Yet with the situation of shortfall in tau releases and supply and then to have this an issue with their own stores being told the new Eldar releases will be falling short with supplies due to a supplier issue, has been going forums not just here but else were as well.
So is this a shift in attitude towards the hobby with GW showing signs of financial problems. As a fan of the hobby one hopes not but with the price hikes and supplier problems it raises some questions like are they in financial difficulty.
I doubt it's financial trouble so much as just totally failing to forecast the demand for the new Tau line. I would hazard to guess they looked at history, said 'this is how much Tau we sell, (small number, nowhere near Space Marines), so we'll just double that and be good". And then 5x as many people show up and then run out of models.
Them not supplying enough is not an indicator of financial trouble...Logic it a little bit, and you get either A) their suppliers are not holding their end of the bargain, which is not GW's fault(though it will result in them needing new suppliers potentially), or B) they under-forecast their need, and thus sold way more than they thought they would leading to a shortage. That's generally a GOOD sign for a company, if that's the case.
In short: It's not a sign of anything, don't try to read into it. What you're insinuating is like saying Nintendo is screwed because they couldn't keep up with demand for the Wii for months when it came out initially.
troa wrote: Them not supplying enough is not an indicator of financial trouble...Logic it a little bit, and you get either A) their suppliers are not holding their end of the bargain, which is not GW's fault(though it will result in them needing new suppliers potentially), or B) they under-forecast their need, and thus sold way more than they thought they would leading to a shortage. That's generally a GOOD sign for a company, if that's the case.
In short: It's not a sign of anything, don't try to read into it. What you're insinuating is like saying Nintendo is screwed because they couldn't keep up with demand for the Wii for months when it came out initially.
Hastings over at Warseer claimed the Tau debacle was a result of not enough boxes being printed by the company that supplies GW boxes. It was not due to a lack of production capabilities at GW. People reported getting generic white boxes from GW for their Tau orders.
Has the Hobbit tanked though? Ok, it's not a hit with WFB or 40k players, and obviously hasn't had the impact of the LOTR stuff (I honestly think that its nowhere near as strong a starter set as The Fellowship was), but from what I've been told it's not sold badly?
As for Gaw being in trouble financially - nope..... Just look at the sales of BL and FW - not to mention the IP licensing revenues.
Art Steventon wrote: Has the Hobbit tanked though? Ok, it's not a hit with WFB or 40k players, and obviously hasn't had the impact of the LOTR stuff (I honestly think that its nowhere near as strong a starter set as The Fellowship was), but from what I've been told it's not sold badly?
As for Gaw being in trouble financially - nope..... Just look at the sales of BL and FW - not to mention the IP licensing revenues.
GW isn't in financial trouble reading the reports but id the hobbit wasnt as successful as predicted it may make hit cash and sales targets that the market is expecting more difficult. That could definitely explain rush to release other products.
Nothing screamed issue and they work with a fairly high (this is guessed) EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. This is meant for all you people not in finance, wiki it if you need to). Supply issue don’t equal out to financial issues at all. I honestly don’t believe there is much of a supply issue really. I honestly believe that telling stores they will not have as much product makes owners tell buyers to buy when it’s released and not hold out. This will help GW maintain a high output and make sure that those stores on financing options that GW offer (I believe most stores have 45 days to pay off) pay their bills quickly.
Kilkrazy wrote: GW are making a profit and have cash in the bank to pay dividends.
Whatever the long term prospects, they are not in financial trouble right now.
the paying of the dividends right meow is really all that matters, GW's business model is not built on long term success but is largely a plan to just get them to the next pay out.
In recent years, GW made insane price hikes to compensate for lower sales and keep the revenue flat (adjusted for inflation). They didn't grow for 8 years ... in a growing market ... after they broke up with De Agostini that made all the needed advertising for the LOTR game and created the "LOTR bubble" (bubble because GW went back to non-advertising).
With the Hobbit, GW tried to double the prices. The market said "Are you crazy?" So you can still get the limited edition starters after 6 months that should have been sold in 3 days.
To compensate, GW now starts with doubling prices for standard troops, beginning with Dire Avengers. Also releasing mostly 50+ GBP kits, including slight variations of 30 GBP models (Dark Talon), now with almost 100 GBP models. Current Codices are also double the price of their predecessor at release. If you need to double the prices for standard products just to keep revenue flat, you must be in really dire conditions.
Kroothawk wrote: In recent years, GW made insane price hikes to compensate for lower sales and keep the revenue flat (adjusted for inflation).
No. GW is checking the markets elasticity, this is a common business move for an industry leader. They will continue to raise prices till sales drop. Sales of LoTR failed so did merchandising in almost every other industry but overall sales are up.
With the Hobbit, GW tried to double the prices. The market said "Are you crazy?" So you can still get the limited edition starters after 6 months that should have been sold in 3 days.
In fairness, huge Hobbit price hike is probably not entirely GW's fault. Look at how much Lego licensed ranges cost (Star Wars and Hobbit). They're just crazy expensive.
And recent accelerated release schedule likely doesn't have anything to do with success or failure of The Hobbit. Codex and model releases are planned at least a year ahead.
With the Hobbit, GW tried to double the prices. The market said "Are you crazy?" So you can still get the limited edition starters after 6 months that should have been sold in 3 days.
In fairness, huge Hobbit price hike is probably not entirely GW's fault. Look at how much Lego licensed ranges cost (Star Wars and Hobbit). They're just crazy expensive.
And recent accelerated release schedule likely doesn't have anything to do with success or failure of The Hobbit. Codex and model releases are planned at least a year ahead.
As a AFoL (adult fan of Lego) I can agree with this.
troa wrote: Them not supplying enough is not an indicator of financial trouble...Logic it a little bit, and you get either A) their suppliers are not holding their end of the bargain, which is not GW's fault(though it will result in them needing new suppliers potentially), or B) they under-forecast their need, and thus sold way more than they thought they would leading to a shortage. That's generally a GOOD sign for a company, if that's the case.
In short: It's not a sign of anything, don't try to read into it. What you're insinuating is like saying Nintendo is screwed because they couldn't keep up with demand for the Wii for months when it came out initially.
Hastings over at Warseer claimed the Tau debacle was a result of not enough boxes being printed by the company that supplies GW boxes. It was not due to a lack of production capabilities at GW. People reported getting generic white boxes from GW for their Tau orders.
printing a box consists of opening the design in the appropriate folder and clicking 'print'. I seriously doubt they ran out of boxes.
troa wrote: Them not supplying enough is not an indicator of financial trouble...Logic it a little bit, and you get either A) their suppliers are not holding their end of the bargain, which is not GW's fault(though it will result in them needing new suppliers potentially), or B) they under-forecast their need, and thus sold way more than they thought they would leading to a shortage. That's generally a GOOD sign for a company, if that's the case.
In short: It's not a sign of anything, don't try to read into it. What you're insinuating is like saying Nintendo is screwed because they couldn't keep up with demand for the Wii for months when it came out initially.
Hastings over at Warseer claimed the Tau debacle was a result of not enough boxes being printed by the company that supplies GW boxes. It was not due to a lack of production capabilities at GW. People reported getting generic white boxes from GW for their Tau orders.
printing a box consists of opening the design in the appropriate folder and clicking 'print'. I seriously doubt they ran out of boxes.
If they outsource their printing there's many reasons why they could have fallen short, either by their own error or the printer. That printer likely has other client orders to fulfil, so even if they were liable, it would take time to correct.
Yes, they won't print their own boxes but will do it with another company. As printers can be booked for months, if GW under ordered then it could be quite a wait until more can be done. I'm not sure I buy the printing sleeves excuse, I think it's more of an decision by GW to produce less volume.
There's a balance between producing stock and getting rapid sales and money, if you produce less stock there are slightly less sales but there's almost no waste at all because it all sells. In the past they probably over produced to have a healthy inventory to sell over time beyond the initial release, this makes more money over a longer time period but requires having to invest more at the start. Maybe GW are not inclined to producing and storing long term stocks of things. If they are unhealthy it could be a symptom of them not haven't much liquid cash, if they are healthy then they are just choosing to convert less cash money into assets/stock, for whatever reason.
As for the Hobbit, no one really knows what its sales are like. And if it has become a money pit for GW I expect they'll try to dress it up nicely in their next investors report.
I've always had generic white boxes for GW stuff ordered by post to the store. There's no point printing a box that doesn't have to sell itself off the shelf.
Kroothawk wrote: In recent years, GW made insane price hikes to compensate for lower sales and keep the revenue flat (adjusted for inflation).
No. GW is checking the markets elasticity, this is a common business move for an industry leader. They will continue to raise prices till sales drop. Sales of LoTR failed so did merchandising in almost every other industry but overall sales are up.
No, they are not. Sales have been falling for years in Australia so what do they do? They begin increasing costs in the US to match us. That is not testing elasticity, that is raising prices to cover falling sales.
GW are still making money, but they are only doing it by cutting costs (moving to one man stores that are only open 5 days, etc). That is not a sustainable business model.
They also grew what, 6.5% last year right? The market grew 15% so they are losing their market share to their competitors.
Then there was the 10 or so videogame licences they dished out at the start of the year, that doesn't seem like a good sign considering their attitude towards such things in the past.
They are still making a profit and their stock is dropping but neither of those things mean they are not in trouble, it just means that trouble hasn't punched them in the nuts yet.
Blackmoor wrote: Something is going on with their increased release schedule and other odd behavior.
It might be because the Hobbit game tanked so bad, or it might be something else.
I would suggest this is far closer to the truth.
Harry and Hastings predicted this increased release schedule around august 2012, so unless they are psychics that know the Hobbit is going to tank, I don't think it's because of the Hobbit we are seeing this increased schedule.
Personally I thank Warmachine for it. I think they showed GW that consumers will buy a lot more than they expected and that you don't have to starve them 8 years before giving them an update.
Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:No. GW is checking the markets elasticity, this is a common business move for an industry leader. They will continue to raise prices till sales drop. Sales of LoTR failed so did merchandising in almost every other industry but overall sales are up.
1.) Sales are flat, adjusted by inflation. Don't have the table with me, but I can post it tonight.
2.) GW raises prices by maybe 10% on average, GW loses 10% sales. So elasticity is reached. For years. Does GW react? Yes, it increases prices to compensate for loss of sales. Now they feel like they have to double the prices to compensate for loss of sales ...
Howard A Treesong wrote:As for the Hobbit, no one really knows what its sales are like.
We all know that the limited edition is still available. We know that GW invests next to nothing in marketing this line even in their own publication, the WD. Anecdotical evidence speak of almost no sales whenever you ask.
troa wrote: Them not supplying enough is not an indicator of financial trouble...Logic it a little bit, and you get either A) their suppliers are not holding their end of the bargain, which is not GW's fault(though it will result in them needing new suppliers potentially), or B) they under-forecast their need, and thus sold way more than they thought they would leading to a shortage. That's generally a GOOD sign for a company, if that's the case.
In short: It's not a sign of anything, don't try to read into it. What you're insinuating is like saying Nintendo is screwed because they couldn't keep up with demand for the Wii for months when it came out initially.
Hastings over at Warseer claimed the Tau debacle was a result of not enough boxes being printed by the company that supplies GW boxes. It was not due to a lack of production capabilities at GW. People reported getting generic white boxes from GW for their Tau orders.
printing a box consists of opening the design in the appropriate folder and clicking 'print'. I seriously doubt they ran out of boxes.
If they outsource their printing there's many reasons why they could have fallen short, either by their own error or the printer. That printer likely has other client orders to fulfil, so even if they were liable, it would take time to correct.
If the company that provided my work with boxes/packaging went "d'oh we didn't supply enough, sorry. Oh and we won't be able to get you any more for a few months because we have other orders to fulfil" they'd be dropped instantly.
And if they have other orders to fulfil, tough gak. Bring in an overtime shift to do it. Manufacturing is a lot better than "whoops we didn't do it, gonna have to wait a few months".
troa wrote: Them not supplying enough is not an indicator of financial trouble...Logic it a little bit, and you get either A) their suppliers are not holding their end of the bargain, which is not GW's fault(though it will result in them needing new suppliers potentially), or B) they under-forecast their need, and thus sold way more than they thought they would leading to a shortage. That's generally a GOOD sign for a company, if that's the case.
In short: It's not a sign of anything, don't try to read into it. What you're insinuating is like saying Nintendo is screwed because they couldn't keep up with demand for the Wii for months when it came out initially.
Hastings over at Warseer claimed the Tau debacle was a result of not enough boxes being printed by the company that supplies GW boxes. It was not due to a lack of production capabilities at GW. People reported getting generic white boxes from GW for their Tau orders.
printing a box consists of opening the design in the appropriate folder and clicking 'print'. I seriously doubt they ran out of boxes.
If they outsource their printing there's many reasons why they could have fallen short, either by their own error or the printer. That printer likely has other client orders to fulfil, so even if they were liable, it would take time to correct.
If the company that provided my work with boxes/packaging went "d'oh we didn't supply enough, sorry. Oh and we won't be able to get you any more for a few months because we have other orders to fulfil" they'd be dropped instantly.
And if they have other orders to fulfil, tough gak. Bring in an overtime shift to do it. Manufacturing is a lot better than "whoops we didn't do it, gonna have to wait a few months".
The fault may not be on the printer. If GW intern types 100 instead of 1000 and sends the order, the mistake is all GWs part and they'd have to slot in the queue for additional prints.
Or they could do an overtime shift. Unless the printer is operating at 100% capacity - which would be highly unusual anyway, but in this recession is basically impossible - printing more boxes wouldn't be a problem. Any factory that couldn't react quickly to a customer's increase/decrease in demand would go out of business very quickly. Orders in factories can change on a daily, even hourly basis.
Kilkrazy wrote: I've always had generic white boxes for GW stuff ordered by post to the store. There's no point printing a box that doesn't have to sell itself off the shelf.
Then again, if the boxes are printed in China, like the books are, it still might take a while to get them here.
I'm pretty sure with most printers you book your print run several months in advance. If your forecast changes in that time you don't get to increase the original run, you schedule a second run.
BryllCream wrote: Or they could do an overtime shift. Unless the printer is operating at 100% capacity - which would be highly unusual anyway, but in this recession is basically impossible - printing more boxes wouldn't be a problem. Any factory that couldn't react quickly to a customer's increase/decrease in demand would go out of business very quickly. Orders in factories can change on a daily, even hourly basis.
Having worked previously in the printing industry both paper and plastics this is wrong, most industrial printers if the type games workshop use will be running machines 24/7, always the case in factories i worked in. Competition for large scale print volume is not terribly fierce either unless you go abroad but then your accepting even longer lead times, as such the customer does not always have a lot of choice then to wait.
Also printers probably have larger and more valuable custom then games workshop, you would not for example pull a coca cola order off the line for anything.
Though you may be slightly wrong about that, i would say your correct in thinking they would not have run out of boxes, why order less boxes then you have product, also in printing the larger the order the cheaper it will be. I doubt games workshop deal with small run print orders
THanks salad fingers for actually bringing the facts into the argument. I've commissioned a lot of printing. In this case, it's not only printing the boxes, it's die-cutting them to shape, and if you're rigid on costs the machine time will be scheduled well in advance. Yes, you can change print runs and increase machine time, but then you'll be paying rush fees. GW will have flexibility with their own machinery, but not with their contractors.
I don't believe the boxes are printed in China; the books have a high unit cost, which makes shipping them halfway across the world worthwhile. Boxes won't be, as they have a low unit cost and shipping costs will be prohibitive.
I so love how many people here know more about the printing and scheduling business than GW. Much the same as, on the How Much Is GW worth thread, we have people who, having bought GW products, know far more about their financial health than city analysts and pension funds managers. (Not that I necessarily have huge respect for the latter, but still...)
Im no finacial wizard but GW is fine. Supply issues, as someone who has done 16 years in retail (17 in September), happen. No way around it. You can only crank out as much as you take in and if you dont make it in house your up da creek. Cranking out a new 40k codex or Fantasy codex every other month is perhaps a sign that GW may have woken up and bring everyone up to date before doing a new rule set. Whos left for the 'oldest book club' in 40k?? SIsters and Templars??
Hivefleet Oblivion wrote: THanks salad fingers for actually bringing the facts into the argument. I've commissioned a lot of printing. In this case, it's not only printing the boxes, it's die-cutting them to shape, and if you're rigid on costs the machine time will be scheduled well in advance. Yes, you can change print runs and increase machine time, but then you'll be paying rush fees. GW will have flexibility with their own machinery, but not with their contractors.
I don't believe the boxes are printed in China; the books have a high unit cost, which makes shipping them halfway across the world worthwhile. Boxes won't be, as they have a low unit cost and shipping costs will be prohibitive.
I so love how many people here know more about the printing and scheduling business than GW. Much the same as, on the How Much Is GW worth thread, we have people who, having bought GW products, know far more about their financial health than city analysts and pension funds managers. (Not that I necessarily have huge respect for the latter, but still...)
So who are you to say those people are wrong? Do you have a lengthy background in the finance sector, or are you just as under qualified to call these people out on their opinion as you allege they are to offer it?
So who are you to say those people are wrong? Do you have a lengthy background in the finance sector, or are you just as under qualified to call these people out on their opinion as you allege they are to offer it?
Well, re this discussion, I've commissioned a few millions pounds' worth of printing, which happens to be what people are talking about. I'm certainly not suggesting I know more than those who work as financial analysts - I know about Dunning-Kruger syndrome. There's a lot of it about.
I'm an accountant with a large international accountancy firm and deal with plenty of exits/IPOs etc.
The real push on keeping costs down and accelerated release schedule does seem to be indicative of either pressure from the VC houses to retain income per share at current levels or a likely exit for certain shareholders trying to maximise value before they go.
The issue with shortages of new stock is likely that there has been such pressure on not over-ordering, holding too much stock in warehouses etc they ended up shorting themselves against initial day one demand. Farily typical of companies where too much managements is by cost management rather than maximising sales volume. Not down to lack of finances, more down to bad planning and management.
if they carry on at this rate they get through almost all the codexes/army books in the next 18 months and then what? Atrophy I feel.
My wife worked at a smallish printers and I can assure you that the idea that if you don't order enough stuff can be remedied by the print staff dropping everything and going overtime to fulfil your order won't wash. Printers run at full capacity, in fact they often take non profitable jobs because losing a small amount each hour is better than losing a lot per hour, which is what happens if you were to turn the machines off. They book schedule weeks in advance. They don't do a job and then sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for another order, these machines don't go cold. If you order the wrong amount of something they aren't going to compromise other customers orders to accommodate you.
Anyone thinking they can just work overtime and churn out the extra orders somehow are talking nonsense. Maybe you'll have a slot allocated, maybe you won't, and you'll pay a lot more for expecting a last minute job, if they can do it.
So who are you to say those people are wrong? Do you have a lengthy background in the finance sector, or are you just as under qualified to call these people out on their opinion as you allege they are to offer it?
Well, re this discussion, I've commissioned a few millions pounds' worth of printing, which happens to be what people are talking about. I'm certainly not suggesting I know more than those who work as financial analysts - I know about Dunning-Kruger syndrome. There's a lot of it about.
"I've commissioned a few million pounds of printing" is barely more relevant than "I've spent thousands of pounds on petrol" would be if the discussion was about the oil industry.
There are people on here that have genuine knowledge, lawyers who post in the Chapterhouse thread, there was a market analyst who posted in the "GW Worth" thread, and Salad Fingers has direct experience in the print industry. I personally hold business qualifications, have operated in a fairly large company at mangement level and have run my own business. Sure, there may be some instances of DK Sundrome, but just because that's the case, it doesn't mean everyone knows nothing.
So who are you to say those people are wrong? Do you have a lengthy background in the finance sector, or are you just as under qualified to call these people out on their opinion as you allege they are to offer it?
Well, re this discussion, I've commissioned a few millions pounds' worth of printing, which happens to be what people are talking about. I'm certainly not suggesting I know more than those who work as financial analysts - I know about Dunning-Kruger syndrome. There's a lot of it about.
I know this wasn’t meant for me but I am going to answer the question above with this quoted. Yes I work in the purchasing department of a large hospital for about 3 years. I buy things from manufactures and wholesalers I also maintain inventory to standards that make it equitable and auditable enough the hospital actually can barrow against it. I handle 8.2 million dollars of inventory. I also am in the process of buying my FLGS and am in the very, very, preliminaries of building a miniature line. I know a bit about financing though my degree is in Mass Communications with a minor in philosophy (not as worthless as some might think). So I can say I can say I know something about supply line and inventory management. Nothing in anything GW is doing points to any issues financially. I would bet my 3k points worth of FW Krieg on it. It does point to the being douche bags.
The strategy is simple:
1. Tell FLGS that stock will be low for release.
2. FLGS tells customer buy now or you will miss out.
3. FLGS buys as much as they can on TERMS or outside credit.
4. Customer buys as much as they can. Customers unable to get what needed buy from GW directly screwing the FLGS but still allowing them to pay off the terms. This is why GW hates online retail. feths their online retail.
5. FLGS pays terms quicker.
6. GW instead of waiting 45 days for term payments gets them paid in half the time.
7. GW is able to keep highly accelerated releases schedule due to higher cash flow which increases their EBIDA (this how you measure how much a company is worth).
There are currently two market analysts that appear to even pay attention to GW. I would guess both deal with small-caps. FWIW, both have a 'buy' rating on the company. I strongly suspect that their understanding of the company is a review of their financials and listening to company guidance. I would be amazed if they had any understanding of the fundamentals--tabletop wargaming--beyond comparison to other retail shopping-mall stores while factoring in their supply chain integration to some degree.
In 'gamer terms', that level of analysis is sort of like looking at a list construction, comparing it to the meta, and saying whether or not it's 'good'. It is probably the best level of analysis that can be obtained for an obscure small company, but it's very limited.
GW is a tiny company. It's rather naive to assume that a broad pool of fund managers--whether pension, index, or hedge--even know GW exists.
Ignoring the performance of GW stock --which is quite good, especially considering the dividend (which should be reflected by the stock price)--GW exists in a very, very 'unsexy' sector, some blend of traditional retail and toy manufacturing. They have very modest growth that has been a bit erratic in the last 5 years, the growth trajectory is nothing that would raise eyebrows, and liquidity is rather poor.
If you look at the volume traded as this stock has roared to new recent highs, it is actually very light, which is a big flag from someone evaluating trade opportunities.
TLDR: the professional trading community likely doesn't know GW exists. It's just not a fish big enough to hit the sonar screen. As a result, claims about pro financial analysis are like arguments over the color of yeti fur.
Being backordered is a GOOD thing for a company. It means you have reliable income for as long as the orders last. This is just more trolling. Everyone wishes GW would be in trouble so they would have to restructure, but the sad thing is that they just aren't. They have a terrible business model but it's working for them. You're clearly concerned about your ability to get your hands on the models if you're worried about them being forced to put your order in a queue.
It has got to be impossible for GW to be in dire straits financially.
At the end of the day, even if their sales have fell a little, and I am guessing they will have lately, they are still selling plenty, and their prices have gone way up.
Also, I presume their overheads have dropped as well after dropping lines and cracking on with Kirbys evil regime, so, it's surely an impossibility that they are still shifting heaps of stuff (hence the Tau shortage) at a much bigger profit margin (endless price increases) and actually are in real trouble financially.
I was referring to the liquidity of their shares, as traded as an equity. Looks like a simple average of the last 15 days shows that GW PLC trades about 70k shares/day. Using an old trading rule of thumb that you rarely want to be more than 10% of the interest, it would require half of a month to invest a million dollars in GW .
And, the contra, should things go all pear-shaped and you need to get your money out, you're looking at more than two weeks (or you can 'blow out', which is also not desirable).
I was simply illustrating why a financial professional probably does not give a hoot about GW, assuming that they know it exists.
jonolikespie wrote: They are still making a profit and their stock is dropping but neither of those things mean they are not in trouble, it just means that trouble hasn't punched them in the nuts yet.
Their stock isn't dropping, OK - it fell nearly 10p per share over the last 2 days, but it is still up nearly 30p from the start of the month. Currently at 721 - which is nearly the highest it has ever been.
Munga wrote: Being backordered is a GOOD thing for a company. It means you have reliable income for as long as the orders last. This is just more trolling. Everyone wishes GW would be in trouble so they would have to restructure, but the sad thing is that they just aren't. They have a terrible business model but it's working for them. You're clearly concerned about your ability to get your hands on the models if you're worried about them being forced to put your order in a queue.
You've never been in manufacturing for retail sales, have you?
Being back ordered ties up funds in a non-liquid form.
Even when warehousing is limited back ordering is worse.
That said, this looks more like a supply chain problem, which can go wrong dozens of ways, with only a few of them meaning 'the company is in trouble! Bail!'
In honesty, I do think that GW is in mid to long term financial difficulties.
I also think that the current supply chain problems have little or nothing to do with those problems.
Kroothawk wrote: In recent years, GW made insane price hikes to compensate for lower sales and keep the revenue flat (adjusted for inflation). They didn't grow for 8 years ... in a growing market ... after they broke up with De Agostini that made all the needed advertising for the LOTR game and created the "LOTR bubble" (bubble because GW went back to non-advertising).
With the Hobbit, GW tried to double the prices. The market said "Are you crazy?" So you can still get the limited edition starters after 6 months that should have been sold in 3 days.
Yes.
It was the "doubled prices" and "no advertising" that made "The Hobbit" sell poorly.
It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that as far as 'action scenes' go "The Hobbit" was fairly devoid of them while each of the Lord of the Rings films had one or two pivotal big battle moments in each film.
Kroothawk wrote: In recent years, GW made insane price hikes to compensate for lower sales and keep the revenue flat (adjusted for inflation). They didn't grow for 8 years ... in a growing market ... after they broke up with De Agostini that made all the needed advertising for the LOTR game and created the "LOTR bubble" (bubble because GW went back to non-advertising).
With the Hobbit, GW tried to double the prices. The market said "Are you crazy?" So you can still get the limited edition starters after 6 months that should have been sold in 3 days.
Yes.
It was the "doubled prices" and "no advertising" that made "The Hobbit" sell poorly.
It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that as far as 'action scenes' go "The Hobbit" was fairly devoid of them while each of the Lord of the Rings films had one or two pivotal big battle moments in each film.
This is very true, but as nobody had heard of it or could afford it, nobody found out.
ruminator wrote: I
The real push on keeping costs down and accelerated release schedule does seem to be indicative of either pressure from the VC houses to retain income per share at current levels or a likely exit for certain shareholders trying to maximise value before they go.
Pressure from the VC houses can only mean one thing...the Von Carsteins are at work!
Kilkrazy wrote: I've always had generic white boxes for GW stuff ordered by post to the store. There's no point printing a box that doesn't have to sell itself off the shelf.
Isn't this fairly obvious?
Apparently not to the people who are slating GW for using white boxes.
Kilkrazy wrote: I've always had generic white boxes for GW stuff ordered by post to the store. There's no point printing a box that doesn't have to sell itself off the shelf.
Isn't this fairly obvious?
Apparently not to the people who are slating GW for using white boxes.
I've never cared much either way - the box will be chucked afterwards... the only point for giving it a pretty picture is to show what is inside. Maybe give an idea on how to paint the contest.
But given the choice between a late product in a shiny box and a product that arrives in a plain brown wrapper but in a timely fashion.... I will go with timely.
But then... I really don't think of GW's products as 'premium'. *Shrug*
They are decent, but not really better than many other, often more reasonably priced, products.
I buy many times more Reaper - typically in blister packs.
Forge World are premium products and all the models I've bought from them come in simple packaging with a generic label and design that I could print on my printer at home with just the title of the item shown on the packaging.
That's the difference between an actual premium product and a product that is trying to scream to the kiddies "hey look at me, I'm a premium product!"
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Forge World are premium products and all the models I've bought from them come in simple packaging with a generic label and design that I could print on my printer at home with just the title of the item shown on the packaging.
That's the difference between an actual premium product and a product that is trying to scream to the kiddies "hey look at me, I'm a premium product!"
Or that's the difference between a product that is direct order from the manufacturer and one that is designed to sit on a shelf.
cincydooley wrote: Or that's the difference between a product that is direct order from the manufacturer and one that is designed to sit on a shelf.
Sorry, I thought that what we were talking about. When you either buy something online or walk in to a shop and specifically order a box that is not currently on the shelf. I will admit I haven't bought a lot of GW stuff direct, but I believe it's always come in the display boxes they use in stores (in some cases with a whole lot of empty space) rather than a generic box with a simple printed label like Forge World products.
cincydooley wrote: Or that's the difference between a product that is direct order from the manufacturer and one that is designed to sit on a shelf.
Yeah, but we're talking about GW having problems with sufficient stock for direct orders. If the problem is boxes, just stuff it in a generic cardboard box and mail it. I'd much rather have a new Tau army now in plain cardboard than have to wait a month to get it in pretty boxes that are going straight into the garbage as soon as I open them.
BryllCream wrote: It doesn't really work for something trying to market itself as a premium product.
I disagree, there are loads of premium products that come in in plain packaging. Designers particularly like to have that air of mystery. My Mrs bought a set of three dolls that had been dressed by famous designers all came in non-descript black boxes, and cost me nearly £200 each! Don't worry it was money well spent, she can hardly moan about toy soldiers now can she.
BryllCream wrote: It doesn't really work for something trying to market itself as a premium product.
I disagree, there are loads of premium products that come in in plain packaging. Designers particularly like to have that air of mystery. My Mrs bought a set of three dolls that had been dressed by famous designers all came in non-descript black boxes, and cost me nearly £200 each! Don't worry it was money well spent, she can hardly moan about toy soldiers now can she.
Also Astin Martins don't come in boxes.
My Guvnor came in a plain box with "Pashley" written on the side. Def not luxury packaging, but certainly a premium product.
Kroothawk wrote: In recent years, GW made insane price hikes to compensate for lower sales and keep the revenue flat (adjusted for inflation). They didn't grow for 8 years ... in a growing market ... after they broke up with De Agostini that made all the needed advertising for the LOTR game and created the "LOTR bubble" (bubble because GW went back to non-advertising).
With the Hobbit, GW tried to double the prices. The market said "Are you crazy?" So you can still get the limited edition starters after 6 months that should have been sold in 3 days.
Yes.
It was the "doubled prices" and "no advertising" that made "The Hobbit" sell poorly.
It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that as far as 'action scenes' go "The Hobbit" was fairly devoid of them while each of the Lord of the Rings films had one or two pivotal big battle moments in each film.
Remember Kan, keep your words short and sweet and you may just have to eat them. We'll have to see if this theory holds out by the time the second film rolls around.
BryllCream wrote: It doesn't really work for something trying to market itself as a premium product.
I disagree, there are loads of premium products that come in in plain packaging. Designers particularly like to have that air of mystery. My Mrs bought a set of three dolls that had been dressed by famous designers all came in non-descript black boxes, and cost me nearly £200 each! Don't worry it was money well spent, she can hardly moan about toy soldiers now can she.
Also Astin Martins don't come in boxes.
So you're honestly saying that GW stores should just be full of blank boxes? Some people go to rediculous lengths just to disagree with me
GW aren't in trouble, no way. For one, 4 of the stores around my area are all getting complete refits, You don't waste money on Refitting a store if you are having financial difficulty.
The problem with the Lack of being able to get tau is probably a simple fact of the amount of new Models that are being produced In a very short period of time. We have Tau, High elves and Eldar all being released in quick succession. And wile im not completely clued up on the way they get there Models cast, I'm pretty sure they wont have a Machine for every single different item that is made. So they will do a certain number of runs with say a Riptide, And then they will do a certain amount of runs with the high elf models. And if they run out of Riptides halfway through a run of a model they wont stop to change what is being cast half way through a run. Its the same situation for the Printed Boxes. If the printers are already running out loads of the new Eldar and High Elf prints then they will be unable to print Boxes for the Tau items, until they have finished the run of the new models. And that's probably why people have been receiving some items in the generic GW branded white boxes, as they are using them to try and clear the Online back orders. I recieved two riptides last week both came in there proper boxes, Granted it took two weeks for them to arrive.
jonolikespie wrote: They are still making a profit and their stock is dropping but neither of those things mean they are not in trouble, it just means that trouble hasn't punched them in the nuts yet.
Their stock isn't dropping, OK - it fell nearly 10p per share over the last 2 days, but it is still up nearly 30p from the start of the month. Currently at 721 - which is nearly the highest it has ever been.
Oops, I meant to say isn't dropping. The point of that post was that while they haven't begun to collapse in on themselves they are only keeping up profit through cost cutting and raising prices to cover falling sales. It is not a viable long term strategy and they will be in lots of trouble if they don't change something.
cerbrus2 wrote:GW aren't in trouble, no way. For one, 4 of the stores around my area are all getting complete refits, You don't waste money on Refitting a store if you are having financial difficulty.
No, you reduce them to 1 man stores with no room for actual games (which have historically been a big way to draw in new customers and keep old customers from buying from other stores) that are only open 5 days a week.
I could agree with you if it wasn't for the fact the first one opened Saturday, with 4 realm of battle, table 2 for warhammer and 2 for 40k. And a painting table big enough for at least, 6 people. The store looks great. One of the tables is like a miniature version of the drop site massacre table in Nottingham.
Games Workshop Group PLC announces that today the Board has declared a dividend of 16 pence per share. This will be paid on 5 July 2013 for shareholders on the register at 31 May 2013.
ruminator wrote: I
The real push on keeping costs down and accelerated release schedule does seem to be indicative of either pressure from the VC houses to retain income per share at current levels or a likely exit for certain shareholders trying to maximise value before they go.
Pressure from the VC houses can only mean one thing...the Von Carsteins are at work!
Yes, there is an argument that venture capitalist = vampire ...
cincydooley wrote: Or that's the difference between a product that is direct order from the manufacturer and one that is designed to sit on a shelf.
Yeah, but we're talking about GW having problems with sufficient stock for direct orders. If the problem is boxes, just stuff it in a generic cardboard box and mail it. I'd much rather have a new Tau army now in plain cardboard than have to wait a month to get it in pretty boxes that are going straight into the garbage as soon as I open them.
Completley agree. But remember that they really can't send anything to a retailer in a plain white box. I imagine making the decision to send them to direct order customers in plain white boxes was a big deal. It's not what they 'normally' do, and anyting outside of standard operating procedure almost certainly has to go through an approval process. And even then they'd probably have to ask the direct order customer for approval so they didn't get a bunch of people buying gifts angry because they didn't get what the product description on the webpage indicated they would. I mean, people will complain about anything....
Kroothawk wrote: In recent years, GW made insane price hikes to compensate for lower sales and keep the revenue flat (adjusted for inflation). They didn't grow for 8 years ... in a growing market ... after they broke up with De Agostini that made all the needed advertising for the LOTR game and created the "LOTR bubble" (bubble because GW went back to non-advertising).
With the Hobbit, GW tried to double the prices. The market said "Are you crazy?" So you can still get the limited edition starters after 6 months that should have been sold in 3 days.
Yes.
It was the "doubled prices" and "no advertising" that made "The Hobbit" sell poorly.
It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that as far as 'action scenes' go "The Hobbit" was fairly devoid of them while each of the Lord of the Rings films had one or two pivotal big battle moments in each film.
Remember Kan, keep your words short and sweet and you may just have to eat them. We'll have to see if this theory holds out by the time the second film rolls around.
Is there any guarantee that the second film will have big action sequences beyond those with youknowwho?
I can't see a starter box of Bard the Bowman fighting a dragon being exciting; same as the Escape from Goblintown and the limited number of characters involved against faceless goon squads.
From what I remember, "The Desolation of Smaug" is supposed to end right before "The Battle of the Five Armies" and that's where film 3 is going to take place.
I can't see a starter box of Bard the Bowman fighting a dragon being exciting; same as the Escape from Goblintown and the limited number of characters involved against faceless goon squads.
From what I remember, "The Desolation of Smaug" is supposed to end right before "The Battle of the Five Armies" and that's where film 3 is going to take place.
Remember there is that whole Necromancer in Mirkwood storyline that is being shoehorned in. Expect long drawn out action sequences from that. Also toys of Legolas and Arwen were released with the Hobbit and they probably show up in Mirkwood as well. It will be great.......
The Dragon attacking laketown would be a great starter set actually. It would be Dar, far too expensive for me but still. Plus having seen the first film for all we know the attack on laketown could be accompanied by a band of wise-cracking orks.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Presumably legolas will be at the battle of the five armies as he is a Prince and would have probably taught alongside his father.
silent25 wrote: Remember there is that whole Necromancer in Mirkwood storyline that is being shoehorned in.
You do know it's being shoehorned in because Tolkein himself shoehorned it in, right?
Yea, and you expect it to be anything like what Tolkein wrote? They will have the entire cast there instead of just Gandalf.
You mean like when the entire cast was with Frodo and Sam at Mount Doom?
Or when the entire cast was with Gandalf at Isengard?
And point to me the section in the Hobbit where Bilbo and the dwarfs are saved by Legolas and Arwen? Because guess what, they are in the movie saving them in Mirkwood. The Hobbit is an "inspired by" movie with things stuck in for no point and to pad it. I have no faith in Jackson at this point.
silent25 wrote: Remember there is that whole Necromancer in Mirkwood storyline that is being shoehorned in.
You do know it's being shoehorned in because Tolkein himself shoehorned it in, right?
Yea, and you expect it to be anything like what Tolkein wrote? They will have the entire cast there instead of just Gandalf.
You mean like when the entire cast was with Frodo and Sam at Mount Doom?
Or when the entire cast was with Gandalf at Isengard?
And point to me the section in the Hobbit where Bilbo and the dwarfs are saved by Legolas and Arwen? Because guess what, they are in the movie saving them in Mirkwood. The Hobbit is an "inspired by" movie with things stuck in for no point and to pad it. I have no faith in Jackson at this point.
Seriously? So I take you don't like the first 3 films?
SickSix wrote: I think it's safe to say this thread is done.
It was done before it started. No business is permanently safe from financial disaster. All these "GW is on the Verge of Disaster" threads are argued from the flimsiest and most tentative of 2nd and 3rd hand evidence and speculation.
SickSix wrote: I think it's safe to say this thread is done.
Agreed. I believed GW is S.O.L. back in 2006 when I started to see the serious changed to their business model. Vertical Integration sometimes works and other times it does not. In this case it is working but at what cost? Who wins are the top 5 holders of stock investment. Who loses are the people, their customer base who they alienated a long time ago.
Now I know and seen typed on this site and on others concerning the dividend aspect. Well of course where is this being taken from? Profits. Every company has a right to run it the way they want it to be ran, but in my case I won't invest into a company that does not have a substantial cash reserves to be properly placed back into the company or to be used in an emergency. I do not see a sufficient amount with this corporation.
We have beaten this topic to the ground. We all know that there is going to be a big profit coming from the next financial report and this is due in churning out a crap load of product in a short amount of time, the highest I have ever seen in the 25+ years dealing with this part of the hobby.
I am not against a company making a profit. I am against a company that is pricing themselves out of their customer base and giving their profits to a chosen few.
silent25 wrote: Remember there is that whole Necromancer in Mirkwood storyline that is being shoehorned in.
You do know it's being shoehorned in because Tolkein himself shoehorned it in, right?
Yea, and you expect it to be anything like what Tolkein wrote? They will have the entire cast there instead of just Gandalf.
You mean like when the entire cast was with Frodo and Sam at Mount Doom?
Or when the entire cast was with Gandalf at Isengard?
And point to me the section in the Hobbit where Bilbo and the dwarfs are saved by Legolas and Arwen? Because guess what, they are in the movie saving them in Mirkwood. The Hobbit is an "inspired by" movie with things stuck in for no point and to pad it. I have no faith in Jackson at this point.
Awesome! Could you tell me how to watch the second film now rather than in december, as I quite want to watch it. I mean, I assume you've seen it, as you appear to be making statements about the plot that you could only know if you had seen it.
Unless of course you're just making vague assumptions based on what you don't want to happen, in which case keep on going.
Awesome! Could you tell me how to watch the second film now rather than in december, as I quite want to watch it. I mean, I assume you've seen it, as you appear to be making statements about the plot that you could only know if you had seen it.
Unless of course you're just making vague assumptions based on what you don't want to happen, in which case keep on going.
You saw the Lego Mirkwood sets that came out last year, didn't you?
There's a Lego Iron Man 3 set that has Iron Man fighting the Mandarin. The Mandarin is piloting some sort of walker tank thingy. That didn't happen in the movie.
H.B.M.C. wrote: There's a Lego Iron Man 3 set that has Iron Man fighting the Mandarin. The Mandarin is piloting some sort of walker tank thingy. That didn't happen in the movie.
That totally happened in the movie.
They must have edited it for Australia.
In regards to the LEGO Mirkwood set; supposedly there was a ton of products which had already been made and earmarked before the final decision to cut the Mirkwood scenes into The Hobbit II: The Hobbiting. If they weren't huge spoilers(like how Smaug looks), they were released.
Kanluwen wrote: In regards to the LEGO Mirkwood set; supposedly there was a ton of products which had already been made and earmarked before the final decision to cut the Mirkwood scenes into The Hobbit II: The Hobbiting. If they weren't huge spoilers(like how Smaug looks), they were released.
That and, as we've seen from Lego products and even GW's own Hobbit stuff, some changes were made at the last minute to the Hobbit so some of the sets don't even follow the films.
Alfndrate wrote: Also that's not Arwen, that's Tauriel, an elf made for the films... but the blonde guy is in fact Legolas...
Yup.
Tauriel is the captain of Thranduil's royal guard, and was added because Peter Jackson felt that the "lack of female characters" was an issue that he wanted to remedy.
Awesome! Could you tell me how to watch the second film now rather than in december, as I quite want to watch it. I mean, I assume you've seen it, as you appear to be making statements about the plot that you could only know if you had seen it.
Unless of course you're just making vague assumptions based on what you don't want to happen, in which case keep on going.
You saw the Lego Mirkwood sets that came out last year, didn't you?
*edit* And image to boot:
Spoiler:
I was unaware that Arwen was now ginger rather than having black hair like she did in the other three films.
Adam LongWalker wrote: We all know that there is going to be a big profit coming from the next financial report and this is due in churning out a crap load of product in a short amount of time, the highest I have ever seen in the 25+ years dealing with this part of the hobby.
Yeah, years ago they were selling only 4 plastic kits per month, now they are selling up to 4 plastic kits per month!
Well getting back to the OP's question. Nothing that has been posted here or elsewhere has convinced me that GW is currently in any kind of "financial trouble" at this time.
There are lots of opinions on how GW could be doing things differently and perhaps better but this thread is wildly off topic at the moment.
JWhex wrote: Well getting back to the OP's question. Nothing that has been posted here or elsewhere has convinced me that GW is currently in any kind of "financial trouble" at this time.
There are lots of opinions on how GW could be doing things differently and perhaps better but this thread is wildly off topic at the moment.
Well back on topic, in the Chapterhouse lawsuit thread, the financial information regarding GW's North American sales were accidentally released. GW did see a significant reduction in sales among key items in 2012. I don't have a direct link, but I'm sure others do.
The interesting thing was certain lines made very little. Some WHFB kits were making less that Forge World sets. I think the HE infantry were only selling a couple thousand dollars worth a year.
People are complaining about old kits not being redone, but I believe GW doesn't see redoing the kits as being profitable. You may sell twice the number of kits you currently do, but if overall sales are so low, you don't recoup your investment in the redesign.
JWhex wrote: Well getting back to the OP's question. Nothing that has been posted here or elsewhere has convinced me that GW is currently in any kind of "financial trouble" at this time.
Fact is that GW revenue is flat for years (adjusted for inflation) in a growing market:
It is flat since they quit the cooperation with DeAgostini doing all the standard marketing for the LOTR line.
Fact is that the Hobbit starter set sells far from expectations, with the limited edition now available for 6 months. Anecdotical evidence says that the complete hobbit line is not selling.
Fact is that even with shrinking sales, GW is not anymore able to fill in all orders, not for Tau and (as admitted by GW) not for Eldar: http://www.thecombatcompany.com/whats-happening-with-the-eldar-release/ . One high up GW manager made structural problems with supply responsible for that.
In the past, GW made insane price hikes to just keep total revenue flat. In the past 7 months, the standard price for Hobbit products doubled (compared to LOTR products incl starter), I predict a doubling of prices for most standard troops in the next 2 weeks like they just did for Dire Avengers. The price for a codex/armybook is now double the price of its predecessor at time of release. The price of new flyers is double the price of Storm Talon and Nightwing, while using the same number of sprues (in case of Stormtalon/Darktalon only slight variations of the same sprues).
If you need to double the price for the bulk of your sold products just to keep revenue flat, what does that say about the financial conditions of a company? And will it help the company's health to double prices?
Well back on topic, in the Chapterhouse lawsuit thread, the financial information regarding GW's North American sales were accidentally released. GW did see a significant reduction in sales among key items in 2012. I don't have a direct link, but I'm sure others do.
The interesting thing was certain lines made very little. Some WHFB kits were making less that Forge World sets. I think the HE infantry were only selling a couple thousand dollars worth a year.
In case of HE infantry however, it probably does not sell because you can get that much cheaper from starter set.
Kroothawk 528503 5658039 wrote:]I predict a doubling of prices for most standard troops in the next 2 weeks like they just did for Dire Avengers. The price for a codex/armybook is now double the price of its predecessor at time of release. The price of new flyers is double the price of Storm Talon and Nightwing, while using the same number of sprues (in case of Stormtalon/Darktalon only slight variations of the same sprues).
If you need to double the price for the bulk of your sold products just to keep revenue flat, what does that say about the financial conditions of a company? And will it help the company's health to double prices?
Yes, they're price gouging, but don't exaggerate. Prices for most troops haven't doubled.
You can read the evidence in any way that suits your preconceptions. You can say revenues are increasing at the moment, which is a great result in recession-hit Europe, and that they're outperforming rivals like Hornby, who produce mass market plastic kits for the leisure market. Or you can say they're not doing as well as they should be doing.
Your own evidence is hugely contradictory - you're simultaneously saying sales are flat, and that they're not satisfying increased demand for new product. Which is it? People like Dark Sphere are saying that the new Tau and Eldar ranges are up in sales terms. So it's quite possible that this tactic, more new models, is working, whether or not we/you/I like it.
GW is a publicly quoted company. Complaining about their concentrating on short-term profit, is like complaining that dogs bark. Focusing only on short-term profit is, unfortunately, what all Brit and most American publicly-quoted companies do.
Kroothawk 528503 5658039 wrote:I predict a doubling of prices for most standard troops in the next 2 weeks like they just did for Dire Avengers.
Yes, they're price gouging, but don't exaggerate. Prices for most troops haven't doubled.
Please read again. Also have a look at the Hobbit range.
Hivefleet Oblivion wrote: Your own evidence is hugely contradictory - you're simultaneously saying sales are flat, and that they're not satisfying increased demand for new product.
1.) I say total revenue is flat, adjusted for inflation.
2.) With price increases above inflation, sales are not flat but shrinking.
3.) No contradiction with supply problems, as in the last 2 years, they closed all production facilities in China and USA, making the business report look good because selling infrastructure gives short term money.
4.) BTW, GW administration also massively reduced sales staff, but hired more administration staff (data by Sean O'Brian)
The fact that they also increased the number of production staff and design staff makes me think that they don't expect themselves to go under any time soon. Also, what's wrong with more administration?
Kroothawk 528503 5658039 wrote:]I predict a doubling of prices for most standard troops in the next 2 weeks like they just did for Dire Avengers. The price for a codex/armybook is now double the price of its predecessor at time of release. The price of new flyers is double the price of Storm Talon and Nightwing, while using the same number of sprues (in case of Stormtalon/Darktalon only slight variations of the same sprues).
If you need to double the price for the bulk of your sold products just to keep revenue flat, what does that say about the financial conditions of a company? And will it help the company's health to double prices?
Yes, they're price gouging, but don't exaggerate. Prices for most troops haven't doubled.
Yet
You can read the evidence in any way that suits your preconceptions. You can say revenues are increasing at the moment, which is a great result in recession-hit Europe, and that they're outperforming rivals like Hornby, who produce mass market plastic kits for the leisure market. Or you can say they're not doing as well as they should be doing.
Hornby are not the competition, I think I've said this to you before? Just because they make mass market plastics does not mean they are competition, they operate in a completely different niche. It's almost like comparing them to a company who make pipe work for aquariums. Similar raw material, broadly similar production method, utterly different market. (Albeit I will concede an element of crossover, but then, hobbyists could buy aquarium pipes for terrain) edit Forgot to add, GW are a global company, so Europe is only one territory. Given the global economy isn't great, one would assume they would concentrate on development in some relatively more prosperous areas, like Australia and New Ze...ah...
Your own evidence is hugely contradictory - you're simultaneously saying sales are flat, and that they're not satisfying increased demand for new product. Which is it? People like Dark Sphere are saying that the new Tau and Eldar ranges are up in sales terms. So it's quite possible that this tactic, more new models, is working, whether or not we/you/I like it.
Not hugely contradictory, no. A spike in demand when two of the most out of date ranges are updated, and it seems most popular too, is not surprising neither is it particularly significant in the broader sense.
GW is a publicly quoted company. Complaining about their concentrating on short-term profit, is like complaining that dogs bark. Focusing only on short-term profit is, unfortunately, what all Brit and most American publicly-quoted companies do.
What nonsense. Sure, profit is important, but alienating your established customer base while simultaneously raising the barrier of entry while concurrently acting in a way that gets you portrayed in the popular media as a corporate bully is just a huge gakstorm. Time will tell how damaging behaviour this is in the long term, but concentrating on short term profit while sacrificing your long term viability is just crazy.
Hornby are not the competition, I think I've said this to you before? Just because they make mass market plastics does not mean they are competition, they operate in a completely different niche. It's almost like comparing them to a company who make pipe work for aquariums. Similar raw material, broadly similar production method, utterly different market. (Albeit I will concede an element of crossover, but then, hobbyists could buy aquarium pipes for terrain) edit Forgot to add, GW are a global company, so Europe is only one territory. Given the global economy isn't great, one would assume they would concentrate on development in some relatively more prosperous areas, like Australia and New Ze...ah...
I don't believe I said they're competition; I said they're a similar company, which they are, the most similar British company on the stock market and therefore a valid comparison. It's easy to find little niche companies which are producing wargames figures; but because they're niche, the don't give us a valid comparison of how GW is doing in this economic enrvironment.
What nonsense. Sure, profit is important, but alienating your established customer base while simultaneously raising the barrier of entry while concurrently acting in a way that gets you portrayed in the popular media as a corporate bully is just a huge gakstorm. Time will tell how damaging behaviour this is in the long term, but concentrating on short term profit while sacrificing your long term viability is just crazy.
You're confusing emotions and facts. I'm not saying that being a public company is a good thing. I'm saying it's generally a bad thing. This is the nature of the beast - public quoted companies nearly all plan for the short term, because MDs care more about the share price, than customer satisfaction or building a long-term business. It's a reality, whether you like it or not. For GW to change to the kind of company people here want, it would almost certainly have to go private.
Hornby are not the competition, I think I've said this to you before? Just because they make mass market plastics does not mean they are competition, they operate in a completely different niche. It's almost like comparing them to a company who make pipe work for aquariums. Similar raw material, broadly similar production method, utterly different market. (Albeit I will concede an element of crossover, but then, hobbyists could buy aquarium pipes for terrain) edit Forgot to add, GW are a global company, so Europe is only one territory. Given the global economy isn't great, one would assume they would concentrate on development in some relatively more prosperous areas, like Australia and New Ze...ah...
I don't believe I said they're competition; I said they're a similar company, which they are, the most similar British company on the stock market and therefore a valid comparison. It's easy to find little niche companies which are producing wargames figures; but because they're niche, the don't give us a valid comparison of how GW is doing in this economic enrvironment.
You called them rivals. Since when does rival not infer direct competition?
What nonsense. Sure, profit is important, but alienating your established customer base while simultaneously raising the barrier of entry while concurrently acting in a way that gets you portrayed in the popular media as a corporate bully is just a huge gakstorm. Time will tell how damaging behaviour this is in the long term, but concentrating on short term profit while sacrificing your long term viability is just crazy.
You're confusing emotions and facts. I'm not saying that being a public company is a good thing. I'm saying it's generally a bad thing. This is the nature of the beast - public quoted companies nearly all plan for the short term, because MDs care more about the share price, than customer satisfaction or building a long-term business. It's a reality, whether you like it or not. For GW to change to the kind of company people here want, it would almost certainly have to go private.
No, you're confusing a well run company that acknowledges you can't utterly squeeze every last dime out of each customer without leaving them feeling violated, so sacrifices a small percentage of short term gain for better retention and loyalty in order to make more from them in the long term with GW.
Believe me, there is no emotion in what I say, it's proven that it pays a company to maintain good relation with their customers, look at Apple. Or better yet, the supermarkets, who proudly proclaim they're on the shoppers side by slashing prices and giving product away, despite the fact they rake in million upon millions in profit. GW is not run for the long term because its CEO is a major shareholder and at 61-62 is going to retire very soon.
BryllCream wrote:The fact that they also increased the number of production staff and design staff makes me think that they don't expect themselves to go under any time soon.
Let's see:
Production 2001: 359
Production 2002: 324
Production 2011: 253
Production 2012: 286
How could I miss that they increased production staff from 359 to 286
Hivefleet Oblivion wrote: You can read the evidence in any way that suits your preconceptions. You can say revenues are increasing at the moment, which is a great result in recession-hit Europe, and that they're outperforming rivals like Hornby, who produce mass market plastic kits for the leisure market. Or you can say they're not doing as well as they should be doing.
Bad luck for you that I know who Hornby is. They produce model railroads! You don't want to tell me that Model railroads are a growing prospering market like tabletop games, right? It's like saying, GW outperforms most rival typewriter companies! Nice try but you have been exposed
BTW many people here will agree that GW could easily grow revenue by 20-30% or even more by just using standard marketing wisdom.
And of course I can blame Tom Kirby for his policy, even if GW is a public company, because a.o. he made it a public company, which more than doubled his annual income BTW.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Do you know what administration staff are Bryll?
Maybe the bunch of guys in suits I saw walking around Warhammer world a couple of weeks ago...
Seriously, it looked like something was up. GW staff showing a bunch of suits around their HQ. Investors? Administrators? Who knows? Very curious regardless.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Do you know what administration staff are Bryll?
Yes. Office staff. Gw are not *in* administration, unless I missed that.
Yes. Office Staff are rarely money-making positions.
Cutting money making positions (production) and increasing administrative positions (office staff) is usually a net loss.
Not when office staff can (and do) cause increases in production. Or do you think companies only have office staff because they love to piss away money?
A clear signal to me that they were in trouble would be if the 10 man tactical marine squad vanished from the shelves to be replaced by the 5 man combat squad, and they cost more than the 10 man squad. It would boil down to 2 options;
1) They really are short of cash.
2) Their greed knows no bounds.
I fear the the incredible rise in price/decrease in models in the box of the Dire Avengers is a really worrying omen for the future. Are all battles in 40k destined for 5 man punch ups?
BryllCream wrote: Not when office staff can (and do) cause increases in production. Or do you think companies only have office staff because they love to piss away money?
Pretty much, yes. Administrative departments everywhere are filled with people who don't contribute to the company's bottom line, some of those form a genuine and necessary function, but a surprising amount are there purely because they have convinced senior management that they're needed and spend most of their working life desperately trying to justify their own existence. When a company is doing well then these positions are carried, when cutbacks are necessary, its these people who get cut back on first.
bargaining could easily have been wargaming, Bryll is probably on a phone (as I'm fairly certain I've seen Nuts and Bolts posts from him about Dakka on phones).
BryllCream wrote: Not when office staff can (and do) cause increases in production. Or do you think companies only have office staff because they love to piss away money?
Office staff exist for the exact same reason IT does - a necessary evil. Most office staff do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line, just like most IT expenditures do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line.
Edit: this is coming from someone is has and pretty much always be in IT.
BryllCream wrote: Not when office staff can (and do) cause increases in production. Or do you think companies only have office staff because they love to piss away money?
Office staff exist for the exact same reason IT does - a necessary evil. Most office staff do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line, just like most IT expenditures do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line.
Edit: this is coming from someone is has and pretty much always be in IT.
As someone who works in a factory I can tell you that's rubbish. No one in the white-collar side will be there without there being a use. Of course occasionally with restructuring and efficiency savings, some posts may become obselete, but that's a different thing entirely. The office staff exist to organise the labour of the guys on the shop floor - they book the lorries, they organise goods input, plan the line schedules. The idea of someone in there just twiddling his thumbs is laughable.
BryllCream wrote: Yet again, someone on a bargaining website knows more about business than,.by his own admission, most companies. Brilliant.
I wasn't going to dignify this with a reply, but I'm really curious about what you meant by a bargaining website?
Do you have a very limited sense of what Dakka is about, or was it a typo, if so, what?
I meant wargaming. Android phone fail.
But I do genuinely want you to explain why you're capable of judging the value of peoples' jobs that you have never met. You can also explain, if you feel like it, why most/all companies are throwing money away.
BryllCream wrote: Not when office staff can (and do) cause increases in production. Or do you think companies only have office staff because they love to piss away money?
Office staff exist for the exact same reason IT does - a necessary evil. Most office staff do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line, just like most IT expenditures do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line.
Edit: this is coming from someone is has and pretty much always be in IT.
As someone who works in a factory I can tell you that's rubbish. No one in the white-collar side will be there without there being a use. Of course occasionally with restructuring and efficiency savings, some posts may become obselete, but that's a different thing entirely. The office staff exist to organise the labour of the guys on the shop floor - they book the lorries, they organise goods input, plan the line schedules. The idea of someone in there just twiddling his thumbs is laughable.
BryllCream wrote: Not when office staff can (and do) cause increases in production. Or do you think companies only have office staff because they love to piss away money?
Office staff exist for the exact same reason IT does - a necessary evil. Most office staff do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line, just like most IT expenditures do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line.
Edit: this is coming from someone is has and pretty much always be in IT.
As someone who works in a factory I can tell you that's rubbish. No one in the white-collar side will be there without there being a use. Of course occasionally with restructuring and efficiency savings, some posts may become obselete, but that's a different thing entirely. The office staff exist to organise the labour of the guys on the shop floor - they book the lorries, they organise goods input, plan the line schedules. The idea of someone in there just twiddling his thumbs is laughable.
BryllCream wrote: Yet again, someone on a bargaining website knows more about business than,.by his own admission, most companies. Brilliant.
I wasn't going to dignify this with a reply, but I'm really curious about what you meant by a bargaining website?
Do you have a very limited sense of what Dakka is about, or was it a typo, if so, what?
I meant wargaming. Android phone fail.
But I do genuinely want you to explain why you're capable of judging the value of peoples' jobs that you have never met. You can also explain, if you feel like it, why most/all companies are throwing money away.
Because most organisations above a certain size are remarkably similar animals. Like middle aged men, as they get older they tend to put on fat around the middle. I, and many of my friends and family have worked in these sorts of organisations and have many tales to tell supporting my assertion.
Just as an example, from my first ever job, so a similar age to you now, I was the office junior, when the office supervisor left, I was given most of her duties (with no commensurate increase in pay or authority I might add) yet it made no noticeable difference to my workload, because when it came to it, very little of what she did was of any substance.
You are young, and your posts often show a lack of life knowledge, but believe me, this is true of nearly every company of more than a couple of dozen employees to some extent.
BryllCream wrote: The office staff exist to organise the labour of the guys on the shop floor - they book the lorries, they organise goods input, plan the line schedules.
In GW's case logistics and product supply is not part of those figures (ref 2011/12 report), and the administration staff are specific to sales, so neither of those apply here.
I would have to agree. We just had a lot of layoffs were I work and many of those layoffs are the people that actually do the work. Nobody in Admin conveniently lost there jobs. 6 managers to manage a dozen people. Less now since we lost more. It is very frustrating to say the least.
As far as the hobbit sales, I'm not surprised. The way GW prices them there may be interest there but since nobody is on the hook with existing models to flesh our armies they probably take one look at the price and keep walking.
BryllCream wrote: Not when office staff can (and do) cause increases in production. Or do you think companies only have office staff because they love to piss away money?
Office staff exist for the exact same reason IT does - a necessary evil. Most office staff do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line, just like most IT expenditures do little or nothing directly for a companies bottom line.
Edit: this is coming from someone is has and pretty much always be in IT.
As someone who works in a factory I can tell you that's rubbish. No one in the white-collar side will be there without there being a use. Of course occasionally with restructuring and efficiency savings, some posts may become obselete, but that's a different thing entirely. The office staff exist to organise the labour of the guys on the shop floor - they book the lorries, they organise goods input, plan the line schedules. The idea of someone in there just twiddling his thumbs is laughable.
I would truly, truly love to live in your world where management exists simply to enable the actual workers.
In fact, management exists to justify its own existence more often than not.
If office staff are only there to assist workers, why would office staff increase while workers decreased?
In an ideal world if one shrinks, so would the other.
A great is example is the movie Office Space. In reality there are actual organizations based around sending auditors and consultants to companies and help them try to trim the fat. If companies knew everything there was to know about business, the consultants wouldn't exist.
GW will continue to accomplish the goals of its directors. That is, to allow the directors (especially Kirby) to retire to a mega rich life style. Kirby is already a multi-millionaire and the best move he can make for his own gain is to keep on the current path, raise prices more, sell less product and thus claim to have cut expenses and made the company leaner and just let sales volume fall until he rides his golden parachute to a retirement the average person can't even dream about.
The Dire Avengers a perfect example of GW keeping on his path. A core troop choice that is down to five models for the price of ten in the previous release. GW has to sell half as many to make the same money they did before and while falling sales volume is a big read flag for any long term plan, lower volume will just be spun as savings in production costs as they had to make less of them. They can lay off some more production workers and boast about it all in their shareholders report. And then Kirby can issue himself another dividend payment and laugh and laugh.
I actually think GW has a long way to go on price hikes before things go really truly wrong. I think the UK and EU prices can be hiked up to nearly equal with Australia. More money for Kirby, less money for you
BryllCream wrote: As someone who works in a factory I can tell you that's rubbish. No one in the white-collar side will be there without there being a use.
Firstly, no one said the admin side of the business doesn't have a "use". What we're saying is that they don't make money.
In the company I work for - one of the largest companies in Australia - we have thousands of staff across every part of the country, and yet we have "Cost Centres" and "Profit Centres", that is to say the areas of the business that generate revenue and areas of the business that don't. Most of the "Cost Centres" are back office/administration groups. They don't make money.
@kroothawk: For sales, part time is down but full time is up. You cant really know what is going on because the comparable units are FTE (full time equivalent). Anyway, they changed the model of how they operate their stores so you would expect there to be fewer employees.
The fact that sales are flat does not support the hypothesis "GW is in financial trouble".
comparing GW to hornby actually is a good way of showing how 2 companies in the hobby business go about things, hornby like all model railway companies announce their upcoming products sometimes up to 2 years in advance and will regularly show 3d cad and pre-production model samples of forthcoming releases with a view of actively encouraging people to comment or criticise them so the final product can be made as perfect as possible, if they show a train that many people point out is painted in a slightly wrong shade of paint that will get corrected, customer satisfaction is high on the priorities of all model railway producers. 2 years ago dapol an english model train company made a model of a HST coach but due to a mix up in production they found the entire batch had some wrong details, now they could have sold them anyway being the only model of its kind available people would have had to buy it anyway, but dapol not wishing to have their reputation tarnished scraped the whole lot losing them 10's of 1000's £ (cough finecast cough) imagine if GW got customers involved!,
but i think there is one thing GW is copying from model train manufactures and that is that all train models are limited production, every company makes a batch somewhere between 500 to 10000 depending on the company and wont make that model again for years, that way people buy them quick before they sell out and the company gets its tooling costs back quick and doesn't have to keep stock in a warehouse for years. i think that's what we are seeing here with the tau and eldar GW want their money back quick and not have to carry lots of inventory. the logical conclusion to that would mean they could close all their stores and just sell direct on preorders(perfect world to them) but not really how the wargames world works but then GW do like to tell us how the wargames world should work
BryllCream wrote:The fact that they also increased the number of production staff and design staff makes me think that they don't expect themselves to go under any time soon.
Let's see:
P
Bad luck for you that I know who Hornby is. They produce model railroads! You don't want to tell me that Model railroads are a growing prospering market like tabletop games, right? It's like saying, GW outperforms most rival typewriter companies! Nice try but you have been exposed
Bad luck for you that you missed that a major part of Hornby's market is plastic model kits, ie Airfix, which is why I cited them as a comparison.
You're correct in that model kits, too, aren't picking up a younger demographic. But GW is also outperforming the stock market in general.
5 years into a recession, they are doing damned well. I get not many people care to much or are interested in business practice but if you survive a recession this big without going into loss making then you are doing fantastically and coming out of the other side they'll be doing better than ever. Aside from the usual nerd rage that accompanies every new codex (every month sigh, a downside to getting a new codex every month) and the schadenfreude GW haters there isn't anything particular to worry about.
Recessions are actually good for some companies/business sectors (takeaway food, cinemas for example), so saying "we're in a recession" is not relevant to a company's performance in of itself.
Gw's bread and butter is the us. Our recession ended four years ago. Gw has also come out and stated that they are 'recession proof'. Talkng up the economic climate in general terms is a bit too much of a free pass.
Baragash wrote: Recessions are actually good for some companies/business sectors (takeaway food, cinemas for example), so saying "we're in a recession" is not relevant to a company's performance in of itself.
A great example of selective bias.
Recession mean, on average, most companies' sales are flat. That is entirely relevant to a company's performance. GW shares have outperformed US companies in general, both on the DOW and NASDAQ.
Recessions are not good for any business. If you have massive rises in unemployment, high inflation and less disposable income because of price freezes that means less money floating around in the economy. A recession proof business (that doesn't exist but just rolling with it) just means they can ride the drop in income easier than other businesses.
Nor was I giving GW a free pass. I said they haven't entered loss making, that is a positive accolade which marks them out as a very very strong business, particularly that they have a strong retail presence (one of the tougher industries) and they are a luxury item.
They have their financial house in order, the Black Library area is doing really well with good reason, I expect further expansion into different forms of Media and expanding the value of their IP.
By any objective analysis GW is doing well.
Edit: Also the idea that the USA's recession ended 4 years ago is a bit laughable. GDP growth started again thanks to a massive stimulus so yes be standard economic calculation they aren't officially in recession but they are in deep deep economic trouble and that isn't over yet. There actually isn't an end in site to the trouble facing all western economies, hopefully we'll see it soon.
sourclams wrote: Gw's bread and butter is the us. Our recession ended four years ago. Gw has also come out and stated that they are 'recession proof'. Talkng up the economic climate in general terms is a bit too much of a free pass.
cowen70 wrote: Recessions are not good for any business. If you have massive rises in unemployment, high inflation and less disposable income because of price freezes that means less money floating around in the economy. A recession proof business (that doesn't exist but just rolling with it) just means they can ride the drop in income easier than other businesses.
Nor was I giving GW a free pass. I said they haven't entered loss making, that is a positive accolade which marks them out as a very very strong business, particularly that they have a strong retail presence (one of the tougher industries) and they are a luxury item.
They have their financial house in order, the Black Library area is doing really well with good reason, I expect further expansion into different forms of Media and expanding the value of their IP.
By any objective analysis GW is doing well.
Edit: Also the idea that the USA's recession ended 4 years ago is a bit laughable. GDP growth started again thanks to a massive stimulus so yes be standard economic calculation they aren't officially in recession but they are in deep deep economic trouble and that isn't over yet. There actually isn't an end in site to the trouble facing all western economies, hopefully we'll see it soon.
Actually, it is possible to objectively analyse GW as not doing well at all, it just depends what details you focus on and how you choose to interpret certain data.
As for "recessions are not good for any business" that is objectively untrue. As has already been stated, certain types of company historically do very well in a recession. Normally those that offer relatively low cost treats and luxuries that allow the consumer to make themselves feel better without requiring the sort of investment that a new car, house or even TV or stereo require. For a wargamer, a £20 box of plastic menz fits that niche spot on.
"Not make a loss" really isn't the fillip that you seem to think it is, recession or no.
sourclams wrote: Gw's bread and butter is the us. Our recession ended four years ago. Gw has also come out and stated that they are 'recession proof'. Talkng up the economic climate in general terms is a bit too much of a free pass.
In USA at least, tabletop is a growing market. GW revenue stays flat, so it is "boom proof" as well Good for Privateer, Malifaux, Infinity, Godslayer, Dystopian Wars and all others that grow like hell. In my local meta, growth is also in non-GW tabletop games, while GW sales are shrinking.
BTW: USA is not the bread and butter of GW, North America is about as much as UK alone. Continental Europe is much more.
Oh, you quote the annual report that begins with "This year has seen both sales and profits decline." This is good news! BTW was that the year when GW took big loans to pay Kirby et.al. enormous dividends?
Some years ago when the LOTR mass marketing stopped and sales dropped, people called the beginning of the end. GW responded by raising prices to protect their margins. They've been doing it ever since and while revenue hasn't really grown in real terms, declining unit sales has allowed GW to cut costs while raising prices.
People have then predicted that prices will reach a point where demand is destroyed and their sales will tank in some sort of catastrophic way. Or that they'll reach the lower limit on what costs they can cut.
On the cost cutting side, GW has slashed its production staff (they're selling less product, so they don't need as many people making it) and drastically reduced its retail costs by switching to one employee operations.
This obviously cannot go on for ever. If you keep raising pricings and selling less product you can't survive with one employee making one kit and selling it to one individual for a hundred and fifty million dollars. That's obviously a silly hyperbolic example, but it shows that the direction GW is headed is not sustainable in the long term.
The debate is what the long term is. How long is long? 7 years ago, people were saying it was 5-7 years. That's obviously not true.
GW is carrying very, very little debt and still has good cash reserves. They no longer outsource any of their production process, so they have the tooling machines to keep making new moulds for new products. They've bloated a bit in administration, so that can be the next target for layoffs as well.
Enough people seem to be buying at the higher prices to keep revenue stable. We've seen from the court documents in the CHS lawsuit that GW sells less actual kits than we might think and they don't actually need to sell that many given their prices being where they are.
So my position is now that long term is actually really, really long. GW can certainly stay on this path of shrinking market share, falling unit sales and flat revenue long enough for the current management to retire super rich. Kirby already is a multimillionaire and the current method of operating just keeps putting more money into his pocket. He has no reason whatsoever to change the direction GW is heading.
Baragash wrote: Recessions are actually good for some companies/business sectors (takeaway food, cinemas for example), so saying "we're in a recession" is not relevant to a company's performance in of itself.
It means on average most companies' revenues are falling for two consecutive quarters,
If GDP falls 5% for two quarters and my business grows 5% is that good? Bad?
Good? What if on average the market my company is in grew 25% despite the recession? Still good?
Context is very important. Context for GW is that most of it's rivals are behaving in a manner that suggests business is growing (GW's is not, there's a good chance based on the financials that it's core model business is shrinking), and thanks to crowdfunding can circumvent one of the major features of the current recession - the inability of small businesses to get loans.
cowen70 wrote: Recessions are not good for any business.
Further, people losing their jobs is one of the major drivers in people starting their own business.
cowen70 wrote: particularly that they have a strong retail presence (one of the tougher industries) and they are a luxury item.
Only if the definition of "strong" is "they have lots of shops".
cowen70 wrote: They have their financial house in order, the Black Library area is doing really well with good reason, I expect further expansion into different forms of Media and expanding the value of their IP.
This is true though.
cowen70 wrote: By any objective analysis GW is doing well.
There is no such thing as an objective analysis of a company's financials, because people like me shovel as much bs as we possibly can into the financial reports. That's why there is an army of people employed as analysts across the financial sector trying to pull it all apart and figure out the best way to make their clients money.
GW is carrying very, very little debt and still has good cash reserves. They no longer outsource any of their production process, so they have the tooling machines to keep making new moulds for new products. They've bloated a bit in administration, so that can be the next target for layoffs as well.
The only problem I have with this comment that their "good cash" reserves are mostly given away to their stockholders as dividends. We will see how big the profit actually is, and how much is PR slight of hand they are going to fluff the report.
Yes, the cash is used to pay dividends. Heck, GW even borrows money to pay dividends at times.
My point was that despite all GW's short sighted behaviour, they're not going to pay the price any time soon in a way that impacts the bottom line of the management of GW. Kirby is going to keep milking the customer base to line his own pockets until either it stops working or he's decided it's time to retire.
If things finally do hit the tipping point, I could see Kirby as his last act as CEO shopping GW around to larger game and toy companies and then retiring with a phat stack of shares in the new parent company.
I used to be one of the GW only has 5-7 years left crowd, but 7+ years has passed and I now appreciate just how right Kirby was about the customers being willing to pay more and more and more. GW may have given up over half of its market share, but their aggressive price hikes and mercenary treatment of their staff has meant that GW hasn't yet reaped what they sow. It's still a cash machine for Kirby and will continue to be so for quite some time. They can give up a further half of their market share, but if they double their prices, the revenue will stay flat and that's just fine for GW's management.
I also think there is room for higher prices. Just look at what they've been doing. $5, $7 or more for a single plastic infantry on a 1 inch base. And GW's revenue is still flat. Yes, less people are buying and they're buying less product, but enough are still buying to justify continuing on this path. I think we're heading to a point where the whole world gets the honour of paying more for GW plastic than what Forgeworld costs.
I think the financial success of Forgeworld and the transition of GW Australia into a profitable enterprise is being taken as clear signals that there is more room to raise prices even higher.
GW is carrying very, very little debt and still has good cash reserves. They no longer outsource any of their production process, so they have the tooling machines to keep making new moulds for new products. They've bloated a bit in administration, so that can be the next target for layoffs as well.
The only problem I have with this comment that their "good cash" reserves are mostly given away to their stockholders as dividends. We will see how big the profit actually is, and how much is PR slight of hand they are going to fluff the report.
Given that it's part of an investors report I imagine there is as much PR spin as physically possible on it.
And another issue is that the "good cash" hasn't been from sales increasing but from cutting costs faster than sales fall. Most of that appeared to be Mark Wells doing, but shortly after praising him for doing just that he suddenly 'left', so I doubt there is any more costs to cut.
As for "recessions are not good for any business" that is objectively untrue. As has already been stated, certain types of company historically do very well in a recession.
Liquor stores and bars, my friend. Liquor stores and bars.
And another issue is that the "good cash" hasn't been from sales increasing but from cutting costs faster than sales fall. Most of that appeared to be Mark Wells doing, but shortly after praising him for doing just that he suddenly 'left', so I doubt there is any more costs to cut.
There's loads more to cut. If you look at GW's staff numbers in their report, their administrative staff numbers have gone up and up and up while production and sales staff has declined. Any first year accounting student is going to see that at a meeting where the topic of discussion is "where can we save money?". Middle management and administration is the perfect place for GW to cut next.
Then, there's also the decreased costs of manufacturing and shipping which come along with further declines in units sold. If prices go up 10% and units sold drop by a proportional amount over a couple of years, you can cut a further 10% of your sales and production staff. Possibly even more.
GW will continue to brag in their annual reports about how they are protecting their margins (that is, jacking up prices) and improving efficiency (rewarding years of service with a pink slip). They'll keep giving up market share at the rate of half every 5-7 years and keep jacking up their prices until it stops working. I think it could easily be 10+ years before that happens. Kirby will be long gone by then and it'll be someone else's problem.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The good news about GW surviving through voluntarily ceding market share through price increases is that it leaves fertile soil for new miniature companies to pop up and for existing smaller companies to get larger. The end result of GW's ongoing slide into irrelevancy is more variety and choice for the gamer.
It's bad if you're a fan of GW's models and games as it means higher prices to fund Kirby's dividend payments is a practice that is not going to stop.
frozenwastes wrote: They'll keep giving up market share at the rate of half every 5-7 years and keep jacking up their prices until it stops working.
IMO that rate will probably start to increase. GW's current business model involves high turnover, without a constant supply of new customers they will struggle to exist as most of their existing customers quit the game with nobody to replace them. And one of the biggest reasons GW is able to get those new customers right now is their position as the biggest game in the market. People tend to default to playing the game everyone else is playing (why WoW is so big, for example), so as long as they keep that critical mass they'll continue to get most of the new miniature wargame customers. On the other hand, once they slip below that point the answer to "what game are all my friends playing" is not going to be a GW game anymore, and those customers will go elsewhere at an increasing rate.
And of course this is on top of the sales they're losing over price increases/poor service/etc. Combine the two and the likely outcome is a constant decrease in customers up to a certain point (probably after the current management cash their retirement checks), followed by a much faster decline once someone else starts to take over the "default game" position.
cincydooley wrote: You all must run the most successful businesses! Where can I buy your company stock!
Oh good, the classic "you aren't a CEO of a major corporation, therefore you can't have an opinion" argument. Too bad it's still a bad one no matter how many times you repeat it.
Baragash wrote: Recessions are actually good for some companies/business sectors (takeaway food, cinemas for example), so saying "we're in a recession" is not relevant to a company's performance in of itself.
It means on average most companies' revenues are falling for two consecutive quarters,
If GDP falls 5% for two quarters and my business grows 5% is that good? Bad?
Good? What if on average the market my company is in grew 25% despite the recession? Still good?
Context is very important. Context for GW is that most of it's rivals are behaving in a manner that suggests business is growing (GW's is not, there's a good chance based on the financials that it's core model business is shrinking), and thanks to crowdfunding can circumvent one of the major features of the current recession - the inability of small businesses to get loans.
cowen70 wrote: Recessions are not good for any business.
Further, people losing their jobs is one of the major drivers in people starting their own business.
Read your own link (I guess you haven't)
The global financial crisis of 2007-2009, however, rewrote the rules about recessions. Many economists are now saying that there's no longer such a thing as a recession-proof business. The best that employees can hope for is a recession-resistant job
And recession proof doesn't mean they don't feel effects just about every industry does. In GW case it relies on the fact that people love it so much they'll continue to devote dwindling disposable income towards the products anyway. But if people spend on average £50 less at Christmas time it might mean one less model bought instead of 3, the child will get 2. It always effects the bottom line marginally.
Recessions aren't bad things for economies and you always get start ups, often some of the biggest companies started in recessions but positing and posturing that somehow possibly the biggest economic crisis ever, certainly one of the longest isn't going to have an effect on GW business just means you are being silly.
cowen70 wrote: particularly that they have a strong retail presence (one of the tougher industries) and they are a luxury item.
Only if the definition of "strong" is "they have lots of shops".
Which was exactly my point if you read the sentence in context. By a lot of shops I mean a lot of costs which means any decreases in turnover will effect them more heavily than a service based industry. You must have assumed I was giving them a compliment but I was expanding on how a recession is a dangerous time for them. Any Bricks and Mortar retail operation reliant on leases rather than Land Banks like the larger Grocer chains walk a tightrope on costs and staffing and keeping profitability up.
cowen70 wrote: They have their financial house in order, the Black Library area is doing really well with good reason, I expect further expansion into different forms of Media and expanding the value of their IP.
This is true though.
cowen70 wrote: By any objective analysis GW is doing well.
There is no such thing as an objective analysis of a company's financials, because people like me shovel as much bs as we possibly can into the financial reports. That's why there is an army of people employed as analysts across the financial sector trying to pull it all apart and figure out the best way to make their clients money.
Well objective enough to leave the Nerd Rage behind will do. Lets face it the internet forums are full of people who are obsessed GW are going to fail, love 40K but hate GW, think the jews are going to take over the world, think the jews and lizardmen have taken over the world but that is OK because the muslamic ray guns are going to wipe nations out anyway.
cincydooley wrote: You all must run the most successful businesses! Where can I buy your company stock!
Oh good, the classic "you aren't a CEO of a major corporation, therefore you can't have an opinion" argument. Too bad it's still a bad one no matter how many times you repeat it.
No. It's just tiring hearing the same "blame Kirby blah blah blah nonsense".
It's a public company. Their goal is to return value to their shareholders. This includes Kirby.
cincydooley wrote: You all must run the most successful businesses! Where can I buy your company stock!
Oh good, the classic "you aren't a CEO of a major corporation, therefore you can't have an opinion" argument. Too bad it's still a bad one no matter how many times you repeat it.
You can have an opinion, but unless you've run your own business or been a part of a public company's decision making process, it means about as much here as it would for me to give le maz lessons.
cincydooley wrote: You all must run the most successful businesses! Where can I buy your company stock!
You're not a doctor so you can't have opinions on what's healthy and what's not!
You're not an architect so you can't have opinions on what buildings are good and which are not!
You're not a cook so you can't say food is bad!
You're not an Enron exec so you can't have an opinion on management milking shareholder value!
Hopefully that's enough to illustrate the fuzzy thinking you are operating under.
Also, you may have missed the part where I talked about how Kirby is getting super rich off of all this. GW is his personal cash machine and if the goal of becoming a CEO is to get more money for yourself, he's doing a great job. Unfortunately there's this whole acting in the long term interests of the shareholders thing that people lose sight of along the way.
cincydooley wrote: It's a public company. Their goal is to return value to their shareholders. This includes Kirby.
And nobody is disputing that they are going to successfully do that in the immediate future. I'm sure GW will continue to make a nice profit until the current management cash their retirement checks, but that doesn't mean that GW's long-term future is promising, or that their current actions are any less damaging.
(And if you think that the management of a public company would never trash it to make short-term profits and move on to the next business you really don't understand how things work.)
You can have an opinion, but unless you've run your own business or been a part of a public company's decision making process, it means about as much here as it would for me to give le maz lessons.
Peregrine wrote:IMO that rate will probably start to increase. GW's current business model involves high turnover, without a constant supply of new customers they will struggle to exist as most of their existing customers quit the game with nobody to replace them. And one of the biggest reasons GW is able to get those new customers right now is their position as the biggest game in the market. People tend to default to playing the game everyone else is playing (why WoW is so big, for example), so as long as they keep that critical mass they'll continue to get most of the new miniature wargame customers. On the other hand, once they slip below that point the answer to "what game are all my friends playing" is not going to be a GW game anymore, and those customers will go elsewhere at an increasing rate.
This is a very interesting point. Where I am, GW has already become irrelevant. There's a local GW one person operation and once a year there is a 40k tournament (no WFB anymore) that some friends of mine run. The local stores that have miniature gaming days have all replaced 40k and WFB with other games. GW has become functionally irrelevant here. It's like a greater concentration of their lost market share happened here. So it probably means some other areas are holding out just fine. But I do see what you mean about a critical mass. I think GW has a long ways to go before they get there. The UK and EU areas of operation still have very, very high rates of GW saturation and they can shrink those areas through price increases for a long time. As you say, surely long enough for the current management to retire rich and happy.
cincydooley wrote: No. It's just tiring hearing the same "blame Kirby blah blah blah nonsense".
It's a public company. Their goal is to return value to their shareholders. This includes Kirby.
There's no "blame" here at all. Kirby is doing what money sucking business people do-- suck money. I don't blame ticks for sucking blood, so why should I blame CEOs for sucking money? The only people who should blame him are those whose money has been sucked away. Since GW lost me as a customer, that's not me anymore. I don't own GW stock, so I don't blame Kirby for destroying shareholder value there either.
You can have an opinion, but unless you've run your own business or been a part of a public company's decision making process, it means about as much here as it would for me to give le maz lessons.
And you know about my life and career how exactly?
Peregrine wrote:And nobody is disputing that they are going to successfully do that in the immediate future. I'm sure GW will continue to make a nice profit until the current management cash their retirement checks, but that doesn't mean that GW's long-term future is promising, or that their current actions are any less damaging.
(And if you think that the management of a public company would never trash it to make short-term profits and move on to the next business you really don't understand how things work.)
Yeah, corporate governance is a difficult landscape to navigate. It's so easy for a company to have its shareholder interests and management's self interests diverge.
frozenwastes wrote: Yeah, corporate governance is a difficult landscape to navigate. It's so easy for a company to have its shareholder interests and management's self interests diverge.
Well, don't forget that GW's management contains one of its major shareholders. So his interests align, he can spend a few more years writing dividend checks to himself (instead of investing the money in future growth) and raising short-term profits (again at long-term cost) until he retires and sells his stock at its peak before any of the long-term damage becomes apparent.
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cincydooley wrote: "Money sucking business people"? What does this even mean?
Management/investment bankers/etc whose sole contribution is to direct money away from doing productive things and into their own bank accounts. See also: corporate raiders, vulture capitalists, etc.
frozenwastes wrote: Yeah, corporate governance is a difficult landscape to navigate. It's so easy for a company to have its shareholder interests and management's self interests diverge.
Well, don't forget that GW's management contains one of its major shareholders. So his interests align, he can spend a few more years writing dividend checks to himself (instead of investing the money in future growth) and raising short-term profits (again at long-term cost) until he retires and sells his stock at its peak before any of the long-term damage becomes apparent.
You do realize that the CEO of any successful company should be one if its largest individual shareholders, right?
Management/investment bankers/etc whose sole contribution is to direct money away from doing productive things and into their own bank accounts. See also: corporate raiders, vulture capitalists, etc.
Ahh. I see the perspective you're coming from now. Thanks. It enlightens any future commentary.
"Money sucking business people"? What does this even mean?
It means that there's a conflict of interest when you have someone who is supposed to be maximizing shareholder value who is in a position to sacrifice long term growth and reinvestment of capital in order to pay themselves more. Kirby now has the incentive to not reinvest revenue in the business and instead pay himself more as Peregrine outlined. And the best part was that he got his shares mostly through stock options, so he never had to pay full market price for his dividend cash machine.
Kirby is outstanding at using GW as his personal ATM. Many new MBA graduates would see his position as "living the dream." He's got a small company held by institutional investors that he can placate while he pays out the company's value into his own pocket. His career is a complete success in terms of his own compensation.
The entire point of "you don't run a big business so you don't know what you are talking about" is to shut down discussion that you don't like. We get that. You don't like that we're saying not-nice things about your pal Kirby and your favorite game company and you want us to stop.
Now you're nitpicking my analogies to the point where your asking about definitions of "good". The whole point is that we can have a discussion about these things without having to be currently in a profession related to them.
I used to be a corporate accountant. I'm not currently in the industry and have no plans to re-enter that world at all.
Now what you can do is say "I don't believe you ever worked as an accountant!"
Or you can stop trying to shut down discussion just because you don't like what people are saying.
frozenwastes wrote: Yeah, corporate governance is a difficult landscape to navigate. It's so easy for a company to have its shareholder interests and management's self interests diverge.
Well, don't forget that GW's management contains one of its major shareholders. So his interests align, he can spend a few more years writing dividend checks to himself (instead of investing the money in future growth) and raising short-term profits (again at long-term cost) until he retires and sells his stock at its peak before any of the long-term damage becomes apparent.
Perhaps I'm giving Kirby too much credit. Maybe he's not intentionally siphoning shareholder value. Maybe he thinks GW's current path really can go on for ever and that as they churn through their customer base, there will always be a new rube to take the place of the people who quit and that people really will buy their products no matter the cost. Maybe he built his cash machine as a side effect of actually trying to run the business well. Though I do remember Kirby making a list of overpaid CEOs back in the LOTR years, so probably not.
Honestly, mr wastes, you're one of the few that offers anything cogent. My initial reminds wasn't actually directed at you, but rather dudes like peregrine that are commenting without any appropriate sense of scope.
That's great that you were a corporate accountant. If that granted you insight to the senior level decision making, then guess what? Your opinion holds more water. But it becomes obvious in these types of conversations that plenty of those most vociferously commenting really don't have any background to substantiate anything they're saying.
But then against also boils down to philosophical difference between what a CEO should and shouldn't be entitled to. We clearly differ In opinions there, so it's not much worth arguing. I have no problem with Kirby owning shares or being the largest individual shareholder: he should be. But those 4 investment firms with larger share holdings certainly have input as to the fiscal health and direction of the company.
cincydooley wrote: Honestly, mr wastes, you're one of the few that offers anything cogent.
I can only assume that you are including yourself in the list of those that don't?
Oh yeah? Glad that's the only assumption you can draw.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But, you know, great addition to the dialogue. You're always there to add insight and wit, oh lord benevolent overseer HBMC. Whatever would we do without you?!?
cincydooley wrote: My initial reminds wasn't actually directed at you, but rather dudes like peregrine that are commenting without any appropriate sense of scope.
Then why not address that supposed "lack of scope" (whatever that means) instead of just complaining that we're not CEOs so we don't have a right to criticize? If we're as obviously wrong as you say then it should be easy to stick to the facts and demonstrate how we're wrong.
But those 4 investment firms with larger share holdings certainly have input as to the fiscal health and direction of the company.
You're assuming that those investment firms have any active involvement in the company beyond reading the financial reports (which are written to portray GW as favorably as possible). It's more likely that they read the reports, note the dividend checks and current stock prices, and leave it at that. After all, GW is profitable in the immediate future and that's all that matters. To them GW is entirely disposable, once it stops making immediate profits they'll happily dump their shares and invest the money in the next company.
GW's current health? Fine. Revenue might be flat, but it's consistent. And GW is very very quick to lay people off in order to cut staff. They're not going anywhere anytime soon.
Long term health? Fine for a lot longer than most ex-customers might think. I think that GW's management has real sales data and has seen the impact of their price increases and knows that they can safely continue on that path for quite some time.
Market share? Shrinking. But they have a lot to shrink through before it's a major problem. I think they also isolate themselves somewhat from the critical mass problem because their customers are often ignorant of alternatives.
Share price? Probably up from here, but I'm not investing. The vast majority of shares are held by institutional investors and the volume available to trade is actually relatively low. So any major news or announcement will often have a larger effect on the price than it otherwise would. It's a volatile stock, but we're increasingly entering a period of time where aging investors are looking for income, so if they can keep up their regular dividend payments and continue to protect their margins (raise prices) and cut costs (lay people off) their shares will remain in demand.
cincydooley wrote: My initial reminds wasn't actually directed at you, but rather dudes like peregrine that are commenting without any appropriate sense of scope.
Then why not address that supposed "lack of scope" (whatever that means) instead of just complaining that we're not CEOs so we don't have a right to criticize? If we're as obviously wrong as you say then it should be easy to stick to the facts and demonstrate how we're wrong.
But those 4 investment firms with larger share holdings certainly have input as to the fiscal health and direction of the company.
You're assuming that those investment firms have any active involvement in the company beyond reading the financial reports (which are written to portray GW as favorably as possible). It's more likely that they read the reports, note the dividend checks and current stock prices, and leave it at that. After all, GW is profitable in the immediate future and that's all that matters. To them GW is entirely disposable, once it stops making immediate profits they'll happily dump their shares and invest the money in the next company.
So this entire argument is predicated on the notion that the senior management of GW have no concerns for its long term health. Got it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think that post is spot on, @frozenwastes.
They obviously have sales data that tells them the current path is working for where they need to be and want to go. None of us do. That's sort of my point.
I simply think its ignorant to argue that their entire senior management team has no concern for the long term health of the company.
cincydooley wrote: Honestly, mr wastes, you're one of the few that offers anything cogent. My initial reminds wasn't actually directed at you, but rather dudes like peregrine that are commenting without any appropriate sense of scope.
Peregrine and I pretty much completely agree on all points except I think a tipping point or critical mass event is either farther off than Peregrine might think or GW will continue to insulate themselves from it by doing their best to be a one stop source for hobby needs and thus keep their customer base ignorant of other options. It's entirely possible that GW will become so separated from miniature games sold through distribution that you'll have people who "want to play what everyone else is playing" choose GW even when GW is no longer the widest played option because they happened to be exposed to GW's channels rather than an independent store carrying multiple competing options.. Though betting on this is betting against the most internet savvy generation we have yet to see. It's easier than ever for GW's competitors to let miniature gamers know about their products.
I already see it happening. You have areas where GW has faded and has become functionally irrelevant (they gave up over half their market share from the LOTR highs after all) and areas where GW is the only game in town. The problem for GW is that they're not really growing. And if they don't change, I doubt macro-economic factors are going to give them new growth without them trying to get it.
frozenwastes wrote: I think they also isolate themselves somewhat from the critical mass problem because their customers are often ignorant of alternatives.
Depends on the area, I think. In the UK they're probably well insulated since (apparently) they've driven most of the independent stores out of business and have an obvious GW store in every town. In the US that insulation doesn't really exist. The geography is just completely different, everything is spread out so that even when a city has a GW store (and many don't) most of the people in that city are closer to an independent store (a problem made a lot worse by GW putting their stores in inconvenient places where the rent is cheapest instead of in major malls). So most people buy and play their games in independent stores with shelves full of competing products, game nights for competing products on the calendar, etc.
To give an example: WHFB in my area is pretty much dead, with none of the independent stores even attempting to run events for it. One of my friends tried to get it started again, but the critical mass was already playing Warmachine and anyone coming in looking for a fantasy game had a pretty obvious choice. 40k is still the default scifi game, but it would be very easy to see it switching to Infinity/X-wing/etc if too many 40k players moved on to different games.
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cincydooley wrote: So this entire argument is predicated on the notion that the senior management of GW have no concerns for its long term health. Got it.
Let's see...
Declining market share in a growing market but no apparent concern about the problem? Check.
Dumping entire product lines (which are making nice profits for their competition) instead of using them to attract new players? Check.
Complete refusal to do any kind of marketing, previews, etc, that would built interest in the game and attract new customers? Check.
Constant price increases that can not work in the long run? Check.
Cutting store hours and staff to the bare minimum? Check.
Yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable to suggest that GW's management are in "take the money and run" mode instead of building long-term growth.
The thing that annoys me about these threads is not whether or not someone has a high level of expertise in the business world but that arguments are made from the flimsiest of data and over reaching assumptions.
Lets take the growth rate of miniature games and the flat sales argument that is made constantly. One assumption made by GW critics is that the new customers coming into the hobby are equally likely to choose 40k or whfb but are choosing something else instead.
You just do not know that, it is possible that these new games are bringing in people to the miniature hobby that do not have any interest in GW products and would not have come in if it were not for the particular nonGW game that they did pick.
These threads really should be called "I wish GW would fail" or "I hope GW succeeds". They just do not hold up to close examination of the assumptions and data that people argue about.
cincydooley wrote: So this entire argument is predicated on the notion that the senior management of GW have no concerns for its long term health. Got it.
It is probably the argument with the most explanatory power. It explains why GW's management has been doing what they are doing better than almost any other explanation. It's also a very common issue with publicly traded companies-- the co-opting of corporate governance and the self interest of management. Some countries, like Switzerland, have even passed legislation about executive compensation in order to stem these conflicts. It's also fairly easy to build a case that such self interest is what caused the mortage-backed securities meltdown that we're still recovering from.
Peregrine, the only one of your check points that doesn't have a reasonable answer that can be attached to it is the marketing one. They could absolutely do more. Perhaps they think their stores are enough. No other miniature company has stores. Or maybe they think their book and video games are enough to draw in more folks. No other miniature company really has those either. They don't advertise in GTM like other minis companies, so that's their major deficit. But their lack of previews doesn't seem to be hurting sales.
Quite frankly, aside from all those poor folks losing jobs, I'd be fine if they got rid of all of GW stores. But then again, if there's using them as their marketing, it doesn't make sense to. They've opened up 3 within 90 mins of me in the last 18 months, so they must be working however GW is intending them to.
JWhex wrote: Lets take the growth rate of miniature games and the flat sales argument that is made constantly. One assumption made by GW critics is that the new customers coming into the hobby are equally likely to choose 40k or whfb but are choosing something else instead.
You just do not know that, it is possible that these new games are bringing in people to the miniature hobby that do not have any interest in GW products and would not have come in if it were not for the particular nonGW game that they did pick.
But that's not the assumption at all. It's just simple analysis of GW's own numbers:
Let's say I'm running a business, with $100 a year in revenue (coming from selling 10x things at $10 each, a number that I will not publish) in my financial reports. Now let's say this year I report $120 in revenue. That's 20% growth, that looks awesome! But what I'm not reporting is that I made $120 by selling two things at $60 each to my last two desperate customers who had to buy a thing this year no matter what the price. So this means a few things:
1) My "growth" only happened because of price increases. In terms of sales volume/market share/etc my company declined, I increased prices by 500% but only increased revenue by 20%.
2) I never be able to repeat that 20% growth. I can't lose any more customers without going out of business, and I probably can't increase my prices anymore without losing the last customers. So while my competition expands to fill the needs of my eight former customers my own company is going to remain stagnant at best.
3) I probably won't keep the remaining customers. Now that they've bought their thing they'll have a whole year to think about buying from my competition, and probably find them to be a better deal. So my revenue is probably going to decrease.
It's the same with GW: we know that they're losing sales volume and only "growing" because they're raising prices faster than they lose customers for now. Whatever the reason for people buying non-GW games the simple fact is that GW is failing to grow, and it's pretty unreasonable to think that there are no more potential GW customers for them to expand with.
Depends on the area, I think. In the UK they're probably well insulated since (apparently) they've driven most of the independent stores out of business and have an obvious GW store in every town. In the US that insulation doesn't really exist.
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Definitely. In my area, GW has become functionally irrelevant. A single employee store and one independent store that has shrunk the shelf space for GW in half.over the last couple of years. And four other stores that used to carry GW but no longer do at all. I think the US is going to see further segmentation of GW from the rest of the industry.
Let's see...
Declining market share in a growing market but no apparent concern about the problem? Check.
Dumping entire product lines instead of using them to attract new players? Check.
Complete refusal to do any kind of marketing, previews, etc, that would built interest in the game and attract new customers? Check.
Constant price increases that can not work in the long run? Check.
Cutting store hours and staff to the bare minimum? Check.
Yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable to suggest that GW's management are in "take the money and run" mode instead of building long-term growth.
cincydooley refuses to believe that the gaming industry as a whole is growing, so he won't accept point one. For point two, GW might actually believe that any game other than one sci-fi and one fantasy game will cannibalize sales rather than reach new people. What having many, many games in the 90s did for GW was allow people to take a break from 40k or WFB and still stay in the GW family by going with bloodbowl, epic, warmaster, bfg, etc.,. Now people will either give up the hobby as a break or switch to another companies products. As for 3. I agree completely. The LOTR boom was largely in part of the promotional materials produced by an outside company. The price increases can work for quite a long time, as we've discussed, so I'm more inclined to see them as GW's only option to keep revenue from falling, so they can keep up the status quo. So that's definitley support for your assertion there. The staff cuts are also a sign of expection of non-growth and no real thought about the future.
Earlier in the thread you mentioned the payment of dividends rather than reinvesting in the company. So that's another "check" on the list of signs of short term thinking. Dividends paid by most successful companies are usually combined with heavy reinvestment in the company itself as well as an avenue to get additional investment from the share-holders in the form of a dividend reinvestment plan. GW has neither of these things that are common amoung the dividend achievers of the stock market.
cincydooley wrote: Peregrine, the only one of your check points that doesn't have a reasonable answer that can be attached to it is the marketing one.
Sure, taken in isolation each one can be explained without "GW IS DYING OMG!!!". But when you add it all together the result is a company that is focused on extracting the maximum possible profit from a declining customer base instead of long-term profit increases through growth. It's the kind of strategy you use when you want a short-term paycheck and consider the company expendable as long as you get paid and transfer your investments before it dies.
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frozenwastes wrote: For point two, GW might actually believe that any game other than one sci-fi and one fantasy game will cannibalize sales rather than reach new people.
This is especially funny because GW's competition are busy making similar games to take those sales. It's absolutely insane to worry about Blood Bowl taking some sales away from 40k when the alternative is Mantic's game taking sales away from GW entirely. Unless of course you're near your retirement and share-selling day and are more concerned with the fact that investing in a re-launch of Blood Bowl would mean a smaller dividend check this year, while the profits from the game would only appear after you've already left the company.
JWhex wrote: Lets take the growth rate of miniature games and the flat sales argument that is made constantly. One assumption made by GW critics is that the new customers coming into the hobby are equally likely to choose 40k or whfb but are choosing something else instead.
You just do not know that, it is possible that these new games are bringing in people to the miniature hobby that do not have any interest in GW products and would not have come in if it were not for the particular nonGW game that they did pick.
But this is worse! This means that GW has no chance to grow into that segment of the market. This means that their competition is successfully reaching new people that they are not and cannot.
cincydooley refuses to believe that the gaming industry as a whole is growing, so he won't accept point one.
No. He doesn't. It's clear that its growing. But when your market share effectively began at 100%, the only place to go is down. He does, however, have trouble acknowledging that anyone beyond Privateer is doing any substantial damage. Could there potentially be a death by 1000 paper cuts? Maybe. But I don't see tons of conventions in the US devoted to infinity or mantic or zenit or malifaux or spartan or dropzone commander (all of which i foolishly own, btw) and I do see multiple where GW games are the star.
For point two, GW might actually believe that any game other than one sci-fi and one fantasy game will cannibalize sales rather than reach new people. What having many, many games in the 90s did for GW was allow people to take a break from 40k or WFB and still stay in the GW family by going with bloodbowl, epic, warmaster, bfg, etc.,. Now people will either give up the hobby as a break or switch to another companies products.
Without seeing some kind of cost-benefit analysis, we'll never know. It could be as simple as the cost of supporting the games not justifying the return on investment.
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The staff cuts are also a sign of expection of non-growth and no real thought about the future.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but did they not add design staff this year?
Letting go of production staff could simply mean more efficiency, could it not?
I see no problem with killing the B&Ms to one man operations. Is the retail space in any of them really large enough to warrant more than one FTE anyway?
Earlier in the thread you mentioned the payment of dividends rather than reinvesting in the company. So that's another "check" on the list of signs of short term thinking. Dividends paid by most successful companies are usually combined with heavy reinvestment in the company itself as well as an avenue to get additional investment from the share-holders in the form of a dividend reinvestment plan. GW has neither of these things that are common amoung the dividend achievers of the stock market.
Again, could not the introduction of more design staff be seen as reinvesting in the company? Presumably, designers are brought on to develop new/more product, yes?
This is especially funny because GW's competition are busy making similar games to take those sales. It's absolutely insane to worry about Blood Bowl taking some sales away from 40k when the alternative is Mantic's game taking sales away from GW entirely. Unless of course you're near your retirement and share-selling day and are more concerned with the fact that investing in a re-launch of Blood Bowl would mean a smaller dividend check this year, while the profits from the game would only appear after you've already left the company.
The self interest over long term interest of the company really does have the best explanatory power.
I have a further theory though. Given that GW brought tooling, mould making and plastic injection in house and that the number of units sold has dropped dramatically compared to their capacity during the height of the LOTR phase, GW needs to manage their tooling capability with their now limited production staff. Space Hulk and Dreadfleet were tooling schedule fillers and the reason they were limited edition products was because they simply have no way to commit their undermanned tooling and moulding equipment to ongoing support of the games. They've simply fired too many production staff to do anything other than limited runs. Only 40k and WFB get regular production runs now and there was even mention about the under performance of WFB in the last few financial reports.
Now Given Dreadfleet failure and how the limited edition Hobbit sets are still available, I'm guessing GW is going to be taking a real hard look at return on investment for their tooling schedule. We could see WFB eventually hit the point where the ROI isn't good enough to justify regular tooling of new kits.
frozenwastes wrote: Earlier in the thread you mentioned the payment of dividends rather than reinvesting in the company. So that's another "check" on the list of signs of short term thinking. Dividends paid by most successful companies are usually combined with heavy reinvestment in the company itself as well as an avenue to get additional investment from the share-holders in the form of a dividend reinvestment plan. GW has neither of these things that are common amoung the dividend achievers of the stock market.
Ok, whoa, hold on. I think it would be unfair to say that GW hasn't invested in themselves. I mean, their plastic technology has come a long, long way and whilst we might all hate it and it might be a gak product, they did undergo a big shift when they moved to FineCost. The later was down as a cost-saving mechanism as well, I know that, but still, it's not as if all the money coming into the company just goes into wages, production and filling Kirby's money vault.
Without seeing some kind of cost-benefit analysis, we'll never know. It could be as simple as the cost of supporting the games not justifying the return on investment.
We don't really need one. GW obviously wasn't making enough money to want to keep producing their other games. Whether or not they caused the lack of revenue themselves through a lack of support or if they just weren't that good at selling, we'll never know for sure. But as far as cost-benefit goes, the cutting of the product lines is all we need to know.
It's Peregrine's position that these alternate game experiences are what their competition is now providing. If you want a sports game or a smaller model count game, or a space ship game, or a variety of other things that GW used to sell, now they are not selling them at all. You simply have to go elsewhere. So even if they were cannibalizing the sales of 40k/WFB/LotR, cutting them didn't necessarily help.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but did they not add design staff this year?
Letting go of production staff could simply mean more efficiency, could it not?
I see no problem with killing the B&Ms to one man operations. Is the retail space in any of them really large enough to warrant more than one FTE anyway?
The design staff isn't really reinvesting because there would have been room in the budget after no longer having to pay long standing employees like Rick Priestly. I'd be willing to bet he was making more than the new entry level positions combined. My guess is that the next financial report is going to brag about reducing design studio costs rather than making further investments there.
I don't think that the production staff cuts are a result of efficiency gains. I bet there are tons and tons of injection moulding machines and equipment from when they were operating at full capacity during the LOTR booms in storage to be used as parts and replacement. They're no where near their levels of production that the LOTR days had. Also, we still have the issue of inflation adjusted revenue being flat and inflation adjusted prices being increased. There is no other answer other than less actual product being sold. So they don't need as many production staff.
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H.B.M.C. wrote: Ok, whoa, hold on. I think it would be unfair to say that GW hasn't invested in themselves. I mean, their plastic technology has come a long, long way and whilst we might all hate it and it might be a gak product, they did undergo a big shift when they moved to FineCost. The later was down as a cost-saving mechanism as well, I know that, but still, it's not as if all the money coming into the company just goes into wages, production and filling Kirby's money vault.
I didn't mean to imply the reinvestment was at zero. It's just proportionately low. They revamped their paint and hobby products. Their design studio was been shifted towards computer based design. But none of these things are large investments. Much, much smaller companies like Spartan have the same 3d design infrastructure and anyone can get supplied a line of branded miniature paints by contacting HMG or Vallejo and placing an order. Privateer's paint line is a great example of this as it was done when they were a very small company and it's outsourced to HMG.
The paints also shows that something I said earlier is not technically correct. It's the one part of GW's product offerings that they don't produce themselves. I actually don't know who produces the current paints that GW sells.
I honestly don't know what GW should be reinvesting in. I'm really not sure what would work to turn them back into a growth company. Maybe the best interest of the shareholders at this point is to stay the course and arrange a buy-out or merger. Maybe there really is nothing GW can do with their revenue to turn things around short of a complete overhaul of the customer experience of the product.
JWhex wrote: Lets take the growth rate of miniature games and the flat sales argument that is made constantly. One assumption made by GW critics is that the new customers coming into the hobby are equally likely to choose 40k or whfb but are choosing something else instead.
You just do not know that, it is possible that these new games are bringing in people to the miniature hobby that do not have any interest in GW products and would not have come in if it were not for the particular nonGW game that they did pick.
But this is worse! This means that GW has no chance to grow into that segment of the market. This means that their competition is successfully reaching new people that they are not and cannot.
I don't understand how proponents for GW's business model (because apparently there are some) can reasonably conclude that what they're doing is reaching new customers? I mean, honestly.
They do not advertise. They rely on word-of-mouth advertisement from veterans that (anecdotally) seem to be leaving the game in droves. Not only that, but a veteran player with a well-painted army trying to explain the cost and time put into his army can easily scare off a new customer. Telling them how cool the lore is and how the game plays is a tough sell when they need the buy-in that the do to really get into the game.
So, while the veteran word-of-mouth avenue is still open, it is more difficult than ever because GW has made it so. So, that leaves their Stores. Now, I cannot speak for any other country (or any other state, for that matter), but there is 1 Games Workshop within 100 miles of where I live. Every time I go there, there is 1 person there browsing or it is locked (during business hours). This does not scream advertisement to me. Also, they have 1 gaming table and the painting area is a shelf bolted to a wall with bar stool lined up to it. No thanks, I'll sit in my comfy chair at home and paint. It is not in an inviting area - the foot traffic is minimal. The only people that are going to go to this Games Workshop are people that know about it. So, that is not an effective advertising tool. Secondly, if someone is attracted into the Games Workshop, they're confronted with the costs of starting up the game. Now, the Hobby Center's job is not to sell them an entire army, but to get them hooked. If they can just get them to buy Dark Vengeance, then they'll be in there like swimwear. Unfortunately for the foot traffic, dropping $100 on what might as well be a board game to parents is unreasonable. Timmy might ask for it for Christmas, but then Timmy will soon realize what all he needs to play a real game and then costs become prohibitive. Dark Vengeance alone is not enough to sustain new customers.
Finally, Black Library and video games were mentioned. I can actually see the Black Library bringing in new customers. The lore is one of the most attractive thing about this gaming system and to get someone hooked on that may cause them to get woven into the game itself. However, what advertising is done for the Black Library? How often do you go into Barnes and Noble looking for a book you don't know exists? Outside of www.games-workshop.com, where is Black Library advertised? I mean, to someone who knows nothing about GW? And lastly, video games. The Dawn of War series was good but it is nearly a decade old. And those playing the new games are going to be faced with the same problem that foot traffic into stores will face - the price tag. Sure, it is reasonable to think that a video game will get you interested in the tabletop game. And then you learn about the startup costs. Suddenly that $50 video game is looking a lot more reasonable than $300-$700 for a decent army. Not to mention the rulebooks, deciding which army to play, finding someone to play against, and breaking into a new gaming group, which can be just as tough and socially awkward as starting a new school.
So, in the lack of advertising, in the prohibitive startup costs, and in the way they are shunning their most loyal fans (the veterans), folks see true growth potential and healthy long-term viability? I'm sorry, I just don't see it.
cincydooley wrote: I see no problem with killing the B&Ms to one man operations. Is the retail space in any of them really large enough to warrant more than one FTE anyway?
It's not the space*, it's the store hours. The local GW store is only open five days a week, for limited hours, and is randomly closed when the single employee can't make it to work on a given day or has a lunch break. So when your store network is your only source of advertising I can't see how it's a very good idea to have potential customers show up and see nothing but a "closed" sign.
*Though the tiny space doesn't help, every time someone decides to play at an independent store with more gaming space they're getting exposed to GW's competition.
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frozenwastes wrote: If you want a sports game or a smaller model count game, or a space ship game, or a variety of other things that GW used to sell, now they are not selling them at all. You simply have to go elsewhere. So even if they were cannibalizing the sales of 40k/WFB/LotR, cutting them didn't necessarily help.
Unless of course GW starts to believe their own propaganda about being their own Hobby (tm) independent of the miniature wargaming hobby, and having devoted fans who spend all their money with GW instead of customers who pick from a wide range of business depending on who is producing what they want.
frozenwastes wrote: If you want a sports game or a smaller model count game, or a space ship game, or a variety of other things that GW used to sell, now they are not selling them at all. You simply have to go elsewhere. So even if they were cannibalizing the sales of 40k/WFB/LotR, cutting them didn't necessarily help.
Unless of course GW starts to believe their own propaganda about being their own Hobby (tm) independent of the miniature wargaming hobby, and having devoted fans who spend all their money with GW instead of customers who pick from a wide range of business depending on who is producing what they want.
I love this, from the own webpage:
Games Workshop wrote:Competition: There is no other retailer that competes directly with Games Workshop. However, as a distributor, we are mindful of not encroaching upon our third party retailers.
puma713 wrote: How often do you go into Barnes and Noble looking for a book you don't know exists?
IMO this is one of the few things they're doing well. If you go browse the scifi section you'll see Black Library novels displayed in a prominent position, and plenty of people still go into bookstores to just browse the shelves and see if anything looks interesting. And, unlike GW's own retail stores, these bookstores tend to be located in major malls and open during normal business hours.
puma713 wrote: How often do you go into Barnes and Noble looking for a book you don't know exists?
IMO this is one of the few things they're doing well. If you go browse the scifi section you'll see Black Library novels displayed in a prominent position, and plenty of people still go into bookstores to just browse the shelves and see if anything looks interesting. And, unlike GW's own retail stores, these bookstores tend to be located in major malls and open during normal business hours.
I can see that. But in an age where digital books are making a giant push, I am willing to bet that bookstore foot traffic is down as well.
Also, if you want an interesting read (that pertains to this discussion), read up on their 'Retail Strategy' from their homepage. There's 12 pages, but it is interesting to see what they think of themselves and how they believe they portray their market:
puma713 wrote: I can see that. But in an age where digital books are making a giant push, I willing to bet that bookstore foot traffic is down as well.
It's two different markets. Digital books and online stores for paper books are big, but most appealing when you know exactly what book you want and just want to get it as quickly and cheaply as possible. But that's not a very good substitute when you don't know what you want yet, and you're likely to go into a bookstore to browse. Plus, unlike GW's stores, bookstores are often in high-traffic locations (like major malls) where they can catch people who are out shopping for other reasons and decide to stop in the bookstore for a bit and see if anything catches their attention.
puma713 wrote: I can see that. But in an age where digital books are making a giant push, I willing to bet that bookstore foot traffic is down as well.
It's two different markets. Digital books and online stores for paper books are big, but most appealing when you know exactly what book you want and just want to get it as quickly and cheaply as possible. But that's not a very good substitute when you don't know what you want yet, and you're likely to go into a bookstore to browse. Plus, unlike GW's stores, bookstores are often in high-traffic locations (like major malls) where they can catch people who are out shopping for other reasons and decide to stop in the bookstore for a bit and see if anything catches their attention.
Let's assume that that is enough to get them some advertisement - the question still looms: is it enough to sustain the business model, or does the new customer suffer the same problem that the foot traffic and the video gamer suffers - prohibitive startup costs?
puma713 wrote: Let's assume that that is enough to get them some advertisement - the question still looms: is it enough to sustain the business model, or does the new customer suffer the same problem that the foot traffic and the video gamer suffers - prohibitive startup costs?
Of course it's not enough to sustain their business model (see my previous comments about how stupid GW's lack of marketing is) by itself, I'm just saying that BL books and their presence in mainstream bookstores is one of the few intelligent marketing decisions GW has made.
cincydooley wrote: I see no problem with killing the B&Ms to one man operations. Is the retail space in any of them really large enough to warrant more than one FTE anyway?
It does risk being seen as inappropriate though. From their own corporate pages their sought after demographic are young males 14-24. Now you have an adult, on their own long term in a shop with minors. I work in a school and am aware of the very nasty situations that could arise from this, but GW seem unaware, as they continue to promote single man stores. Its asking for trouble, and then what will they do? Will their refusal to talk to the media serve them then?
I work in a school and am aware of the very nasty situations that could arise from this, but GW seem unaware, as they continue to promote single man stores. Its asking for trouble, and then what will they do?
Do GW staff get CRB checks? I suppose at least one person in a store must do if they're planning to run events and days that are aimed at a young audience.
Not that it's a cast-iron guarantee against something happening, but it's at least something to point to if people start talking about anything inappropriate.
Imagine a poor soul staffing a GW one man store. He sees a kid shop lifting, but is powerless to stop it , because his mates threaten him with accusations of inappropriate behaviour..
So this means the shop takes the standard practice of corner shops everywhere.<NO MORE THAN 2 CHILDREN AT A TIME IN THE SHOP>
CRB check only finds people who have already offended. I'm not actually worried that children will be molested in a GW store more than anywhere else. But I do think that one man stores place individual staff at risk. Teachers shouldn't be in a classroom alone with a single student for this reason unless the door is wide open. These are the sorts of boundaries to be aware of, and you will be if you work with children regularly. Shops catering to teenagers run by one unsupervised adult need to be careful, especially given GW's niche hobby, their sometimes socially inept customers/staff, and refusal to talk to the media ever makes them seem a bit secretive and weird, easy to be portrayed very negatively.
Just wanted to say that I agree with the analysis by frozenwastes and Peregrine.
And you don't need to have a Ph.D. in economics to look at the history of GW business decisions and see what has work and what not.
GW got the most new customers when:
1.) MB made standard advertising for Heroquest and Star Quest (including TV ads) and sold it in general toy stores.
2.) De Agostini made standard advertising for LOTR (including TV ads) and sold it in general newspaper stores.
Guess what: GW sales imploded when noone made standard advertising and noone sold in general toy or newspaper stores.
Kroothawk wrote: Just wanted to say that I agree with the analysis by frozenwastes and Peregrine.
And you don't need to have a Ph.D. in economics to look at the history of GW business decisions and see what has work and what not.
GW got the most new customers when:
1.) MB made standard advertising for Heroquest and Star Quest (including TV ads) and sold it in general toy stores.
2.) De Agostini made standard advertising for LOTR (including TV ads) and sold it in general newspaper stores.
Guess what: GW sales imploded when noone made standard advertising and noone sold in general toy or newspaper stores.
Milton Bradley in the 90s and De Agostini in the early 2000s did great things for GW. While my first contact with miniatures was through AD&D in the 80s, The very first miniatures I ever painted myself were from Heroquest and that game is pretty much the only reason I'm in the miniature wargaming hobby. I know this is true for tons of other people as well. And the massive sales GW reported during the LotR boom testify to the success of the De Agostini campaign. To the point that GW has said it was too successful in that they had to expand so rapidly to keep up with the demand it generated.
So I've changed my mind. That's where GW should be reinvesting their revenue. Marketing that reaches people outside of the typical gamer circles. Have De Agostini do a "Battles in the Dark Millennium" magazine for 40k. Match it with some great faction starters that come with a mini rulebook and some stats cards.
I have no idea who's actually supposed to be buying The Hobbit stuff. I don't know where a local Canadian 13 year old is supposed to get $100 for just the rulebook. A $50/37.50 €/£32.50 starter product they advertise before the 2nd Hobbit movie and try to get into other toy stores and department stores and they could have another revenue explosion on their hands. Unless they've damaged their ability to produce by laying off their highest paid production staff over the last five years. They weren't able to properly produce Tau to the right quantity so maybe GW simply can't handle increased volume anymore. Maybe they've cut back too much to be able to ever grow again without investing heavily in production again.
If the Hobbit is selling at any volume that actually makes GW happy, then it's more proof that they can keep jacking up prices on 40k and WFB and people will pay it. It's like they are testing doubling down on their current strategy with the Hobbit. If it doesn't do great, they can be happy they prevented any competitor from getting the license but if it actually sells, then the sky's the limit on future 40k/WFB price increases.
cincydooley wrote: You all must run the most successful businesses! Where can I buy your company stock!
Have to say, this comment just made me laugh (out loud, in fact).
It's just such a neat, conservative, little beauty of a trolling post. Made more powerful by its elegant simplicity, just dropped in there when people had been making 4-5 paragraph posts previously in an attempt to put across their point of view, and it must have served to anger every one of them.
Absolutely stunning - years of posting on forums can help you to appreciate the skill behind such a comment.
cincydooley wrote: You all must run the most successful businesses! Where can I buy your company stock!
Ok! A little late, but so we are clear.
I have studied business at college (in the UK not American sense)
I was one of the top sales people in the third largest company in its sector by 23
At 25 I became one of that company's youngest branch managers
At 26 I became responsible for 9 separate stores.
When that company fell victim to poor management (believe me, I see parallels with some of the actions GW takes) and the recession, 4 years ago, I became self employed and director of my own company.
Last year I had to close the company due to ill health, but my company was well regarded by my customers and was growing despite the prevailing economic situation.
I have been unable to work since June 2012.
Hopefully that makes me qualified enough to offer my own opinion, if not, kindly let me know and I'll go away and try to become a better person so my opinion is worth something in your eyes.
Shhhh. Whiteknights don't care about facts. GW management could walk into their house, kill *insert pet* in front of them in a grotesque manner and charge them $100 for it and they'd still defend them. Kirby could record a lewd session with their mother while the whole GW team watched and applauded and they'd still defend them.
Hell, I own GW stock and I don't defend the company. I do, however, use my dividends to buy my armies; kind of like GW paying me to buy their toys. After selling half of my stock, I buy less now though.
agnosto wrote: Shhhh. Whiteknights don't care about facts. GW management could walk into their house, kill *insert pet* in front of them in a grotesque manner and charge them $100 for it and they'd still defend them. Kirby could record a lewd session with their mother while the whole GW team watched and applauded and they'd still defend them.
H
Good to see that simply pointing out that GW might not be going bust, despite the evidence of a few acquaintances and vague anecdotal evidence, really draws such a rational response!
Every single time, without fail, when there is a thread discussing GW's financial health, someone will come into the thread and say something like what cincydooley posted.
It used to also be that there would be, also like clockwork, posters who pop in to declare the end of GW is right around the corner. Kroothawk probably comes the closest in this thread, by pointing at the doubling of LOTR and Dire Avenger prices as being a sign of something dire. But even he didn't repeat the tired cliche of predicting immediate catastrophic failure. And later in the thread he expanded on his position with some actual data. And still no prediction of immediate collapse or catastrophe.
This has been one of the most balanced discussions of GW's business on the internet.
agnosto wrote: Shhhh. Whiteknights don't care about facts. GW management could walk into their house, kill *insert pet* in front of them in a grotesque manner and charge them $100 for it and they'd still defend them. Kirby could record a lewd session with their mother while the whole GW team watched and applauded and they'd still defend them.
H
Good to see that simply pointing out that GW might not be going bust, despite the evidence of a few acquaintances and vague anecdotal evidence, really draws such a rational response!
Naw, don't you know the internet is all about hyperbole? You HAVE to take things all out of proportion or no one will take you seriously.
I agree the company's not going belly-up but they could do things so much better in a marketing sense; it's like they don't care about growing their customer base. I communicated with Tom Kirby via email about this about a year ago and his response was just party-line drivel. Companies that don't advertise, have difficulty growing. Kroot made some good points a few posts up, the proof is in the numbers; when the company put itself out there, it sold more. I actually have "put my money where my mouth is" in that I invested my own money in the company because I believe in it and want it to succeed; of course when I was a Social Worker, years ago, I felt the same way about the meth-heads that walked into my office.
In March this year, within one week of CEO Mark Wells stepping down, large investors massively sold GW stock, while a few bought it:
The Nomad Investment Partnership LP 16.2% (- 645,859 shares, January 18.7%)
Investec Asset Management Ltd 9.7% (- 2,612,235 shares, January 18.3%)
Ruffer LLP 8.1% (+ 1,757,260 shares, January 2.5%)
Tom Kirby 6.7% (same)
Phoenix Asset Management Partners Ltd. 5.9% (- 1,034,782 shares, January 9.3%)
FIL Limited 5.5% (+ 953,900 shares, January 2.5%)
(Sold 4,292,876 , bought 2,711,160)
This is going on in May:
The Nomad Investment Partnership L.P. selling another 105,000 shares (9th may)
Ruffer LLP selling again 75,000 shares (17th may)
although in April:
Artemis Investment Management LLP bought 50,001shares.
Keep in mind that for years, there was almost no change in shareholders.
And we still don't know, why Wells stepped down so suddenly.
agnosto wrote: Shhhh. Whiteknights don't care about facts. GW management could walk into their house, kill *insert pet* in front of them in a grotesque manner and charge them $100 for it and they'd still defend them. Kirby could record a lewd session with their mother while the whole GW team watched and applauded and they'd still defend them.
H
Good to see that simply pointing out that GW might not be going bust, despite the evidence of a few acquaintances and vague anecdotal evidence, really draws such a rational response!
Naw, don't you know the internet is all about hyperbole? You HAVE to take things all out of proportion or no one will take you seriously.
I agree the company's not going belly-up but they could do things so much better in a marketing sense; it's like they don't care about growing their customer base. I communicated with Tom Kirby via email about this about a year ago and his response was just party-line drivel. Companies that don't advertise, have difficulty growing. Kroot made some good points a few posts up, the proof is in the numbers; when the company put itself out there, it sold more. I actually have "put my money where my mouth is" in that I invested my own money in the company because I believe in it and want it to succeed; of course when I was a Social Worker, years ago, I felt the same way about the meth-heads that walked into my office.
Don't we have have to consider that GW most probably believes their stores ARE their advertising?
Not only that, but don't we also have to consider the marketing of their competitors and their subsequent options? I don't know if I've ever seen GW advertise in any trade publications in the US (never have seen one in GTM, Geek, or Wired). In that same regard, I don't know that I've ever seen any for Warmahordes either. When Space Marine was being released for the consoles, I saw ads for that (though I'm sure Relic was responsible for that). But I can honestly say I'm not sure I've seen ads for any miniatures game apart from in Ravage.
We agree that GW could do more to advertise, but where do they start? And are there any precedents for them to use as a basis for that marketing?
In March this year, within one week of CEO Mark Wells stepping down, large investors massively sold GW stock, while a few bought it:
The Nomad Investment Partnership LP 16.2% (- 645,859 shares, January 18.7%)
Investec Asset Management Ltd 9.7% (- 2,612,235 shares, January 18.3%)
Ruffer LLP 8.1% (+ 1,757,260 shares, January 2.5%)
Tom Kirby 6.7% (same)
Phoenix Asset Management Partners Ltd. 5.9% (- 1,034,782 shares, January 9.3%)
FIL Limited 5.5% (+ 953,900 shares, January 2.5%)
(Sold 4,292,876 , bought 2,711,160)
This is going on in May:
The Nomad Investment Partnership L.P. selling another 105,000 shares (9th may)
Ruffer LLP selling again 75,000 shares (17th may)
although in April:
Artemis Investment Management LLP bought 50,001shares.
Keep in mind that for years, there was almost no change in shareholders.
And we still don't know, why Wells stepped down so suddenly.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GW stock the best it's been in the past 12 months?
And again, I'm not great at reading the stock ticker or shareholder sheets, but doesn't Nomads sale only account for like, 2% of their total holdings? Is 2% really a sky-is-falling situation?
1.) It's still ca. 4.5 Mio GBP sold and more than 10% of their total (about 2% of GW's total).
2.) The more interesting part is that #2, Investec Asset Management Ltd, almost halved its stock.
3.) There is obviously something serious going on there with CEO gone and major changes in shareholders, we just don't know what it is.
4.) I am not saying that the collapse is imminent, but we have a steady decline, and this is a non-linear process with a threshold above one customer buying one plastic box for 20 Mio GBP.
cincydooley wrote: Don't we have have to consider that GW most probably believes their stores ARE their advertising?
For all we know, GW could believe that Tom Kirby's dog is their advertising. Not unthinkable for a company, that tries to prove in court that they invented halberds, arrows and Roman numbers The only thing that made them known to a wide public recently were the follies of their lawyers, with C&D letters being GW's idea of public relations
cincydooley wrote: You can have an opinion, but unless you've run your own business or been a part of a public company's decision making process, it means about as much here as it would for me to give le maz lessons.
Good old times, when only nobles with proven noble ancestry were allowed to post their opinion
The tourney/competative growd have never been GW's target audience. I doubt they even consider them when designing rules/models, so anecdotal evidence of tournament go-ers giving up 40k isn't that helpful.
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Kroothawk wrote: . Not unthinkable for a company, that tries to prove in court that they invented halberds, arrows and Roman numbers
Chapterhouse lawsuit.
Actually they included this in their claims, but when asked couldn't prove that they owned the IP on fur, haberds, skulls and Roman numbers, so the most obvious false claims were retracted. Still in is the shape of big rounded shoulder pads (a.o. featured in Judge Dredd) and Moorcock's Chaos Star. Background: Chapterhouse made shoulderpads with arrows and Roman numbers etc. and GW claimed IP breach.
Keep in mind that this lawsuits costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more than a million, while GW thinks advertising is wasted money.
BryllCream wrote: The tourney/competative growd have never been GW's target audience. I doubt they even consider them when designing rules/models, so anecdotal evidence of tournament go-ers giving up 40k isn't that helpful.
Yeah, GW has never given prize support or run their own tournaments, nor did they ever mention tournaments in any rule books.
Oh, wait, they did all those things. I forgot.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GW stock the best it's been in the past 12 months?
And again, I'm not great at reading the stock ticker or shareholder sheets, but doesn't Nomads sale only account for like, 2% of their total holdings? Is 2% really a sky-is-falling situation?
GW's share price is just a bit off their yearly high. All it takes is one bad press release and things can spiral down so fast. Or some really good news and they can shoot up. That's the nature of trading in smaller companies on the stock market. They are far, far more volatile. Too much risk for me.
The thing to remember about 2% of their total holdings is that typically the actual volume of shares that trade for GW are relatively low. An average of 45,000 or so. So when the daily average shares change hands in a day. This is out of almost 32 million shares. Years and years have gone by without one of the major institutional investors selling their shares and now the institutional investors have sold (net of purchases) around 50 times what normally trades in a day.
The fact that the stock has not plummeted in the face of such a large volume being sold shows that these fund operators are experts. They're selling into strength and unwinding their positions patiently so as to not spook the market with large sell orders. The fact that the market absorbed these sales and continued to increase the price of GW's shares also goes to show that their stock is in high demand.
But the market as a whole doesn't have the real info. They (like us) don't know why Mark Wells left. While the institutional investors can likely get the man on the phone and get his candid opinion about the operation. And I bet Kirby called every one of those fund managers to do damage control so they wouldn't sell. When you have a sudden departure of a key member of management, you need to have a chat with your institutional investors.
Whatever the cause was of all these events was, it is at the very least a departure from the status quo.
BryllCream wrote: The tourney/competative growd have never been GW's target audience. I doubt they even consider them when designing rules/models, so anecdotal evidence of tournament go-ers giving up 40k isn't that helpful.
Which, when you think about it, is a problem all of itself.
They aren't willing to accommodate a sub faction of wargamers who will spend a fortune in order to try and construct the most competitive list possible, then completely dump it and purchase a new load of models when the next update rolls around.
Of course, one could argue that a balanced competitive scene wouldn't result in quite that behaviour, but anyone who is serious enough about something to do it competitively is normally willing to spend serious money in it.
Perhaps its another example of GWs apparent desire to manage its performance rather than earn to its full potential.
Appreciate that explanation frozen. I don't actively manage my portfolio so I'm not real accustomed to reading some of the stock information you can find on the various google money sites.
It looks like the GW stock is, at least really stable, with a dip (presumably when Wells left?) that seems to have been completely recovered from.
Don't we have have to consider that GW most probably believes their stores ARE their advertising?
That and word of mouth is pretty much all they have, so yeah.
Not only that, but don't we also have to consider the marketing of their competitors and their subsequent options? I don't know if I've ever seen GW advertise in any trade publications in the US (never have seen one in GTM, Geek, or Wired). In that same regard, I don't know that I've ever seen any for Warmahordes either. When Space Marine was being released for the consoles, I saw ads for that (though I'm sure Relic was responsible for that). But I can honestly say I'm not sure I've seen ads for any miniatures game apart from in Ravage.
Privateer has embraced web advertising in a pretty clever way. They go to internet blogs and communities that are traditionally GW based and offer them spoilers and exclusive new content. An example of this is how much PP spoilers Bell of Lost Souls gets. Then there are the trade shows like GenCon which GW doesn't attend, but pretty much everyone else does. Lots of smaller companies also seem to try to work with podcasters and vloggers like Corvus Belli's relationship with Beasts of War.
We agree that GW could do more to advertise, but where do they start? And are there any precedents for them to use as a basis for that marketing?
The same place they've done in the past. Partnering with other companies like Milton Bradley and De Agostini. And actually go to the trade shows. Get an actual social media plan. Work with bloggers and vloggers.
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cincydooley wrote: Appreciate that explanation frozen. I don't actively manage my portfolio so I'm not real accustomed to reading some of the stock information you can find on the various google money sites.
It looks like the GW stock is, at least really stable, with a dip (presumably when Wells left?) that seems to have been completely recovered from.
Definitely not stable. It actually moves up and down relatively rapidly (and fortunately for investors, more up than down).
The thing about news and the stock market is that stock prices tend to react to news in the way the market was heading anyway. It's when things diverge that you can get some info. And that's what's happening with GW. They've had some bad news in the form of management leaving and institutional selling and the price didn't drop in any lasting manner. This tells us that the market participants are optimistic about GW' future regardless of individual pieces of bad news. That's the nature of the stock market-- it's manic-depressive. One moment it's optimistic and convinced nothing can possibly go wrong and the next its convinced the world is coming to an end. And then add into that the fact that it functions on incomplete information. And then also add in all sorts of computer based trading that can get triggered as the price moves over certain points. For example, there will be a ton of sell orders just beneath the late 2005 high because people think the notion of reaching a previous high is important. And it ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy.
BryllCream wrote: The tourney/competative growd have never been GW's target audience. I doubt they even consider them when designing rules/models, so anecdotal evidence of tournament go-ers giving up 40k isn't that helpful.
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Kroothawk wrote: . Not unthinkable for a company, that tries to prove in court that they invented halberds, arrows and Roman numbers
"28. Games Workshop also has a large number of well-known unregistered trade marks (including names of armies, Chapters, and other products) including without limitation: Adeptus Mechanicus, Assault, Alpha Legion, Black Templars, Blood Angels, Blood Ravens, Cadian, Carnifex, Chaos Space Marines, Chaplain, Chimera, Crimson Fists, Dark Angel, Death Watch, Devastator, Dreadnought, Drop Pod, Eldar, Elder Farseer, Eldar Jetbike, Eldar Warlock, Eldar Seer Council, Empire, Exorcist, Flesh Tearers, Gene Stealer, Grenade Launcher, Halberd, Heavy bolter, Heresy Armour, Hellhound, High Elf, Hive Tyrant, Horus Heresy, Howling Banshee, Imperial Fists, Imperial Guard, Inquisition, Iron Hands, Jetbike, Jump Pack, Land Raider, Land Speeder, Legion of the Damned, Librarian, Lightning Claw, Melta, Mk II Armour, Mk V Armour, Plasma, Predator, Rhino, Salamander, Scorpion, Soul Drinker, Space Wolves, Stormraven, Storm Shield, Tactical, Techmarine, Termagants, Terminator, Thousand Sons, Thunder Hammer, Tyrant, Tyranid Warrior." (emphasis added)
There it is, black and white. GW claims to own a trademark on the words Halberd, Grenade Launcher, Imperial Guard, Plasma, Chaplin, Tyrant, Librarian, Salamander, Scorpion, Tactical, and Terminator, among many, many others. Halberd? Librarian? GRENADE LAUNCHER?!?
while I've enjoyed disagreeing with the doom-mongers, I feel compelled to point out a little bit of evidence supporting their case.
GW share performance over the last five or so years has been good - outperformed the market. But the';re quite low-priced as shares - price/earnings ratio is only around 14 - this seems pretty low, average /e for the FTSE is more like 25. Quite often, low P/Es mean that a company is unfashionable or that investors don't believe an industry has a long term future - for instance, media companies with a heavy reliance on print, companies that are not diversified and are thus vulnerable to market changes, or companies with unimpressive or old-fashioned management.
It really is an enigma, isn't it? The market sucked up the selling of millions of shares and the news about Wells leaving and the stock went up, but certain traditional indicators like PE vs average PE are showing the opposite *should* be true. Divergent signals are dangerous times.
Privateer has embraced web advertising in a pretty clever way. They go to internet blogs and communities that are traditionally GW based and offer them spoilers and exclusive new content. An example of this is how much PP spoilers Bell of Lost Souls gets. Then there are the trade shows like GenCon which GW doesn't attend, but pretty much everyone else does. Lots of smaller companies also seem to try to work with podcasters and vloggers like Corvus Belli's relationship with Beasts of War.
[
GW and FW did actually attend GenCon last year, much to everyone's surprise. They're actually going to be at Origins this year too, which really surprised me.
I guess I was looking at more traditional advertising. Advertising on forums and websites like Beasts of War is going to reach an audience that, presumably, already knows GW. If I wasn't active online, I'm not sure I'd even know what Beasts of War was. I realize we are in the Internet age and everything, but I can't imagine someone that isn't "in the know" with war gaming would ever find their way to BoLS or Beasts of War. What they would see, however, is that odd little "Games Workshop" store next to the Michaels in their local strip mall. To pull in the non-captive customer, that's gotta be a better method. But it isn't perfect, so my question is really what other means do you pull in that "everyday" customer new to the hobby completely?
As Kroothawk mentioned earlier; GW experienced spikes in sales/new customers when they actively pursued advertising via the same routes that other companies take. The would be better served to spread sales of their product to retailers other than game stores (hobby lobby, michaels, toys are us); if nothing else, the starter boxes would be best served placed in such locations as a sort of gateway drug.
BryllCream wrote: The tourney/competative growd have never been GW's target audience. I doubt they even consider them when designing rules/models, so anecdotal evidence of tournament go-ers giving up 40k isn't that helpful.
You've brought up this point before and it remains demonstrable nonsense. Tournaments were a big deal back in the 90's. GW used to run all sorts of events, from the actual Grand Tournaments to various roadshows. Jervis hardly ever stopped banging on about them during the days of 2nd Ed.
agnosto wrote: As Kroothawk mentioned earlier; GW experienced spikes in sales/new customers when they actively pursued advertising via the same routes that other companies take. The would be better served to spread sales of their product to retailers other than game stores (hobby lobby, michaels, toys are us); if nothing else, the starter boxes would be best served placed in such locations as a sort of gateway drug.
It is a bit more complicated than that: GW experienced spikes, when they let OTHERS do marketing for them. GW itself actively pursued advertising only in its first years, but that soon stopped. I made my first GW order because of a GW ad in a wargaming magazine.
Having a perfect introductory product (Heroquest, Star Quest, LOTR sprue+magazine) and standard advertising did the job. Space Hulk, Bloodbowl and with some work Mordheim and Necromunda are such introductory products. Maybe even the starter boxes, better a De Agostini sprue+magazine product for 40k. For years, my single demand for GW was a rerelease of Space Hulk in general toy stores accompanied by TV ads to recruit new customers. Guess how dissapointed I was, when GW actually releleased Space Hulk, with no advertising, only in GW stores, as a limited release with stock for 2 days.
I'm not convinced the current toy market in the US would be willing to accept an unbuilt, unpainted board game at this point in time. I'm not sure stores like toys R us even sell anything beyond the standard licensed and Milton Bradley board games these days. They don't sell some of the basic "boutique" family games like TTR and Zooloretto that even my local Meijer or target does (though they keep getting clearanced out....not a great sign)
You'd think they'd be able to capture some of the older Lego crowd at least.
They'd be totally fine with some snap together simple miniatures moulded in two different colours. You can paint them if you want, but it wouldn't be required. Keep them simple enough and design the sprues so the parts can be rolled/twisted for easy removal without tools (yeah, it slightly damages them, but you can design to mitigate that and it doesn't matter too badly for those just using them as gaming pieces for a board game).
If GW no longer has the contacts to get the game into main stream stores, then they should go talk with a board game producer who does. Just like they did with Milton Bradley back in the day.
As for Gencon/Origins, it's a good move to start re-engaging with the industry as a whole. Though it might be a sign of things not being as rosy as GW's investor relations would like us to think. They shunned the normal distribution channels and industry trade shows for years, probably out of a belief that concentrating on their own marketing and their own events would yield better returns for their efforts. Has this changed? Did they get smarter or are they desperate?
I imagine that giving tidbits of information to places like BoLS and Beasts of War is the last thing GW wants to do. Those sites advertise places to buy GW goods at a discount and GW wants to direct web traffic to its own site not bloggers and resellers.
frozenwastes wrote: They shunned the normal distribution channels and industry trade shows for years, probably out of a belief that concentrating on their own marketing and their own events would yield better returns for their efforts. Has this changed? Did they get smarter or are they desperate?
I think it would work a lot better if they didn't shut down the 'Ard Boyz circuit and basically become recluses impossible for the majority of the US to access. You can't decide that you're going to be an elite gaming club and then simultaneously turn about and shutter yourself into a locked-down clubhouse. My understanding of 'the old days', which were before I started gaming in 2008, was that GW often held global campaign/events days that FLGS could participate in and that largely were responsible for the building of the community.
Personally, I don't get why 'Ard Boyz wasn't a winner for them. The promise of a free army in semifinals (that costs them a pittance) in a high-points format that is tailor made for FOTM crowds to go puke money into in order to secure the new 'overpower' should have generated a crapload of sales.
That 'Ard Boyz was generally a shoddily-run circuit reliant on volunteer officials and often generated ill-will as WAAC neckbeards came out of the woodwork is a good reason it died, but GW does not appear to give a flying fig about the general gaming community so I don't get why they gave it the axe. If the sole reason was that it somehow supported local retail instead of the GW web orders, then way to cut off your nose to spite the face.
Ard Boyz was lame, the GW Outrider system would be welcomed back by many stores. In my local area there would be more fantasy and 40k tournaments if the Outrider program was going on again.
The limiting factor on tournaments locally, especially fantasy and to a lesser degree 40k is getting someone to run them regularly. Space and interest is not limiting around here.
Wait, let me get this strait: GW has cut costs, consolidated product lines, sold off materials, laid off workers, doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?
JWhex wrote:I imagine that giving tidbits of information to places like BoLS and Beasts of War is the last thing GW wants to do. Those sites advertise places to buy GW goods at a discount and GW wants to direct web traffic to its own site not bloggers and resellers.
What is appropriate for a smaller competitor (going to a GW focused news blog and community and offering them exclusive stories) is not going to be the same for GW. They need to find something though. Or just outsource the whole damned thing to a proven advertising firm and let the professionals figure it out. They seem to do better when they let other companies promote their stuff.
sourclams wrote:
I think it would work a lot better if they didn't shut down the 'Ard Boyz circuit and basically become recluses impossible for the majority of the US to access. You can't decide that you're going to be an elite gaming club and then simultaneously turn about and shutter yourself into a locked-down clubhouse. My understanding of 'the old days', which were before I started gaming in 2008, was that GW often held global campaign/events days that FLGS could participate in and that largely were responsible for the building of the community.
Absolutely. They had all sorts of stuff going on. National GTs, Gamesdays, Summer Campaigns, an army building rewards system. All backed up by a team of volunteer promoters (Outriders and later Greyknights). That's now all been axed.
Personally, I don't get why 'Ard Boyz wasn't a winner for them. The promise of a free army in semifinals (that costs them a pittance) in a high-points format that is tailor made for FOTM crowds to go puke money into in order to secure the new 'overpower' should have generated a crapload of sales.
They probably have no way of measuring the success of such an event. But they do have a number for its cost. So they cut it. I could definitely see the discussion at the meeting about cutting it being about how they can't prove it's helping, but definitely know it's costing them money.
Many people say that GW needs to market more but I am still waiting to hear some good suggestions.
I think it is reasonable to suppose that GW internally has had a lot of discussions on how to market their products. For all we know they may have hired a marketing firm or consultant and did not like the results. Or for that matter they may be following the results of a consultant's study.
The whole clamp down on rumours could be the advice of a marketing company, no one posting here knows one way or the other.
Again its one of those things that you cant really know about unless you are on the inside. Interestingly though GW has built a significant market in the US without any meaningful advertising at all and no dominant position of having GW stores in a high density either.
As far as increasing their presence or doing more marketing on the web, I actually find that kind of funny. The web is practically bursting with information about 40k and fantasy and it would take a 9 year old less than 1 minute to find the GW webstore.
BaronIveagh wrote: Wait, let me get this strait: GW has cut costs, consolidated product lines, sold off materials, laid off workers, doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?
Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.
Shhh.... don't say this too loud or the flying monkeys from corporate office will unleash their fanatical groups of Apoligists and call you a heretic and other foul things!.
On a more serious note. I agree with you. I'm just waiting for them to be bought out.
frozenwastes wrote: If GW no longer has the contacts to get the game into main stream stores, then they should go talk with a board game producer who does.
*cough* Fantasy Flight Games *cough* Someone they already have a long-standing relationship with *more coughing*
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JWhex wrote: Many people say that GW needs to market more but I am still waiting to hear some good suggestions.
Then you're not paying attention. Read a few of Kroothawk's posts. He's fairly good at explaining when the GW boom times (so to speak) were, and how promotion played a role in it.
Kilkrazy wrote: I've always had generic white boxes for GW stuff ordered by post to the store. There's no point printing a box that doesn't have to sell itself off the shelf.
Isn't this fairly obvious?
Apparently not to the people who are slating GW for using white boxes.
I've never cared much either way - the box will be chucked afterwards... the only point for giving it a pretty picture is to show what is inside. Maybe give an idea on how to paint the contest.
Other than that... a blank box works fine.
The Auld Grump
I always just read the bit that says "this box contains x models."
That's how I know that my crisis suits had 6 gun drones in them.
Also, one thing at GW staff are good at, if they know the army, is telling you the kinds of bits you get in certain more obscure kits.
*cough* Fantasy Flight Games *cough* Someone they already have a long-standing relationship with *more coughing*
I've been super impressed with FFG's licensed 40k/WH products. A quick search also shows that FFG have a presence in major department stores and other mainstream distribution channels that GW does not.
GW supplies the plastic miniatures (easy snap together ones that can be twisted off the sprues and assembled without tools or glue) and FFG supplies everything else and designs the game. In Europe, GW can go back to De Agostini and get magazines about the game on the newstands just like they did for LOTR. EDIT: It looks like De Agostini has really grown since the LOTR days. They now operate in 66 countries and publish in 30 languages, and now also have North American distribution of their products. So the marketing magazine could be global if GW worked with them again.
But... with the closing of the production centre in Memphis and the general cuts to staff, combined with Tau shortages and the like, it might be that GW has cut too much of their production capability to take on a growth project like that without first doing major reinvestment. It could be that as GW's sales volume has dropped, they've ratcheted down their production capabilities in kind and are pretty much operating at capacity with their 4 new kits a month.
JWhex wrote: Interestingly though GW has built a significant market in the US without any meaningful advertising at all and no dominant position of having GW stores in a high density either.
But remember when they built it. Most of GW's real competition is pretty new, and it's not hard to expand when you're the only company in the industry. Just put your products in stores and let the people coming in for MTG/D&D/whatever do the rest. It's not the ideal way of doing it, but it still builds a dominant position.
The web is practically bursting with information about 40k and fantasy and it would take a 9 year old less than 1 minute to find the GW webstore.
It would take you a minute to find it if you had a reason to look. Yes, a lot of people have heard of 40k, but that's not enough. You advertise in places that potential customers might be found because you want to get them thinking about your game and coming back to the idea. For example, consider MTG, which does lots of online advertising despite the fact that most of the people seeing the ads have probably heard of it at least once. Why? Because there are people who heard about it once, weren't interested at the time, and forgot about it. Because there are people who heard about it 10 years ago when some people at their school played, and might be curious and take a look if they saw a hint of how cool the game is. Because there are people who used to play and might play again if they see ads that bring back happy memories of the game. Etc.
Or use me as an example: I used to play MTG, and I saw people playing 40k occasionally in the store. I didn't really know much about it and thought it was a stupid idea, and when that store went out of business that was the end of seeing 40k. Sure, if you asked me about it at the time I would have said yes, I've heard of it, and I could find GW's website just as easily as anyone. But I had no reason to, until one of my friends started playing, corrected some of my bad information, and showed me that it was actually a really fun game. But take that friend away and I never would have started 40k. Now think about what might have happened if I was constantly seeing ads for 40k while reading MTG blogs/forums, it might have caught my interested and convinced me to give it another chance.
TheAuldGrump wrote: I think that the intent was 'mass market board game companies' - while FFG makes some awesome games, you don't generally see them at Toys 'R' Us.
Lots of folks were introduced to the hobby by Heroquest.
Heck, I sill have two copies of the game, about seven feet away from where I am sitting.
Does anyone know if MB pulled away, or if it was GW?
The Auld Grump
Board games are actually starting to make their way to the general public in a big way. Wil Wheaton's Tabletop web show has a contract with Target, which means that games like Elder Sign are a lot more visible than they once were.
BaronIveagh wrote: Wait, let me get this strait: ...GW has cut costs...doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?
Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.
Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that allGW products have doubled in price?
Chicken Little is back in the building, folks!
(and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).
BaronIveagh wrote: Wait, let me get this strait: ...GW has cut costs...doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?
Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.
Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that allGW products have doubled in price?
Chicken Little is back in the building, folks!
(and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).
They doubled the price of the LotR plastic boxes as well.
Unless you live under a rock or in a GW B&M store, .
EVERY other table top game company is EXPANDING their ranges and INVESTING in new product lines.(A sign of growth is it not?)
Not to mention the crowd funding kickstarters have launched .
If one small company can get over £1,000,000 in crowd funding for its games.And deliver them to a delighted customers.
How much money is being poured into table top gaming world wide?
Anecdotal evidence.
Walked by my local GW shop on Saturday.
10 years ago you could not move for kids , being dropped off while parents went shopping in the city center.
On Saturday there was the one man retail staffer.And two of his mates eating a burger and chatting about making scenery.
My local FLGS has stopped selling GW products because the 'pricing disparity to other ranges was ridiculous'.
1.) FFG has a cooperation with German Heidelberger Spiele, who are a major distributor here and translate the most popular FFG games for the German market.
2.) De Agostini acknowledged that the LOTR line was their most successful. AFAIKGW quit, they don't want to talk about it but don't want to deal with De Agostini ever again.
Hivefleet Oblivion wrote: Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that allGW products have doubled in price?
Beside most Hobbit products that doubled price and Cadia and Dire Avengers, there are IIRC no 10man Xeno 40k boxes mandatory for GW stockists coming June. Guess what will happen ...
Hivefleet Oblivion wrote: (and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).
BaronIveagh wrote: Wait, let me get this strait: ...GW has cut costs...doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?
Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.
Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that allGW products have doubled in price?
Chicken Little is back in the building, folks!
(and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).
They doubled the price of the LotR plastic boxes as well.
Again, fast and loose with the facts. Good job us guys are not running a business.
Yes, there was a massive price hike, they halved box sixes and didn't reduce pricetag accordingly. Increase was around 33%. But that is not 100%.
BaronIveagh wrote: Wait, let me get this strait: ...GW has cut costs...doubled prices and the profit margins remained fairly stable, and lagged overall market growth?
Not to sound all doomy but that's not good.
Fab - we've progressed from one troops choice doubling in price to saying that allGW products have doubled in price?
Chicken Little is back in the building, folks!
(and we still haven't seen anything other than anecdotal evidence on market growth).
They doubled the price of the LotR plastic boxes as well.
Again, fast and loose with the facts. Good job us guys are not running a business.
Yes, there was a massive price hike, they halved box sixes and didn't reduce pricetag accordingly. Increase was around 33%. But that is not 100%.
When I was takling about double LOTR prices, I meant current plastic boxes cost double than comparable LOTR plastic boxes:
6 riders from MInas Tirith 23€ (below 20€ 2 yeara ago), 6 Knights of Rivendell 40€
12 LOTR Infantry now 20€ (2 years ago 15€), 12 Hobbit Infantry 30€
LOTR starter 50€ at release, Hobbit starter 100€
cincydooley wrote: I'm not convinced the current toy market in the US would be willing to accept an unbuilt, unpainted board game at this point in time. I'm not sure stores like toys R us even sell anything beyond the standard licensed and Milton Bradley board games these days. They don't sell some of the basic "boutique" family games like TTR and Zooloretto that even my local Meijer or target does (though they keep getting clearanced out....not a great sign)
You'd think they'd be able to capture some of the older Lego crowd at least.
In the US, Target sells games like FFG X-Wing and Smallworld.
It would take you a minute to find it if you had a reason to look. Yes, a lot of people have heard of 40k, but that's not enough. You advertise in places that potential customers might be found because you want to get them thinking about your game and coming back to the idea. For example, consider MTG, which does lots of online advertising despite the fact that most of the people seeing the ads have probably heard of it at least once. Why? Because there are people who heard about it once, weren't interested at the time, and forgot about it. Because there are people who heard about it 10 years ago when some people at their school played, and might be curious and take a look if they saw a hint of how cool the game is. Because there are people who used to play and might play again if they see ads that bring back happy memories of the game. Etc.
This.
I got HeroQuest from Argos (a UK catalog based store chain, there's one in most major towns with a retail presence) as something to paint and play with (aged about 8), and a few years later (aged about 10) I got 2nd ed 40K from the same place which I played with for years before discovering that they had a bigger range and dedicated shops in a dedicated shop in another shopping centre we visited occasionally (where I could go whilst my parents did grocery shopping).
Had it not been for the high street presence I've no idea if I'd have stumbled across GW at all. That doesn't exist now so really the only way to get into it is if someone you know introduces you or you happen to live where you can pass a store (which I'd never have encountered until I was about 14 and allowed to travel into the city on my own).
I've easily spent thousands on gaming products in the 15 years since, as have the friends I'd introduced to it, so the approach certainly worked for them.
Yep, thats fair enough - they didn't up the price as much as I remembered.
Might wanna drop the snide attitude though mate, its not pleasant and not gonna win you many admirers.
My apologies if you thought I was snide; I thought I was merely correcting a fact - and a kind of group think , where demonstrably wrong statistics go unchallenged.
I could have said something like "pull your head out of the dirt," or said the statistics were "demonstrable nonsense" , or " you're not paying attention" - perhaps that is a more acceptable attitude? Does that win your admiration?
Yep, thats fair enough - they didn't up the price as much as I remembered.
Might wanna drop the snide attitude though mate, its not pleasant and not gonna win you many admirers.
My apologies if you thought I was snide; I thought I was merely correcting a fact - and a kind of group think , where demonstrably wrong statistics go unchallenged.
I could have said something like "pull your head out of the dirt," or said the statistics were "demonstrable nonsense" , or " you're not paying attention" - perhaps that is a more acceptable attitude? Does that win your admiration?
Ooh, splendid! Well done on toning down the snide.
You do realise that if you keep posting in this manner nobody is going to actually listen to you? Your username will become synonymous with a poor attitude, and people will either put you on ignore or simply disregard anything you say.
Now, I can see the "why should I care what people on the Internet think of me?" response hoving into view, but if you care enough to register and post, I assume you care enough about making a valid contribution.
Yep, thats fair enough - they didn't up the price as much as I remembered.
Might wanna drop the snide attitude though mate, its not pleasant and not gonna win you many admirers.
My apologies if you thought I was snide; I thought I was merely correcting a fact - and a kind of group think , where demonstrably wrong statistics go unchallenged.
I could have said something like "pull your head out of the dirt," or said the statistics were "demonstrable nonsense" , or " you're not paying attention" - perhaps that is a more acceptable attitude? Does that win your admiration?
Ooh, splendid! Well done on toning down the snide.
You do realise that if you keep posting in this manner nobody is going to actually listen to you? Your username will become synonymous with a poor attitude, and people will either put you on ignore or simply disregard anything you say.
Now, I can see the "why should I care what people on the Internet think of me?" response hoving into view, but if you care enough to register and post, I assume you care enough about making a valid contribution.
I can like people who disagree with me - that's part of the art of discussion, isn't it?.
Read back through these posts, and you'll find gratuitous rudeness to those who challenge the groupthink. Read back, also and you'll see I also pointed out evidence in your favour, like GW's poor P/E ratio. If your argument is strong, surely you can handle people pointing out incorrect assumptions or statistics?
BryllCream wrote: The tourney/competative growd have never been GW's target audience. I doubt they even consider them when designing rules/models, so anecdotal evidence of tournament go-ers giving up 40k isn't that helpful.
You've brought up this point before and it remains demonstrable nonsense. Tournaments were a big deal back in the 90's. GW used to run all sorts of events, from the actual Grand Tournaments to various roadshows. Jervis hardly ever stopped banging on about them during the days of 2nd Ed.
so I'm wrong and second edition 40k was balanced between the different armies for tournament play? I've played 40k on and off since I was a kid and while tournaments were mentioned in white dwarf, the focus was entirely on silly, fun rules.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Don't bother hivefleet oblivion. I've seen posted an army wide comparison of price increases that were 5- 10% above inflation, but those posters just get flamed until they leave the thread, at which point 'gw are doubling prices' becomes gospel fact.
Yep, thats fair enough - they didn't up the price as much as I remembered.
Might wanna drop the snide attitude though mate, its not pleasant and not gonna win you many admirers.
My apologies if you thought I was snide; I thought I was merely correcting a fact - and a kind of group think , where demonstrably wrong statistics go unchallenged.
I could have said something like "pull your head out of the dirt," or said the statistics were "demonstrable nonsense" , or " you're not paying attention" - perhaps that is a more acceptable attitude? Does that win your admiration?
Ooh, splendid! Well done on toning down the snide.
You do realise that if you keep posting in this manner nobody is going to actually listen to you? Your username will become synonymous with a poor attitude, and people will either put you on ignore or simply disregard anything you say.
Now, I can see the "why should I care what people on the Internet think of me?" response hoving into view, but if you care enough to register and post, I assume you care enough about making a valid contribution.
I can like people who disagree with me - that's part of the art of discussion, isn't it?.
Read back through these posts, and you'll find gratuitous rudeness to those who challenge the groupthink. Read back, also and you'll see I also pointed out evidence in your favour, like GW's poor P/E ratio. If your argument is strong, surely you can handle people pointing out incorrect assumptions or statistics?
I'll admit there have been crimes on both sides, but often that's a result of historical interaction between users.
I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, but my overall impression of your posts, which is by no means an accusation about you in general or every post you have written, is they tend to be antagonistic and a little inflammatory, which when you are representing a 'minority' viewpoint, as you rightly say not the general group think, only undermine your argument.
JWhex wrote: Many people say that GW needs to market more but I am still waiting to hear some good suggestions.
I think it is reasonable to suppose that GW internally has had a lot of discussions on how to market their products. For all we know they may have hired a marketing firm or consultant and did not like the results. Or for that matter they may be following the results of a consultant's study.
The whole clamp down on rumours could be the advice of a marketing company, no one posting here knows one way or the other.
Again its one of those things that you cant really know about unless you are on the inside. Interestingly though GW has built a significant market in the US without any meaningful advertising at all and no dominant position of having GW stores in a high density either.
As far as increasing their presence or doing more marketing on the web, I actually find that kind of funny. The web is practically bursting with information about 40k and fantasy and it would take a 9 year old less than 1 minute to find the GW webstore.
Nope, no marketing company; as an investor I'd be informed and anyone for that matter through the quarterly reports. In recent years GW has turned towards lazy marketing in the form of licensing their IP to 3rd parties.
How would the 9 year old know to look if they're not already into wargames?
Funnily enough, long ago GW used to make a beginner's set with purple snap together gene stealers and blue snap together marines...
BryllCream wrote: The tourney/competative growd have never been GW's target audience. I doubt they even consider them when designing rules/models, so anecdotal evidence of tournament go-ers giving up 40k isn't that helpful.
You've brought up this point before and it remains demonstrable nonsense. Tournaments were a big deal back in the 90's. GW used to run all sorts of events, from the actual Grand Tournaments to various roadshows. Jervis hardly ever stopped banging on about them during the days of 2nd Ed.
so I'm wrong and second edition 40k was balanced between the different armies for tournament play? I've played 40k on and off since I was a kid and while tournaments were mentioned in white dwarf, the focus was entirely on silly, fun rules.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Don't bother hivefleet oblivion. I've seen posted an army wide comparison of price increases that were 5- 10% above inflation, but those posters just get flamed until they leave the thread, at which point 'gw are doubling prices' becomes gospel fact.
Your analysis was flawed at best, cherry picking items that had transitioned from metal to plastic and from blisters to boxed sets and over a specific time from which supported your assertions best. At the very worst, those who claim the doubling of prices are doing exactly the same.
As for your point about tourneys, when exactly when were you a kid? I was under the impression I had models older than you?
Yep, thats fair enough - they didn't up the price as much as I remembered.
Might wanna drop the snide attitude though mate, its not pleasant and not gonna win you many admirers.
My apologies if you thought I was snide; I thought I was merely correcting a fact - and a kind of group think , where demonstrably wrong statistics go unchallenged.
I could have said something like "pull your head out of the dirt," or said the statistics were "demonstrable nonsense" , or " you're not paying attention" - perhaps that is a more acceptable attitude? Does that win your admiration?
Lol, yea, I was being snide when I wrote "pull your head out of the dirt." But, really, BC was probably demanding the reference to be a D-bag.
BryllCream wrote: so I'm wrong and second edition 40k was balanced between the different armies for tournament play? I've played 40k on and off since I was a kid and while tournaments were mentioned in white dwarf, the focus was entirely on silly, fun rules.
Supposedly that was the entire reason for the massive changes in 3rd edition, the "streamlining" of the game and removal of a lot of the wackiness, so that it would be faster to play and better-balanced to accommodate for tournament play, because a lot of people were organizing tournaments regardless (albeit with pages of house rules because of how unbalanced 2nd edition was, if I'm not mistaken) and the fanbase was kinda demanding it. Point costs also dropped across the board because people were playing with bigger armies and GW saw an opportunity to sell more models. They also started hosting official tournaments (the GT's). So by all rights they were, at one point in time at least, interested in supporting that part of their fanbase that wanted a mass battle game that could be played competitively in a reasonable amount of time, and changed the game to accommodate for it.
I wasn't around for all this obviously, I came in around the last days of 4th edition, so this is just what I've heard from various people in the online community. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I've always heard: tournaments were very popular and they essentially gave birth to the rules we're still mostly playing with today, albeit with a lot of the wackiness slowly getting added back in because GW has ceased caring.
BryllCream wrote: so I'm wrong and second edition 40k was balanced between the different armies for tournament play? I've played 40k on and off since I was a kid and while tournaments were mentioned in white dwarf, the focus was entirely on silly, fun rules.
Supposedly that was the entire reason for the massive changes in 3rd edition, the "streamlining" of the game and removal of a lot of the wackiness, so that it would be faster to play and better-balanced to accommodate for tournament play, because a lot of people were organizing tournaments regardless (albeit with pages of house rules because of how unbalanced 2nd edition was, if I'm not mistaken) and the fanbase was kinda demanding it. Point costs also dropped across the board because people were playing with bigger armies and GW saw an opportunity to sell more models. They also started hosting official tournaments (the GT's). So by all rights they were, at one point in time at least, interested in supporting that part of their fanbase that wanted a mass battle game that could be played competitively in a reasonable amount of time, and changed the game to accommodate for it.
I wasn't around for all this obviously, I came in around the last days of 4th edition, so this is just what I've heard from various people in the online community. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I've always heard: tournaments were very popular and they essentially gave birth to the rules we're still mostly playing with today, albeit with a lot of the wackiness slowly getting added back in because GW has ceased caring.
I can support the streamlining from 2nd to 3rd. I played extensively through 2nd, while I wasn't a 'competitive' player I didn't lose much either. My first game of 3rd saw my Avatar, who in 2nd was a strong character in an edition that was all about uber HQs, gunned down by bolter fire.
I'm not proud, but I rage quit, sold all my models and didn't play another game until mid 5th. With a little more hindsight and maturity though, I appreciate the direction they were trying to go, and have continued to go to an extent, and I think, despite its well discussed flaws, that 40k has become a better game. I am actually enjoying some of the wackiness of 6th for nostalgic reasons, as much has been pinched from second, but I think 5th was probably a better ruleset overall.
cincydooley wrote: I'm not convinced the current toy market in the US would be willing to accept an unbuilt, unpainted board game at this point in time. I'm not sure stores like toys R us even sell anything beyond the standard licensed and Milton Bradley board games these days. They don't sell some of the basic "boutique" family games like TTR and Zooloretto that even my local Meijer or target does (though they keep getting clearanced out....not a great sign)
You'd think they'd be able to capture some of the older Lego crowd at least.
In the US, Target sells games like FFG X-Wing and Smallworld.
Yeah...I sorta said that in my post. Perhaps I should have used Small World and FFG X-Wing instead of TTR and Zooloretto?
The Target example worries me, though. The Target's by us have been routinely clearancing out some of the boutique games. X-Wing isn't there yet, nor is Small World, but Zooloretto, all the FFG Silver Line products they've carried, and Munchkin have been clearanced and phased out.
Don't get me wrong, I LOOOOOVE that the stores are starting to carry these games, but the fact that they've been on the clearance pile doesnt speak terribly well for their performance in the stores.
For a GW 'gateway' game to make it Toys R Us, I imagine the price point would have to be pretty low (around $60 and under?) and GW would have to be willing to make the effort to get it in a store, which in the US would probably need to be through partnership. I'd love to see it happen, but that pricepoint and the path they'd need to take doesn't exactly fit the GW modus operandi of late.
cincydooley wrote: For a GW 'gateway' game to make it Toys R Us, I imagine the price point would have to be pretty low (around $60 and under?) and GW would have to be willing to make the effort to get it in a store, which in the US would probably need to be through partnership. I'd love to see it happen, but that pricepoint and the path they'd need to take doesn't exactly fit the GW modus operandi of late.
Pretty much.
I don't think they'll do it because:
a) They believe in their own control of distribution being the best choice. b) Their pricing structure puts starters at $100+ products c) Miniature gaming is one area they won't partner/license with another company
BryllCream wrote: so I'm wrong and second edition 40k was balanced between the different armies for tournament play? I've played 40k on and off since I was a kid and while tournaments were mentioned in white dwarf, the focus was entirely on silly, fun rules.
Supposedly that was the entire reason for the massive changes in 3rd edition, the "streamlining" of the game and removal of a lot of the wackiness, so that it would be faster to play and better-balanced to accommodate for tournament play, because a lot of people were organizing tournaments regardless (albeit with pages of house rules because of how unbalanced 2nd edition was, if I'm not mistaken) and the fanbase was kinda demanding it. Point costs also dropped across the board because people were playing with bigger armies and GW saw an opportunity to sell more models. They also started hosting official tournaments (the GT's). So by all rights they were, at one point in time at least, interested in supporting that part of their fanbase that wanted a mass battle game that could be played competitively in a reasonable amount of time, and changed the game to accommodate for it.
I wasn't around for all this obviously, I came in around the last days of 4th edition, so this is just what I've heard from various people in the online community. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I've always heard: tournaments were very popular and they essentially gave birth to the rules we're still mostly playing with today, albeit with a lot of the wackiness slowly getting added back in because GW has ceased caring.
I was around then, also was an beta tester *cough outrider too* for those rules so long ago. I personally liked 3rd over 5th (and I'm meh on 6th because of the time constraints in playing the game). Not so much as the rule set themselves but the wealth and quality of services Games Workshop had back then.
Recruiting people to game played an important back then, because the GW Doctrine, was not as much burn and churn as it is now. They needed veterans to recruit players. A smart Manager used those Vets to generate sales, help created terrain, give painting lessons and so on.
GW stores were open for 55 hours a week. They had interesting things online such a Black Gobbo a free zine. World campaigns. Sanctioned tournaments. Anyone remember Boot camp? When you paid 50 bucks and you learned all of the basic aspects of the game, from painting to making terrain to playing the game. And at the end of 6 weeks you go to pick out your transport case.
These are the things now missing from Games Workshop.
Now again I have said that the next GW financial report will show a profit. It has to, just because of the massive amount of product being produced plus the increase of price of those products to a ever declining customer base.
If GW were to post those profits with all that I have stated previously about quality of services that they used to have then I believe this topic would not exist.
They would be perceived as a healthy and profitable company. We have enough information to show that the corporation is a distressed one. I
BryllCream wrote: so I'm wrong and second edition 40k was balanced between the different armies for tournament play? I've played 40k on and off since I was a kid and while tournaments were mentioned in white dwarf, the focus was entirely on silly, fun rules.
Supposedly that was the entire reason for the massive changes in 3rd edition, the "streamlining" of the game and removal of a lot of the wackiness, so that it would be faster to play and better-balanced to accommodate for tournament play, because a lot of people were organizing tournaments regardless (albeit with pages of house rules because of how unbalanced 2nd edition was, if I'm not mistaken) and the fanbase was kinda demanding it. Point costs also dropped across the board because people were playing with bigger armies and GW saw an opportunity to sell more models. They also started hosting official tournaments (the GT's). So by all rights they were, at one point in time at least, interested in supporting that part of their fanbase that wanted a mass battle game that could be played competitively in a reasonable amount of time, and changed the game to accommodate for it.
I wasn't around for all this obviously, I came in around the last days of 4th edition, so this is just what I've heard from various people in the online community. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I've always heard: tournaments were very popular and they essentially gave birth to the rules we're still mostly playing with today, albeit with a lot of the wackiness slowly getting added back in because GW has ceased caring.
I was around then, also was an beta tester *cough outrider too* for those rules so long ago. I personally liked 3rd over 5th (and I'm meh on 6th because of the time constraints in playing the game). Not so much as the rule set themselves but the wealth and quality of services Games Workshop had back then.
Recruiting people to game played an important back then, because the GW Doctrine, was not as much burn and churn as it is now. They needed veterans to recruit players. A smart Manager used those Vets to generate sales, help created terrain, give painting lessons and so on.
GW stores were open for 55 hours a week. They had interesting things online such a Black Gobbo a free zine. World campaigns. Sanctioned tournaments. Anyone remember Boot camp? When you paid 50 bucks and you learned all of the basic aspects of the game, from painting to making terrain to playing the game. And at the end of 6 weeks you go to pick out your transport case.
These are the things now missing from Games Workshop.
Now again I have said that the next GW financial report will show a profit. It has to, just because of the massive amount of product being produced plus the increase of price of those products to a ever declining customer base.
If GW were to post those profits with all that I have stated previously about quality of services that they used to have then I believe this topic would not exist.
They would be perceived as a healthy and profitable company. We have enough information to show that the corporation is a distressed one.
3e remains my favorite version of 40K - and in fact I gave up on the game with 4th edition, and have not bothered with 5th. With 4th the primary concern was rule changes that I disagreed with, and that were kept for 5th. (Blast weapons, as an example.)
By 5th... it no longer seemed worth the prices.
So... no longer a target audience. It is unlikely that I will go back to 40K, barring much more attractive prices and rules that I actually like. And, yes, hard feelings likely are a part of it, but less than just not liking the rules changes and pricing changes.
I do not think that either is likely, but this is a case where being wrong would be much better than being right - and I have been wrong before; Wizards of the Coast, as an example, has admitted that mistakes wre made, GW could do the same.
But as things stand, and as I think they are likely to stand for the future... I am pretty much done with GW's current lines.... And they have announced the end of the Specialist line - last bastion of the GW games that I still play.
The last time something like this came up didn't somebody say GW tried to get in with Walmart or something and got laughed out of the boardroom for trying to call the shots. I remeber readying that somewhere?
wowsmash wrote: The last time something like this came up didn't somebody say GW tried to get in with Walmart or something and got laughed out of the boardroom for trying to call the shots. I remeber readying that somewhere?
I don't remember that but the sad part is I would believe it.
Wal-mart is tremendously difficult to work with. I've done presentations at their corporate office in Benton, and even when they are self-admittedly not the subject matter experts, they will still act like the subject matter experts.
Their benchmarks are also largely around beating the lowest imaginable price out of their suppliers, which does not in the least bit mesh with GW's current model.
GW is the biggest player in their pond, but Wal-mart is the biggest player in the ocean of brick-and-mortar retail. If GW attempted to act like a bigger fish, does not surprise me in the least that they got shut down hard.
I lean towards not in financial trouble yet, but heading that way. Sales volumes, not revenue, and the history and changes of it, is conveniently missing from all their reports. Elementary school lvl math shows revenue increase is not and has not been congruent with price hikes for a while now. Now some speculate (because that is what it is) that GW is just maximizing profit, well that could be the case, how ever you can only cannibalize your consumer base for so long before revenue starts falling as well. With out sales volumes we simply do not know nor can a trend be discerned. This is very useful investor information, one has to wonder why it is not made public if in theory it supports their current model.
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