This came up in the discussion on shortages in new Tau products.

AFAIK about a year ago, GW closed its production facility in China (still outsourcing some printing though).

The US production facilities in Memphis were also closed a few months ago:

 Captain Vyper wrote:
As mikhaila posted,
US manufacturing is gone several months ago, machines were sold off, molds returned to the UK, plant manager given his walking papers. Memphis is currently a giant warehouse for shipping and receiving.

Seems, only the UK facilities are left.

This coincidences with predictions by people reading the yearly GW business reports, seeing that the total revenue (inflation adjusted) is more or less flat for 7 years, since 2006. Given massive price increases above inflation rate (including metal to Finecast conversions and rising Codex prices), the actual sales should decrease substantially over the same period.


The closing of all non-UK production facilities and shortages of products if anything surprisingly sells well, are probably the best evidence we currently have that GW is actually shrinking. Most of us suspected that anyway. Also remember that even plastic kits like the Basilisk or Catachans were taken from the shelves.

So, does anybody else have any insight in this?

It's interesting to note that the Mephis plant has closed down, simply because one of the primary reasons for it opening in the first place was the apparent acknowledgement that if there was a fire or something in Nottingham the company would have lost its whole production capability.*

So with that in mind, is it possible that premise has changed somehow?


* prompted by the container ship sinking all those years ago, and yes those Eldar Falcons are still there for anyone with the grit and determination to get them

 Pacific wrote:
It's interesting to note that the Mephis plant has closed down, simply because one of the primary reasons for it opening in the first place was the apparent acknowledgement that if there was a fire or something in Nottingham the company would have lost its whole production capability.*

So with that in mind, is it possible that premise has changed somehow?


* prompted by the container ship sinking all those years ago, and yes those Eldar Falcons are still there for anyone with the grit and determination to get them

So does that mean all it takes is one fire?

Initially I thought that this was simply another scam, and GW was lying about being out of stock of products to try and increase demand and screw over FLGS. However after hearing about the Tennessee plant closing my opinion has changed. GW is attempting in any way possible to desperately produce good profit reports even if it damages them long term. Insane price hikes, switching to low-quality building materials (finecast), one man stores with limited hours/no gaming, scam "limited edition" products twice the amount of the original (something that has moved into BL).I think closing production facilities and selling the machinery off is another such attempt to produce positive results to shareholders for at least one more year.

Shame they're so short-sighted.

Hey fellas,

Corporate sell-offs are a pretty hard thing.

My wife worked for a petroleum company that decided to sell its self. They fired half the management first.

It would actually be a good thing for our hobby community to see the proverbial goliath get knocke dout by the wave of Kickstarter projects that actually respond to their customers.

It now looks like the missing Tau stock has been found

US/UK games stores that had been told they wern't getting anything have now been told their stuff will arrive as planned

and the ''availablilty 1-2 weeks" which had appeared on a number of the new Tau kits on the UK GW webstore have reverted back to "advance order" as they were originally

I wonder if there wasn't some sort of software glitch ? The computer went wonky and GW thought they'd run out of stock, but it was really still there in the warehouses

Maybe they're just not sending anything to Australia?



But on a more serious note:

Did the Memphis Plant really do that much? By all accounts, they only had the molds for the "most popular" models. I can't think of anything really that had "Made in USA" recently from GW, all of it has been China/UK.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Maybe they're just not sending anything to Australia?



But on a more serious note:

Did the Memphis Plant really do that much? By all accounts, they only had the molds for the "most popular" models. I can't think of anything really that had "Made in USA" recently from GW, all of it has been China/UK.

The problem that I have with the closure is that England is not so business friendly as taxes is rather ugly over there.

So there has to be more to this than closing this plant in the US. My Question is exactly where are all of the manufacturing is currently being done?
An important question to follow.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Maybe they're just not sending anything to Australia?



But on a more serious note:

Did the Memphis Plant really do that much? By all accounts, they only had the molds for the "most popular" models. I can't think of anything really that had "Made in USA" recently from GW, all of it has been China/UK.

Australian stuff will be online only with $1000AUD shipping price tag /sarcasm

GW better have another factory somewhere otherwise they've put all their precious eggs in one basket...

FarseerAndyMan wrote:
It would actually be a good thing for our hobby community to see the proverbial goliath get knocke dout by the wave of Kickstarter projects that actually respond to their customers.

I definitely don't want to see GW knocked out. I want to see them get a punch in the teeth and realise they can't the one and only game in town and go back to having pro-customer, pro-retailer and pro-gaming business models.

Per a warseer post from 2011, there were six injection machines. In addition to metal figure production.
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?301402-GW-Memphis-Factory-Tour-Impressions-and-Notes

I know there was talk that all finecast production is done in the UK now, so those machines became redundant. As for the plastic, per the tread it sounded like there were significantly more machines in the UK. Other possibilities is the logistics costs did not justify supporting the smaller facility. Having boxes and materials shipped to two different locations to support production might have ceased to make sense.

One thing that strikes me odd is that this is the first we have heard of it. I don't doubt Mikhaila, but a major event like this would have made news in certain circles. This is the type of "improvements in production and efficiency" that would make it into the annual report. If it did happen, it would have had to have happened in the last four month. Also we don't know if production has increased in the UK. That advertisement for a new Work Cell Manager may mean they are planning to.

Looking back at some old threads trying to find information, there are a couple times people have claimed US production shut down. Some as early as 2009. In all the threads talk of fuel costs driving it popped up.

I personally think the GW rep is messing with Mikhaila. Probably trying to give the poor man a heart attack. Stock, what stock?

When you sell less and less units every year, you obviously don't need to maintain multiple production houses. It makes sense to scale back production if demand isn't meeting supply.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
When you sell less and less units every year, you obviously don't need to maintain multiple production houses. It makes sense to scale back production if demand isn't meeting supply.

No, that's not the reason. It's most likely something to do with minimum wages.



Seems like an odd move unless they're doing really badly in the US.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Maybe they're just not sending anything to Australia?



But on a more serious note:

Did the Memphis Plant really do that much? By all accounts, they only had the molds for the "most popular" models. I can't think of anything really that had "Made in USA" recently from GW, all of it has been China/UK.

The Memphis facility had made the top selling plastic, metal and metal/plastic hybrid kits (the top 100 IIRC) for finished goods.

When it came to metal components (bits) we had molds for pretty much everything from the early 90's to about 2007 when we stopped ordering molds since the bits range was being discontinued. We had a huge number of molds for older codes that the UK didn't even have anymore.

For new releases starting around 2006 we were shipped "hand me down" molds from the UK, which usually were in horrible condition and could not produce any good quality metal. They should have been scrapped instead of being sent to us.

So in the end we were ordering cast metal for Direct Sales needs for new releases to full-fill bits orders. From what I've heard even that has stopped. As for the rest of manufacturing, I have no idea if they are still doing any in Memphis.

 Pacific wrote:
* prompted by the container ship sinking all those years ago, and yes those Eldar Falcons are still there for anyone with the grit and determination to get them

BRB, starting an eldar army.

 insaniak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
When you sell less and less units every year, you obviously don't need to maintain multiple production houses. It makes sense to scale back production if demand isn't meeting supply.

No, that's not the reason. It's most likely something to do with minimum wages.



Seems like an odd move unless they're doing really badly in the US.

Again, Why the UK? From a business standpoint this make no sense to me. If they placed their manufacturing plant in Ireland than I would have agreed that would be a practical move.

These are the things that are noted and placed in my Data Files. These not to normal business moves (to me that is) of late coming from this corporation. Maybe the is reality is that GW is contracting faster than I would have expected.

I can say first hand that one of my holdings that is heavily influenced by consumerism, I am down 1% net profit than this time last year. As I have been saying, there is no true economic recovery (in the US) and I do not see one anytime soon. I do see changes on how people purchase things as their ability of purchasing things have been greatly reduced within the past 5 years. And this does affect those middle class people who are thinking or not to spend on a luxury item.

Again I'm not sure on the whys GW move their manufacturing plants from the US back to the UK?

What am I missing that makes this feasible? Are they cross sourcing their workload to a smaller group of people in the UK? Is there something else? I hope that someone has some logical reasoning for this to happen.

Just not quite sure what it is at this moment of time.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Again, Why the UK? From a business standpoint this make no sense to me.

Just not quite sure what it is at this moment of time.

Friend of a friend bit of information; the new plastic models (Dark Eldar and later) are cast on machines with very high tolerances. They have to bring in a specialist to perform maintenance on them. These are newer machines and it sounds like the ones in the US were older.

GW would have to purchase new machines and retrain the existing US workers to use them if they wanted to replace them. Otherwise certain kits can't be produced in the US. GW may have decided it was cheaper to add an additional line in the UK facility than retrofit the US one. This part is speculation, but one possible reason.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Maybe they're just not sending anything to Australia?

So funny *golf clap*

H.B.M.C. wrote:When you sell less and less units every year, you obviously don't need to maintain multiple production houses. It makes sense to scale back production if demand isn't meeting supply.

As I said in a previous post, I think it was done not only because of growth in the US, but more importantly because it meant there were 2 sources of production if there were a critical fault (such as a fire) in Lenton.

jonolikespie wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
* prompted by the container ship sinking all those years ago, and yes those Eldar Falcons are still there for anyone with the grit and determination to get them

BRB, starting an eldar army.

Don't forget to source a depth-charge before you go!

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
When you sell less and less units every year, you obviously don't need to maintain multiple production houses. It makes sense to scale back production if demand isn't meeting supply.

No, that's not the reason. It's most likely something to do with minimum wages.



Seems like an odd move unless they're doing really badly in the US.

Again, Why the UK? From a business standpoint this make no sense to me. If they placed their manufacturing plant in Ireland than I would have agreed that would be a practical move.

These are the things that are noted and placed in my Data Files. These not to normal business moves (to me that is) of late coming from this corporation. Maybe the is reality is that GW is contracting faster than I would have expected.

I can say first hand that one of my holdings that is heavily influenced by consumerism, I am down 1% net profit than this time last year. As I have been saying, there is no true economic recovery (in the US) and I do not see one anytime soon. I do see changes on how people purchase things as their ability of purchasing things have been greatly reduced within the past 5 years. And this does affect those middle class people who are thinking or not to spend on a luxury item.

Again I'm not sure on the whys GW move their manufacturing plants from the US back to the UK?

What am I missing that makes this feasible? Are they cross sourcing their workload to a smaller group of people in the UK? Is there something else? I hope that someone has some logical reasoning for this to happen.

Just not quite sure what it is at this moment of time.

Why the UK?

Well, firstly GW is a UK based company so they probably understand the law and such better here than in the US (yes, you could hire all new US staff, but that quickly becomes expensive). As they trade on the UK stockmarket I would imagine that the stockholders also expect the office to be in the UK – a UK traded company that only has offices in the US would seem very strange to me

Secondly all the production staff and everything else is already employed in the UK, having to either pay to relocate them all to Ireland or replace those that don’t want to lave and make the rest redundant would be pretty huge I imagine, not to mention the fact that quality would probably drop whilst you get the new staff “upto speed”

Third, I’m pretty sure that GW own the building and in Nottingham outright, and had it custom built for their needs. I would imagine that if they sold it the fact it is designed for a GW needs would probably mean they make a big loss, and then they would have to pay to set it all up in a new area.

So, those are probably the reasons they stick it out in the UK. If they were starting completely as a new business but with the cash to be as big as GW then they may well setup somewhere else, but they are an existing business and the risk of just shutting it all down and shipping overseas to start anew is probably deemed to be too high.

Could it be that the growth from 2001-2004 from the LOTR boom caused GW to expand a bit further than they could actually maintain?

Not that I have any economic background in anything, but it's a thought. And with the Hobbit looking like a dud, we'll see what goes down.

The closure of the LA Bunker and other smaller stores (Block at Orange a couple years back, The Gateway at Mountain Village) also suggests cutbacks, as well as the aforementioned price hikes and decrease in sales.

Still, what my tiny human brain perceives is that the 2012 bar is slightly higher than 2011, if but a little.

One can only wonder what the future holds, and I personally hope it's a good one.

It'll bounce up and down for a while around the 2007/2008 levels, but I doubt the way it's going it'll see LoTR era levels again for a while. That little bump up is probably a bit of the 6th edition hype. Though better than the rollercoaster from 2004-2008.

Why the UK? It is most probably standard GW upper management control freakery.

You never know -- some of those plant operators in Memphis might not have been perfect fits for the GW corporate culture.

 Cryonicleech wrote:
Could it be that the growth from 2001-2004 from the LOTR boom caused GW to expand a bit further than they could actually maintain?

GW could easily double their sales with standard marketing and standard business decision (plus cooperation with a.o. DeAgostini with the Hobbit). But as long as dividends are high enough for Tim Kirby, this won't happen.

 Pacific wrote:
prompted by the container ship sinking all those years ago, and yes those Eldar Falcons are still there for anyone with the grit and determination to get them

There's also 2 of the old metal Thunderhawk Gunships in that container as well, or so I was told by several senior staff when I worked for GW in Baltimore.

GW also owns the facility in Memphis, they had it built specially for their needs. One of the initial reasons was for "disaster recovery" but they never did anything after around 2006 to improve Memphis' ability to cover product made in the UK if something happened in Lenton, so the "disaster recovery" plan really never got put into play.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
You never know -- some of those plant operators in Memphis might not have been perfect fits for the GW corporate culture.

This. You have no idea just how much you hit the nail on the head with that statement. The staff who did fit into GW's culture were systematically weeded out by management since they usually performed better and genuinely cared about the company (myself being one of those who cared).

I worked in Memphis from 2003-2007 and can say that many of the supervisors and managers there were incompetent, corporate ladder-climbing suck-ups or were just there for a paycheck and did the bare minimum to get the job done.

We had to keep explaining to the UK staff that they call it "The Lazy South" for a reason.

Lord of the Rings was huge back in its day. It's understandable that GW would scale back production as demand for LOTR has slumped.

 BryllCream wrote:
Lord of the Rings was huge back in its day. It's understandable that GW would scale back production as demand for LOTR has slumped.

Sorry, timeline doesn't really fit, LOTR has been on its arse for far too long to explain actions now. Plus, some of that slack will have been taken up by the Hobbit, albeit not as much as they'd like I'm sure.

Timing of the LOTR fits in perfectly with that graph.

[

The spike in 2009 is when I started playing 40K again.

 BryllCream wrote:
Timing of the LOTR fits in perfectly with that graph.

But doesn't fit at all with actions taken by GW in the last 12 months, which is what we're talking about.

 BryllCream wrote:
Timing of the LOTR fits in perfectly with that graph.

Timing also fits DeAgostini making standard marketing for GW products (2002-2006), graph also fits GW ending the partnership in 2006 and returning to no advertising.

I started playing again in 2004, so make of that what you will.

The release period of the LotR films was 2001 to 2003. The peak effect might have come in 2004 thanks to three years of publicity and the DVDs.

In 2005 began the fall. It bottomed out in 2008 and GW have been largely marking time since then.

So one could interpret the data as, since 2008, increasing prices have largely papered over the cracks of falling volume, but in the last 12 months (which, anecdotally, would fit with my perception of a real ground shift in attitude towards GW, from complaints to actual refusal to buy some/any product) the prices have driven off sufficient sales that closedown of production was warranted/needed.

As the decision makers will be in possession of more detailed and current information than us, this could explain Wells departure and also these actions.

Or, it could just be one final drive to cut costs and maintain profits to give Kirby a big pay out before he jumps ship.

I hate to divert the topic slightly but would someone be willing to expand on this shipping container business? I've never heard of this occurring, sounds hilarious.

 Eiríkr wrote:
I hate to divert the topic slightly but would someone be willing to expand on this shipping container business? I've never heard of this occurring, sounds hilarious.

There's not much to it really. A shipping container with GW product fell off a ship during a storm. That's about it. Containers falling off ships happens quite frequently.

If you can find it and salvage it though you'll get a lot of plastic box sets, most of which was the Eldar Falcon I was told by several other GW staff in Baltimore there were also 2 of the old metal Thunderhawk gunships that came in the wood cases on there as well.

Good luck finding it!

I believe one of the plans revolved around dropping a depth charge on the container - if a whole was made in it, the air trapped inside the shrink-wrapped box would make it float up the surface for an easy recovery (although that might not work for those metal thunderhawks! )

 Kroothawk wrote:

Timing also fits DeAgostini making standard marketing for GW products (2002-2006), graph also fits GW ending the partnership in 2006 and returning to no advertising.

Not quite, GW started declining before they ended the DeAgostini contract. By your logic, then there shouldn't have been a drop in 2005. The drop coincides more closely with the end of the Outrider program (early 2005).

Big flashy magazine articles don't compare to good old "boots on the ground" type advocates.

Is the 2009 sales bump due to 40K 5th edition releases?

It could be, however these graphics are an aggregate of a lot of different factors so it probably isn't the only one.

silent25 wrote:

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Again, Why the UK? From a business standpoint this make no sense to me.

Just not quite sure what it is at this moment of time.

Friend of a friend bit of information; the new plastic models (Dark Eldar and later) are cast on machines with very high tolerances. They have to bring in a specialist to perform maintenance on them. These are newer machines and it sounds like the ones in the US were older.

GW would have to purchase new machines and retrain the existing US workers to use them if they wanted to replace them. Otherwise certain kits can't be produced in the US. GW may have decided it was cheaper to add an additional line in the UK facility than retrofit the US one. This part is speculation, but one possible reason.

Thank you for the information. Years ago (seems like eons ago to me) I've done spin casting work myself. I can see where this line of thought can lead to a logical result.

As far as Stranger83's comment I'll mull that one over as well.

But it sounds to me that they are consolidating their resources. They are not expanding though. That is also understandable as well.

Next question is if we go through this line of thought. Are they hiring additional manpower? A lot, a little, none at all, to make up the difference in loss of man power with the closure of the Memphis plant?

Hiring additional staff to compensate what was let go will partly denote the overall health of the corporation. That would be a telling statement if indeed the corporation is doing an orderly consolidation or a consolidation due to duress.

So in a positive approach, has anyone heard anything about hiring working in the manufacturing arm of GW?

If gw does fall, where does that leave the game i love?
Will the company just die with the license? will i have hope that someone picks it up from the dust and i can still get army updates and stuff?

silent25 wrote:
Friend of a friend bit of information; the new plastic models (Dark Eldar and later) are cast on machines with very high tolerances. They have to bring in a specialist to perform maintenance on them. These are newer machines and it sounds like the ones in the US were older.

This is not entirely accurate. The 2 old machines, the Van Dorns, would not be able to handle the newer molds since they don't have the "functions" newer machines do but the Demag machines that were bought in 2005 (IIRC) can.

They don't need a "specialist" to maintain them, just someone who has training with injection molding machines. The guy who maintained the machines when I worked for GW was Dale Whetton and he did a damn good job of it.

silent25 wrote:
GW would have to purchase new machines and retrain the existing US workers to use them if they wanted to replace them. Otherwise certain kits can't be produced in the US. GW may have decided it was cheaper to add an additional line in the UK facility than retrofit the US one. This part is speculation, but one possible reason.

They would not have to get rid of the older Van Dorn machines, they would just use those for bases and other older kits that have not been re-tooled

In terms of training, there would be no new training for the staff. The machines are computer controlled. All you have to do is type in the serial number of the tool being used and the machines will set the parameters itself.

Before the tool is milled the layout is tested virtually in a program, then the finished tool is tested to those parameters and adjusted somewhat since the real world is still different than a simulation. After that the parameters are put into a database that the computer of each machine has access to.

All the staff have to do when the new tool is installed and run is to check the sprues periodically (about every 30 min) to make sure there are no miscasts or other issues like parts sticking in the cavities.

One person in Memphis, one of the girls from box packing, was running 6 machines, as of when I left in 2007.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Thank you for the information. Years ago (seems like eons ago to me) I've done spin casting work myself. I can see where this line of thought can lead to a logical result.

As far as Stranger83's comment I'll mull that one over as well.

But it sounds to me that they are consolidating their resources. They are not expanding though. That is also understandable as well.

Next question is if we go through this line of thought. Are they hiring additional manpower? A lot, a little, none at all, to make up the difference in loss of man power with the closure of the Memphis plant?

Hiring additional staff to compensate what was let go will partly denote the overall health of the corporation. That would be a telling statement if indeed the corporation is doing an orderly consolidation or a consolidation due to duress.

So in a positive approach, has anyone heard anything about hiring working in the manufacturing arm of GW?

Don't forget that wonderful thing called "Increased Productivity". The new machines may have a higher output rate than the older US machines. So one guy and one machine could have the same output as six machines operated by six people. Just because they have less people doesn't mean their production has decreased. As technology marches on, less people are need to do the same work. Great for business, horrible for those that use to do such work.

Another item might be there were changes in the UK or US tax code that made it more desirable to move the manufacturing over to the UK. Possibly GW could write off and claim depreciation on the new machines faster in the UK than in the US.

As for hiring, the position is no longer listed and it went up the same time the new US/Canada distribution rules came out. Sounds like it was filled.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

mechanicalhorizon wrote:
[
New information.

Thanks for the clarification. Though the story I heard was in 2011. Did Dale Whetton work also for BMW by chance?

hotsauceman1 wrote:If gw does fall, where does that leave the game i love?
Will the company just die with the license? will i have hope that someone picks it up from the dust and i can still get army updates and stuff?

Nah, someone would buy up that IP. They won't let BattleTech die; there's no way Fantasy and 40k get ignored. Although I suppose there's a chance for petty spite coming in and changing that.

mechanicalhorizon wrote:

They would not have to get rid of the older Van Dorn machines, they would just use those for bases and other older kits that have not been re-tooled

In terms of training, there would be no new training for the staff. The machines are computer controlled. All you have to do is type in the serial number of the tool being used and the machines will set the parameters itself.

Before the tool is milled the layout is tested virtually in a program, then the finished tool is tested to those parameters and adjusted somewhat since the real world is still different than a simulation. After that the parameters are put into a database that the computer of each machine has access to.

All the staff have to do when the new tool is installed and run is to check the sprues periodically (about every 30 min) to make sure there are no miscasts or other issues like parts sticking in the cavities.

One person in Memphis, one of the girls from box packing, was running 6 machines, as of when I left in 2007.

Pfft, there's no way that's true. I want this guy added to the accuracy tracker, then I'll decide if I can believe his claim that there was a GIRL in GW.

 Lansirill wrote:

mechanicalhorizon wrote:

They would not have to get rid of the older Van Dorn machines, they would just use those for bases and other older kits that have not been re-tooled

In terms of training, there would be no new training for the staff. The machines are computer controlled. All you have to do is type in the serial number of the tool being used and the machines will set the parameters itself.

Before the tool is milled the layout is tested virtually in a program, then the finished tool is tested to those parameters and adjusted somewhat since the real world is still different than a simulation. After that the parameters are put into a database that the computer of each machine has access to.

All the staff have to do when the new tool is installed and run is to check the sprues periodically (about every 30 min) to make sure there are no miscasts or other issues like parts sticking in the cavities.

One person in Memphis, one of the girls from box packing, was running 6 machines, as of when I left in 2007.

Pfft, there's no way that's true. I want this guy added to the accuracy tracker, then I'll decide if I can believe his claim that there was a GIRL in GW.

No.. he did say that she was working in Memphis... and now we know why they closed the plant.

The Auld Grump

Thank you for the information mechanicalhorizon. With the information you provided it concludes to my satisfaction about the "why's" they closed the Memphis plant. At least in my case on the why's.

Again. Thanks for your input. - Adam

 Lansirill wrote:

Pfft, there's no way that's true. I want this guy added to the accuracy tracker, then I'll decide if I can believe his claim that there was a GIRL in GW.

Well in one of the tour reports I read, the guide did say, the people working the shop floor have zero interest in the game to help minimize leaks. That is one way to do it.

GW is officially confirming problems with the supply chain:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/518768.page

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:This week ACD Distribution of Madison, Wisconsin held their Games Day for store owners.
(...)
I'm all fired up to hear what GW's North American director of sales has to say.
(...)
He has little to offer, but simply saying that GW has a supply chain problem that may take 3-6 months to resolve.

I don't post on here much, I'm not a FLGS or a GW fanboy but I think it's interesting to watch people discuss things like this. I don't know what GW's business ideas/profit/monetary situation is and I appreciate there appear to be FLGS being taken for a bit of a ride.

What I do know is about 4 weeks ago one of the factories GW got it's plastic pellets from in the UK, the plastic it uses to make its kits got rolled and has shutdown. I know this because a family member works there. I also know that the amount of plastic it cost to make the accessorie sprue in the 40k boxset about 3-4 years ago was around £1.50. This has increased massively. (And no, I'm not saying this justifies prices, like 1.50 didn't justify the 40quid price in the first place but the mould tools costs thousands and thousands to make and maintain)

I don't know how much of their plastic they sourced from there is relevant to other countries and I don't know if they'd already moved orders and sources last year before it was all announced but I know that when GW did source from there it was one of the biggest that factory rolled out. I don't know if that's anything to do with any delays and I'm not going to pretend to know that.

As for my opinion and not that it really matters, most big companies are scaling back, all over the world huge companies are going under. GW has a niche market, it's big in the miniature world but Average Dave doesn't impulse buy a painting starter kit and a box of spaze meens, It's been scaling back 'community' for years and years. GW and BL websites used to have their own forums!.

silent25 wrote:
Well in one of the tour reports I read, the guide did say, the people working the shop floor have zero interest in the game to help minimize leaks. That is one way to do it.

It's more a side-effect of hiring staff from Memphis, there just weren't many "gamers" down there when I lived there. The only game store that was in Memphis closed down about a year after I moved there.

It's not really a policy that GW has to hire staff not interested in gaming.

 dodgex1 wrote:
What I do know is about 4 weeks ago one of the factories GW got it's plastic pellets from in the UK, the plastic it uses to make its kits got rolled and has shutdown

That wouldn't do a thing to GW's manufacturing ability, we ordered raw materials (metal ingots and plastic pellets) from several different manufacturers just in case something like that happened. If one did not have the materials we had an order ready with another vendor that could be shipped to us in a day. That situation happened a couple of times in Memphis with our raw metal suppliers. We never had any issues, in the US or UK with plastic being supplied to us.

mechanicalhorizon wrote:

That wouldn't do a thing to GW's manufacturing ability, we ordered raw materials (metal ingots and plastic pellets) from several different manufacturers just in case something like that happened. If one did not have the materials we had an order ready with another vendor that could be shipped to us in a day. That situation happened a couple of times in Memphis with our raw metal suppliers. We never had any issues, in the US or UK with plastic being supplied to us.

Not necessarily, there have been time I have personally experienced ordering materials/chemicals where ALL the vendors in the region (western US) were out. And sometimes it was for very common items. You have it where another manufacturer gobbled up all available supplies.

Still this whole Tau debacle sounds more like a gross underestimating of demand than any specific production issue.

I think they underestimated massively how popular certain units would be.

I went to the Grimsby GW as a stop gap between playing a show and he had sold out his allocation of Riptides within an hour :/ They had plenty of the Codex, characters and even Pathfinders but no Riptides. The company I pre-ordered with also sold out and I have to wait but I am not fussed. It happens in business I am afraid.

Even GW didn't realise they would shift that many £50 models?!

FarseerAndyMan wrote:
Hey fellas,

Corporate sell-offs are a pretty hard thing.

My wife worked for a petroleum company that decided to sell its self. They fired half the management first.

It would actually be a good thing for our hobby community to see the proverbial goliath get knocke dout by the wave of Kickstarter projects that actually respond to their customers.

i would love nothing more right now than to drink ten gallons of gasoline, drop my pants, whip out a lighter and hose you with flaming urine.... The problem with kick-starters is that a lot of them don't actually make it, and, in the end, don't end up making it into the stores even when they do make it. Reaper? Nah. Special case, they are an established manufacturer using crowd-funding to make the switch to lower-cost plastic for products they already have, as well as to move production locally.... Dream forge games and Miniwargaming's success has still to be mitigated and followed up on, those can still tank, and MWG has gone out and said, it's made a few sets, and has absolutely no plans whatsoever at all to follow up on what it's produced any time in the near future. Dreamforge is still pretty vague, and even people i talk to that are in the gaming community don't know who dreamforge is or what they sell, or what their game is.... so who else is there? I've seen quite a number of KSs, but none of the others come to mind as anything that wil lever end up in the FLGS anytime soon.... Sure, there are SOME that might end up in your FLGS B&M store, but the 6-10 copies of a limited run isn't going to be worth much in the way of the support for the store... It's much more profitable to be the sole distributor, and most of these people are looking to grow their own wealth. The internet provides the means to do that without having to use B&M stores.

On that note, I understand this is what GW is probably trying to do with its recent policy changes. However, I feel that if GW really wants to be sole distributor, it should just balls it up and cut all contracts. There really isn't anything stopping them from doing this, other than the short-term hit as angry consumers boycott them for one or two quarters before inevitably returning as new products get released, and because starting a new game system really is much more expensive than continuing with the previous one. That all said, I honestly believe their best solution is to annihilate their retail chain as that would probably solve their overhead problems. Tout all you want about how much more money you make when you sell a $110 kit yourself and how you can lure the preteen and their parents into dropping $500 in one go, but the fact that you have to sell 3-5 of those in one day to cover the building fees and employee salaries for the day, with a lack of a strong diversified product line it's simply much easier to secure your profit by just selling it off to someone else to work the floor..... GW still has weight in both presence and image in the market and should have pulled this move years ago, GW would be in a stronger position. I mean, look at PP, they don't have their own stores, yet demand for their product is growing. GW stores are not really in a position to be profitable in the long term due to the lack of a diverse product line. They have what, three product lines? LOTR, WHFB and WH40k? Sure, let's count whatever else they have as part of their line, the trouble is an FLGS will have that same product line, plus MTG, along with PP, a host of other board games, historicals, infinity...... y'all get the point. GW sells only its own things, whereas an FLGS comes stocked with more than enough to appeal to a much larger customer base and just strikes me as much more profitable. Then again, I'm probably beating a dead horse as far as this thread is concerend........

as another comment, having looked at the graph kroothawk posted, I would love to see those numbers compared against other phenomena in the market. They show a convincing and strong growth, with a healthy measure of managing to hold on at steady, but seeing those numbers as compared with, say, per capita, might be a healthier assessment of growth or decline.

 poda_t wrote:
Dreamforge is still pretty vague, and even people i talk to that are in the gaming community don't know who dreamforge is or what they sell, or what their game is....

As usual with games, it's always going to depend locally how it does. Dreamforge? My FLGS has a lot of their stuff, and are pushing it. Their front display cases have piles of the infantry and Leviathan mechs.

 -Loki- wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
Dreamforge is still pretty vague, and even people i talk to that are in the gaming community don't know who dreamforge is or what they sell, or what their game is....

As usual with games, it's always going to depend locally how it does. Dreamforge? My FLGS has a lot of their stuff, and are pushing it. Their front display cases have piles of the infantry and Leviathan mechs.

no i see and recognize that, but there are two kinds of retailers, those that are willing to take risks, and those that stock what they know will sell. I wish Dreamforge the best, and would love to see them grow, but as I see it, they're still on the fringe of gaming. They have some sexy models, but it's only one faction so far. I bother pointing this out, because it's a large financial and temporal commitment to pick up a new game system. If I've already got, say, one or two 40k armies, a FB army that has mantics stuff mixed in, as well as a retribution of scyrah force and a skorne crew, with another malifaux gang on the shelf..... It's a bit of an uphill struggle to get a foot in the door of a niche market that may potentially already be full. But hey, GW's future may be uncertain, and that door might open quite a bit.

I guess the trick is that any new players entering the hobby will automatically be biased toward what their friends already have, since they'll probably want to play with them, and because those people have already spent on the game system they currently have, and won't want to pick up another one. This may be why even with the GW hatewagon rolling around every few months, and the tidal wall of oaths about how people will stop buying, inevitably, boycotters keep going back to buy one more last kit...... just this one last time.... and why GW is managing to stay even, despite what most of us might agree are bad practices.

Another edit: Trying to write at 2:00 AM really isn't my strong suit. Despite trying to edit out my run-on sentences, I still ended up with too many. May have to paraphrase in the morning...

 gr1m_dan wrote:
I think they underestimated massively how popular certain units would be.

I went to the Grimsby GW as a stop gap between playing a show and he had sold out his allocation of Riptides within an hour :/ They had plenty of the Codex, characters and even Pathfinders but no Riptides. The company I pre-ordered with also sold out and I have to wait but I am not fussed. It happens in business I am afraid.

Even GW didn't realise they would shift that many £50 models?!

Then why make it?

It is a crucial part of business to understand what your customers want, how many, how to price them, and how to deliver them on time. If you know that you can place production orders at optimum bulk discount pricing.

IMO this is an area in which the lack of advance PR hurts GW. Do you remember when the original PS3 "banana" controller design was revealed to worldwide derision and contempt. Sony acted on that feedback and changed the design.

If GW had put out sketches and handbuilt models of the Riptide, and the other stuff, six months ago they could have got feedback showing them the Riptide was going to be popular and the flier wasnt. I don't know how popular the flier is but about half of Dakka members think it's poor, whereas everyone loves the Riptide.

mechanicalhorizon wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
prompted by the container ship sinking all those years ago, and yes those Eldar Falcons are still there for anyone with the grit and determination to get them

There's also 2 of the old metal Thunderhawk Gunships in that container as well, or so I was told by several senior staff when I worked for GW in Baltimore.

*puts a knife in mouth*

Yar, where be the plunder lie?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

It is a crucial part of business to understand what your customers want, how many, how to price them, and how to deliver them on time. If you know that you can place production orders at optimum bulk discount pricing.

IMO this is an area in which the lack of advance PR hurts GW. Do you remember when the original PS3 "banana" controller design was revealed to worldwide derision and contempt. Sony acted on that feedback and changed the design.

If GW had put out sketches and handbuilt models of the Riptide, and the other stuff, six months ago they could have got feedback showing them the Riptide was going to be popular and the flier wasnt. I don't know how popular the flier is but about half of Dakka members think it's poor, whereas everyone loves the Riptide.

I wouldn't use Sony as an example. The Playstation division is hemorrhaging money. They loss $2.8 billion US last year.

As for "fan feedback" releasing that early concept art only allows for knock-off companies to take the pics and make their own ripoffs. And internet feedback doesn't guarantee realistic input. You only get the loudest voices and those people might not even buy the product. I agree they should release the pics earlier than they currently do, but design by internet committee is never a good idea.

One question I have in the whole Tau debacle, how many Riptide units did they actually make?

Only on Dakka, and only for GW, is "we sold too many models" a "debacle."

 Kingsley wrote:
Only on Dakka, and only for GW, is "we sold too many models" a "debacle."

"we sold too many models" isn't a debacle, "we didn't make enough models" kind of is.

silent25 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

It is a crucial part of business to understand what your customers want, how many, how to price them, and how to deliver them on time. If you know that you can place production orders at optimum bulk discount pricing.

IMO this is an area in which the lack of advance PR hurts GW. Do you remember when the original PS3 "banana" controller design was revealed to worldwide derision and contempt. Sony acted on that feedback and changed the design.

If GW had put out sketches and handbuilt models of the Riptide, and the other stuff, six months ago they could have got feedback showing them the Riptide was going to be popular and the flier wasnt. I don't know how popular the flier is but about half of Dakka members think it's poor, whereas everyone loves the Riptide.

I wouldn't use Sony as an example. The Playstation division is hemorrhaging money. They loss $2.8 billion US last year.

As for "fan feedback" releasing that early concept art only allows for knock-off companies to take the pics and make their own ripoffs. And internet feedback doesn't guarantee realistic input. You only get the loudest voices and those people might not even buy the product. I agree they should release the pics earlier than they currently do, but design by internet committee is never a good idea.

One question I have in the whole Tau debacle, how many Riptide units did they actually make?

If they would have lost more money by sticking with the banana controller, they did well to listen to feedback.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18030939

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
Only on Dakka, and only for GW, is "we sold too many models" a "debacle."

"we sold too many models" isn't a debacle, "we didn't make enough models" kind of is.

"We didn't make enough models" might be bad in some cases. "We didn't make enough models to meet the unexpectedly huge demand for our new product" doesn't seem like one of those cases.

 Kingsley wrote:


"We didn't make enough models" might be bad in some cases. "We didn't make enough models to meet the unexpectedly huge demand for our new product" doesn't seem like one of those cases.

It should be pointed out there isn't any sales data thus far to prove or disprove whether the shortage was due to high demand or not. The only oblique reference I have seen to sales data has been from Rich, the owner of Wayland, who said that the Tau sales thus far were similar in volume to Dark Eldar and Grey Knight releases.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
Only on Dakka, and only for GW, is "we sold too many models" a "debacle."

"we sold too many models" isn't a debacle, "we didn't make enough models" kind of is.

And that concerns me. To me the company is going into a pattern of minimum sales run. To myself this is not a good thing to happen in this hobby.

 Kingsley wrote:
"We didn't make enough models" might be bad in some cases. "We didn't make enough models to meet the unexpectedly huge demand for our new product" doesn't seem like one of those cases.

Do you have any sales figures to show that there was an 'unexpectedly high demand'?


And if there was, is there any reason to assume that the shortfall couldn't have been easily avoided through basic market research prior to release?

More likely they shorted the production on purpose in order to avoid carrying over stock from this FY to the next. That is a drag on the balance sheet, and given how close we are getting to year end...Nottingham may well be looking at the numbers and seeing costs they need to cover.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Maybe they're just not sending anything to Australia?



But on a more serious note:

Did the Memphis Plant really do that much? By all accounts, they only had the molds for the "most popular" models. I can't think of anything really that had "Made in USA" recently from GW, all of it has been China/UK.

I stopped in at the Memphis battlebunker/plant last year, and the guys there told me that the nice thing about having the warehouse in the back was that if something was missing on the shelf, they could just go in the back and churn one out for you. Some assumption is involved on my part, but his wording suggested they could make any plastic kit. So from my experience, I'd say they had more than just the basic ones. Again, a bit of assumption on my part.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

I stopped in at the Memphis battlebunker/plant last year, and the guys there told me that the nice thing about having the warehouse in the back was that if something was missing on the shelf, they could just go in the back and churn one out for you. Some assumption is involved on my part, but his wording suggested they could make any plastic kit. So from my experience, I'd say they had more than just the basic ones. Again, a bit of assumption on my part.

The Memphis ware house would also have stock sent to them from the UK for anything they don't produce. Usually they'd order anywhere form 6 months to a year supply of a product.

There is also no real way for the bunker staffer to know just exactly what is in stock (or out of stock) in the warehouse until he would put an order in. He wouldn't be able to just "pop in" to the warehouse to grab stock since his key card likely doesn't have that permission. Even is a customer is waiting they still have to place the order in the system, have the warehouse staff/Direct Sales staff pull the order and bring it to the bunker. I think the manager might be able to pull product, but that would only be after the regular warehouse staff have gone home for the day.

At least that's how it was set up when I was there, the procedure could have been changed.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

If they would have lost more money by sticking with the banana controller, they did well to listen to feedback.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18030939

That is open to debate. And the link you posted didn't show anything to support that. If you are questioning my number, it is for the Consumer and Products division of Sony which sales of the PS3 factor into.
http://www.vg247.com/2012/05/10/sony-hit-hard-in-fy2012-financials-ps3-sales-down/

It's hard to say "they listened so the did a good job" when the company is losing tons of money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
More likely they shorted the production on purpose in order to avoid carrying over stock from this FY to the next. That is a drag on the balance sheet, and given how close we are getting to year end...Nottingham may well be looking at the numbers and seeing costs they need to cover.

So we're calling shenanigans on the whole reduced production and simple playing the books instead?

silent25 wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
More likely they shorted the production on purpose in order to avoid carrying over stock from this FY to the next. That is a drag on the balance sheet, and given how close we are getting to year end...Nottingham may well be looking at the numbers and seeing costs they need to cover.

So we're calling shenanigans on the whole reduced production and simple playing the books instead?

Most of what GW does is for reasons other than providing great service. Closing the US factory was no doubt an issue - but I doubt they ran into any actual problems with being able to produce quantities in time. However, if you read the past annual reports, inventory reduction has been emphasized for several years running. Based on information I have heard they have a large pile of inventory that did not move very well as well as some expenses which are coming due and no licensing fees coming from THQ in the last half. All of those added together have likely caused GW HQ to be very hesitant about printing anything more than they think they can sell.

Regarding Sony...those were last years numbers...this years are fast approaching and they look to be on track for $200-250 million in profit on the year. Not to bad to go from $5.7 BILLION loss last FY to a profit of any kind this year...Hirai has been doing a solid job.

Making a set initial production run while having the capacity to meet an unexpected demand in a short time would seem like the ideal responsive position to be in for any manufacturer.

Minimising your risks and responding the demand smacks of good management from GW as unfashionable as it is to say these days.

As does programming releases to coincide with the financial year.

Especially when shortages in high demand items push customers to GW direct sources (either GW Online or GW Retail stores...).

They are burning bridges with their shorted releases - and eventually it will be the last straw for each person (whether they are a consumer who wasn't able to pick up their preorder from their LGS or a LGS who only got half of their order...).

 notprop wrote:
Minimising your risks and responding the demand smacks of good management from GW as unfashionable as it is to say these days.

This is the company that thinks that if we know about a release more than a week in advance, we'll lose interest and not buy it.

Making customers wait for 2-3 weeks past the release date to ensure that you don't over-produce really doesn't fit with that principle...

silent25 wrote:
As for "fan feedback" releasing that early concept art only allows for knock-off companies to take the pics and make their own ripoffs.

That makes no sense. GW could put out concept art after already starting work on the model, giving them a head start on anyone trying to rip it off. They then will inevitably have a much larger production capacity than any knock off makers so they should get the model done and in store well before anyone else could. And, most importantly, if they were to put out a good model at a fair price they shouldn't need to worry about knock off models.

 jonolikespie wrote:
And, most importantly, if they were to put out a good model at a fair price they shouldn't need to worry about knock off models.

This is it in a nutshell. It's when we have no idea that GW are even considering releasing a given model that the 'knock-offs' are likely to appear, since they can take the gamble that the GW kit will be some way off (and this can pay off in a big way, as we saw with all of the not-Thunderwolves that filled in the gap that GW left open for so long.

If GW told us what they were working on, and when to expect it, there would be less market for 3rd party knock-offs as people would just wait for the GW model. I lost count of the number of people I spoke to who would have happily waited for the GW Thunderwolves if they had known that they were coming eventually. But thinking that Wolfy McWolfclaws on his Warhamster was the only thunderwolf we were going to get due to GW not being willing to tell anyone that plastic thunderwolves were in development, they went with the 3rd party options instead.

I presume, insaniak, that when you say "...and when to expect it", you're speaking in generalities not in specific release dates.

 azreal13 wrote:
.. some of that slack will have been taken up by the Hobbit, albeit not as much as they'd like I'm sure.

They still have not sold out of the limited edition boxed sets for The Hobbit. I would say the sales for that line are way below what they planned/expected.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat970009a&prodId=prod1820008a

 nolzur wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
.. some of that slack will have been taken up by the Hobbit, albeit not as much as they'd like I'm sure.

They still have not sold out of the limited edition boxed sets for The Hobbit. I would say the sales for that line are way below what they planned/expected.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat970009a&prodId=prod1820008a

The Australian limited editions of DV were recalled a month or two ago since they didn't sell out in the allotted time period (and having something 'limited' on the shelves 6 months later looks bad), and there are still 7 copies of Crusade of Fire (that's what it was called right) between my FLGS and my local GW. I think GW have simply overplayed the 'limited' card.

What Sean O'Brien said.

Since the company is retrenching to cut costs, stocking out doesn't surprise me. Pretty common.

Cutting production isn't just about cutting cost. It is an acknowledgement that the production facilities are no longer needed. That is, they are accepting that GW's long term production capacity is greater than they can sell.
Profit = revenue-cost.
Revenue = Price x Units sold

Prices are going up, and revenue is decreasing. Says a lot about units sold compared to the past.

To be fair, all company's in the entertainment niche are struggling. The video game companies aren't doing better.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I presume, insaniak, that when you say "...and when to expect it", you're speaking in generalities not in specific release dates.

Yeah. Just the old fashioned 'These are in development, should be out in 6-9 months' sort of deal is more than sufficient to keep people in the loop.

Cool. I'm just pre-empting the brigade of people who normally chime in with "But when they give release dates and miss them people just complain; better to say nothing". Release windows are fine ("Q3 will be all about the Eldar, and we're going to be releasing some great new kits including X, Y and Z"). It really needn't be more specific than that.

 insaniak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I presume, insaniak, that when you say "...and when to expect it", you're speaking in generalities not in specific release dates.

Yeah. Just the old fashioned 'These are in development, should be out in 6-9 months' sort of deal is more than sufficient to keep people in the loop.

Alternatively they could try what the more successful kickstarters are doing and dangling tons of concept art and WIP pics in front of us to generate interest. Hell they could put that stuff in white dwarf and watch sales skyrocket.

New WD luuuuuuuuuuuuvvvvvvvvvvs its pictures. They're an excellent substitute for content, and a good thing to fill space between the 50 pages of new releases and the ever-present listing of every GW store and stockist in the known universe. No reason why they couldn't put in those sorts of pictures, fulfilling their need to avoid writing copy of any real substance whilst still including 'content' in their monthly catalogue (even if by accident).

I mean, "Next Month: Jes Goodwin shows off the concept art and some of the new model's for the upcoming Eldar Codex" 2-3 months before the Eldar Codex his pre-order would be a great way to boost sales. No more months and months of rumours and then bad photos from that guy in the warehouse who always seems to take photos when there's an earthquake going on. Just an actual real preview to build buzz for an upcoming product.

A bit like how Forge World do it.

 scuddman wrote:
To be fair, all company's in the entertainment niche are struggling. The video game companies aren't doing better.

Not really. Tabletop gaming, as an industry, is growing rather quickly. 15% last year, in fact.

Fair enough, tabletop gaming is increasing.

But what about GW's market share in tabletop gaming?
You could say...the boom marks the end of the GW monopoly. They've done the same thing Nintendo did in the early 90's and lost their advantage.

If you are the biggest tabletop gaming company, and tabletop gaming increased by 15% and that 15% wasn't you...that implies that some other direct competitor stole your business.

 scuddman wrote:
Fair enough, tabletop gaming is increasing.

But what about GW's market share in tabletop gaming?
You could say...the boom marks the end of the GW monopoly. They've done the same thing Nintendo did in the early 90's and lost their advantage.

Warhammer 40k is still a solid first place. However, The Hobbit isn't even in the top five. Interestingly, Warmachine is no longer #2, having been bumped out of the spot by X-Wing.

Hmm, I don't know. That's like saying Microsoft Windows is still #1 in sales, but their sales volume is shrinking. That doesn't mean they aren't in trouble.

 scuddman wrote:
Fair enough, tabletop gaming is increasing.

But what about GW's market share in tabletop gaming?
You could say...the boom marks the end of the GW monopoly. They've done the same thing Nintendo did in the early 90's and lost their advantage.

If you are the biggest tabletop gaming company, and tabletop gaming increased by 15% and that 15% wasn't you...that implies that some other direct competitor stole your business.

Oh, I'm definitely not disagreeing with that: GW sales data from their stockholder reports tells us that their growth is essentially flat. I'm just disputing the (potential) argument that this is a symptom of a problem effecting the entire industry.

 scuddman wrote:
Hmm, I don't know. That's like saying Microsoft Windows is still #1 in sales, but their sales volume is shrinking. That doesn't mean they aren't in trouble.

Perhaps. The next round of GW financial reports will be interesting.

Well...a very wise GW manager once told me..."A pretty turd Is still a turd...a turd is a turd"

But of course, companies don't grow forever. That's a reality. Retrenching happens eventually. It happened to Microsoft. It happened to Nintendo. It'll happen to Apple, if it hasn't already. And it's happening to GW. If they survive it, they'll be a better company for it. If not, then the gaming world will move on to the next best thing.

A £120m company will protect itself against the prevailing economic condition no matter the individual lndustry one. Mostly be clause it is common sense but also as the biggest fish in the little pond thy are more susceptible to any negative effects.

And they're doing such a good job of it!

Are they lining the company up for a sale soon?
Once the models and books are out for every army (which won't take long now), someone else could keep the shops running, and orders flowing....
As long as the shareholders get out beforehand.

 Kingsley wrote:

 scuddman wrote:
Fair enough, tabletop gaming is increasing.

But what about GW's market share in tabletop gaming?
You could say...the boom marks the end of the GW monopoly. They've done the same thing Nintendo did in the early 90's and lost their advantage.

Warhammer 40k is still a solid first place. However, The Hobbit isn't even in the top five. Interestingly, Warmachine is no longer #2, having been bumped out of the spot by X-Wing.

I still want to see a more accurate chart with numbers. Warmachine and Hordes are the same game, so they should be listed together. X-wing could still be a fluke, anything Star Wars will sell alot initially.

 Kingsley wrote:

 scuddman wrote:
Hmm, I don't know. That's like saying Microsoft Windows is still #1 in sales, but their sales volume is shrinking. That doesn't mean they aren't in trouble.

Perhaps. The next round of GW financial reports will be interesting.

That will be an easy answer. They will show a profit. The question is how will the show this profit within their financial reports. Some of last years profit was the change over of their paints and reporting on a 53 week year period. Some of its profit was from licensing projects.

I'm just waiting to see how much of the usual price increase that is coming in June.

 jonolikespie wrote:

silent25 wrote:
As for "fan feedback" releasing that early concept art only allows for knock-off companies to take the pics and make their own ripoffs.

That makes no sense. GW could put out concept art after already starting work on the model, giving them a head start on anyone trying to rip it off. They then will inevitably have a much larger production capacity than any knock off makers so they should get the model done and in store well before anyone else could. And, most importantly, if they were to put out a good model at a fair price they shouldn't need to worry about knock off models.

GW is already well over a year ahead of it's release schedule in terms of concepting and sculpting the models. I would get metal masters or master molds anywhere from 6-8 months ahead of the release date to give us enough time to cast up the product. The UK mold/casting dept gets theirs even earlier.

The last time I was in the UK, in early 2007, Jes Goodwin was already sculpting the Dark Eldar models. I was able to watch the mold room manager make the RTV master molds and resins for the Succubi, Hellion and the new Skyboard. Jes had also already started on the new jetbike as well.

GW has enough time to get everything sculpted, their time is just poorly managed now.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

Regarding Sony...those were last years numbers...this years are fast approaching and they look to be on track for $200-250 million in profit on the year. Not to bad to go from $5.7 BILLION loss last FY to a profit of any kind this year...Hirai has been doing a solid job.

Yea, by selling property and relying on a weakening Yen (depreciated 25% recently) to try to turn a profit.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-07/sony-unexpectedly-posts-eighth-quarterly-loss-on-tv-demand-slump.html
Hardly the financial genius and I seem to recall you dismissing positive financial news from another company on such a basis.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jonolikespie wrote:

silent25 wrote:
As for "fan feedback" releasing that early concept art only allows for knock-off companies to take the pics and make their own ripoffs.

That makes no sense. GW could put out concept art after already starting work on the model, giving them a head start on anyone trying to rip it off. They then will inevitably have a much larger production capacity than any knock off makers so they should get the model done and in store well before anyone else could. And, most importantly, if they were to put out a good model at a fair price they shouldn't need to worry about knock off models.

You don't seem to understand how fast a knockoff can be made. There were knockoffs of the large beastmen models within a month of release. Even if GW were to take the feedback and redo the design, it would be several months from design to production. Even then there would be a number of lost sales.

Unrelated industry, but a co-worker use to design custom parts for a motorcycle shop. They were developing a new set of parts and had it under tight security. Only him , the owner, and the machinist (the owner's brother) had access to a code locked room. When everything was ready, they took the cycle out to photographed for advertisement in the various magazines for next month. When the magazines came out the following month, there were advertisements for ripoffs identical to theirs. They were crap, but they were cheaper than the ones they did.


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mechanicalhorizon wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

GW is already well over a year ahead of it's release schedule in terms of concepting and sculpting the models. I would get metal masters or master molds anywhere from 6-8 months ahead of the release date to give us enough time to cast up the product. The UK mold/casting dept gets theirs even earlier.

The last time I was in the UK, in early 2007, Jes Goodwin was already sculpting the Dark Eldar models. I was able to watch the mold room manager make the RTV master molds and resins for the Succubi, Hellion and the new Skyboard. Jes had also already started on the new jetbike as well.

GW has enough time to get everything sculpted, their time is just poorly managed now.

So from you previous experience at GW and current job, how fast a turnaround time is it from concept to fabrication? More curious than anything else.