultimately all GW want to do is maintain the status quo with existing customers, bring out a few exiting products (cue Jes Goodwin) and then try hard to get a little more growth in a market where many people have tried GW product then left and may return as well as new kids coming fresh into the hobby.
The one thing I don't get from the rumours is that everyone is talking about 40k for next year and yet the Hobbit comes out then. Surely there will be a boxed set for The Hobbit as they did with The Lord of The Rings? I 'm not sure they can launch two boxed games in one year in the current economy.
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Post by: mikhaila
Chimera_Calvin wrote:The sad thing is that there is nothing about GW that's not fixable, you just know they won't do it...
Oh well, at least we have <insert name of your favourite company here> and the rest of GW's competitors to fall back on for our gaming needs.
Yes, GW there are other companies out there. Realise it, grow up, adjust, compete. You know, do the things that real companies do in the marketplace and maybe, just maybe, you'll stay with us...
I agree with you overall, but I have to laugh a lot when everyone starts talking about 'real companies' and talk about the other gaming companies.)
They all have problems. They all behave in unbusinesslike ways. They all have people leading them down directions that need later correction. You only have to look at the trail of bankrupt game manufacturers to see some of the casulties where their actions/designs weren't fixable. As a consumer, you guys see the product, (sometimes lack of product), on a stores shelves. As a retailer, I deal with a lot more of the stuff you guys don't see. Talking with distributors and people working in the companies, there's huge amounts I'll never get the full story on, but is frightening with just a glimpse.
It all looks easy from the internet, and very black and white. You see more of the underside of GW because they are public.
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Post by: proditorcappela
I'm not buying the "PC need not apply" line...
I was one of the freelance writers for FFG on the Rogue Trader book, and I had an intro to the psionics section that had a bit about the perils of the warp that we jokingly referred to as the "I've come for your daughter Chuck" quote. But GW nixed it* as part of the family friendly face they wanted for their gaming.
Grimdark was fine, but don't take someone's kid!
We all thought it was a bit odd, but it went to the cutting room floor, then we shrugged and banged out something else.
*: I'll also be the first to admit that there is every possibility that my editor at FFG nixed it, but I've known him for a while, and when he didn't like something I wrote, he was pretty blunt with me.
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Post by: keezus
I think the key thing to take away from their investor report gobbeldygook is the following:
Decreases in sales revenue seems to follow the trend of -3% +/- 1% per annum over the last five years. Cumulatively, this represents a 15.8% (as the decreases are compounded) decrease in sales revenue. The telling point is that prices have gone up during that period. Using a conservative 30% increase across the board over 5 years - (assuming an even distribution across the board - unlikely, I know) would suggest that for product moved - volumes actually dropped in the neighbourhood of 34% over that same period.
Now, as we know that standard game sizes also skew towards needing more models - based on already declining sales volume, this would suggest that yet fewer players are participating in building standard sized armies.
While a decrease in revenue of 15% is worrying - it has largely been managed by "efficiencies" as evidenced by GW's reports. The hidden drop in volume is down right frightening.
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Post by: MagickalMemories
...sales in ... Australia (-11.8%) were in decline.
Do these numbers take into account wholesale business? I presume so.
That being the case, I believe we have the reasoning for their new sales restrictions. A UK seller shipping to AU counts as UK sales, while an AU seller shipping within AU counts as AU sales. They want their AU numbers up so, rather than making any intelligent business decisions, they try to force Aussies to pick up the slack with attempted enforcement of ridiculous restrictions.
Eric
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Post by: skyth
And the funny thing is that sales in the UK are down as well...Just not as much.
43517
Post by: proditorcappela
skyth wrote:And the funny thing is that sales in the UK are down as well...Just not as much.
That should terrify them. At least you'd think so, but apparently not.
Maybe they know something we don't, like miscast Finecast is the cure for cancer, and once they reveal that AND get the Hobbit rolling, they'll be swimming in money.
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Post by: boyd
Kilkrazy wrote:They are making a profit.
Why close 70% of Japanese shops after the business grew there?
Did any of their stores close based on the turbulence in the country? Did any of them flood or wash away? If so that could be one of the reasons why they closed the shops. We had that issue in Florida when we had 5 Hurricanes and 2 Tropical storms dump 4 feet of water over Central Florida in 2 months back in 2004. Many businesses took their insurance payout and never re-opened. That is an alternative rebuilding and reopening several months later. I can imagine that since there is a lot of upheavel in the country closing the shops in the short term and waiting for the country to stabilize would be beneficial.
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Post by: AgeOfEgos
This actually surprised me. I expected this report to be good--with Fantasy, the return of DE (and Grey Knights?)---plus the big year Black Library had.
This report doesn't include their recent PR/Finecast/retail decisions---and this is their second negative sales growth report (-7ish% on this with new releases?!). I think next report is going to be ugly.
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Post by: sourclams
boyd wrote:Did any of their stores close based on the turbulence in the country? Did any of them flood or wash away? If so that could be one of the reasons why they closed the shops. We had that issue in Florida when we had 5 Hurricanes and 2 Tropical storms dump 4 feet of water over Central Florida in 2 months back in 2004. Many businesses took their insurance payout and never re-opened. That is an alternative rebuilding and reopening several months later. I can imagine that since there is a lot of upheavel in the country closing the shops in the short term and waiting for the country to stabilize would be beneficial.
The Fukushima Prefecture of Japan is a relatively rural/industrial area on the NE coastline, and is considered rather remote. It is extremely... EXTREMELY... unlikely that there were GW stores there to begin with, and even less so that all of the locations were so closely clustered around the Dai-Ichi plant as to be affected by the tsunamis or radiation.
This is not to say that the closing of the stores is unrelated to the recent turmoil, but for it to have had a direct affect on the properties is a low probability IMO.
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Post by: evilsponge
I wish I could go to Kirby Kamp, so I can learn how to do what my managers manual tells me too
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Post by: ceorron
Bloodwin wrote:
The fans of GW are a niche group who are willing to pay for their product so don't try to appeal outside this niche as it's wasted effort
This is so closed minded. This is really what is killing GW. Unnable to see the potential of new markets and expand it's boarders, new customers seem to me what is required to get rid of the hobby shirk that others have identified. Who is to say that new markets won't be receptive to the GW product, they make a large number of fine miniatures. To me video games like WoW get mass market appeal, I don't see why GWs (or indeed any miniature companies) products should be pigeon holed so. Bloodwin wrote:
People who 'fit' in GW. That's standard management talk, it means don't hire people who will try to change the company and possibly screw up our IP money machine
This seems like the most stupid and maronic ideas i've heard in sometime, surely you hire people for the differences, skills and so flexibilities they bring to the company. What your endorsing by saying this is paramount to indoctrination or the suggestion that only one "model" works. This is stupid as GW compitition demonstrates with thier penetration into GW market well underway what people are after is not the monotone model GW seems to be selling it would be good in that respect to have some fresh blood at GW.
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Post by: Kanluwen
ceorron wrote:Bloodwin wrote:
The fans of GW are a niche group who are willing to pay for their product so don't try to appeal outside this niche as it's wasted effort
This is so closed minded. This is really what is killing GW. Unnable to see the potential of new markets and expand it's boarders, new customers seem to me what is required to get rid of the hobby shirk that others have identified. Who is to say that new markets won't be receptive to the GW product, they make a large number of fine miniatures. To me video games like WoW get mass market appeal, I don't see why GWs (or indeed any miniature companies) products should be pigeon holed so.
They're probably pigeon-holed because we're perceived to be in a culture of instant gratification. The "masses" don't likely want to put the effort into building up painting skills or modeling skills to play what many of them see as a "board game".
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Post by: sourclams
Interesting to see operating expenses generally down about 1% and COGS also having improved markedly ... and still revenue drops almost 3%.
That would suggest a pretty precipitous drop in sales given flat pricing YoY... and as I recall prices went up.
It looks like GW could be setting itself up for a real difficult YoY comp if they do indeed reach a point where they can't cut operating expenses much further and have to lap revenue on declining sales volume.
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Post by: mikhaila
ceorron wrote:This seems like the most stupid and maronic ideas i've heard in sometime, surely you hire people for the differences, skills and so flexibilities they bring to the company.
Surely you don't. Most companies hire people based on the jobseeker having the skillset, or being able to learn the skillset, that meet the requirements of the position to be filled. Companies don't want people with 'differences', they want people that can do the job. GW wants people that have the skills to fit into a job at GW. If flexibility is one of those, like running a one man store, then that's a needed skill. If flexibility isn't needed for the job, then why hire someone for it? If you get hired by any company in a low level position, you should be able to learn to do your job. Telling the boss/supervisor/ceo how to make changes sure as hell isn't your job.
Maybe a 3 person start up needs flexibilities and different skill sets. Larger companies don't need that.
It lovely though how you can proclaim someone else to be 'Maronic' and stupid. Are you perchance an expert on hiring practices for companies equivalent to GW?) Automatically Appended Next Post: evilsponge wrote:I wish I could go to Kirby Kamp, so I can learn how to do what my managers manual tells me too
I wish I could go, just for the knowledge. I can match a low selling GW store with my GW sales. A good store blows me out of the water by 3-4 times. So they know or do something that I don't.
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Post by: boyd
sourclams wrote:boyd wrote:Did any of their stores close based on the turbulence in the country? Did any of them flood or wash away? If so that could be one of the reasons why they closed the shops. We had that issue in Florida when we had 5 Hurricanes and 2 Tropical storms dump 4 feet of water over Central Florida in 2 months back in 2004. Many businesses took their insurance payout and never re-opened. That is an alternative rebuilding and reopening several months later. I can imagine that since there is a lot of upheavel in the country closing the shops in the short term and waiting for the country to stabilize would be beneficial.
The Fukushima Prefecture of Japan is a relatively rural/industrial area on the NE coastline, and is considered rather remote. It is extremely... EXTREMELY... unlikely that there were GW stores there to begin with, and even less so that all of the locations were so closely clustered around the Dai-Ichi plant as to be affected by the tsunamis or radiation.
This is not to say that the closing of the stores is unrelated to the recent turmoil, but for it to have had a direct affect on the properties is a low probability IMO.
My Company has an office in Tokyo and Okinawa and we shut both down due to the turmoil. The turmoil over there is NOT condusive to business right now. We moved our inventory and shut the lights off in our warehouse. The only people working there are sales men from home offices and to schedule all of our gear coming in from Australia. About 2 weeks after the tsunami we had all of our orders cancelled and no revenue for two weeks but a full sales force and warehouse staff of approx 100 people. No revenues means no way to pay the bills. We will open back up as soon as business picks back up.
Right now the Japanese have seen a shift from their normal course of life - I would assume that they are not focused on luxury items at the moment. Give them 6 - 12 more months and I would believe they will go back to "normal". Some of the hardcore players may not see a shift in buying habits but new people coming into the fold account for a good piece of the overall pie.
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Post by: mikhaila
sourclams wrote:Interesting to see operating expenses generally down about 1% and COGS also having improved markedly ... and still revenue drops almost 3%.
That would suggest a pretty precipitous drop in sales given flat pricing YoY... and as I recall prices went up.
It looks like GW could be setting itself up for a real difficult YoY comp if they do indeed reach a point where they can't cut operating expenses much further and have to lap revenue on declining sales volume.
Yep, noticed that too. The drop in COG and operating expenses is a good thing, but not something you can pull off year after year. Only so much efficiency to be gained. Increasing sales (without increasing prices) is the only way they will be increasing revenue in a way that increases overall health and profits both.
And granted, that's difficult in the current economy, as many businesses have found out. I'm about to go raiding Borders for fixtures in a couple of weeks.) But GW are still profitable with low debt. A far, far cry from the bankrupt businesses that are popping up daily now.
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Post by: boyd
mikhaila wrote:ceorron wrote:This seems like the most stupid and maronic ideas i've heard in sometime, surely you hire people for the differences, skills and so flexibilities they bring to the company.
Surely you don't. Most companies hire people based on the jobseeker having the skillset, or being able to learn the skillset, that meet the requirements of the position to be filled. Companies don't want people with 'differences', they want people that can do the job. GW wants people that have the skills to fit into a job at GW. If flexibility is one of those, like running a one man store, then that's a needed skill. If flexibility isn't needed for the job, then why hire someone for it? If you get hired by any company in a low level position, you should be able to learn to do your job. Telling the boss/supervisor/ceo how to make changes sure as hell isn't your job.
Maybe a 3 person start up needs flexibilities and different skill sets. Larger companies don't need that.
It lovely though how you can proclaim someone else to be 'Maronic' and stupid. Are you perchance an expert on hiring practices for companies equivalent to GW?)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
evilsponge wrote:I wish I could go to Kirby Kamp, so I can learn how to do what my managers manual tells me too
I wish I could go, just for the knowledge. I can match a low selling GW store with my GW sales. A good store blows me out of the water by 3-4 times. So they know or do something that I don't.
You're both correct - yes you hire for diversity of opinions but you need to know when and where the appropriate place is to provide that opinion. Your employees are hired to perform a job. They should tell their boss how they can be more efficient (if we had X instead of Y I could do this better). A poor way of doing this would be going outside the chain of command and undermining the boss. This does 2 things - it creates inner turmoil (boss and employees) and makes the company look bad (if they go and rant and rave that the boss doesn't know what he's doing why would I want to do business with people who don't know what they are doing?).
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Post by: keezus
sourclams wrote:That would suggest a pretty precipitous drop in sales given flat pricing YoY... and as I recall prices went up.
It looks like GW could be setting itself up for a real difficult YoY comp if they do indeed reach a point where they can't cut operating expenses much further and have to lap revenue on declining sales volume.
Well... herein lies the problem, as in my admittedly uneducated estimation - they've already axed too much muscle from their organization in their enthusiastic effort to show a profit. 
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Post by: sourclams
boyd wrote:sourclams wrote:This is not to say that the closing of the stores is unrelated to the recent turmoil, but for it to have had a direct affect on the properties is a low probability IMO.
My Company has an office in Tokyo and Okinawa and we shut both down due to the turmoil. The turmoil over there is NOT condusive to business right now.
My company also has sales offices that were closed immediately after the events in March, especially as rolling brown/blackouts made keeping the lights on difficult and transportation nearly impossible. We didn't, however, close up shop and quit whole-clothe, nor do I think many other companies 'shipped out' of Japan entirely either.
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Post by: boyd
mikhaila wrote:sourclams wrote:Interesting to see operating expenses generally down about 1% and COGS also having improved markedly ... and still revenue drops almost 3%.
That would suggest a pretty precipitous drop in sales given flat pricing YoY... and as I recall prices went up.
It looks like GW could be setting itself up for a real difficult YoY comp if they do indeed reach a point where they can't cut operating expenses much further and have to lap revenue on declining sales volume.
Yep, noticed that too. The drop in COG and operating expenses is a good thing, but not something you can pull off year after year. Only so much efficiency to be gained. Increasing sales (without increasing prices) is the only way they will be increasing revenue in a way that increases overall health and profits both.
And granted, that's difficult in the current economy, as many businesses have found out. I'm about to go raiding Borders for fixtures in a couple of weeks.) But GW are still profitable with low debt. A far, far cry from the bankrupt businesses that are popping up daily now.
That shows they are on the right track. If you want to look at the health of the Company I implore you to look at the statement of cash flows (if UK companies are required to put that in their statements like US GAAP requires). Its the best way to judge how the Company is doing as it shows HOW THEY ARE SPENDING THEIR MONEY. A Company that shows a 5% growth but they are leveraged to their eyeballs in debt and are spending their profits paying tons of interest are not as good as a company that shows a 5% decrease in revenues. I have always found the Cash Flows to be one of the best statements to look at when investing in a Company and when I audited Companies to judge their health. I've seen highly leveraged Companies and I've seen Companies with little debt. Each have their merits - I would expect GW not to be a highly leveraged entity only because the barriers to enter the market are not very high. To have their production capabilities it would be high but as they were private for many years before going public, I would naturally assume they had the equipment, facilities, and a decent LOC to assist with cash flow management. Poor indicators for the Company would be that they are not covering their operations and are having to borrow money to stay open or that they have no equity in the Company (usually this is seen when PEG's get in the mix and are taking over the Company to divide the assets).
I'm going to try and look over the report when I get off work (I've got too much work with month end close coming up to take a look at it now).
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Post by: SilverMK2
Henners91 wrote:Unfortunately, when people are satisfied, it's a lot harder to find the energy to make a forum post detailing their experience than it is when you're motivated by rage.
And as I've said, now for about the third or fourth time, when the product they put up ON THEIR OWN SITE to SHOW OFF the LAUNCH OF THEIR NEW FLAGSHIP SUPER PRODUCT LINE is full of BUBBLES AND OTHER MISCASTS, you have to wonder W(here)TF they got 97% excellent quality from.
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Post by: sourclams
keezus wrote:Well... herein lies the problem, as in my admittedly uneducated estimation - they've already axed too much muscle from their organization in their enthusiastic effort to show a profit.
I can't make any sort of statement on whether or not they've tipped below their critical mass from a personnel standpoint, but as an economist and thinking about price elasticity of demand and how the slope becomes increasingly steep as prices rise, the revenue outlook is not good if they are unable to cut costs further and must attempt to increase prices on incremental volume loss.
A purely theoretical model would suggest they've already passed the point where the incremental price increase results in sufficient volume loss that revenues suffer greater decline disproprotionate (in a bad way) to volume declines.
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Post by: army310
Trooper wrote:Finances aside don't the comments of the CEO boil your blood, I know that is how they like to word things and they wont say anything negative but its a group of well written lies.
"The scale of this task is not to be underestimated, as making finely detailed resin
miniatures in these sorts of quantities has never been attempted before. The initial production run
achieved a 97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase."
Its comments like this that is find insulting.
Well mite have sold us the development phase finecast for all that we know. And ya the s**t he said dose insult me and the others that would and could buy stock in GW.
But if you want to try to save the business buy stock they have votes on issues in trading and other stuff and *IF* we can enough votes we can save GW from what it has become.
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Post by: boyd
I see that GW has heard what its customers want. Case in point look at the White Dwarf. They saw sales start to seriously tank. Their response, lets start to shift back from a catelog to actually putting something that veteran gamers want to see - rules etc. Its a start but the only way they see it is when it affects their bottom line.
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Post by: Alpharius
boyd wrote:I see that GW has heard what its customers want. Case in point look at the White Dwarf. They saw sales start to seriously tank. Their response, lets start to shift back from a catelog to actually putting something that veteran gamers want to see - rules etc. Its a start but the only way they see it is when it affects their bottom line.
His this actually happened yet?
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Post by: Korraz
From what I have seen lately...no. It got slightly better a couple of months ago. And then Blood Angels hit, and down we went to new depths.
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Post by: Buzzsaw
An interesting point, building on observations published by others in places like this;
The decision to offer a dividend, is it really in the best interest of the company when price rises and cost-cutting measures are being instituted? Consider that (according to this), Marks Wells (CEO) and Tom Kirby (Chairman) own...
Mark Wells: 125586 shares,
Tom Kirby: 1913009 shares.
According to the report, there was a dividend of 25 pence/share in October 2010, 20 pence/share in May 2011, and a further 18 pence/share is expected in October 2011. On just the paid dividends (45 p/s since Oct.2010), these two have received (the as yet proposed 18 p/s dividend is in parenthesis),
Mark Wells: 56,513 GBP (25,117 GBP),
Tom Kirby: 860,854 GBP (382,601 GBP).
Now, this is not to imply that the decision to offer a dividend is necessarily a sinister plot enacted by Kirby by fiat, but it is rather shocking to see the Chairman receiving almost double his (rather impressive at 462,000 GBP for 2011) salary in dividend payouts.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
boyd wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:They are making a profit.
Why close 70% of Japanese shops after the business grew there?
Did any of their stores close based on the turbulence in the country? Did any of them flood or wash away? If so that could be one of the reasons why they closed the shops. We had that issue in Florida when we had 5 Hurricanes and 2 Tropical storms dump 4 feet of water over Central Florida in 2 months back in 2004. Many businesses took their insurance payout and never re-opened. That is an alternative rebuilding and reopening several months later. I can imagine that since there is a lot of upheavel in the country closing the shops in the short term and waiting for the country to stabilize would be beneficial.
All the shops closed in Japan were in the centre and south of the country, well away from the disaster area.
They closed three (?) shops in the greater Tokyo megalopolis area, containing 31 million people within one to two hour's train ride.
I could understand them closing shops if they've given up on Japan, but business was apparently growing.
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Post by: keezus
@Boyd:
GW adding content back into White Dwarf is like trying to reattach an amputated foot when the leg it used to be attached to was also amputated at some time in the past. Suddenly adding content isn't going to magically restore the lost reader base, just like how attaching a foot to a legless patient won't enable the patient to walk again. In fact, I'd be surprised if this new "content rich" White Dwarf has more than a +10% sales number over the old WD as the overall GW Saddly, management will interpret the "reattaching" exercise to be a failure without looking at the root cause, discontinue the practice after a few months and won't try again for quite some time.
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
Meanwhile down at the speakeasy:
Sales are down! Profits are down! wadda we ganna doo buoss?
Simple yuzz great chump, what we always duzz.
Raise prices!
I godda hand it toosya buoss, yuh shore is a genius!
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Post by: Lycaeus Wrex
And thus the small leak in the hull of the great battleship 'Games Workshop' grows a little larger...
L. Wrex
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Post by: Surtur
agnosto wrote:You're right, it's like the PS3 and Xbox; both companies lose money on the core system so they can make it in other areas.
So you're suggesting that GW sells starter sets for like $4 USD? It really doesn't cost that much to make them and they have ridiculous profit margins on them. Not to mention all of the R&D costs get paid off rather quickly.
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Post by: RatBot
Now, I'm not an economist, so I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly:
-Sales, in volume, are down across the board.
-Profits are down slightly, but not in proportion to the lost sales, no doubt due to royalties, price increases, and reducing the numbers of Hobby Centres and staff in remaining Hobby Centres.
-Wells makes some head-scratching statements, including saying that GW has the basis for growth and all they need to do is figure out how to spur it on, despite saying the exact same thing five years in a row.
-They paid out a dividend despite decreased income, rather than spending that money on figuring out how to foster growth.
-The reports have been similar for the past few years.
Like I said, not an economist or business man, but isn't this unsustainable? Their solution in the face of flagging sales seems to be "trim the fat and increase prices", but eventually there won't be any fat to trim and prices will have exceeded the threshold that people are willing to pay.
I'm not saying they're doomed since they theoretically could figure out what's going wrong and fix it, but if you look at the past few reports, is this not indicative of an (very, very slow) decline? And if the pattern continues for another five or ten years, they might go under?
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Post by: AesSedai
They closed 5 of the 7 shops in Japan.
Only Nakano and Jimbocho remain. And Nakano is balls.
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Post by: Kroothawk
evilsponge wrote:I wish I could go to Kirby Kamp, so I can learn how to do what my managers manual tells me too
Good thing, they tell us, they are now perfect. Some people didn't know that
I would also like to go to a Kirby camp to learn, how you can have such a continuous decline in sales with such a good product range. Another manager with lesser skills than Kirby would have raised sales by 50% within 3 years.
AgeOfEgos wrote:This actually surprised me. I expected this report to be good--with Fantasy, the return of DE (and Grey Knights?)---plus the big year Black Library had.
That shows how good management and anti-marketing can compensate for a good product range. Just imagine the results, if there hasn't been a Dark Eldar and Warhammer release. And yes, next year's results will be really ugly, with even more pay raises for Kirby and Wells. Maybe Kirby doesn't want GW to survive him, a typical mindset in dictatorical regimes
Kilkrazy wrote:They are making a profit.
Why close 70% of Japanese shops after the business grew there?(...)
They closed three (?) shops in the greater Tokyo megalopolis area, containing 31 million people within one to two hour's train ride.
I could understand them closing shops if they've given up on Japan, but business was apparently growing.
They told us last year, how good sales were in Australia. Maybe they are just lying
May also have to do with the fact, that Scandinavia and Japan are now one regional group
BTW: Did I get it right that GW has 31.22m shares, paid 45p per share during the year and proposed another 18p per share? And that this results in paying £ 19.67m considering an operating profit of £ 15.3m , so draining the company of £ 4.37m? Milk the cow as long as it can live without food
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Post by: sourclams
RatBot wrote:Like I said, not an economist or business man, but isn't this unsustainable? Their solution in the face of flagging sales seems to be "trim the fat and increase prices", but eventually there won't be any fat to trim and prices will have exceeded the threshold that people are willing to pay.
You've pretty much nailed the theory.
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Post by: infinite_array
AesSedai wrote:They closed 5 of the 7 shops in Japan.
Only Nakano and Jimbocho remain. And Nakano is balls.
And even if business does pick up for GW in Japan, won't it be difficult to find new retail space?
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Post by: ColdSadHungry
The good news here is that GW makes £15 million profit - nothing at all to be sniffed at, especially in the current economic climate.
The unsettling thing there is that out of a £123 million turnover, they only have a pre tax profit of £15 million. Coropration tax is 26% so you can knock a quarter off that £15 million and we only have £11 million left. And I don't know what other amounts have to come off that - pension contributions? National Insurance Contributions? etc etc.
Basically, it doesn't leave a whole lot left for re-investment back into the product, plus you can bet your bottom dollar that the share holders will take their cut regardless. All this means that to have enough to put back into the product they need to cut costs, which we are already seeing with stores closing, mainly on foreign shores - they're pulling in a battening down the hatches. Concentrating on what they know. Look at the expansion into the American market; it's a safer bet in terms of it's target market than somewhere like Japan, I would guess. It makes sense and, to be fair, it's good to see that they are planning ahead and keeping their eye on their (small and therefore at risk) profit margins. Hopefully it means that long term, they'll be more successful. It also means that short term many of us will be disappointed with the way they are operating.
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Post by: AgeOfEgos
sourclams wrote:RatBot wrote:Like I said, not an economist or business man, but isn't this unsustainable? Their solution in the face of flagging sales seems to be "trim the fat and increase prices", but eventually there won't be any fat to trim and prices will have exceeded the threshold that people are willing to pay.
You've pretty much nailed the theory.
I remember someone on this board (Can't recall the user) stated that GW's ultimate market strategy was to eventually have one guy filling $500 space marine tactical squad box sets. Made me actually lol.
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Post by: keezus
On an aside, it's also pretty terrifying how deep some of their staffers are into the kool-aid. The first step of correcting their decline in sales is admitting there is a problem. With this culture of denial - unless there is a drastic shift in leadership - I can't seen GW's modus operandii changing substatially.
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Post by: RatBot
*sigh* I have not a jot of business experience but I think I might not do much worse than the current board at running this circus.
What's frustrating is I agree with Kroothawk. GW has, in general, good products (I love their minis, I adore their background, and even when their rules aren't the greatest I still greatly enjoy their games), but GW seems hellbent on ruining themselves.
But anything so that Wells and Kirby can keep paying themselves their dividend, eh? I guess Wells is hinting at retiring soon, so I expect in a couple years to see a fatal loss in profit but a tremendous dividend payout with Wells basically going "Nyah nyah na boo boo, stick yer head in doo doo."
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Post by: Kroothawk
RatBot wrote:What's frustrating is I agree with Kroothawk.
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Post by: RatBot
Err, I don't mean agreeing with you is frustrating, I mean I agree with you, and the situation that you and I agree upon is frustrating.
Poor wording on my part, lol.
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Post by: PsyberWolf
It's interesting to note that GW's board is made up of 5 people. The chairman Kirby, CEO Wells, CFO Roundtree and 2 "independent" directors. It always baffled me about the talk related to the years of service of the directors, in previous financial statements, and how they felt they could still be independent... I just made the connection today. Apparently, the guidance for publically traded companies is that an independent board member should have no more than 9 years on the board. The thought is that after such a long time of service they are no longer independent but rather have become almost an "insider" and thus not objective. Kirby and Wells have argued that they are still independent and should stay. It is clear to me that these 2 directors are "yes men" on the dole to the tune of £50,000 as of this year - an increase of almost 32%.
That brings total compensation for the board to over £1 mil - a near 17% increase. I am all for execs being adequately compensated for their labors but when your company has declining revenue and declining profits shouldn't you forgo a pay increase?
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Post by: Kilkrazy
That would be a matter for the shareholders to discuss at the AGM.
Of course, Kirby and Wells have a lot of shares themselves.
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Post by: RatBot
... but when your company has declining revenue and declining profits shouldn't you forgo a pay increase?
Heh. A heh heh. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA! Ha ha, hooo... Yeah.
I mean, they should, but that'll never happen. I keep hearing all the time about companies with dwindling profits and generally shrinking, but the top executives damn sure get their raises and bonuses!
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Post by: Bloodwin
ceorron wrote:Bloodwin wrote:
The fans of GW are a niche group who are willing to pay for their product so don't try to appeal outside this niche as it's wasted effort
This is so closed minded. This is really what is killing GW. Unnable to see the potential of new markets and expand it's boarders, new customers seem to me what is required to get rid of the hobby shirk that others have identified. Who is to say that new markets won't be receptive to the GW product, they make a large number of fine miniatures. To me video games like WoW get mass market appeal, I don't see why GWs (or indeed any miniature companies) products should be pigeon holed so.
As others have said, many of the upcoming generation find GW via computer games and don't want to learn how to paint figures or cant afford to get someone to paint them. I have 2 brothers and 2 nephews who'd enjoy any of GWs games but none of them want to paint the models.
ceorron wrote:Bloodwin wrote:
People who 'fit' in GW. That's standard management talk, it means don't hire people who will try to change the company and possibly screw up our IP money machine
This seems like the most stupid and maronic ideas i've heard in sometime, surely you hire people for the differences, skills and so flexibilities they bring to the company. What your endorsing by saying this is paramount to indoctrination or the suggestion that only one "model" works. This is stupid as GW compitition demonstrates with thier penetration into GW market well underway what people are after is not the monotone model GW seems to be selling it would be good in that respect to have some fresh blood at GW.
I have had two open minded colleagues who tried to innovate and improve my simple spreadsheets at work and once every week I have to fix something they have made a mess of because they overcomplicated it and were just plain incompetent. They key to good creative management is knowing what to improve and by how much. You need to be able to function, preferably in the simplest way possible. Inovation should free up time spend doing repetitive boring stuff and allow you to concentrate on improving productivity by making sales in other areas like print on demand t-shirts (print on demand means no dead stock of Dark Eldar shirts from 2 years ago).
For what it's worth the two ways GW need to improve were addressed, they need to be better and faster at getting their message and product out there. The White Dwarf secret embargo is a stupid idea. They need to stop thinking that White Dwarf is the greatest advertising asset they have. They need to get their products on the internet ASAP so that the information hungry fans can get excited. They need to do this so they they get their message out and control the message rather than let independent forums try to guess what they are doing. They then need to focus on making the most money out of the Horus Heresy while it is popular because it's ludicrous that such a massively popular range of books doesn't have cool toy soldiers for fans to buy.
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Post by: Rampage
RatBot wrote:-Wells makes some head-scratching statements, including saying that GW has the basis for growth and all they need to do is figure out how to spur it on, despite saying the exact same thing five years in a row.
This part made me laugh. And this is because it has taken them 5 years to not do much on the matter , this is GW.
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Post by: Azazelx
WarOne wrote:Games Workshop wrote:The reaction of customers and staff to Citadel Finecast has been overwhelmingly positive.
So what, did they interview every single employee who is most certainly not going to say it sucks and get fired?
And then they probably grabbed some ten year olds who have only begun to delve into the hobby, and aksed them to comment about the new Finecrap.
They don't need to ask anyone. They just say it. There's no burden of proof on them, and they just add in whatever anecdotal evidence that fits the picture that they are painting.
Games Workshop wrote:The number of new customer registrations on the Games Workshop webstore grew by over 150,000 across all territories. We achieved this not by offering discounts but by providing access to the full range, with good product information and a fast and reliable delivery service.
I wonder how many more customers could be had if they actually gave some sort of discount or loyalty program to entice people to buy more from the intrawebs???
Registrations mean very little as well. They firewalled a bunch of their hobby articles behind a "login to enter" gate awhile back. I set up an account and haven't bought anything from their website (for 3? 4? 5? years - whenever that mail-order-only techmarine came out, along with Shrike and Lysander). Registrations went up? BFD.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Kilkrazy wrote:WarOne wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Given the tie-in with Fantasy Flight Games, you would think it would be easy to carry a range of related board games.
Too bad they don't have a division like Hasbro has with Avalon Hill that could make the board games for them...
I'm assuming that as a start GW would stock FFG boxed sets in their shops. They have several Warhammer/ 40K/ GW titles already, and the RPGs.
Then they could move to co-productions.
They're not interested. That's why they farmed out Dark Heresy out shortly after release. They don't stock Warhammer Historical or Forge World in their stores and only have limited Black Library. They don't have enough space in their small stores to fit in their own full range of WFB/ 40k/ LOTR product without dedicating a chunk of store real estate to items that they have to pay wholesale on/don't make full profit on. The Hobbit will be out soon - this will mean that store space dedicated to LOTR-themed items will increase, since they will want to draw people from The Hobbit SBG into WOTR which is where they can sell WFB-sized armies to people instead of 40 plastic elves + Elrond and Glorfindel as a full force. As they do now with LOTR SBG.
Licenced product doesn't relate directly to their core business - which is selling met^^ plastic and resin models. Licenced product is heavily viewed as getting their brand into other markets - and hopefully getting backflow of drawing people into GrimDark 40k and into their stores to buy toy soldiers. Automatically Appended Next Post: Vetric wrote:I'm amazed at the Facebook idea. Many big retailers have developed "new media" policies for their staff that very clearly spell out saying anything negative, even on a personal webpage/blog/whatever, can get an employee in hot water. All those tweets, status updates and things are being centralized at head offices. Suddenly having 392 "official" pages is almost a guarantee for comedy gold, and a huge headache for store staff.
Facebook stuff will backfire. I'm sure they'll have lots of restrictions in place and it'll be very vanilla, but after a few months the overseeing will relax a bit, and comedy will ensue. OTOH, individual managers who are happy to talk freely to their customers in the store won't do so in a public space like Facebook where they can have repercussions. It'll take the really dumb ones to do that, a la Weiner. So basically, it's pretty much guaranteed to happen!
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Post by: H.B.M.C.
Not to mention that with 200-300 Facebook pages they'll be spending so much time removing SPAM and 'complaints' that they'll eventually end up either abandoning it completely or just shutting them down. I can't see GW's latest hamfisted attempt at social media lasting more than 6 months before someone pulls the plug. RatBot wrote:Now, I'm not an economist
It's ok. No one at GW is either. RatBot wrote:-They paid out a dividend despite decreased income, rather than spending that money on figuring out how to foster growth.
This actually makes perfect sense when you think about it. What does GW love most? Short-term profits and instant gratification. What have they got? Some free cash flow. So what does GW do with it? Spend it immediately (on themselves) rather than investing it for a long-term growth. The more I see this the more it just seems like Wells and Kirby lining their pockets. Who honestly thinks that in an economy like the UK's and in a company where volume and profits are flagging that paying out dividends in place of investing in the company's future is the wise choice? RatBot wrote:Like I said, not an economist or business man, but isn't this unsustainable? Their solution in the face of flagging sales seems to be "trim the fat and increase prices", but eventually there won't be any fat to trim and prices will have exceeded the threshold that people are willing to pay.
I'd hazard a guess and say that outside of a few dozen more store closures, there ain't any fat left to trim. They're already to the bone... and paying dividends!
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Post by: Lux_Lucis
Going back to the placing of FFG products in store, as I understand it you're not even allowed to play them in store, since they're not actually GW products? Or maybe that's a quirk in my local stores.
I cannot understand at all why they raised the price on the starter boxes. £50 for Assault on Black Reach, while still steep, was a nice round price for a one of buy for a young child/teenager and would make a good present. I agree though the box needs a bit more scenery (like the old cardboard stuff!) and some more fluff (preferably not by Him...).
One of the most important things I think, that hasn't really been mentioned, is the rise of other companies, particularly Mantic (since they do a similar product but cheaper). Ronnie of Mantic has said a few times (or at least implied) that GW's doing him a huge favour by getting people hooked but then they want large and cheap armies and discover Mantic.
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Post by: GBL
Lux_Lucis wrote:Going back to the placing of FFG products in store, as I understand it you're not even allowed to play them in store, since they're not actually GW products? Or maybe that's a quirk in my local stores.
Well their board games use specific miniatures and their RPG's dont need any. No reason for GW to let you play if you dont buy anything.
Lux_Lucis wrote:
I cannot understand at all why they raised the price on the starter boxes. £50 for Assault on Black Reach, while still steep, was a nice round price for a one of buy for a young child/teenager and would make a good present. I agree though the box needs a bit more scenery (like the old cardboard stuff!) and some more fluff (preferably not by Him...).
One of the most important things I think, that hasn't really been mentioned, is the rise of other companies, particularly Mantic (since they do a similar product but cheaper). Ronnie of Mantic has said a few times (or at least implied) that GW's doing him a huge favour by getting people hooked but then they want large and cheap armies and discover Mantic.
Yeah they had a great thing going with those starters. I bought three AOBR and one Skull Pass.
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Post by: Kroothawk
H.B.M.C. wrote:The more I see this the more it just seems like Wells and Kirby lining their pockets. Who honestly thinks that in an economy like the UK's and in a company where volume and profits are flagging that paying out dividends in place of investing in the company's future is the wise choice
GW has £ 15.3m operating profit, which leaves them obviously a £ 19.67m truly surplus with absolutely no use to spend within the company, because it is growing so fast.
Wells decides a 15% pay rise for Kirby and over a million £ dividends for Kirby, and Kirby approves this. Better drain the company by £ 4.37m, before the money gets bad. In his own words:
Kirby wrote:Dividends have returned. I am as pleased as you are. Does this herald in a new era of progressive dividends on an assured yield? Hardly. We return truly surplus cash to shareholders. 'Truly surplus' means the cash we can not use because we have already spent all we need for the growth of the business. It would sit in a bank account if we didn't return it. Working this way means the payment of dividends will be fairly happenstance; I can see us having surplus cash in the future and when we have (assuming it is a sensible sum) it will be returned, not according to a schedule, but right then and there.
I can't see a growth of the business, but then again, Kirby assures us, he is perfect, so what do we know!
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Post by: H.B.M.C.
Spent all we need for the growth of the business. I wonder what this actually means, because I don't see any 'growth'. I see a new production material that apparently costs more for them to do than the old one (which begs the question - why'd they change if that's the case?), and money going to the two biggest shareholders, which just happen to be the guy's running the company.
When I said GW was a corrupt and contemptable company, it seems I wasn't far from the truth.
Now where all the White Knights at?
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Post by: GBL
H.B.M.C. wrote:Spent all we need for the growth of the business. I wonder what this actually means, because I don't see any 'growth'. I see a new production material that apparently costs more for them to do than the old one (which begs the question - why'd they change if that's the case?), and money going to the two biggest shareholders, which just happen to be the guy's running the company.
Perhaps the materials cost the same or more, but the tooling process is cheaper, allowing them to put more finecrap releases out than they would normally in metal.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
When I said GW was a corrupt and contemptable company, it seems I wasn't far from the truth.
I dont think there is any evidence to the contrary.
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Post by: AgeOfEgos
Kroothawk wrote:
Kirby wrote:Dividends have returned. I am as pleased as you are.
...yeah...
Kirby wrote:Actually, I'm more pleased than you are considering the amount of shares I own and the fact I'm retiring soon *guffaw*
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Post by: Adam LongWalker
H.B.M.C. wrote:Spent all we need for the growth of the business. I wonder what this actually means, because I don't see any 'growth'. I see a new production material that apparently costs more for them to do than the old one (which begs the question - why'd they change if that's the case?), and money going to the two biggest shareholders, which just happen to be the guy's running the company.
When I said GW was a corrupt and contemptable company, it seems I wasn't far from the truth.
Now where all the White Knights at?
Sipping on their cool aid.
Reading the WD.
And waiting on their spiritual liege to give the order smite down the heretic known as H.M.B.C.
But don't worry I got your back and we'll make a few of them scream like girlie men that they are 
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Post by: Trasvi
SilverMK2 wrote:Henners91 wrote:Unfortunately, when people are satisfied, it's a lot harder to find the energy to make a forum post detailing their experience than it is when you're motivated by rage.
And as I've said, now for about the third or fourth time, when the product they put up ON THEIR OWN SITE to SHOW OFF the LAUNCH OF THEIR NEW FLAGSHIP SUPER PRODUCT LINE is full of BUBBLES AND OTHER MISCASTS, you have to wonder W(here)TF they got 97% excellent quality from.
I know! This level of quality means that, on average, 97% of each model was correctly cast!
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Post by: H.B.M.C.
Adam LongWalker wrote:And waiting on their spiritual liege to give the order smite down the heretic known as H.M.B.C.
Then sign me up! I've always wanted to put an end to my evil doppleganger - H. M.B.C. - so that he'd stop taking credit for everything I do.
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Post by: Adam LongWalker
"chuckles" yea I'll do that
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Post by: Reecius
The one good thing I read in that steaming pile was the bit about the old guard getting older and getting ready to retire and move aside.
Good riddance to bad rubish. Let's get some young blood in there and do away with the draconian, bs policies Gw has enforced. They seem to hate thileir customers. They are slow to adopt new business strategies and technology. They have left the door WIDE open for competition to come in and gobble up market share by simply being responsive to their customers.
Gw games are awesome. The company is often utter dog gak.
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Post by: RatBot
Reecius wrote:The one good thing I read in that steaming pile was the bit about the old guard getting older and getting ready to retire and move aside.
Good riddance to bad rubish. Let's get some young blood in there and do away with the draconian, bs policies Gw has enforced. They seem to hate thileir customers. They are slow to adopt new business strategies and technology. They have left the door WIDE open for competition to come in and gobble up market share by simply being responsive to their customers.
Gw games are awesome. The company is often utter dog gak.
I would hope for this, but I simply imagine that they'll just torpedo the company by issuing an enormous dividend, giving their share holders a huge wad of cash, but more importantly, giving themselves several million dollars. They'll retire fat and happy and the company will fold.
I don't know if that's legal, but I'm sure that if it can be done, they'll do it.
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Post by: Eeps
1.2 mil total compensation for a CEO of a 120mil revenue business is flying rodent gak insane FWIW, very much out of whack with market remuneration practices.
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Post by: Adam LongWalker
RatBot wrote:Reecius wrote:The one good thing I read in that steaming pile was the bit about the old guard getting older and getting ready to retire and move aside.
Good riddance to bad rubish. Let's get some young blood in there and do away with the draconian, bs policies Gw has enforced. They seem to hate thileir customers. They are slow to adopt new business strategies and technology. They have left the door WIDE open for competition to come in and gobble up market share by simply being responsive to their customers.
Gw games are awesome. The company is often utter dog gak.
I would hope for this, but I simply imagine that they'll just torpedo the company by issuing an enormous dividend, giving their share holders a huge wad of cash, but more importantly, giving themselves several million dollars. They'll retire fat and happy and the company will fold.
I don't know if that's legal, but I'm sure that if it can be done, they'll do it.
I have stated in the past. Wait for Kirby to retire and see how HUGE his stock options are. "He's got one hell of a golden parachute".
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Post by: Azazelx
H.B.M.C. wrote:Adam LongWalker wrote:And waiting on their spiritual liege to give the order smite down the heretic known as H.M.B.C.
Then sign me up! I've always wanted to put an end to my evil doppleganger - H. M.B.C. - so that he'd stop taking credit for everything I do.
Aren't you a Hong Kong-based bank?
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Post by: RatBot
Oh, I missed this bit:
We have started to improve our standards of customer service in our Hobby centres and are confident we have the right model for opening more across North America.
I... but... indep-....but... Pointl- I....
Since Christmas more Hobby centres have delivered like for like growth, particularly in North America where last year’s changes to store
staffing and regional management are settling down. We are now confident Games Workshop has a profitable retail model for North
America and we have started the gradual geographical expansion into new cities, with new Games Workshop Hobby centres opening in San
Antonio, Texas and Bowie, Maryland, with more cities to follow.
I firmly believe this is false. Or rather, "Now that our GW shops are 1-man operations with crappy locations, no space, and sporadic hours, they're profitable!" Seriously, who in the US primarily shops at GW Hobby Centres? I sincerely doubt that they will continue to be profitable.
Apparently 1-man holes in the wall that sell product at retail price and provide no room to play... are profitable? Bull.
"Confident we have the right model for opening more in North America." Yeah, just like you've had the model for growth for the past five years, right Messrs. Kirby and Wells?
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Post by: Pacific
Buzzsaw wrote:An interesting point, building on observations published by others in places like this;
The decision to offer a dividend, is it really in the best interest of the company when price rises and cost-cutting measures are being instituted? Consider that (according to this), Marks Wells (CEO) and Tom Kirby (Chairman) own...
Mark Wells: 125586 shares,
Tom Kirby: 1913009 shares.
According to the report, there was a dividend of 25 pence/share in October 2010, 20 pence/share in May 2011, and a further 18 pence/share is expected in October 2011. On just the paid dividends (45 p/s since Oct.2010), these two have received (the as yet proposed 18 p/s dividend is in parenthesis),
Mark Wells: 56,513 GBP (25,117 GBP),
Tom Kirby: 860,854 GBP (382,601 GBP).
Now, this is not to imply that the decision to offer a dividend is necessarily a sinister plot enacted by Kirby by fiat, but it is rather shocking to see the Chairman receiving almost double his (rather impressive at 462,000 GBP for 2011) salary in dividend payouts.
This deserves repeating.
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Post by: keezus
The one man ops don't necessarily have to be small... I've been in one of a good size with 3 full size tables - IMHO the weakest aspect of the one man store model is the reduced hours. This has the side effect of artificially restricting the store's reach to the immediate vicinity, as people from further away can't get there early enough to make it worth while due to the limited operating times.
Only GW management has the numbers to determine if any drop off from this "range reduction" is offset by not having that second staffer. Given how they are promoting this new model - I would hazzard to say that financially, the one man ops probably make a lot of sense... reduce staff costs by 50%, reduced sales from shorter operating hours are probably less than that. Its a bit of a kick in the pants to anyone who has to rely on a one man op as their primary gaming venue, but them's the breaks. YMMV.
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Post by: RatBot
I guess, but I don't understand why anyone would go to a GW store in North America. Any town or city is going to have a few independent stores which generally have better hours, are less pushy on sales, and provide discounts on their products.
I was always under the impression they didn't make a lot of money. I would think that, if they shut down the GW stores in North America, the indies would pick up the slack and GW would save a boatload of cash and maybe, just maybe, report a substantial growth in profits. Why, maybe they could... reduce prices a little! .....yeah, right.
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Post by: Laughing Man
Given the game stores I've been to, I'm not sure I'd call three tables "good sized..."
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Post by: RatBot
That's also true... I've only been to four game stores, but even the smallest one had something like six tables, which is more than any GW I've been to.
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Post by: H.B.M.C.
RatBot wrote:I would think that, if they shut down the GW stores in North America, the indies would pick up the slack and GW would save a boatload of cash and maybe, just maybe, report a substantial growth in profits. Why, maybe they could... reduce prices a little! .....yeah, right.
The problem with that is:
1. GW wouldn't be able to enjoy the absurdly high mark-up that they put on their products, someone else would. They'd still get money, but not as much (and GW wants any amount of money right now rather than lots of money in the future).
2. They cannot control how their product is displayed. Remember that everything GW does is predicated on the fact that they see themselves as a complete hobby (the mythical ‘Games Workshop Hobby’), and that all other miniature game companies simply do not exist. Without their own stores to push their own brand in a way that makes other companies invisible, they'd be seen for what they really are – part of the miniature war gaming hobby, rather than a hobby unto themselves. This frightens them, as their preferred customer is 12-14 year old kid who’s completely in the dark about everything except GW. They lose that kid and they lose their biggest source of short-term income, and, again, GW loves them some short-term profit!
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Post by: RatBot
Yeah, I keep forgetting that logic and foresight have no place when it comes to Games Workshop.
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Post by: Kingsley
Kilkrazy wrote:Space Marines went up an average 67% between 2002 and 2011.
This is based on the following products; Rhino, Predator, Land Raider, LR Crusader, Combat Squad, Tactical Squad, Terminator Squad, Assault Squad, Dreadnought. The Crusader went up only 17% while the Combat Squad went up 158%.
This doesn't seem correct when you look at how people actually get their models. In practice, Dreadnoughts now cost less than they did in 2002 (you can trivially find Black Reach Dreadnoughts on eBay for 20 dollars, which actually come with a more useful configuration than the standard Dreadnought kit). In practice, Tactical Squads have not changed in price, and their options have increased. Back in the day, it was much more difficult to find discounts on GW products, whereas modern Internet retailers make this very easy. When I was starting the hobby, I was buying Tactical Squads that came with fewer options for 30 dollars. Nowadays, I can buy Tactical Squads with more options for 30 dollars or less online.
While the price of the Predator in particular has increased dramatically (by around 15 dollars!), I think it's safe to say that, generally speaking, the cost of Space Marines (metal characters aside), has gone slightly up or stayed roughly the same, while the quality of the line and the range of options provided has gone up. However, this does not necessarily hold true for other lines. While the two most recent releases, Dark Eldar and Grey Knights, received both substantially improved lines and price reductions in several cases, other armies, such as Imperial Guard, did not, and in fact Imperial Guard prices have increased substantially.
The take-home message here is that price increases are by no means guaranteed. In general, Space Marines and armies that receive substantial revamps (so, in all likelihood, Sisters once they get their real Codex), don't change much in price or go slightly up, while quality increases dramatically. However, more gradual updates (such as the new Imperial Guard or Tyranid Codices) don't usually have the same effect, and often come with significant price hikes.
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Post by: WarOne
H.B.M.C. wrote:They lose that kid and they lose their biggest source of short-term income, and, again, GW loves them some short-term profit!
If only there was some way to brainwash those kids before they leave Primary Education...
History Lesson- George Washington defeated the Brisith with only 3 Rhinos, two Tactical Squads of Marines, and a Predator with only Autocannon and Heavy Bolter sponsons.
Math Lesson- 2+2=Praise the Emperor.
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
Hamsterpants Kirby sports his new trousers.
When you help yourself to the "surplus cash", you really do need pockets this big.
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Post by: warboss
Fetterkey wrote:This doesn't seem correct when you look at how people actually get their models. In practice, Dreadnoughts now cost less than they did in 2002 (you can trivially find Black Reach Dreadnoughts on eBay for 20 dollars, which actually come with a more useful configuration than the standard Dreadnought kit). In practice, Tactical Squads have not changed in price, and their options have increased. Back in the day, it was much more difficult to find discounts on GW products, whereas modern Internet retailers make this very easy. When I was starting the hobby, I was buying Tactical Squads that came with fewer options for 30 dollars. Nowadays, I can buy Tactical Squads with more options for 30 dollars or less online.
While the price of the Predator in particular has increased dramatically (by around 15 dollars!), I think it's safe to say that, generally speaking, the cost of Space Marines (metal characters aside), has gone slightly up or stayed roughly the same, while the quality of the line and the range of options provided has gone up. However, this does not necessarily hold true for other lines. While the two most recent releases, Dark Eldar and Grey Knights, received both
You're way off base with those comparisons. The tactical squad on sale now for $37.25 started at $20 when released with 3rd edition. The only thing that has changed in it is the accessory sprue which has had a few more weapons added. It is absolutely NOT safe to say that marines have stayed the same or just gone up slightly. Plenty of kits like bikes and assault marines have had no changes in many years yet are 50% more expensive than they were in 3rd edition. I'm not saying that some of that raise isn't justified but saying that price raises don't exist is just plain ridiculous. They happen with GW now on a yearly basis. Does every kit go up every year? No, but they never go down in price unless they're being phased out. You're also comparing buying tactical squads at full retail years ago (by saying they were $30) with buying from online discounters now (by paying less than $30 now), which is an apples to oranges comparison as you could have bought them from discounters back then too. In fact, discounters back in 3rd edition had even bigger discounts with STANDARD discounts of 30% and sales at 35-40% periodically.
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Post by: RatBot
Yeah, the whole "You can buy them from online retailers now at a discount that puts them at the same price they retailed for 12 years ago, so there's no difference!" is.... nuts and not a valid argument. Hell, I don't know a single place I can get a brand new box of Tactical Marines or $20. Anywhere. And if you can, I guarantee that place will be out of business quite soon.
My Space Marine army if I bought it now would cost $540-ish, retail. I don't know how much it would've cost at the beginning of third edition, but since tactical squads and rhinos were something like 20 bucks, that alone means I'd spend almost $100 less, right there.
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Post by: H.B.M.C.
And saying that you can get cheap AoBR Dreads off eBay and Bitz sites doesn't change the fact that the current plastic Dread kit is the same as what it was years ago, yet is more expensive.
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Post by: WarOne
H.B.M.C. wrote:And saying that you can get cheap AoBR Dreads off eBay and Bitz sites doesn't change the fact that the current plastic Dread kit is the same as what it was years ago, yet is more expensive.
I think that's because the shareholders (in reality, just 2 people and a cat...jointly owned by the two people) want more money, so they raise the prices to pad their pockets.
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Post by: Kingsley
warboss wrote:You're also comparing buying tactical squads at full retail years ago (by saying they were $30) with buying from online discounters now (by paying less than $30 now), which is an apples to oranges comparison as you could have bought them from discounters back then too. In fact, discounters back in 3rd edition had even bigger discounts with STANDARD discounts of 30% and sales at 35-40% periodically.
I don't know of anyone who bought from discounters at that stage, whereas most people I know do now. It's possible that my local group was just behind the curve, but discounters were definitely not a mainstream thing (at least for me) back then, whereas nowadays many people use them. Overall, the effect on my GW experience has been that prices changed minimally or not at all, whereas options grew dramatically. For instance, the old Command Squad cost 35 dollars retail and was all metal with no customizability and stupid default options, whereas the new Command Squad costs 35 dollars and is all plastic with tons of customizability and options, plus better-looking models. Assault Squads actually went down in price when the 4th edition Codex came out, though I believe they're back to about where they were now.
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Post by: BrassScorpion
And for the person who insisted on arguing endlessly about how the change to Finecast was a sudden change, as if it possibly could be, here's a good quote from the GW Annual Report below that explains exactly the kind of massive planning involved in such a major change to a huge product line. It's the same kind of thing I was explaining in vain to that person (I can't remember the user name) about a month ago, but with more specific details. As I said before, massive changes to major product lines require years of planning, cost analysis, lining up 3rd party contractors for new printing and packaging, etc. These things can't and therefore don't happen suddenly, not unless you can actually cast magic spells or have elves doing the work for you. With the seemingly inexorable rise in the commodity price of metal, combined with the experience we have gained from making Forge World kits and the obvious benefits to customers of resin miniatures, our manufacturing team have spent the last two years looking at the possibility of converting Games Workshop’s metal range of miniatures and kits to resin. That is what Games Workshop has now done with Citadel Finecast.
The initial launch in May 2011 was limited to replacing the metal range stocked in Games Workshop Hobby centres. This comprised over 100 model codes and was the largest range launch in Games Workshop’s history. The scale of this task is not to be underestimated, as making finely detailed resin miniatures in these sorts of quantities has never been attempted before. The initial production run achieved a 97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase. There is a continuous improvement programme in place to ensure that the quality level in production is improved even further.
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Post by: SilverMK2
AgeOfEgos wrote:I remember someone on this board (Can't recall the user) stated that GW's ultimate market strategy was to eventually have one guy filling $500 space marine tactical squad box sets. Made me actually lol.
I believe that was me Although I said their strategy was that they eventually wanted one guy buying a boxed set at £100m, so you may be thinking of someone else with that exact quote.
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Post by: Laughing Man
Fetterkey wrote:warboss wrote:You're also comparing buying tactical squads at full retail years ago (by saying they were $30) with buying from online discounters now (by paying less than $30 now), which is an apples to oranges comparison as you could have bought them from discounters back then too. In fact, discounters back in 3rd edition had even bigger discounts with STANDARD discounts of 30% and sales at 35-40% periodically.
I don't know of anyone who bought from discounters at that stage, whereas most people I know do now. It's possible that my local group was just behind the curve...
I think it's just you. I remember buying models from the War Store back in 2001, and people talking about how much of a ripoff it was to buy straight from GW's site. The only time I ever bought direct was when ordering bitz.
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Post by: RatBot
I've always bought from my two FLGS which sold product, at that time, at 10% and 15% off.
I am quite curious as to this magical webstore where Fetterkey can get brand new Tactical Squads for 33 to 45% off, since that's what it'd take to get 'em at the 1999 price. I know you can find deals on eBay, but I'm talking a webstore.
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Post by: SilverMK2
RatBot wrote:I am quite curious as to this magical webstore where Fetterkey can get brand new Tactical Squads for 33 to 45% off, since that's what it'd take to get 'em at the 1999 price. I know you can find deals on eBay, but I'm talking a webstore.
Please read what has been written - warboss said that many places used to offer discounts of up to 45% during sales, with a more standard discount of ~30%.
The change in GW's trading terms will mean that such discounts are no longer practically possible.
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Post by: RatBot
OK, I misread Fetter's post and he did not say 1999 prices which is where I got 45% off ($20 instead of $37.25).
He did say, though, that you can get Tactical Squads from webstores for $30, and since GW retail used to be $30 something like five years ago, prices haven't gone up.
Simply put, this is a logical fallacy; because when GW retail price was $30, webstores (and Indeed, many brick and mortar indie stores) sold Tactical Squads for $24.
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Post by: Wolfstan
As much as I dislike how GW are behaving, I can understand why they like it. From a money turnover point of view, new gamers coming in and buying in bulk is a lot more attractive to them. Vets staying with them and drip buying isn't really bringing in the money. There are only a cetain amount of new products that can be brought out each year, that will get the Vets buying in bulk. However it does make me wonder how long this way of doing business is sustainable or if it is, how much effort do they have put in to keep it going.
I wonder if they should shrink, giving them the flexibility to deal with both camps. Close stores, invest in indies and advertising to keep the hhhobby part going. Make the discount good and indies will push the GW product. This then gives the company a chance to spend time sorting out the stuff that winds the Vets up. Things like a decent set of rules, codexes that work and tournies that really fire people up.
Perhaps delisting the company would be a better option?
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Post by: Trasvi
In any case, it is rather pointless talking about online retailers, discounters or eBay, as GW's primary customer is buying at full retail from a GW hobby centre. That was me, 10 years ago. And when I started playing in 2001, a High Elf Spearelf box cost me $40, and today the exact same set costs $55. iirc a Tactical Squad was also $40 and is now $62.
More egregious is the Orc Boys box, which was formerly $40 for 19 and is now $48 for 10. Paints, which were $3, are now $6
Arguing that prices have 'stayed the same' is factually incorrect.
Does anyone have a complete listing of price increases somewhere? could be very interesting to look at.
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Post by: RatBot
They should, but they won't do that, wolf, because they don't give a crap about long term growth. Kirby and Wells just want to squeeze as much money as they can out of itvia dividends (remember, they're two of the largest shareholders in the company) and leave the dried up husk behind. Automatically Appended Next Post: Trasvi wrote:In any case, it is rather pointless talking about online retailers, discounters or eBay, as GW's primary customer is buying at full retail from a GW hobby centre. That was me, 10 years ago. And when I started playing in 2001, a High Elf Spearelf box cost me $40, and today the exact same set costs $55. iirc a Tactical Squad was also $40 and is now $62.
More egregious is the Orc Boys box, which was formerly $40 for 19 and is now $48 for 10. Paints, which were $3, are now $6
Arguing that prices have 'stayed the same' is factually incorrect.
Does anyone have a complete listing of price increases somewhere? could be very interesting to look at.
This is the point I was trying to make. Just because you can buy stuff off ebay for cheap doesn't matter. It'd be like if I was saying that Mercedes-Benz are expensive cars, and someone else was like "NUH UH THEY AREN'T I GOT ONE FOR 10 GRAND OFF EBAY."
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Post by: Trasvi
Wolfstan wrote:As much as I dislike how GW are behaving, I can understand why they like it. From a money turnover point of view, new gamers coming in and buying in bulk is a lot more attractive to them. Vets staying with them and drip buying isn't really bringing in the money. There are only a cetain amount of new products that can be brought out each year, that will get the Vets buying in bulk. However it does make me wonder how long this way of doing business is sustainable or if it is, how much effort do they have put in to keep it going.
I wonder if they should shrink, giving them the flexibility to deal with both camps. Close stores, invest in indies and advertising to keep the hhhobby part going. Make the discount good and indies will push the GW product. This then gives the company a chance to spend time sorting out the stuff that winds the Vets up. Things like a decent set of rules, codexes that work and tournies that really fire people up.
Perhaps delisting the company would be a better option?
I don't think there is a single thing that veteran players want that would deter new players. GW could be everything to everyone if they tried.
However, closing down hobby stores does not gel with the GW model. For them, selling through indies is exposing their young, impressionable customers to the competition. GW want to be the first, biggest and best wargame that kids encounter, and convince the kids they are the only wargame, which is very difficult when the $165 GW starter set is on the shelf next to the $40 Malifaux set.
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Post by: Wolfstan
Trasvi wrote:Wolfstan wrote:As much as I dislike how GW are behaving, I can understand why they like it. From a money turnover point of view, new gamers coming in and buying in bulk is a lot more attractive to them. Vets staying with them and drip buying isn't really bringing in the money. There are only a cetain amount of new products that can be brought out each year, that will get the Vets buying in bulk. However it does make me wonder how long this way of doing business is sustainable or if it is, how much effort do they have put in to keep it going.
I wonder if they should shrink, giving them the flexibility to deal with both camps. Close stores, invest in indies and advertising to keep the hhhobby part going. Make the discount good and indies will push the GW product. This then gives the company a chance to spend time sorting out the stuff that winds the Vets up. Things like a decent set of rules, codexes that work and tournies that really fire people up.
Perhaps delisting the company would be a better option?
I don't think there is a single thing that veteran players want that would deter new players. GW could be everything to everyone if they tried.
However, closing down hobby stores does not gel with the GW model. For them, selling through indies is exposing their young, impressionable customers to the competition. GW want to be the first, biggest and best wargame that kids encounter, and convince the kids they are the only wargame, which is very difficult when the $165 GW starter set is on the shelf next to the $40 Malifaux set.
I was going to answer with something about GW deluding themselves... but obviously I stopped myself as this would be stating the obvious It's a chicken and egg thing. For them to stay a worthwhile investment then need to stay in profit, or much better, increase profit. As I said though it does appear to be a really fine line that they are walking to carry on doing this and I wonder how long it can go on for. At some point something will snap. They will either of closed as many of the stores as they can and can't go any further or they will have raised prices so much that it just becomes too expensive to play.
To me I would of thought that having a proper partnership with the indies would be a sensible route. Make the margins on the $165 more of an incentive than the margins on the Malifaux set. Empower the indie to want to sell GW stuff. GW get a store that is putting their stuff first and they don't have to finance it.
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Post by: Kingsley
Trasvi wrote:GW want to be the first, biggest and best wargame that kids encounter, and convince the kids they are the only wargame, which is very difficult when the $165 GW starter set is on the shelf next to the $40 Malifaux set.
Last time I checked, the 40k starter set was 99 dollars, not 165...
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Post by: Trasvi
Aha! check again in Australia, even though with our current exchange rate it should cost $92 for us...
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Post by: Kroothawk
Eeps wrote:1.2 mil total compensation for a CEO of a 120mil revenue business is flying rodent gak insane FWIW, very much out of whack with market remuneration practices.
Kirby wrote:Dividends have returned. I am as pleased as you are.
Tom Kirby gets 860,854 GBP plus suggested further 382,601 GBP as dividends and £462,000 GBP pay, total 1,705,455 GBP this year.
That is 1.38% of total revenue or 11.14 % of operating profits. Quite a lot for one person in a publicly quoted company!
Guess NOONE is as pleased as Kirby about the dividends!
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Post by: Surtur
Could someone photoshop Kirby's head onto a Great Unclean One's body with $ eyes and label it Papa Kirby?
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Post by: Grimtuff
Surtur wrote:Could someone photoshop Kirby's head onto a Great Unclean One's body with $ eyes and label it Papa Kirby?
Do it on this one too.
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Post by: Wolfstan
Is the £15 million profit before or after the dividend comes out?
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Post by: arkapello
I see he sites the Hobby Center Manager training as a reason for better success in the latter half of the year, This seems unlikely. they could do with more thoroughly un-trained lay-abouts who just serve to make you feel welcome, i dont like the whole "im asking you questions that are obviously aimed at finding out what i should try to sell you hard" air i get from most shops.
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Post by: ceorron
arkapello wrote:I see he sites the Hobby Center Manager training as a reason for better success in the latter half of the year, This seems unlikely. they could do with more thoroughly un-trained lay-abouts who just serve to make you feel welcome, i dont like the whole "im asking you questions that are obviously aimed at finding out what i should try to sell you hard" air i get from most shops.
QFT
There is no where else you can go to experience that kind of hard sell though. 
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Post by: Holdenstein
Kroothawk wrote:Eeps wrote:1.2 mil total compensation for a CEO of a 120mil revenue business is flying rodent gak insane FWIW, very much out of whack with market remuneration practices.
Kirby wrote:Dividends have returned. I am as pleased as you are.
Tom Kirby gets 860,854 GBP plus suggested further 382,601 GBP as dividends and £462,000 GBP pay, total 1,705,455 GBP this year.
That is 1.38% of total revenue or 11.14 % of operating profits. Quite a lot for one person in a publicly quoted company!
Guess NOONE is as pleased as Kirby about the dividends!
On the other hand Tom Kirby took a massive personal risk by heading and mostly financing the management buyout of GW and then turning it into the behemoth that it became. Even if GW is not quite a big as it was a few years ago, this is still, from a purely business standpoint, a success and you can't blame him for still owning 5% of the company.
No one came here for a lecture on communism.
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Post by: AlexHolker
ceorron wrote:There is no where else you can go to experience that kind of hard sell though.
I wouldn't say that. I've never heard of redshirts going door to door or making unsolicited phone calls telling you you can buy a Space Marine army.
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Post by: Sidstyler
Holdenstein wrote:On the other hand Tom Kirby took a massive personal risk by heading and mostly financing the management buyout of GW and then turning it into the behemoth that it became. Even if GW is not quite a big as it was a few years ago, this is still, from a purely business standpoint, a success and you can't blame him for still owning 5% of the company.
No one came here for a lecture on communism.
And now that it's become a behemoth, let's run it into the ground and fething kill it!
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Wolfstan wrote:Is the £15 million profit before or after the dividend comes out?
Before.
A company can declare a dividend whatever level of profit it made. Companies have been known to borrow money to pay a dividend, or cancel a dividend even if they have cash on hand.
The share price tends to go down if there is no dividend, or go up when a dividend is declared. (Which is why GW's share price hase just gone up.)
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
No one came here for a lecture on communism.
Where is the lecture?
Could use some intellectual stimulation.
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Post by: Backfire
Kroothawk wrote:Backfire wrote:What they are clearly lacking at the moment is "gateway game".
Given their current state of mind, the next 40k starter box is a limited release sold out the first week
Kilkrazy wrote:The starter sets are loss leaders, but they don't seem to be working.
Are you sure that your definition of loss leader is correct, given the price of 78 € for the starter box?
Wikipedia wrote:A loss leader or leader is a product sold at a low price (at cost or below cost) to stimulate other profitable sales.
I would be extremely surprised if they weren't. Content to price ratio (even with price increase) is much better than in their mainline range. Of course the production volume, simpler design etc. possibly bring down the production costs a bit, but nevertheless.
Recently, they have been increasing the prices of starter sets and battleforces relatively more than main range products. I think their logic goes like "Well, even with price increase they are still somewhat better deals than our regular boxes, so people will buy them anyway". I think this is not very good logic. Especially as many battleforces are pretty crappy as starter sets.
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Post by: gorgon
Bloodwin wrote:For what it's worth the two ways GW need to improve were addressed, they need to be better and faster at getting their message and product out there. The White Dwarf secret embargo is a stupid idea. They need to stop thinking that White Dwarf is the greatest advertising asset they have. They need to get their products on the internet ASAP so that the information hungry fans can get excited. They need to do this so they they get their message out and control the message rather than let independent forums try to guess what they are doing. They then need to focus on making the most money out of the Horus Heresy while it is popular because it's ludicrous that such a massively popular range of books doesn't have cool toy soldiers for fans to buy.
I couldn't agree more with you. I know I've beaten these two points to death.
But it's hard to believe they're taking that approach with marketing and WD in 2011. I'm 100% for controlling the message, and I think big spends in traditional advertising are wrong for GW. But I'm not sure how they think their current approach will get them to their goals.
Similarly, it's hard to believe they've ignored the HH opportunity for this long. The HH books were/are the biggest breath of fresh air the 40K IP has had in many years, and they have nothing to show for it in their core business. At the same time they're looking for a catalyst to reverse the sales decline, they ignore the HH opportunity over a lot of strange, self-imposed rules about that part of the IP.
I want GW to be a healthy company, but their behavior is perplexing at times.
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Post by: keezus
I was told that GW management set sales ($) targets at +3% in fiscal of 2010-2011. It was my source's understanding that if +3% was achieved, (edit) volume would be flat with the previous years, and >+3% in sales across the chain would result in real "return to growth". This suggests that after being spread over the entire range and adjusted proportionally by item (based on historical performance), the price increases for 2010-2011 only amounted to a 3% price increase SYSTEM WIDE.
Not only did this threshold not happen - but sales ($) actually decreased by 3%. After factoring in price increases, volume seems to have dropped by 6%. I find it worrisome that they can't even meet a +3% target - I don't see how Kirby can spout off this gak about "return to growth".
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Post by: Asuron
You know I never understood how the people who run this company don't get that cutting back on these facilities so that they run with the bare minimum, while jacking up the prices sky-high is a good thing.
Its stuff that lecturers teach first year Economic students as things that noone with a brain would seriously consider for christs sake. I mean you can't look at the numbers and deny theres a problem there forever... can you?
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Post by: sourclams
If the only goal is to pay dividends over the short term, then I'd say that their behavior has been more or less justified.
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Post by: boyd
PsyberWolf wrote:It's interesting to note that GW's board is made up of 5 people. The chairman Kirby, CEO Wells, CFO Roundtree and 2 "independent" directors. It always baffled me about the talk related to the years of service of the directors, in previous financial statements, and how they felt they could still be independent... I just made the connection today. Apparently, the guidance for publically traded companies is that an independent board member should have no more than 9 years on the board. The thought is that after such a long time of service they are no longer independent but rather have become almost an "insider" and thus not objective. Kirby and Wells have argued that they are still independent and should stay. It is clear to me that these 2 directors are "yes men" on the dole to the tune of £50,000 as of this year - an increase of almost 32%.
That brings total compensation for the board to over £1 mil - a near 17% increase. I am all for execs being adequately compensated for their labors but when your company has declining revenue and declining profits shouldn't you forgo a pay increase?
What percentage of the Company do these two men own in the Company? The Board of Directors is not to be independent of management, its to give the shareholders a voice in the management of the Company. The SHAREHOLDERS elect these directors. Each share of common stock allows you one vote. Its safe to say if these men are large investors in the Company, why shouldnt' they have a say in the operations of the Company? I believe on the last page I saw someone show how much they earned in Dividends the past year. I would believe they own a considerable share of the Company if they were able to collect nearly 1.6M pounds of the total dividends paid when they only have a profit of 15M pounds. I don't see them being on the board as a problem. If you don't want them there, buy their stock and rally to get them removed. If everyone here were to buy 1 share of GW stock I'm sure that you could elect someone from DAKKA to be on the board. I mean there are how many users on the board?
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Post by: Kilkrazy
45,970 as of right now.
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
The largest shareholders are investment trust funds iirc. I suspect that the "independent" directors are there to protect the interests of such companies.
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Post by: boyd
RatBot wrote:... but when your company has declining revenue and declining profits shouldn't you forgo a pay increase?
Heh. A heh heh. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA! Ha ha, hooo... Yeah.
I mean, they should, but that'll never happen. I keep hearing all the time about companies with dwindling profits and generally shrinking, but the top executives damn sure get their raises and bonuses!
THe reason they get their bonus is due to the fact they have invested in the Company. Most US companies are Sole Proprietorships, LLC's, Partnerships, or S-Corps. So if the Company has a $1M Net income, the owners will all get a "Bonus" or what ever you want to call it because the earnings flow through to the owners. The IRS website has had several articles showing that most of the US Companies have had their Directors, Presidents, and other top management return compensation over the last 2 years. Also, many of these Companies offer "Stock Options" which is where CEO's and other top Executives really make out - their employment contract says they have access to X shares per year that they can buy at a stated price in their employment agreement (usually something like $1 as there were new rules that recently came out about Stock Options). They are then able to exercise the option and sell these shares on the market. So if the CEO is able to drive the price up to $50 a share and he has 10,000 options he just made $490,000. This my friend is how they make their big bonuses. Options are nice because they align management's goals with that of the investor which is why they limit the number of shares and will stage out the total shares they get (usually starting out low and getting more options each year so that the incentive is more long term growth).
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
That still suggests the primary motive for their short term policy making is self interest, rather than the long term well being of the company.
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Post by: boyd
Reading everyone's response I can only thing of GW's new slogan should read, "We've upped out standards. So up yours." (Shamelessly stolen from the 7 UP commercials 5-7 years ago). Automatically Appended Next Post: Kilkrazy wrote:45,970 as of right now.
Why don't we all just go buy 1-2 shares and elect someone to serve on their board. Its a lot easier to manage the system when you're inside it.
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
Given their base standards, and I mean base in more ways than one, upping the ante is not good news for the customer.
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Post by: boyd
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:That still suggests the primary motive for their short term policy making is self interest, rather than the long term well being of the company.
Usually they stagger it out so that if you're going to get 105,000 shares over 6 years you'll get 5K year 1, 10K year 2, 15K year 3, 20K year 4, 25K year 5, and 30K in year 6. This should put management's interest in line with the investors. Automatically Appended Next Post: WarOne wrote:H.B.M.C. wrote:And saying that you can get cheap AoBR Dreads off eBay and Bitz sites doesn't change the fact that the current plastic Dread kit is the same as what it was years ago, yet is more expensive.
I think that's because the shareholders (in reality, just 2 people and a cat...jointly owned by the two people) want more money, so they raise the prices to pad their pockets.
They are a public company. Yes they want more money. Name me one public company that doesn't want more money? Better yet, invest your money with me. I'll use it and won't give you any return on your investment what-so-ever for a couple of years and then I'll give it back to you. Does that sound fair to you? Automatically Appended Next Post: Holdenstein wrote:Kroothawk wrote:Eeps wrote:1.2 mil total compensation for a CEO of a 120mil revenue business is flying rodent gak insane FWIW, very much out of whack with market remuneration practices.
Kirby wrote:Dividends have returned. I am as pleased as you are.
Tom Kirby gets 860,854 GBP plus suggested further 382,601 GBP as dividends and £462,000 GBP pay, total 1,705,455 GBP this year.
That is 1.38% of total revenue or 11.14 % of operating profits. Quite a lot for one person in a publicly quoted company!
Guess NOONE is as pleased as Kirby about the dividends!
On the other hand Tom Kirby took a massive personal risk by heading and mostly financing the management buyout of GW and then turning it into the behemoth that it became. Even if GW is not quite a big as it was a few years ago, this is still, from a purely business standpoint, a success and you can't blame him for still owning 5% of the company.
No one came here for a lecture on communism.
I'm just a bit confused on how the salary for Kirby is calculated:
He gets
860,854 for ???? I would assume this is his salary?
382,601 for dividends
462,000 in pay - would this be a bonus or the sale of stock options what is this really
You're throwing out numbers that don't necessarily say much. Total compensation should be calculated as Wages + Bonus. Not Wages + Bonus + Benefits + Fringe Benefits (Company vehicle, Company Travel, etc) + Dividends Received + Stock Sold - Cost of Stock. Also you compare your expenses to Total Revenues. Comparing to total Net Income does not provide any meaningful info to anyone. My wife has a business and her salary is 80% of Total Revenues and accounts for almost 300% of the net income for the Company.
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Post by: Kroothawk
Wolfstan wrote:Is the £15 million profit before or after the dividend comes out?
They make a profit of £ 15.3m and pay dividends of £ 19.67m, so drain the company of £ 4.37m.
AlexHolker wrote:ceorron wrote:There is no where else you can go to experience that kind of hard sell though.
I wouldn't say that. I've never heard of redshirts going door to door or making unsolicited phone calls telling you you can buy a Space Marine army.
Don't give them ideas!
Kilkrazy wrote: Companies have been known to borrow money to pay a dividend, or cancel a dividend even if they have cash on hand.
GW did that as well.
keezus wrote:Not only did this threshold not happen - but sales ($) actually decreased by 3%. After factoring in price increases, volume seems to have dropped by 6%. I find it worrisome that they can't even meet a +3% target - I don't see how Kirby can spout off this gak about "return to growth".
In his words, the company has so much money, they can't spend more on expanding, therefore better give the money to him
boyd wrote:I'm just a bit confused on how the salary for Kirby is calculated:
He gets
860,854 for ???? I would assume this is his salary?
382,601 for dividends
462,000 in pay - would this be a bonus or the sale of stock options what is this really
You're throwing out numbers that don't necessarily say much.
Again:
His pay is 462.000 GBP (15% more than last year BTW).
He already agreed to a dividend of 45p per share for this year, giving him another 860,854 GBP. He proposed another 28p per share, giving him another 382,601 GBP.
This gives him a total of 1.7m company money.
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Post by: odinsgrandson
Kroothawk wrote:Wolfstan wrote:Is the £15 million profit before or after the dividend comes out?
They make a profit of £ 15.3m and pay dividends of £ 19.67m, so drain the company of £ 4.37m.
So, sales went down, therefore let's drain the company to create dividends and artificially inflate our stocks?
On one hand, that sounds like an unsustainable practice. On the other, it sounds like business as usual for a corporation (with the end goal of keeping investors happy).
It sometimes feels tough when we see that we, the fans, are clearly not a priority for this company. But that's not news, GW's been to big to think of its fan base first for a while now.
But I wish they could pretend better.
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Post by: keezus
After thinking about it a bit more... Assuming a linear trend and extending the 3% decrease in sales dollars and 3% annual price adjustment back to 2006, and using 2006 as a baseline year - we have a cumulative:
14.1% decrease in sales
15.9% increase in prices distributed across all pricing bands adjusted for volumes based on historical movements
Combining these two yields an overall decrease of 25.9% in volumes - as clearly, decreased sales aren't making up the difference in price. More worrisome is that, during this same period, 40k standard army size increased from 1700 to 1850 (10%). Fantasy standard army size increased from 2000 to 2500 (20%). This means that for the same product sold, we're getting fewer armies out of the mix. Add on top of this, stealth price raises in terms of repacks and recut kits (I used a conservative stealth increase of 5% over 5 years - considering the new codexes have every decreasing points values!) - Assuming that buying trends of retained customers stayed the same - this would represent a loss in customer base of 38%.
My math may be wrong, but at first blush, that can't be good.
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Post by: AgeOfEgos
Don't forget to figure in inflationary offset.
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Post by: darkPrince010
Based on these figures of (I'm assuming based off of the current thread) decline, does anyone more buisness-minded here know how much longer they can maintain this descent before it will start to impact the company? Like a ballpark of 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 years or whatever?
Also, my thanks to the more worldly people on here who can decipher the figures for us laymen
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Post by: Kilkrazy
It will depend on their ability to not frighten customers off with the constantly increasing prices.
We can imagine a scenario in which GW make only one single model a year, a solid gold, life size Space Marine ten feet tall, and it is bought for £120 million by Roman Abramovich. But that will never happen.
Instead, there will come a point where the price increase by GW becomes counter productive. For example, they increase prices by 10% but sell 11% fewer models, and revenue decreases as well as unit sales.
Once that line is crossed they will have to stop price increases for a while, and hope that customers have not been permanently frightened away.
It's possible that every customer who decides to avoid GW because of high prices will buy other companies' products. The nightmare scenario for GW is that those people might start to recommend competing products in place of GW. The network effect could go to work for other companies, or even go into reverse.
We've seen a huge jump of interest and support for Infinity in the past few months, sparked by the GW price rises and the Infinity Week at Beasts of War.
That means lots more players are now able to find lots more players of Infinity. They are not so likely to recommend GW to friends. The next step is for those people to start actively recommending against GW.
The other thing GW can do is to up their game. Produce better rules and models.
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Post by: keezus
Kilkrazy wrote:Instead, there will come a point where the price increase by GW becomes counter productive. For example, they increase prices by 10% but sell 11% fewer models, and revenue decreases as well as unit sales.
Uh... aren't they already at this point? The fact that they raised prices 3% (aggregate) AND had decreased revenue from sales of 3%
At the current rate of decline, considering they had 15M GBP profits, they could conceivably hang on for quite some time... the trouble is that once you raise your price past a certain amount, your volumes are going to drop like a stone - and as each non-sale is worth more, each one hurts proportionally more. The current report doesn't show this point as having been reached yet. I suspect that if this tipping point is passed, we'll all notice it well in advance of any official report issued by GW.
YMMV, but in my neck of the woods, 40k is dying a horrible death - on average, from what I can see at the two "flagship" GW's, on vet's night, attendance is down 80% from the heyday in 2005-2006 - these stores used to be rammed full of hobbyists... the last time I passed by the mall store on a Thursday night, there was one guy there playing a staffer, and one guy there playing his buddy. At my two local independant FLGS, 40k is down to 5% and 0% respectively. Fantasy has never been healthy at our FLGS as far as I can see... it seems to be hovering on life support - neither of the owners are ordering in new product much anymore, as there is simply no demand. While I am certain this is not representative of the health of the entire hobby, once GW hits that final tipping point - as it stands now, I don't see them having the ability to quickly react, as they've cut too much staff in search of efficiencies and not retained enough cash in the bank as a cushion for that rainy day.
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Post by: darkPrince010
Kilkrazy wrote:We can imagine a scenario in which GW make only one single model a year, a solid gold, life size Space Marine ten feet tall, and it is bought for £120 million by Roman Abramovich.
I'd bet they've already struck the molds, and have plans in the works to eventually make a Finecast version for 150 million using the tears of endangered species. This will, of course, strictly adhere to their 97% quality ratio.
On a slight side note, does anyone else know of a battle game similar to 40K in scope? I knoe KoW is competing with WHFB, but Infinity isn't quite the same scale as 40K, and I haven't heard of anything similar. Just curious if 40K is getting the same competition system-wise as WHFB is.
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Post by: infinite_array
darkPrince010 wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:We can imagine a scenario in which GW make only one single model a year, a solid gold, life size Space Marine ten feet tall, and it is bought for £120 million by Roman Abramovich.
I'd bet they've already struck the molds, and have plans in the works to eventually make a Finecast version for 150 million using the tears of endangered species. This will, of course, strictly adhere to their 97% quality ratio.
On a slight side note, does anyone else know of a battle game similar to 40K in scope? I knoe KoW is competing with WHFB, but Infinity isn't quite the same scale as 40K, and I haven't heard of anything similar. Just curious if 40K is getting the same competition system-wise as WHFB is.
Isn't Mantic's 'Warpath' supposed to be on the same battle scale?
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Post by: boyd
Kroothawk wrote:Wolfstan wrote:boyd wrote:I'm just a bit confused on how the salary for Kirby is calculated:
He gets
860,854 for ???? I would assume this is his salary?
382,601 for dividends
462,000 in pay - would this be a bonus or the sale of stock options what is this really
You're throwing out numbers that don't necessarily say much.
Again:
His pay is 462.000 GBP (15% more than last year BTW).
He already agreed to a dividend of 45p per share for this year, giving him another 860,854 GBP. He proposed another 28p per share, giving him another 382,601 GBP.
This gives him a total of 1.7m company money.
Gotcha - I don't think you should count dividends as employee compensation. I know in the US its not GAAP when we look at executive compensation. We look at ESOPs, Bonuses, and Fringe Benefits (if they have a Company owned boat or aircraft). That is what we use to determine their true compensation because dividends are investments they make.
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Post by: sourclams
keezus wrote:Combining these two yields an overall decrease of 25.9% in volumes - as clearly, decreased sales aren't making up the difference in price. More worrisome is that, during this same period, 40k standard army size increased from 1700 to 1850 (10%). Fantasy standard army size increased from 2000 to 2500 (20%). This means that for the same product sold, we're getting fewer armies out of the mix. Add on top of this, stealth price raises in terms of repacks and recut kits (I used a conservative stealth increase of 5% over 5 years - considering the new codexes have every decreasing points values!) - Assuming that buying trends of retained customers stayed the same - this would represent a loss in customer base of 38%.
These numbers actually ring pretty true anecdotally. When I think about my local gaming community, I would say that we've gone from 12 regular 40k players with a whole lot more 'casual'/'ancillary' players to maybe 8 or 9 regulars and a much more sparse 'casual' crowd. This includes player turnover, as plenty of people, including myself, have largely left the hobby but new people join.
What fascinates me reading the CEO comments is the complete disconnect between the perception of GW as a niche market with an inelastic demand base and the policy of 'churn and burn'; recruiting new people, selling a large entry package, and then letting them drop from the market.
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Post by: darkPrince010
@infinite array:Oh. Didn't know they were developing that. Hmmm, I just may have to look into that...
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Post by: Kilkrazy
darkPrince010 wrote:... ...
On a slight side note, does anyone else know of a battle game similar to 40K in scope? I knoe KoW is competing with WHFB, but Infinity isn't quite the same scale as 40K, and I haven't heard of anything similar. Just curious if 40K is getting the same competition system-wise as WHFB is.
I assume you mean a 28mm "big skirmish" game with about eight to 12 units a side, containing one to 20-ish models per unit. Also, SF, including small numbers of vehicles, and presumably 28mm so you can continue to use your 40K figures.
I know there are plenty of systems around, which personally I haven't played.
Jim Wallman's Starship Marines and Starship Soldier are probably worth a look. http://www.jimwallman.org.uk/wargame/
Free Wargames Rules lists a whole bunch of stuff -- you'll have to sift out the big skirmish sets. http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/sci-fi.html
There are various paid for systems available too.
Dead Systems
AT-43 may be worth a look. With a bit of adaptation it will accommodate larger units.
Starship Troopers got good reviews.
There is heaps of stuff out there. Check the thread here... http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/369662.page
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Post by: Korraz
Isn't Dust Tactics (aka AT-43 IMPROVED) in the same scale and size?
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Post by: Kroothawk
darkPrince010 wrote:Based on these figures of (I'm assuming based off of the current thread) decline, does anyone more buisness-minded here know how much longer they can maintain this descent before it will start to impact the company? Like a ballpark of 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 years or whatever?
Let's just say, the major leech announced that he will leave in the not too distant future (the host is close to be sucked dry )
keezus wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Instead, there will come a point where the price increase by GW becomes counter productive. For example, they increase prices by 10% but sell 11% fewer models, and revenue decreases as well as unit sales.
Uh... aren't they already at this point? The fact that they raised prices 3% (aggregate) AND had decreased revenue from sales of 3%.
That's how I interpret the numbers as well: Price increases didn't compensate for lower sales for several years now.
boyd wrote:Gotcha - I don't think you should count dividends as employee compensation. I know in the US its not GAAP when we look at executive compensation. We look at ESOPs, Bonuses, and Fringe Benefits (if they have a Company owned boat or aircraft). That is what we use to determine their true compensation because dividends are investments they make.
Kirby is not investing, he is drawing money out of the company real fast. And he personally made the decisions (in contrast to being an outsider just benefiting) to draw this money out for his own benefit and the obvious disadvantage of the company left behind in shambles.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Revenue has been fairly level for several years. That doesn't seem to indicate the critical price point has been passed.
Personally I think they may have gone past it this year. If so, we could expect to see an acceleration of decline in next year's report. I mean an actual drop in revenues.
Unless Finecast saves them, of course, or perhaps a magnificent recovery of the world economy (if that is a factor.)
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Post by: Kroothawk
Kilkrazy wrote:Revenue has been fairly level for several years. That doesn't seem to indicate the critical price point has been passed.
Look at the table you made in the other thread, with the 2010 column showing the revenue in 2010 prices:
Revenue losses in the years: 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and now 2011 (with minor rises in 2009 and 2010).
I think that is quite convincing. The current revenue is below the level of 2001 for Christ's sake!! Tell me again of a growing business!
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Post by: keezus
This table is for overall revenue and not monies derived from sales right? If that is the case then aren't the revenue increases in 2009, 2010 due to GW's aggressive reductions in their overhead, literally taking a chainsaw to their own legs?
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Post by: Laughing Man
keezus wrote:This table is for overall revenue and not monies derived from sales right? If that is the case then aren't the revenue increases in 2009, 2010 due to GW's aggressive reductions in their overhead, literally taking a chainsaw to their own legs?
Those would be operating expenses, and thus a change in profits, not revenue.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
keezus wrote:This table is for overall revenue and not monies derived from sales right? If that is the case then aren't the revenue increases in 2009, 2010 due to GW's aggressive reductions in their overhead, literally taking a chainsaw to their own legs?
It is for gross revenue corrected for currency variation by GW and converted to 2010 £ values for inflation by me.
Reductions in overhead, etc, would show up in profit figures.
We are interested in revenue because when we see the prices going up faster than inflation, and the inflation corrected revenues being static, it shows that unit sales are falling. In other words, fewer boxes shifted at higher prices.
@Kroothawk, I think we are talking past each other slightly.
I am looking at the figures from the perspective of my business degree. To me, a fall in sales caused by exceeding the market clearing price would show up as a reduction in revenues. The variation of revenues over the past five years (including 2011, not shown) is actually rather small and anyway, the trend of the past three years seems upwards. Therefore I do not see evidence that rising prices are driving down revenues, though I believe they are driving down unit sales.
If the price rises continue it will reach a point where not only unit sales but also revenues are pushed down.
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Post by: Kroothawk
I still don't understand.
If the revenue goes down like in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and now 2011 (by 4m, 21m, 28m, 9m, 4m and 7m GBP respectively) , that is not REALLY going down, but if it goes up 2m and 3m GBP in between that is a massive trend? And that current revenue is lower than in any year since 2001 is not a sign that price rises of 50-150% since 2001 are not generating growing revenue?
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Post by: Kilkrazy
I did not claim a massive trend. I said that revenues had been broadly level for the past five years, which is true. The gap between the top and bottom is about 5%. The variation from average is at most 2.5%. There isn't any discernable trend because the figures go up and down.
I see no point comparing revenues at the height of the LoTR boom with today, because there is an obvious distortion in the figures.
Based on the evidence in my hands, price rises have been faster in the past five years than in the first half of the decade.
To the extent that we can compare things, revenues now are about the same as just before the LoTR boom.
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Post by: boyd
Kilkrazy wrote:keezus wrote:This table is for overall revenue and not monies derived from sales right? If that is the case then aren't the revenue increases in 2009, 2010 due to GW's aggressive reductions in their overhead, literally taking a chainsaw to their own legs?
It is for gross revenue corrected for currency variation by GW and converted to 2010 £ values for inflation by me.
Not sure where you're getting your inflation figures but this may help if you want to find inflation figures at least for the US. Its not perfect as they are a MNC but it would help. I would suggest using TIPS Inflation Indexed for 10 maturities (FN12). http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/data.htm
Kroothawk wrote:boyd wrote:Gotcha - I don't think you should count dividends as employee compensation. I know in the US its not GAAP when we look at executive compensation. We look at ESOPs, Bonuses, and Fringe Benefits (if they have a Company owned boat or aircraft). That is what we use to determine their true compensation because dividends are investments they make.
Kirby is not investing, he is drawing money out of the company real fast. And he personally made the decisions (in contrast to being an outsider just benefiting) to draw this money out for his own benefit and the obvious disadvantage of the company left behind in shambles.
Its still an investment as he owns stock in the company. As a large single shareholder he has this ability to call for a dividend. As I've been told there is a large trust that has a significant stake in the Company, did they not vote for it as well? The other significant owners of the Company agreed to the dividends. What projects should they be investing in right now? Do you have some insight as to what they need to reinvest in the Company and do with this money rather than give it back to the shareholders? Their report makes it clear they are satisfied with Finecast even though we all know it has its issues. They seem to be confident that they will have these issues worked out shortly. It looks like they are making a net profit after all their bills are paid and a decent one at that.
If you really want to change things up there, try and get everyone on the board to buy a couple of shares and put together a voting bloc to get someone elected to the Board. Otherwise we can all try and "arm chair" quaterback their decisions and tell everyone how we could run the Company better and for less pay.
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Post by: Pacific
boyd wrote:
Its still an investment as he owns stock in the company. As a large single shareholder he has this ability to call for a dividend. As I've been told there is a large trust that has a significant stake in the Company, did they not vote for it as well? The other significant owners of the Company agreed to the dividends. What projects should they be investing in right now? Do you have some insight as to what they need to reinvest in the Company and do with this money rather than give it back to the shareholders?
They might say they have spent all the money they need, but you could argue that there are some glaring shortfalls in several areas. I don't want to go into too much detail here, as many of these are worthy (and have had) threads of their own, but in basic terms:
- You said it, Finecast. A company the size of GW should never have let that quality of product hit the shelves. They had known that the release was coming, most likely for years, and should have planned properly to make it right. They might say 97% in terms of quality control, 2+2=5 or whatever, one of the UK's biggest internet retailers (Wayland) said otherwise. They will most likely amend this problem in the future, but the damage has already been done. I would say Finecast could definitely have done with some more $ invested in it.
- Cutbacks were made in the R&D department of the company and staff laid off. A major complaint is the speed of new codex/army book releases, and then lack of balance or rules gripes when they do arrive.
- Regurgitation of old artwork and printed material - a valid complaint of the new O&G book. Yes the new format is nice, but a lot of the fans expected more. I feel the problem here is artwork costs $, partly why the covers of boxes were changed to photoshopped models rather than the imaginative and emotive pieces of artwork they used to be. Make WD a magazine worth reading again (and a gateway to the hobby) by paying journalists to write for it. Something that stopped some time ago.
Which leads me on to..
- The complete denial of the internet, let along digital, age. Where are the marketing strategies, or investment in new forms of distribution using the internet? Look at what Corvus Belli has done with Infinity - rules available for download, a rules wiki and online army builder. I'm not saying that printed mediums should be neglected (and indeed a printed rulebook is available for Infinity) but give the fans a choice for how they access the rules. Pirated scans of the rules will appear on the web regardless, so why not create an option for people to do so legally?
- Continuing from the above (it needs two bullet points!), why not go further? Computer aided tools for playing the game, downloadable beta testing software (ala Mantic), tabletop graphics programs with touch screen interfaces and the like (making use of new smart phone technology). Help integrate the tabletop hobby into modern accessories which people use as part of their daily lives.
- Investment into 3D printing technology. Read around on the internet, it's not that far away and the company should be aiming to stay ahead of the game.
- Branch out with the IP. Look at what Marvel has done in terms of their movie and video game releases. Arguably GW's IP is it's most powerful weapon, one game coming along every couple of years is far lower than they should be aiming for, and as the situation with Marvel proves there is the potential for them to reap great rewards in terms of royalties. If the decline in GW's sales is indicative of a larger trend of the decline in wargaming in general, then it would pay to hedge their bets here and spread their money out.
- Development of new games. Look at board games, Mantic's initial run of Dwarf King's Hold completely sold out its initial run of 100,000. There exists massive potential for cheaper, entry level games, which can be enjoyed by people who have less than $400-$500 and hundreds of spare hours to make and paint an army. The continuing success of Maliflux and Infinity show that the skirmish level game market is alive and well and craving new material. GW should be using it's IP, it's massive gaming experience and production capability to produce stuff that give these upstarts a run for their money. But instead, some of the best games they have ever produced are left to rot in one corner of the website. The one game that was a big success (Space Hulk) doesn't seem to have begun a trend or raised any eyebrows at HQ ("Hang on a minute... ") But again, the cutback in R&D has made expansion into this area difficult. Instead we will just continue to get regurgitations of old rules, published with the same pictures in a slightly different order, and a 5% change in the content every 2 to 3 years. I can see why so many of the older rules developers and writers have left the company, as it must be an extremely stifling environment for anyone who is creative in nature.
But how much of this is going to matter to a man in his 60's, close to retirement, when he can organise a dividend payment (along with pay increase for himself - I'm sure that makes the thousands of laid off GW workers feel better) and receive more than $2 million in the space of 12 months? No, far better to say, "I've done my homework ma, I want to play now" and let the company continue on it's plodding course when it could be breaking new ground.
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Post by: 12thRonin
What your chart tells me is the bubble from LotR was still going into 2006. Outside of that, the company is consistently in the 119-121m range. I don't see growth, but I see it being consistent outside of anomalous factors.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
It grew in the 90s but we can't see that because we don't have their own figures going back any farther. Unless a member is a long time investor and has kept his old annual reports and could list them up for us. (It's hard to think of but 12 years ago it would still have been fairly unusual to publish financial reports as PDF documents.)
When I created the chart I used the UK official CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation figures, largely because GW is a UK company, and does its final accounting in GBP. Also the UK accounts for 40% of the market. I'm aware there are issues with CPI and RPI however you have to take a stance.
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Post by: odinsgrandson
keezus wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Instead, there will come a point where the price increase by GW becomes counter productive. For example, they increase prices by 10% but sell 11% fewer models, and revenue decreases as well as unit sales.
Uh... aren't they already at this point? The fact that they raised prices 3% (aggregate) AND had decreased revenue from sales of 3%
At the current rate of decline, considering they had 15M GBP profits, they could conceivably hang on for quite some time...
Well, sure- except that this does show that the company shrunk after that 15m GBP of profits. Paying out 19m GBP in dividends does that. If things continue on this trend, then GW is in a lot of trouble. Now, if this year was an anomaly, then it isn't an issue.
I wonder if the 40k 6th edition next year is going to grow the game or sink it. You don't want a new edition coming out when people are already thinking about quitting.
keezus wrote:
YMMV, but in my neck of the woods, 40k is dying a horrible death - on average, from what I can see at the two "flagship" GW's, on vet's night, attendance is down 80% from the heyday in 2005-2006 - these stores used to be rammed full of hobbyists... the last time I passed by the mall store on a Thursday night, there was one guy there playing a staffer, and one guy there playing his buddy. At my two local independant FLGS, 40k is down to 5% and 0% respectively.
Interesting.
Kilkrazy wrote:
It's possible that every customer who decides to avoid GW because of high prices will buy other companies' products. The nightmare scenario for GW is that those people might start to recommend competing products in place of GW. The network effect could go to work for other companies, or even go into reverse.
Privateer Press have had their best year ever. And Malifaux grew like mad. I'm sure that's totally unrelated information...
darkPrince010 wrote:
On a slight side note, does anyone else know of a battle game similar to 40K in scope? I knoe KoW is competing with WHFB, but Infinity isn't quite the same scale as 40K, and I haven't heard of anything similar. Just curious if 40K is getting the same competition system-wise as WHFB is.
Well:
Warmachine/Hordes just released a format that allows for larger games. This equivalent to Apocalypse is actually about the size of a normal 40k game- and added to this, they've just released their first tank-sized minis- it looks like this is the #1 competitor for 40k. The aesthetic of Warmachine is somewhere between science fiction and steam-punk fantasy- which I think competes with 40k much more than it does WFB.
Rackham tried to do a more direct competitor a little while ago in AT-43. The game featured "repaintable prepainted minis" did very well at first (outselling WFB) but Rackham got over-excited about it. When they turned their already successful Confrontation game into a pre-painted monstrosity, fans turned on them hardcore. Rackham never recovered (on a plus note, Coolmini will be releasing old Confrontation figs).
As for other science fiction games, most have kept their scale low- and there are a few in the works that look like they'll have very small scale games as well. Dark Age tends to have fewer than 20 minis per side, as does Infinity and the as-yet unfinished Relic Knight and Sedition Wars games.
Mantic Games will release a game to go with their 40k equivalents line, but that is also an unfinished work. It is likely to be larger scale, however, given Mantic's record.
Oh, and it needs to be shown again:
Kroothawk wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Revenue has been fairly level for several years. That doesn't seem to indicate the critical price point has been passed.
Look at the table you made in the other thread, with the 2010 column showing the revenue in 2010 prices:
Revenue losses in the years: 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and now 2011 (with minor rises in 2009 and 2010).
I think that is quite convincing. The current revenue is below the level of 2001 for Christ's sake!! Tell me again of a growing business!
So... holy crap. And yet, all of the professionals I talked to at Gencon told me that wargaming in general was growing. If these things are both true, it means that the hobby is growing and leaving GW behind.
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Post by: AlexHolker
odinsgrandson wrote:Mantic Games will release a game to go with their 40k equivalents line, but that is also an unfinished work. It is likely to be larger scale, however, given Mantic's record.
Unfortunately, they seem content to use resin instead of plastic for core units, thus removing the primary reason why we liked them better than GW.
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Post by: Schmapdi
AlexHolker wrote:odinsgrandson wrote:Mantic Games will release a game to go with their 40k equivalents line, but that is also an unfinished work. It is likely to be larger scale, however, given Mantic's record.
Unfortunately, they seem content to use resin instead of plastic for core units, thus removing the primary reason why we liked them better than GW.
Why do you say that? Mantic resin is getting to be much cheaper than GW plastic. The new resin Mantic orc boar riders are an astoundingly cheap $35 for 10; compared to $50 for 10 GW plastic. I know the main reason I like Mantic is that they make nice minis at an affordable price. Resin seems to only have enhanced that.
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Post by: Mr Mystery
Business illiterate myself.....
Is anyone factoring in the general downturn in the world economy? How is GW doing in the bigger picture? Suffering the same, doing better, worse?
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
There is no discernable pattern that fits the overall growth and recent slide of the domestic economy, at least none I can see.
The nadir was the second quarter of 2009
sales have not really fallen or risen with the British GDP.
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Post by: Mr Mystery
It's just I remember GW getting a slightly random mention on the BBC Website in an article regarding HMV's troubles, so I was wondering if there is any correalation.
Thanks for the input though!
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
That rings a bell
Could have been with regard to a dip in share prices
That does follow the overall pattern of GDP, except they have not dropped recently as the rate of growth has dropped off.
That maybe to do with the announcements of dividends.
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Post by: Mr Mystery
Gyarr.
Not really all that fussed for the financial shape of the company, just as long as they're capable of producing more plastic crack for my consumption!
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Post by: Phototoxin
I seen this.. kirbs got a +20% pay rise.. if he's retiring he probably is just sucking what he can from it.
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Post by: Grot 6
The beatings will continue until moral improves.
They really set up a good Fred Astare routine with this report. I haven't heard !@#$ all like that in quite some time.
Wish that they would smarten up and do the right thing here. I really liked this game once upon a time.
Too bad huberous had to !@#$ it all up.
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
Think you may mean hubris
unless it is a portmanteau of hubris + humerous = huberous
Which probably makes sense
The arrogance is certainly a joke imho
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Post by: Aspiring Champion
Trasvi wrote:
Wells also comments on the 'booming' web store - 150,000 new registrations! - yet the sales from the web store were behind last years.
I've been so traumatised by GW, my mind has blanked out much of the horror. Didn't they make a bunch of everyday stuff Direct Only, forcing gamers to register at in store terminals to buy it? It seems disingenuous to trumpet website success when that was the only way to obtain the products.
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Post by: filbert
GW have stated in previous reports to be unaffected by the global financial downturn. To quote KillKrazy from a previous discussion:
Kilkrazy wrote:
GW themselves say
GW's half year report wrote:As a niche business, Games Workshop, in general terms, neither benefits nor suffers from macro economic factors.
In other words, GW themselves do not ascribe their results to the state of the economy.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:There is no discernable pattern that fits the overall growth and recent slide of the domestic economy, at least none I can see.
The nadir was the second quarter of 2009
sales have not really fallen or risen with the British GDP.
The figures given in my table have been currency corrected to remove the influence of the weak GBP.
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Post by: Chibi Bodge-Battle
Puma 713 posted this link on another thread which deals in part with the wider ecomomic situation.
http://dukesinferno.blogspot.com/2011/07/financial-analysis-of-gw.html#more
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Post by: Adam LongWalker
This was a good read as the person on that site simplifies the Gobbledygook for us normal people to read
Edited due to misspelling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobbledygook
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