Unless you've been sitting in a cave with your fingers in your ears throughout this past year you may have noticed the closure of Battle Bunkers throughout the country. The Battle Bunkers are being replaced by the more common one man shops that Games Workshop has been rolling out for a couple years now. The only explanation for this has been cryptic emails and facebook updates stating that the change from the larger Battle Bunkers to smaller retail shops are somehow better for the hobbyists (?) and that they shouldn't panic. I found this peculiar like everyone else but felt that Games Workshop is a business and the move to smaller shops would cut back on overhead and payroll to make up for lagging sales.

That was until I saw that the Wave Serpent was mysteriously out of stock and that when it returned it would be sold direct from Games Workshop only. That means if you want a Wave Serpent you will either have to order it directly from their website or go into a Games Workshop store to purchase one. It also just so happened that the Wave Serpent has been a very popular release for Games Workshop, so much so that they have seemingly run out of their stock. This got me to thinking. What do the two events have in common? Closing their hobby oriented Battle Bunkers and cutting out independent stockists from selling their most popular models? It appears to me (AND THIS IS MY PERSONAL OPINION) that Games Workshop has come to the conclusion that providing a place for players to play is no longer needed to sell their models. They feel that they are now in the position to sell their models directly to the customers either through their one man toy stores or through their website. They know that players will find a place to play the game, either at a local FLGS (kept in business by card games) or by going to one of the MANY tournaments hosted throughout the US each month (which they don't pay anything for). Why not have them go straight to the source and make a much larger margin in the meantime?

I've written a more extensive article on my blog Kimchi Games (locate the link in my signature) but I wanted to get more Dakkanaughts opinions on the matter. I would hate for this to happen, but it certainly makes sense for a business that possibly hasn't been doing well to try and reduce their expenses and boost their margins. What do you think?

Any chance of breaking it up, making it more appealing than one massive blob of text?

I can sum it up for him.

GW makes more $$$ selling direct from the website.

GW doesn't need to provide extensive game space to drive model sales.

GW figured this out and that is why the battle bunkers are closing.

I think GW has been working towards this approach since 2008 and to a lesser extent before 2000 when they took distribution in house. They've been trying to capture more and more of the money spent on each kit.

During the CHS lawsuit, a spreadsheet of sales numbers by product was released. In it, it basically showed that kits sold well when they were the new flavour of the month and when they were space marines, specifically the core sort of things like troop squad boxes and battleforces. For the new splash releases, the cool big stuff sold well like the vehicle kits and monsters and the like.

The end result is that GW is going to continue on their business model of ignoring the existing customer base in favor of new splash releases being marketed in their stores. They don't need to provide play space or painting space or any of the things their hobby centres provided when they were actually hobby centres. They don't need to "grow the hobby" they just need to make a sale to a new person and maybe a couple birthday and holiday purchases before the new person quits being their customer.

What does paying for space to get people to play do for GW when they expect people to quit buying relatively soon anyway? They'll get your money on the splash releases and maybe a supplemental purchase or two and those that stick around can slowly find themselves buying the most supported army, which is some variation of space marines.

It is especially funny to describe the desired interaction as a hobby.

 Kimchi Gamer wrote:
They know that players will find a place to play the game, either at a local FLGS (kept in business by card games) or by going to one of the MANY tournaments hosted throughout the US each month (which they don't pay anything for).

You forgot the most common option - play at someones house. Playing at the local store is a primarily American habit. In the rest of the world, gaming at stores is far, far less common, and more common is simply throwing a table together at someones house and playing there.

If they do give up on providing a place to play and think they then they are giving up on GW-only customers. They have always tried to make their customers reliant solely on GW to the exclusion of all else, even on things like glue which is available cheaper and better elsewhere.

If you don't play in a GW store there's no reason to have a GW only army, and you'll be exposed to a lot wider hobby much faster. This is great for the hobby but I don't see that it helps GW that much really unless they only expect most customers to only come back once or twice.

So GW should keep massive money losers like the bunker stores open so people can game there? Yup, sounds like sound business advice from the internets.

The Battle bunkers based on their size would have massive overhead in rent, overhead not being met by store sales. The baltimore bunker made sense when GW USA's headquarters was there, same with the bunker in Ontario for GW Canada's headquarters. LA was apparently losing money hand over fist and I have no clue about Chicago though I heard it actually makes money.

As for the big one, Warhammer world which is attached to GW global HQ....apparently all the events there are run on the basis that they pay for themselves.

I can't speak to the rest of the sky is falling arguments in the OP, but the bunkers closing is due to the fact they were either in the red, or their reason for being was no longer needed (IE, respective HQ's being shut down/consolidated in the Memphis bunker)

Their business model is still all about the short term, so no, it's not really changing. The methods in which they do that are changing however, specifically tightening control on who sells what and removing popular items from stockists so that they get all the benefits.

Orktavius wrote:
So GW should keep massive money losers like the bunker stores open so people can game there?

Strawman much?

A strawman seems appropriate for a chicken little thread..... So Sue me.

Like I said, I'm only commenting on the bunkers, that LA bunker would have to move mountains of product to cover the rent on a space that size where it is/was.

Actually, a store losing money isn't a deal breaker when you are talking about a national or global chain.

There are many more considerations that come into play, such as having a presence in a given area, suppressing competitor activity, being able to offset gains made elsewhere to avoid tax etc etc..

Someone at GWHQ has clearly decided that any of these additional factors are now no longer worth the overhead, or GW really are cutting things to the bone in order to maintain their profit levels. Either way, the decision to close a store that's part of a chain is more complex than if it makes money or not.

Depends on how much money your losing, I don't think Westminster California is likely to be the cheapest area to rent a few thousand feet of retail space for the sake of gaming.

Orktavius wrote:
Depends on how much money your losing, I don't think Westminster California is likely to be the cheapest area to rent a few thousand feet of retail space for the sake of gaming.

No, it really doesn't depend on how much money it's losing, it only depends on whether the more intangible or indirect benefits are deemed worth it. If for instance, the Bunkers were doing an exceptional job of pulling people in from a wide catchment area, recruiting them and then sending them back home where they then proceeded to buy from other, more local, sources, then if they lost $1000000 a month, but generated $1100000 in indirect sales by creating customers where there previously had been none, they'd be worth taking the hit on. All purely hypothetical of course, and highly unlikely, but just trying to illustrate how you need to take a holistic view with multi site retail, and a store making a loss isn't necessarily reason to close.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
If they do give up on providing a place to play and think they then they are giving up on GW-only customers. They have always tried to make their customers reliant solely on GW to the exclusion of all else, even on things like glue which is available cheaper and better elsewhere.

If you don't play in a GW store there's no reason to have a GW only army, and you'll be exposed to a lot wider hobby much faster. This is great for the hobby but I don't see that it helps GW that much really unless they only expect most customers to only come back once or twice.

This.

The one thing we know in the UK at least, a massive part of their business, is that they are reliant on recruiting young teens to maintain sales. Without a store network, they simply won't do this, and without a store network, their peripheral ranges, like paints, glues, accessories, will die.

GW are also opening stores - I noticed a new one on the way in INverness and another one in Rotherham.

I would be pretty certain they're intent on keeping their own stores, and that the closure of the Battle Bunker is an attempt merely to keep this year's budget on-track by cutting costs on one under-performing outlet. IN the same way, delaying supplies to other retailers, so their own stores get the biggest benefit from a sales spike on new product, would lift the figures too.

Exactly. GW wouldn't be the only multi store company to hold store space in an area to simply keep away a competitor. In the UK we have a big supermarket chain who is known for buying land with no intetiion of using it simply to keep it out of other rivals hands.

Plus many also have loss leaders to attract you in to buy other things. I can't see it being too dissimilar from running a loss making store that encourages other sales elsewhere. You need to consider the whole picture of the company.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
If they do give up on providing a place to play and think they then they are giving up on GW-only customers. They have always tried to make their customers reliant solely on GW to the exclusion of all else, even on things like glue which is available cheaper and better elsewhere.

If you don't play in a GW store there's no reason to have a GW only army, and you'll be exposed to a lot wider hobby much faster. This is great for the hobby but I don't see that it helps GW that much really unless they only expect most customers to only come back once or twice.

This.

The one thing we know in the UK at least, a massive part of their business, is that they are reliant on recruiting young teens to maintain sales. Without a store network, they simply won't do this, and without a store network, their peripheral ranges, like paints, glues, accessories, will die.

GW are also opening stores - I noticed a new one on the way in INverness and another one in Rotherham.

I would be pretty certain they're intent on keeping their own stores, and that the closure of the Battle Bunker is an attempt merely to keep this year's budget on-track by cutting costs on one under-performing outlet. IN the same way, delaying supplies to other retailers, so their own stores get the biggest benefit from a sales spike on new product, would lift the figures too.

Mark it on the calendar, we are of an accord!

Although I do wonder if de emphasising the focus on recruiting through their own stores in favour of focusing on development of products that would stand on their own merits in independent stores might not be a better long term plan. Still, can't do anything that might affect the bottom line and spook the shareholders eh?

GW decided long ago to not try to compete with anyone. They handed over more than half their market share between 2000 and now to other companies and have done more and more to segregate themselves from other offerings as if by doing so they can claim to have no competition.

We also know they are not interested in gaining benefits from a store beyond cold hard cash. The managers are all performance benchmarked and will lose their jobs unless they meet GW's sales growth demands. And given that each and every year the target is a percentage increase over the previous year means that staff end up competing with their past success in order to keep their job. They are only interested in the stores selling product and always selling more than the previous year.

They are no longer interested in developing a community around their stores and want people to buy and get out as quickly as possible.

So why bother spending the extra money on more space and more staff? It doesn't match up with their goals to get new people in and get as much money from them as possible before they quit while spending as little as possible to make it happen.

GW also has an administrative bloat with retail/sales staff being cut, production staff being cut but administrative staff going up in both numbers and cost. Given their internal culture of viewing gamers as rubes or plebs, they want the sales force to do as much as possible for as little as possible.

But here the shrinking customer base is hurting them as well. They are now having to headhunt suckers for the jobs of running these stores and being put in the firing line of every increasing sales targets to satisfy the corporate yes-men above them. It used to be that having a larger customer base meant that it was very easy to find staff who actually loved the games while now they are left with a split of gamers and those who look down on gamers.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Their business model is still all about the short term, so no, it's not really changing. The methods in which they do that are changing however, specifically tightening control on who sells what and removing popular items from stockists so that they get all the benefits.

Exactly. This direct only approach will only work for people who are already committed, and whilst you've got FLGS support. When FLGS's get put off by GW policies (meta-required gaming components being direct only for instance) then they'll start promoting ranges they can sell in store, and new customers will be starting elsewhere.

Once the FLGS's stop promoting GW (and I've seen it happen; the proportion of GW stocked in the FLGS's I visit are reducing), and the existing bought-in-customers move on, they are going to really start struggling for growth as all the things responsible for the growth (community, playing spaces) will have gone and they'll have to do a massive U-turn to try and stay relevant.

In the short term it's brilliant though; direct sales are much more profitable, especially since they are ordered on demand. In the long term it's frankly stupid.

 frozenwastes wrote:
Given their internal culture of viewing gamers as rubes or plebs, they want the sales force to do as much as possible for as little as possible.

Evidence?

I'm sure are cynical sales staff and vacuous marketing people in GW, as there are in so many similarly-sized companies. Few people here argue that GW is focused on the short term (altho, also, in the current financial market they're doing pretty well).

But that's a big accusation - so do tell where this information come from.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
GW are also opening stores - I noticed a new one on the way in INverness and another one in Rotherham.

And a closed one at Meadowhall.

The Rotherham store is basicly the Meadowhall one moved 5 minutes away.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
Given their internal culture of viewing gamers as rubes or plebs, they want the sales force to do as much as possible for as little as possible.

Evidence?

I'm sure are cynical sales staff and vacuous marketing people in GW, as there are in so many similarly-sized companies. Few people here argue that GW is focused on the short term (altho, also, in the current financial market they're doing pretty well).

But that's a big accusation - so do tell where this information come from.

There's been various little tidbits pop up here and there, nothing conclusive of course, but there was something derogatory posted on a senior managers personal Facebook feed which leaked (but was questionable whether he still worked for GW when he posted it)

I believe there have also been quotes attributed to some senior executive or another, and the odd "GW insider" will pop up now and again to echo the sentiment.

Nothing you'd convict on, but interesting if you subscribe to a "no smoke without fire" way of thinking.

 azreal13 wrote:


There's been various little tidbits pop up here and there, nothing conclusive of course....

Believing your customers and mugs and idiots would be a pretty profound element of corporate culture, if true... that one story about a FLGS manager who held GW stock calling people mugs got a huge amount of attention, and he wasn't a GW employee IIRC.

Surely any substantive evidence would be seized on and repeated - because it's what a certain kind of person would love to hear!

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


There's been various little tidbits pop up here and there, nothing conclusive of course....

Believing your customers and mugs and idiots would be a pretty profound element of corporate culture, if true... that one story about a FLGS manager who held GW stock calling people mugs got a huge amount of attention, and he wasn't a GW employee IIRC.

Surely any substantive evidence would be seized on and repeated - because it's what a certain kind of person would love to hear!

The Facebook thing I saw screen caps of with my own eyes, wasn't anything original, just rattling on about smelly nerds sort of thing. It was also definitely the correct individual, the only doubt was there was conflicting info as to whether he worked for them when he said it, as I mentioned.

The other stuff could be hearsay, I've only seen it referred to, but often. Perhaps a longer serving member than I, with an elephantine memory, could perhaps link to something more concrete.

As they sell more scenery and terrain, they provide more reason for people to play away from the stores.
They want us to by lots and lots of that, and having tables set up in stores means there is little need to have lots.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


There's been various little tidbits pop up here and there, nothing conclusive of course....

Believing your customers and mugs and idiots would be a pretty profound element of corporate culture, if true... that one story about a FLGS manager who held GW stock calling people mugs got a huge amount of attention, and he wasn't a GW employee IIRC.

Surely any substantive evidence would be seized on and repeated - because it's what a certain kind of person would love to hear!

Quote from a BOLS article:

-Mr. Merrett described Games Day to the jury as a Games Workshop event that allowed customers to perform their "favorite hobby activity; buying things from Games Workshop".

I think it will be interesting to see what else Mr. Merrett may have said about his own customers when the transcripts are available. So too with Andy Jones. In a likelihood of confusion argument you have to talk about the customers. That snippet from Merrett is what I would call smoke. We'll have to wait and see if there is any fire.

They're going to wind up taking a much bigger slice of a much smaller pie.

It's very short sighted. Long term, the only way to grow sales is to grow the hobby.

The best ambassadors for the hobby are other players.

All the GW stores I've ever been to have been terrible places to play a game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orktavius wrote:
So GW should keep massive money losers like the bunker stores open so people can game there? Yup, sounds like sound business advice from the internets.

The Battle bunkers based on their size would have massive overhead in rent, overhead not being met by store sales. The baltimore bunker made sense when GW USA's headquarters was there, same with the bunker in Ontario for GW Canada's headquarters. LA was apparently losing money hand over fist and I have no clue about Chicago though I heard it actually makes money.

As for the big one, Warhammer world which is attached to GW global HQ....apparently all the events there are run on the basis that they pay for themselves.

I can't speak to the rest of the sky is falling arguments in the OP, but the bunkers closing is due to the fact they were either in the red, or their reason for being was no longer needed (IE, respective HQ's being shut down/consolidated in the Memphis bunker)

No, GW shouldn't keep failing stores open. But, then, they seem to be opening a lot of stores that have no hope of breaking even.

But, there are plenty of independent stores that serve as great outlets for GW products that the company seems outright hostile toward, i.e. no online sales, no bits sales, lots of kits being direct order only, et cetera.

I mentioned it in the wave serpent thread but the wave serpent isnt truly direct only, FLGS can still get the wave serpent, it just costs the store more then a standard kit and GW makes no promises on when it will actually ship to the store. I currently have 3 on order on my FLGS (they discount 15% off GW product) and they had no problem putting the order in with there GW rep

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


There's been various little tidbits pop up here and there, nothing conclusive of course....

Believing your customers and mugs and idiots would be a pretty profound element of corporate culture, if true... that one story about a FLGS manager who held GW stock calling people mugs got a huge amount of attention, and he wasn't a GW employee IIRC.

Surely any substantive evidence would be seized on and repeated - because it's what a certain kind of person would love to hear!

Even though this is slightly off topic, I've been in a job interview with GW North America and I can personally attest to this attitude. When I first began the interview the man who shan't be named introduced himself as the guy who does the management hiring in the US. At first he seemed pretty much what I would expect a GW exec to sound like in terms of touting the company glories and products, etc. Once he learned that I had management experience previously and having stating something about wanting to really manage a shop and not have it be just a hobby of mine he quickly dropped his guard and started speaking more like some of the people above me mentioned. All of the sudden he couldn't keep the contempt for the gamers out of his voice. I believe he actually sneered when talking about them. He told me the only reason to get them in the shop was to make sales and then get them out before they stop others from purchasing stuff. He also admitted he didn't play any of the games. Again, that was a personal experience in a very strange job interview (that I go but declined) but it really showed me (at least in the upper management) how much they care about the actual gamers who buy their product.

 ironicsilence wrote:
I mentioned it in the wave serpent thread but the wave serpent isnt truly direct only, FLGS can still get the wave serpent, it just costs the store more then a standard kit and GW makes no promises on when it will actually ship to the store. I currently have 3 on order on my FLGS (they discount 15% off GW product) and they had no problem putting the order in with there GW rep

I think it was mikhaila that said that a FLGS needed about a 30% margin to break even.

So if your store is getting a reduced margin from GW themselves and are putting on a 15% discount on top of that, are they even making any money on those kits or are they ordering them just as a favour for their regular customers?

PhantomViper wrote:

 ironicsilence wrote:
I mentioned it in the wave serpent thread but the wave serpent isnt truly direct only, FLGS can still get the wave serpent, it just costs the store more then a standard kit and GW makes no promises on when it will actually ship to the store. I currently have 3 on order on my FLGS (they discount 15% off GW product) and they had no problem putting the order in with there GW rep

I think it was mikhaila that said that a FLGS needed about a 30% margin to break even.

So if your store is getting a reduced margin from GW themselves and are putting on a 15% discount on top of that, are they even making any money on those kits or are they ordering them just as a favour for their regular customers?

I have noted several gaming stores that basically do just that. They don't keep GW stock on the shelves, but will place orders for existing customers.

Rampant speculation:

I seriously doubt the GW stores make a lot of money. Most of them probably struggle to break even.

The successful gaming stores I'm aware of do well because they capture a lot of "gaming wallet share", i.e. one store sells you all your models, paints, board games, comics, dice, et cetera.

Trying to make a retail venture out of only GW products seems foolhardy. A store will do better if they can support the entire hobby, stock Battle Foam, other brands of paint, brushes, et cetera..

Things that aren't sustainable won't be sustained.
Maybe the rumors of GW being bought will turn out to be true. In that case, I doubt the GW retail stores will all stick around.

i.e. if a company like Hasbro owned GW, you'd expect the business model to be more like MTG and less like Old Navy.

weeble1000 wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 ironicsilence wrote:
I mentioned it in the wave serpent thread but the wave serpent isnt truly direct only, FLGS can still get the wave serpent, it just costs the store more then a standard kit and GW makes no promises on when it will actually ship to the store. I currently have 3 on order on my FLGS (they discount 15% off GW product) and they had no problem putting the order in with there GW rep

I think it was mikhaila that said that a FLGS needed about a 30% margin to break even.

So if your store is getting a reduced margin from GW themselves and are putting on a 15% discount on top of that, are they even making any money on those kits or are they ordering them just as a favour for their regular customers?

I have noted several gaming stores that basically do just that. They don't keep GW stock on the shelves, but will place orders for existing customers.

Yes we have one of those here as well, but for the regular orders, the store will still get the usual discount (40% I think it is), for these "direct only" items like the "new" Wave Serpent, the store discount will be allot smaller.

I'm curious where the assumption that the WS is going direct only came from. While it was pulled I was under the impression that it was in preparation for a dual kit (and thus a price hike). To conserve space and increase profits.

Oh, and Bunkers made sense when they were also regional HQ's. All that extra space was for trade sales and regional management and made sense. Currently most of the SF isn't used and they are complete money losers with the possible exception of the Chicago bunker. All the rest needed to close. Especially since reducing to a 1-man store likely shifted enough funds loose to open 2 more 1-mans on top of the existing one man which is the direction they seem to want to go.

Orktavius wrote:So GW should keep massive money losers like the bunker stores open so people can game there? Yup, sounds like sound business advice from the internets.

The Battle bunkers based on their size would have massive overhead in rent, overhead not being met by store sales. The baltimore bunker made sense when GW USA's headquarters was there, same with the bunker in Ontario for GW Canada's headquarters. LA was apparently losing money hand over fist and I have no clue about Chicago though I heard it actually makes money.

Chicago was making money, when they were operating under a very different business model. I have no idea if they are now.

When I started visiting the Chicago Bunker, there were a good number of reasons to go there, as opposed to anywhere else.

- They carried specialist games, in stock, all the time.
- They carried Forge World, in stock, all the time.
- They ran events on a regular basis
- They had the best tables in the area, by far. They got old games-day tables, and we had things like an ork scrapyard to play on which had easily over $1k in bitz used in its construction.
- The manager was a human being, able to track their inventory with what players wanted, and they were rarely, if ever, out of stock on anything; at least nothing I tried to buy.
- They were close to a Chicago staple, Portillos, where we'd get lunch

Over the years, these things changed, one-by-one

- Specialist games are no longer available
- FW is not only not-available, but you can't even order it there anymore
- Events are almost non-existent, those that are run, are run by individual groups, not the staff
- All the tables have been replaced by Realm of Battle + Citadel Terrain
- Inventory control is now computer managed. The computer says they should have two Riptides, so they order two. If they sell those two, they're out of stock until the computer orders them two more. Lately, they have been consistently out-of-stock on whatever item I would like to purchase.
- They're still near Portillos.

All the reasons for actually going to the Bunker have ceased to exist, except the one that's not actually under GWs control (the nearby restaurant).

If this is anything like the other stores, you have to wonder, why would you expect a store that offers no reason to visit it to be profitable?

It's not like we all don't know how to get GW products at a discount on the internet. If you want to sell GW models at full-retail, you need to give people a reason to go to GW to buy them. It seems as though their current approach is to pick a small handful of products and not let anyone else sell them though, rather than actually making some sort of effort to woo customers to their store. I'm one of those people who will always pay where I play, but the sad truth is, I have no reason to play at the bunker anymore. My group plays in our basements most of the time these days, where at least we have beer.

PhantomViper wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 ironicsilence wrote:
I mentioned it in the wave serpent thread but the wave serpent isnt truly direct only, FLGS can still get the wave serpent, it just costs the store more then a standard kit and GW makes no promises on when it will actually ship to the store. I currently have 3 on order on my FLGS (they discount 15% off GW product) and they had no problem putting the order in with there GW rep

I think it was mikhaila that said that a FLGS needed about a 30% margin to break even.

So if your store is getting a reduced margin from GW themselves and are putting on a 15% discount on top of that, are they even making any money on those kits or are they ordering them just as a favour for their regular customers?

I have noted several gaming stores that basically do just that. They don't keep GW stock on the shelves, but will place orders for existing customers.

Yes we have one of those here as well, but for the regular orders, the store will still get the usual discount (40% I think it is), for these "direct only" items like the "new" Wave Serpent, the store discount will be allot smaller.

I believe based on the conversation I had with the owner, they generally get 40% for the stuff they have to stock, for the direct stuff its 30% or 35%, the cost isnt really the restrictive part as its much more then time it takes to ship. When a store places a direct order item on its trade order, GW gives zero shipping commitment and the store is basically agreeing to allow GW to ship the direct only item to them whenever they get around to it. Least that is the info I was given by the store owner

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

GW are also opening stores - I noticed a new one on the way in Inverness and another one in Rotherham.

I'm surprised that GW is opening a shop in Inverness given that all the shops that I used to get my GW stuff from no longer stocks any GW stuff at all. If it follows the usual GW store model of no gaming space etc then I won't be surprised if it is significantly loss making.

Short term proft, long term loss seems to be GW primary goal these days.

 Palindrome wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

GW are also opening stores - I noticed a new one on the way in Inverness and another one in Rotherham.

I'm surprised that GW is opening a shop in Inverness given that all the shops that I used to get my GW stuff from no longer stocks any GW stuff at all. If it follows the usual GW store model of no gaming space etc then I won't be surprised if it is significantly loss making.

Short term proft, long term loss seems to be GW primary goal these days.

Er... what? You're surprised they're opening a shop, based on the experience of.. another shop that's not GW? Does not compute.

The Scottish GW outlets I've been in - I'm thinking specifically of Aberdeen IIRC - are fantastic with lots of gaming space. Aberdeen has an entire floor upstrairs that's always packed when I've been in, plus really helpful staff. I was chatting to a fella from the city in Dark Sphere a couple weeks ago and he mentioned it was still buzzing. From what I've seen, in areas where rental costs are low (OK, and where there\s maybe not as much happening in general), GW often have much busier shops so I would guess this will be a fair-sized outlet. Despite your experience with another shop... that isn't GW.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Er... what? You're surprised they're opening a shop, based on the experience of.. another shop that's not GW? Does not compute.

If the other shops dropped GW's lines it is almost certainly because they were not profitable. they certainly seemed to be stockpiling old stock lines. If a small sideline for shops that sold other things were dropped by those shops why would a shop dedicated to selling those products, and only those products, be sustainable?

Inverness has been rumoured to be getting a GW for years, presumably the rents are cheap enough now for GW to finally open one but I seriously doubt that there is a strong enough customer base to support it.

There hasn't been a shop that sold GW that also had gaming tables for about a decade (to my knowledge at least and that was a weird toy/electrical shop hybrid) and the wargaming club in the area seems to have died so with the proper facilities and customer care it may work. Maybe.

 Redbeard wrote:
Chicago was making money, when they were operating under a very different business model. I have no idea if they are now.

According to the former Seattle bunker manager, none of the bunkers are profitable even when they were showing growth. I expect the decision to close the bunkers involves closing the least profitable ones first.

 Redbeard wrote:
All the reasons for actually going to the Bunker have ceased to exist, except the one that's not actually under GWs control (the nearby restaurant).

If this is anything like the other stores, you have to wonder, why would you expect a store that offers no reason to visit it to be profitable?

Others have noted that GW doesn't want to support actual gaming. GW seems to want people to buy their stuff then gtfo. I think they see Apple's business model and want to duplicate it. Right now they really don't have significant competition to cause them to reconsider their decision. Privateer Press may be nipping at GW's heels but that doesn't mean much as being second to GW is a "figuratively" low bar to hurdle. PP will have to up their volume of business considerably before GW takes them seriously as competition.

 Redbeard wrote:
It's not like we all don't know how to get GW products at a discount on the internet.

You may have noticed that GW is gradually working toward "fixing" this problem. Web "exclusives" and direct sales are apparently working well enough for them that they appear to be transitioning more items over to that model. Eventual control of the entire retail process from manufacturing to sales is clearly the direction they're working toward and until someone comes along and begins to take market share (and thus money) away from GW, they have no reason to change course. Right now, I don't see anyone even trying.

I always thought that Apple wanted you hanging out in the store, playing with the devices, talking with the Geniuses, interacting with Apple stuff.

And of course Apple embraces third party accessories. Apple does not even make its own cases for phones and has encouraged the growth of a gigantic and thriving app ecosystem by making development software freely available.

@Breotan.
GW plc is a bit like the last Dinosaur looking for another Dinosaur to threaten it.
And they seem to be totally oblivious to all the mammals that are better suited to survive into the future all around them.

GW plc HAS LOST OVER 50% OF THEIR SALES VOLUME SINCE 2005.(And is continuing to loose sales volume at ever faster rate!)

Unfortunately Mr Kirby has simply taken the easiest actions to keep the company profitable short term, while seriously damaging its long term survival.
And Mr Kirby simply puts enough spin any action he may decide to take to appease the share holders.

Quite simply GW has lost sight of what its core buisness, and customer was.And seems to be happy continuing to devolve to suit the lowest common denominator.

Games Workshop went from, B.A 1990 '... making games to engage and inspire our customers..'

To T.K. 2004 '..selling toy soldiers to children..'

Breotan wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
Chicago was making money, when they were operating under a very different business model. I have no idea if they are now.

According to the former Seattle bunker manager, none of the bunkers are profitable even when they were showing growth. I expect the decision to close the bunkers involves closing the least profitable ones first.

This is not what I heard. I was told that the ordering of the closings is simply due to when their leases expire. They're simply not renewing the leases on those spaces. We're expecting Chicago to shut its doors in October.

Lanrak wrote:


GW plc HAS LOST OVER 50% OF THEIR SALES VOLUME SINCE 2005.(And is continuing to loose sales volume at ever faster rate!)

U

2005 sales volume (top of the market... lots of companies are struggling to regain 2007 turnover): £136.6m
2012 sales volume: £131.1m.

Down somewhat but the city seems to think those figures are pretty good, or at least have outperformed the market .

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Lanrak wrote:


GW plc HAS LOST OVER 50% OF THEIR SALES VOLUME SINCE 2005.(And is continuing to loose sales volume at ever faster rate!)

U

2005 sales volume (top of the market... lots of companies are struggling to regain 2007 turnover): £136.6m
2012 sales volume: £131.1m.

Down somewhat but the city seems to think those figures are pretty good, or at least have outperformed the market .

Someone else posted the real numbers somewhere else on Dakka, but after you take inflation and price increases out of the equation, sales volume has dropped drastically. GW is still making money because they are selling less product but at a far higher rate. The number of units shipped has steadily dropped though.

Edit: Neither here nor there for me, but I always thought it was interesting. GW certainly looks like they want to cut out the FLGS middle man entirely, which seems like a terrible idea. I was under the impression that killing off your largest distributors was a bad thing.

 Redbeard wrote:

Orktavius wrote:So GW should keep massive money losers like the bunker stores open so people can game there? Yup, sounds like sound business advice from the internets.

The Battle bunkers based on their size would have massive overhead in rent, overhead not being met by store sales. The baltimore bunker made sense when GW USA's headquarters was there, same with the bunker in Ontario for GW Canada's headquarters. LA was apparently losing money hand over fist and I have no clue about Chicago though I heard it actually makes money.

Chicago was making money, when they were operating under a very different business model. I have no idea if they are now.

When I started visiting the Chicago Bunker, there were a good number of reasons to go there, as opposed to anywhere else.

- They carried specialist games, in stock, all the time.
- They carried Forge World, in stock, all the time.
- They ran events on a regular basis
- They had the best tables in the area, by far. They got old games-day tables, and we had things like an ork scrapyard to play on which had easily over $1k in bitz used in its construction.
- The manager was a human being, able to track their inventory with what players wanted, and they were rarely, if ever, out of stock on anything; at least nothing I tried to buy.
- They were close to a Chicago staple, Portillos, where we'd get lunch

Over the years, these things changed, one-by-one

- Specialist games are no longer available
- FW is not only not-available, but you can't even order it there anymore
- Events are almost non-existent, those that are run, are run by individual groups, not the staff
- All the tables have been replaced by Realm of Battle + Citadel Terrain
- Inventory control is now computer managed. The computer says they should have two Riptides, so they order two. If they sell those two, they're out of stock until the computer orders them two more. Lately, they have been consistently out-of-stock on whatever item I would like to purchase.
- They're still near Portillos.

All the reasons for actually going to the Bunker have ceased to exist, except the one that's not actually under GWs control (the nearby restaurant).

If this is anything like the other stores, you have to wonder, why would you expect a store that offers no reason to visit it to be profitable?

It's not like we all don't know how to get GW products at a discount on the internet. If you want to sell GW models at full-retail, you need to give people a reason to go to GW to buy them. It seems as though their current approach is to pick a small handful of products and not let anyone else sell them though, rather than actually making some sort of effort to woo customers to their store. I'm one of those people who will always pay where I play, but the sad truth is, I have no reason to play at the bunker anymore. My group plays in our basements most of the time these days, where at least we have beer.

+1 to this.

They all were, until the new regime decided to go all stupid and push the stores and bunkers into the brassiere selling model that they came up with out of the blue.

The stores were focal points of activities, had a reason to be located in strip malls, and the whole general quality of the game practically sold itself. Yes, people these days are either willfully ignorant of the fact that these stores were interrelated as far as activities with an outreach program infused with enthusiasm and people that you know... actually did more then try to just shill product with a gakky attitude.

Feth, I can't be the only one that remembers the world wide campaigns and other activities, such as the skulls program, the painting activities, the inter related stuff such as the White Dwarf crossover events and in house terrain classes and "'Eavy Metal" nights.

Just like you are starting to hear a majority d bag stance of "These places are not supposed to be where you play at..." People quickly forget that the stores AND bunkers were set up for exactly that service. As well as indoctrination centers, the stores were where GW brought the WD events and input to life at. ( More then a few stores in house events even made it into WD for showcases of "LOOK WHAT WE'RE DOING, COME JOIN US!!!"

It's kinda interesting because even though theres a fairly big and popular GW Bunker in my area, as well as a few FLGS with their own gaming space, way more gaming is happening at the regular club meetups and at peoples homes.

In Sydney the main Bunker (and the only non-single man store left methinks) is located right next door to another FLGS. Funnily enough 40k practice happens more there than in the actual GW (probably due to the more...[and for lack of a better word] restrictive atmosphere). We've actually done tournaments/tournament practice at the FLGS to avoid the GW bunker entirely due to the scope of the events GW does (nothing but tank battles, Hobbit and other eye-rolling events which are of little or no consequence).

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
If they do give up on providing a place to play and think they then they are giving up on GW-only customers. They have always tried to make their customers reliant solely on GW to the exclusion of all else, even on things like glue which is available cheaper and better elsewhere.

If you don't play in a GW store there's no reason to have a GW only army, and you'll be exposed to a lot wider hobby much faster. This is great for the hobby but I don't see that it helps GW that much really unless they only expect most customers to only come back once or twice.

Another +1 to this.

I used to be a guy that only bought GW stuff. Why? Because GW had some of the better models on the market, and in order to play in big events like 'Ard Boyz and GTs, all my stuff had to be GW. It was fine because it supplied more reasons to buy GW product.

Fast forward to today, dollar wise I spend about 30% of my wargaming budget on GW. The rest goes to other model/hobby companies, but its all still for 40k. What happened?
1: GW paint got more expensive, so I got artist acrylics and mix many of my own colors now.
2: No more GW sponsored tournaments/events that I actually want to go too. Basically, no more 'Ard Boyz, no reason for me to stay 100% GW.
3: Codex prices went up 150%, I only buy codexes for armies I own, rather than buy every release.
4: Other companies (Raging Heroes, Puppetswar, Hightech minis, Scibor, Kromlech) make just as good, or often much better and more dynamic models. So I can fill out my armies more with non-GW models and have a more unique force that is very compatible with the game. Win for me, loss for GW.
5: The local GW store (the first I've ever lived close to) only has one table, and bad hours for gaming. So I only ever go in there if I run out of a specific wash that I have trouble making myself. So with no reasons to go in there I spend ~$6 twice a year or so. I spend hundreds at another FLGS, because its bigger than a closet.

This is getting too long. Bottom line, because GW is getting out of the hobby aspect, I spend 70% less on their product. Not as a protest or anything, I just don't HAVE to buy GW anymore, because there are less incentives now.

@Creeping Dementia-he covered it exactly.

GW had everything: all elements of the hobby covered with no need to buy anything else since they have a product for everything.

Then have players play in a space you control, with models you make, with tools you supply.

Set up the play space like Las Vegas minus the alcohol and you have a money making machine.You make the players drink the cool-aid and all is well.

It is like they turned away specifically from everything that worked. Very confusing.

the bottom line for me is GW thinks they are in total control of a simple situation. They couldnt be farther from the truth. with GW abandoning the gaming aspect of the fact they are a game company i dont feel i owe them anything. in fact if they want my business they need to earn it

as has been stated already, there are other solutions to GW.. i will not buy from them directly in any way.. if i can not buy it from my local indy store i buy it online or from a new sculptor

i dont owe GW anything

Rle68 wrote:
with GW abandoning the gaming aspect of the fact they are a game company i dont feel i owe them anything.

They're not. The gaming aspect of the hobby being done in stores is a very American thing. The rest of the world primarily does it at home or in organised clubs. They're just applying their attitude in the rest of the world to the American playerbase.

 -Loki- wrote:

Rle68 wrote:
with GW abandoning the gaming aspect of the fact they are a game company i dont feel i owe them anything.

They're not. The gaming aspect of the hobby being done in stores is a very American thing. The rest of the world primarily does it at home or in organised clubs. They're just applying their attitude in the rest of the world to the American playerbase.

and its going to cost them dearly.. sorry, what works across the pond and in the eurozone doesnt work here...kids dont play warhammer.. they play x box/ nintendo more adults play than anything else

Rle68 wrote:
and its going to cost them dearly.. sorry, what works across the pond and in the eurozone doesnt work here...

This.

Smart companies adapt their policies to each different market.

Stupid companies insist that the market adapt to their universal policies.

We see more and more what kind of company GW is.

Orktavius wrote:
A strawman seems appropriate for a chicken little thread..... So Sue me.

Like I said, I'm only commenting on the bunkers, that LA bunker would have to move mountains of product to cover the rent on a space that size where it is/was.

One thing that I do know is about the yearly quota's that each store has to produce. The problem is that battle bunkers, even though (many) run in the black, because of GW's current business model they are not making enough profit to keep them a viable option. Employees + benefits reduction are what is the current norm for profitability and they have been downsizing (including the CEO which saved GW 400000 pounds in yearly salary) in all departments for three years.

I also know at least in my current area that the one man stores are not so profitable as lead on by corporate. Within 4 years all managers within my area have been let go because of not meeting their profit goals. These managers were good ones, but the current pressure being applied to store managers to sell product, is at best, a most difficult venture to endeavor.

The current business revenue streaming process was implemented back in 2010. I believe one man stores will become is a hub for direct only product for all of the important items. Gaming? Only to get the sheeple hooked on plastic crack and send them on their way.

It's too bad that the corporation is pricing themselves from the average hobbyist to get into. But I also predict the financial report will again show profit. That is until you do some forensic accounting and then you get a real picture on how things are going.

 -Loki- wrote:

Rle68 wrote:
with GW abandoning the gaming aspect of the fact they are a game company i dont feel i owe them anything.

They're not. The gaming aspect of the hobby being done in stores is a very American thing. The rest of the world primarily does it at home or in organised clubs. They're just applying their attitude in the rest of the world to the American playerbase.

Well no... it's a very British thing, too. From recent sampling, majority of British stores have some or even lots of gaming.

It looks like they are struggling for ideas for proper growth. Which is odd considering the Hobby industry is showing so much growth itself.

It could be a sign of the management structure pretty much all being insular and internally sourced struggle and policy dictated from a single place wont help if no one can challenge stupid ideas.

 Redbeard wrote:
We're expecting Chicago to shut its doors in October.

This strikes me as no great loss.

I've only been to an actual GWS store twice; as there isn't one within 100 miles of me. Both trips were to the Chicago bunker.

The first time I went was about 3 years ago, and it was to the Chicago bunker while on my way to somewhere else. I thought it was amazing. There were all these incredible tables everywhere, and display cabinets all over the place. So many awesome miniatures to see, merchandise was everywhere. They had painting stations here and there, and had some WIP models up. They had some (but not all) Forge World stuff. The staff was friendly and outgoing - I got a lot of "so what army do you play" type conversation starters, but it wasn't so much as to be off-putting (and I expected that from previous posters here) I had a very limited budget as I needed my money for the actual destination of my trip, and still wound up spending around $200 because it was just so awesome seeing all this stuff.

The second time was about a year ago, when we decided to go to IKEA to get some display cases for my warhams. In this case, the situation was much, much different: I had plenty of money to spend on Warhams and this was in fact, half the point of the trip.

When I got to the store, they had essentially stripped it, it looked like it was the friday of a week long going out of business sale. 3/4ths of the store was empty, and what remained was crammed into the forward quarter. All the display cases were gone. The tables had been replaced with unpainted ROBB boards with a few unpainted ruins on each, and there were only like 3 tables. The selection of merchandise was awful - I had wanted to get 9 of the new finecast Necron characters, since I could open them in the store and look at them; an opportunity I never have... and they only had a single one of the ones I wanted in stock (and they had just come out!). I dragged my wife in there because I had been talking about how amazing the store was for around 2 years, and she looked at me like I was smoking crack and went back to the car.

I wound up buying a single paint brush from the guy who was working there. I asked about the other stuff, and he had no real idea; he intimated to me that he had only been working there about a week.

The whole experience was incredibly depressing. I think back on that place with sorrow.

 -Loki- wrote:

Rle68 wrote:
with GW abandoning the gaming aspect of the fact they are a game company i dont feel i owe them anything.

They're not. The gaming aspect of the hobby being done in stores is a very American thing. The rest of the world primarily does it at home or in organised clubs. They're just applying their attitude in the rest of the world to the American playerbase.

That is not true.

It may be true for the UK, but for the rest of the Euro countries that I'm familiar with (Portugal, Spain, France), the vast majority of table top gaming takes place in FLGSs and some clubs.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

Rle68 wrote:
with GW abandoning the gaming aspect of the fact they are a game company i dont feel i owe them anything.

They're not. The gaming aspect of the hobby being done in stores is a very American thing. The rest of the world primarily does it at home or in organised clubs. They're just applying their attitude in the rest of the world to the American playerbase.

Well no... it's a very British thing, too. From recent sampling, majority of British stores have some or even lots of gaming.

I've visited the games workshops in Derby, Leicester and Nottingham, and none of them have allowed casual gaming. So I guess no one in the east Midlands plays 40k?

How sad. DO you mean they don't let you play even if you phone up to arrange something?

AS mentioned, we've been in Cambridge, Truro, Hull, Bluewater since April and they all have games, we couldn't get a slot in Lincoln but I've since been told there's still gaming there.

Derby flat out don't allow it. I didn't ask in notts or Leicester but they were so small there was little point in asking. Maybe they'd have let us play a 750 point battle on those 4 by 4 tables, maybe they wouldn't. Either way it's no great loss. I don't want to restrict my gaming to a small point battle on a tiny table with kids and neckbeards breathing down my neck.

 BryllCream wrote:
Derby flat out don't allow it. I didn't ask in notts or Leicester but they were so small there was little point in asking. Maybe they'd have let us play a 750 point battle on those 4 by 4 tables, maybe they wouldn't. Either way it's no great loss. I don't want to restrict my gaming to a small point battle on a tiny table with kids and neckbeards breathing down my neck.

Point taken. Especially re Derby - it's hard to find out exactly which stores have discontinued gaming as there's so many "friend of a friend" anecdotes. But it's worth noting that the presence of neckbeards and kids isn't necessarily down to a GW policy change. Though I certainly admit that our FLGS, Dark Sphere, does seem to have a higher proportion of gamers with conventional civilised social graces than the typical GW.

 BryllCream wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

Rle68 wrote:
with GW abandoning the gaming aspect of the fact they are a game company i dont feel i owe them anything.

They're not. The gaming aspect of the hobby being done in stores is a very American thing. The rest of the world primarily does it at home or in organised clubs. They're just applying their attitude in the rest of the world to the American playerbase.

Well no... it's a very British thing, too. From recent sampling, majority of British stores have some or even lots of gaming.

I've visited the games workshops in Derby, Leicester and Nottingham, and none of them have allowed casual gaming. So I guess no one in the east Midlands plays 40k?

I bet they all used to until quite recently, even if they were tiny stores.

True that in the UK the majority of gaming appears to be happening at home or clubs, but I think that's only down to lack of space in most stores. There are 2 spacious stores I know (1 GW, one Independent) and the gaming tables for both are usually pretty busy, the rest are too small for non-demo gaming.

The fact that small independent gaming centres seem to be appearing (none particularly convenient for me, alas) seems to fly in the face of GW's behaviour.

Putney allowed booked games from what I could overhear when I last walked past.

Ouze wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
We're expecting Chicago to shut its doors in October.

This strikes me as no great loss.

It is certainly less of a loss than a couple of years ago. Still, you have to realize what happened in Chicago over the last decade or so. GW moved in, and spammed the area with stores. At one point, I think we had ten in the Chicago metro area. Their trade practices started freezing out independents, likely to drive traffic to their own stores. Independent game stores stopped getting new product at release, had shortages, while the GW stores were stocked and manned, and had several tables each for gaming.

Unsurprisingly, most of the local wargaming shops folded. Games Plus remained open, but it's in a significantly far northern suburb. But this wasn't seen as a huge deal, as the Bunker went out of its way to support veteran gaming. They bought a second store, adjoined to the first, that was nothing but tables for running tournaments. The bunker provided prize support for no-fee tournaments, and gave space to the local groups, like AWC, to run their tournaments there too.

So, while the loss of the Chicago Bunker will not be missed as a retail establishment, it has become the place where wargamers can go and play pickup games, and where tournaments can be held. If they shut down, there are not a lot of local stores (and certainly not local to all of Chicagoland - the Bunker enjoyed a fairly central location) to pick up that slack. That's what will be missed.

Your other analysis of the situation there is largely true, although you must have been there during the transition from the old space to the new space. It's not as bad now as you encountered, but it isn't a lot better. There are still a lot of stock shortages, but this is because they switched from human inventory management to computerized inventory management.

 Redbeard wrote:
Unsurprisingly, most of the local wargaming shops folded.

This is the first cause and effect like this on a regional scale in the USA I'm reading about where the GW local store killing FLGS worked. Were Chicago based game stores that poorly managed/owned?

GW tried spamming way back in the early 90s in Northern VA and wow did that backfire on them. Yes, some stores have closed but others have opened. The successful ones DO NOT RELY on GW sales in any percentage that loosing it would kill the business. Most of the game stores in the area seem content to "wait out" the current trade sales lack of support for independents mostly with those independents stocking stuff that sells to their customers like cards, comics, other games like Warmachine, Flames of War, Dark "something", Saga, whatever they want to focus on.

Any game store that relies on selling GW product to keep their doors open is bound to fail at some point. It doesn't take a GW store close by for that to happen either.

 Redbeard wrote:
[So, while the loss of the Chicago Bunker will not be missed as a retail establishment, it has become the place where wargamers can go and play pickup games, and where tournaments can be held. If they shut down, there are not a lot of local stores (and certainly not local to all of Chicagoland - the Bunker enjoyed a fairly central location) to pick up that slack. That's what will be missed.

Your other analysis of the situation there is largely true, although you must have been there during the transition from the old space to the new space. It's not as bad now as you encountered, but it isn't a lot better. There are still a lot of stock shortages, but this is because they switched from human inventory management to computerized inventory management.

My meaning in that "no great loss" was that the loss had, at the time I went, appeared to have already happened in how diminished it was from how great it was on my first trip. Losing a place to play always sucks bad though.

So far as the second thing you said here about the transition - man that would explain a lot. When I say it was bare, I mean like "unfinished, is this place open?" bare for the rear 3/4ths of the store.

GW has shot itself in the foot. What battle bunkers and its larger stores represent is one of their biggest advantages. They are that last vestiges of GWs formal support of a hobby community. They are only going to marginalized their brand this way, but I think they've been doing that for a while. Many companies that just manufacture and have a website would kill to be GW to have outlets and focal points for their hobby communities... but at this point it seems clear GW wants to get rid of that thing many would envy for marketting and just be a manufacturer with

It's like Lego stores, there is zero need for those stores from the stand point of generating a sales outlet... but they give enthusiasts a mini-Mecca and raise an awareness of the fandom.

My theory:

GW is desperately trying to shrink the company as fast as customer numbers and sales sink, shrinking every part of the infrastructure except central bureaucracy and high management. The latter is mandatory to let business reports look well enough to cover up shrinking sales volume. Esp. now that doubling essential prices are needed to compensate for halved sales. Tom Kirby hopes that he still makes it into retirement with 1 Mio GBP per year, before the downward spiral hits the ground. He can't spare any money for repairing and reviving the company.

The tabletop market is growing, GW is shrinking. So they don't outperform the market.

 Redbeard wrote:

Breotan wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
Chicago was making money, when they were operating under a very different business model. I have no idea if they are now.

According to the former Seattle bunker manager, none of the bunkers are profitable even when they were showing growth. I expect the decision to close the bunkers involves closing the least profitable ones first.

This is not what I heard. I was told that the ordering of the closings is simply due to when their leases expire. They're simply not renewing the leases on those spaces. We're expecting Chicago to shut its doors in October.

I also heard that rumor but the Seattle Bunker's lease isn't up for at least another year or more so that isn't the reason they're downsizing.

 Kroothawk wrote:
My theory:

GW is desperately trying to shrink the company as fast as customer numbers and sales sink, shrinking every part of the infrastructure except central bureaucracy and high management. The latter is mandatory to let business reports look well enough to cover up shrinking sales volume. Esp. now that doubling essential prices are needed to compensate for halved sales. Tom Kirby hopes that he still makes it into retirement with 1 Mio GBP per year, before the downward spiral hits the ground. He can't spare any money for repairing and reviving the company.

The tabletop market is growing, GW is shrinking. So they don't outperform the market.

I find it hard to disagree with your assessment.

GW doesn't make much money from people playing in their stores with models they already own and buying things like paint incidentally because they wish to support their store. GW makes money when you buy models. Therefor, from a business standpoint it makes a lot of sense to reduce their stores to simple point-of-sale areas, and cease providing a place to actually play with their models.

It seems counter-intuitive, but it's probably a smart decision if you figure that once people are done buying their armies up, they are no longer really customers who can be marketed to or drummed up for additional sales unless they get the itch to start a new army.

Making things that are popular available only from direct order or GW stores is an interesting tactic, and one that will probably advantage them in the long run - if you can't get it anywhere else and it's a good model, you're going to buy it from them because you have no other choice except quit the hobby petulantly, having spent a good deal of money on it already. So long as this tactic doesn't devolve into a situation of 'the most potent models in the game are only available from us and they are really expensive', it probably won't come back to bite them.

I'm not sure on the direct sales being a good thing. When I last asked for a new figure at GW and found it was direct only, I didn't want to have to go back to the shop after a week, or pay postage to have it delivered to my house. I never bought it. If a company won't stock their own stuff in their own stores... what's the point?

My local GW stopped Thursday veteran nights ages ago. Since then I found a cool local-ish gaming club, bought and learnt to play alternative games such as Dust Tactics and now currently learning how to play 2nd edition 40k. I thank GW for shooting themselves in the foot, if they hadn't I wouldn't of found out about all of the awesome games outside of the current edition of 40k and fantasy.

 Ouze wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
We're expecting Chicago to shut its doors in October.

This strikes me as no great loss.

I've only been to an actual GWS store twice; as there isn't one within 100 miles of me. Both trips were to the Chicago bunker.

The first time I went was about 3 years ago, and it was to the Chicago bunker while on my way to somewhere else. I thought it was amazing. There were all these incredible tables everywhere, and display cabinets all over the place. So many awesome miniatures to see, merchandise was everywhere. They had painting stations here and there, and had some WIP models up. They had some (but not all) Forge World stuff. The staff was friendly and outgoing - I got a lot of "so what army do you play" type conversation starters, but it wasn't so much as to be off-putting (and I expected that from previous posters here) I had a very limited budget as I needed my money for the actual destination of my trip, and still wound up spending around $200 because it was just so awesome seeing all this stuff.

The second time was about a year ago, when we decided to go to IKEA to get some display cases for my warhams. In this case, the situation was much, much different: I had plenty of money to spend on Warhams and this was in fact, half the point of the trip.

When I got to the store, they had essentially stripped it, it looked like it was the friday of a week long going out of business sale. 3/4ths of the store was empty, and what remained was crammed into the forward quarter. All the display cases were gone. The tables had been replaced with unpainted ROBB boards with a few unpainted ruins on each, and there were only like 3 tables. The selection of merchandise was awful - I had wanted to get 9 of the new finecast Necron characters, since I could open them in the store and look at them; an opportunity I never have... and they only had a single one of the ones I wanted in stock (and they had just come out!). I dragged my wife in there because I had been talking about how amazing the store was for around 2 years, and she looked at me like I was smoking crack and went back to the car.

I wound up buying a single paint brush from the guy who was working there. I asked about the other stuff, and he had no real idea; he intimated to me that he had only been working there about a week.

The whole experience was incredibly depressing. I think back on that place with sorrow.

The old bunker was really awesome, then somebody higher up decided to muck things over and move everything next door. They still have the old location ajoined by a shared door inside the store but they simply use it as an oversized stock room which boggles my mind as they always seem to be out of stock on about 30% of stuff. Now their stock is tracked by hey we sold x number of models so we order only x or fewer which leaves gaps. There used to be a time when the store was treated as a flagship location and they had at least one of everything in stock and usually much more.

They have brought back display cases and there's at least one of every army on display there, the front of the store has store armies while the gaming room has lots of customer armies on display. Its sad that they no longer have the old tables and everything is ROBB but the finished terrain is slowly improving. They are supporting a Mordheim League and will be running Necromunda in another month, but the difficulty of course comes from the fact that specialist has been completely axed from the GW line and there's no way to get gangs outside of kit bashing or hunting ebay both of which are time and resource intensive.

It used to be that there were 80-100 people there on any given weekend and nowdays on a busy day you see maybe half of that, Sundays are lucky to see even 15-20 people where that was typical even on a weeknight. The current manager has been working to try and rebuild that but there's only so much he can do as the higher ups in thr company are dead set on self destructing their sales base. I see what has been happening with attendence at the store as a direct reflection of how GW's policies are negatively impacting their market. They've gotten too big and too disconnected with the customer base and it's showing.

The purpose of the bunkers is to serve as a recruiting base and a promotional center. Those locatiosn are basically GW's only way of advertising to the public and bringing new players into the game. Once those locations close its very unlikely that the game will continue for long in those areas. People will continue to play at home or in a few clubs but those typically aren't bringing ne players into the GW fold.

Once GW completely shrinks to one man stores there's nowhere else for them to cut costs. They'll need to start closing stores and shifting to more on an online presence if they want to survive which is not something that will bode well for the company. Over the past 10 years they've burned bridges with a lot of retailers in the US trying to drive people to GW retail and now they've basically turned their backs on all that work and will end up crawling back to the LGS who haven't forgotten their mistreatement at the hands of GW. They are going to find it very hard to regain the grounds they are losing. GW has done F'ed up and people are seeking out alternatives that are far more acessible within the LGS community. I don't see them rebuilding their relationships with LGS without a lot of work. GW tried really hard to surpress the LGS stores in and around Chicago and it worked in shutting down dozens of places. The problem is now that fallout is turning out to be a double edged sword and cutting into their own market as well. They sell to fewer stores than ever and as a result they don't get the "advertising" the used to and the local community shrinks further.

Its not going to happen over night but the downwards slide has been udnerway for a while and its definately picking up steam.

overtninja wrote:
GW doesn't make much money from people playing in their stores with models they already own and buying things like paint incidentally because they wish to support their store. GW makes money when you buy models. Therefor, from a business standpoint it makes a lot of sense to reduce their stores to simple point-of-sale areas, and cease providing a place to actually play with their models.

It seems counter-intuitive, but it's probably a smart decision if you figure that once people are done buying their armies up, they are no longer really customers who can be marketed to or drummed up for additional sales unless they get the itch to start a new army.

Making things that are popular available only from direct order or GW stores is an interesting tactic, and one that will probably advantage them in the long run - if you can't get it anywhere else and it's a good model, you're going to buy it from them because you have no other choice except quit the hobby petulantly, having spent a good deal of money on it already. So long as this tactic doesn't devolve into a situation of 'the most potent models in the game are only available from us and they are really expensive', it probably won't come back to bite them.

Did GW make money directly from people playing in their stores? Maybe, maybe not. Don't have the numbers to say for sure. However, having places for people to play did help them to maintain and grow their marketshare. Essentially, by eliminating their control of what models are used during games they have opened the door for alternate model and bits manufacturers. The way I see it, by rebranding themselves as just model makers, they have invited the droves of competition that now keeps their lawyers so busy.

IMO, GW used to operate the way Google is trying to now. Google is attempting, in some markets, to supply cheap (sometimes free) internet access because they know that when people use the internet they often use Google products. So they make money by creating demand for their product.
GW used to supply gamers with places to play, and in order to play they would buy GW products (and what did they play? GW games). Now GW doesn't want gamers to be at their stores, and we as gamers, go then to FLGSs. FLGSs stock other games too, and they don't really care if we exclusively use GW products to play GW either. So now people like me are playing other games and/or playing GW games supplemented with non-GW models. way to go GW.

Also, who do you know that is truly 'done buying their armies up'? My armies are never 'done'

overtninja wrote:
if you can't get it anywhere else and it's a good model, you're going to buy it from them because you have no other choice except quit the hobby petulantly,

Not buying a single model because it's too expensive/otherwise problematic to acquire does not equal quitting the hobby, either petulantly or not. Case in point - I can only currently buy Epic Reaver titans on Ebay, and they keep going for more than I'm willing to pay. Does that mean I'm quitting the wargaming hobby? No. Does it even mean I'm quitting playing Epic? No.

Maybe they have realized that seeing a full sized game will do more harm than good because people will see a real life example of how many models and how much money GW expects you to spend in order to play their games. The small demo armies being the only thing in the store may give their games an illusion of accessibility that sucks people in.

Could all this be caused by their biggest holder "The Nomad Investment Partnership L.P." dumping shares and going from 17% (Jan 18th 2013) to 10% (July 5th 2013) voting rights all in the span of this year?

Fun stuff this...

 MetalOxide wrote:
My local GW stopped Thursday veteran nights ages ago. Since then I found a cool local-ish gaming club, bought and learnt to play alternative games such as Dust Tactics and now currently learning how to play 2nd edition 40k. I thank GW for shooting themselves in the foot, if they hadn't I wouldn't of found out about all of the awesome games outside of the current edition of 40k and fantasy.

Hey, maybe this is the master plan. I bet GW didn't want your business in the first place, and losing you as a customer opens up more space in the store for new customers to buy more space marines.

overtninja wrote:

It seems counter-intuitive, but it's probably a smart decision if you figure that once people are done buying their armies up, they are no longer really customers who can be marketed to or drummed up for additional sales unless they get the itch to start a new army.

That ignores the soft benefits of fostering an instore gaming community; a captive audience, 'flavour of the month units/armies', limited visability of competetors products, and I'm sure that there are more.

Of course if you are only interested in making money in the short term, or you are certain that you have sufficently high customer turnover, then the soft benefits are meaningless.

I did the lion's share of my gaming in a GW shop for nearly a decade and in the process I spent a huge quantity of cash. If I had ventured out into the local clubs I would have started historicals a lot sooner (as well as Warzone when it was first released) and I would have spent my wargaming budget elsewhere. This is exactly what will be happening now.

Exactly, gaming in store provides a host of long term and indirect benefits, one the biggest being vendor lock-in and the hiding of competition. If people can hobby in GW stores, they'll use GW stuff. If they go to independents or independent clubs they'll be exposed to 3rd party stuff, have no requirement to use all GW stuff (indies won't have GW-only policies), and be tempted by those games that cost less than a single tank (that's how we've gotten into X-Wing).

In the short term it makes sense, because if you're only catering to people who've already bought in and want to cash in on them before they move on, you don't need to do anything to retain them. But it'll hurt in the long term as you're losing more customers to competition and bringing less in due to the network effect. It certainly fits with everything else they are doing at the moment.

It all seems like a catch 22 that has been covered in other forums:

We have invested so much in the GW hobby that when we see short term business practices we get concerned.
We do not want to validate polices we do not like so we throttle back our purchases BUT we do not want them to take such a downturn that our "investment" is at risk.
It really looks like the more shortfalls they experience, the more they are willing to cannibalize their infrastructure.

As has been stated before: controlling the gaming environment (or at least purchasing) is good for them.
I have been tempted away with inexpensive well done products like X-wing and Robotech Tactics as have others due to their lack of involvement.
I feel I NEED to diversify my hobby because they look like they plan on not being around long term.

Their flagship magazine WD (as well as other publications) you can see greater use of digital touch-ups, copy and pasting squads/regiments and the publishing team doing a lot of the hobby work: you hear nothing of the heavy metal group and spot information on the model makers. Things just appear very tight with very little extra to the company.

There seems to be no-one in the development team that has some passion and character except one person remaining of the old crew and he is sounding more nostalgia based than innovative. An organization quickly reflects it's management and by that rule of thumb: they do not factor in the love of the game much.

 Talizvar wrote:
We do not want to validate polices we do not like so we throttle back our purchases BUT we do not want them to take such a downturn that our "investment" is at risk.

A lot of us have/are planning on jumping ship or minimising losses. For instance, I've sold off most of the GW stuff I've no immediate use for, because I can see it plummeting in desirability at some point and figured I'd get rid of it whilst there's still plenty of demand. There will always be some demand for the more obscure stuff though and people will continue to play WH/40K even if GW support stops.

You really should give X-Wing a go; it'll take about 5 mins for someone to explain the game to you and you'll get a lot of challenging gaming out of the starter set (£30. A Lemun Russ Battle Tank is £31). It's pre-painted too so there's zero time investment required.

 weeble1000 wrote:

Great news. Great!

Not "good".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 weeble1000 wrote:

Great news. Great!

Not "good".

Oh man! Did I get my meme wrong? How embarrassing. I thought it was good news. I will have to correct that. It's all in layers. Staring at Merrett's face for hours whilst I Obama-ized it must have mushed my brain.

How's This:

Orktavius wrote:
Depends on how much money your losing, I don't think Westminster California is likely to be the cheapest area to rent a few thousand feet of retail space for the sake of gaming.

It was also just a crappy place to put a bunker, GW has a very nasty habit of putting stores in stupid places (or to kill of existing independents) and leaving lots of other areas that would work very well with no game stores.

 Talizvar wrote:
Could all this be caused by their biggest holder "The Nomad Investment Partnership L.P." dumping shares and going from 17% (Jan 18th 2013) to 10% (July 5th 2013) voting rights all in the span of this year?

Fun stuff this...

Secondary markets do not directly affect the company. It indicates that the firm is going elsewhere for any number of reasons (they feel like they could get better returns elsewhere, they feel like that part of the market is risky, or anything else really).

Of course, the share price has also gone up over the years which is good for them in share issues to generate capital for new projects.

overtninja wrote:
GW doesn't make much money from people playing in their stores with models they already own and buying things like paint incidentally because they wish to support their store. GW makes money when you buy models. Therefor, from a business standpoint it makes a lot of sense to reduce their stores to simple point-of-sale areas, and cease providing a place to actually play with their models.

Same could be said for MTG yet wizards hosts a lot of events world wide.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
How sad. DO you mean they don't let you play even if you phone up to arrange something?

AS mentioned, we've been in Cambridge, Truro, Hull, Bluewater since April and they all have games, we couldn't get a slot in Lincoln but I've since been told there's still gaming there.

lincoln is a tiny store through ( my old one) and you will struggle to get a game as they barely have any space, 2 4x4 is the most they have which includes having all the intro games set up.

Also if you go to lincoln there is no point going to the GW when on a Thursday night you can go to Gobstyks, ( one of the oldest and founder members of the GCN) which is proberbly one of the best gaming clubs in the UK.

cammy wrote:

lincoln is a tiny store through ( my old one) and you will struggle to get a game as they barely have any space, 2 4x4 is the most they have which includes having all the intro games set up.

Also if you go to lincoln there is no point going to the GW when on a Thursday night you can go to Gobstyks, ( one of the oldest and founder members of the GCN) which is proberbly one of the best gaming clubs in the UK.

Sure - we're in London and Dark Sphere is probably the store we play most often. My point was mainly that the much-touted banning of all games at all GW stores hasn't happened, and that the majority of the UK stores still have gaming, even if some of them aren't the best local option.

My local GW (Edinburgh) has lots of gaming, tournaments, apocalypse all sorts. Depends on the manager I guess...

Orktavius wrote:
So GW should keep massive money losers like the bunker stores open so people can game there? Yup, sounds like sound business advice from the internets.

The Battle bunkers based on their size would have massive overhead in rent, overhead not being met by store sales. The baltimore bunker made sense when GW USA's headquarters was there, same with the bunker in Ontario for GW Canada's headquarters. LA was apparently losing money hand over fist and I have no clue about Chicago though I heard it actually makes money.

As for the big one, Warhammer world which is attached to GW global HQ....apparently all the events there are run on the basis that they pay for themselves.

I can't speak to the rest of the sky is falling arguments in the OP, but the bunkers closing is due to the fact they were either in the red, or their reason for being was no longer needed (IE, respective HQ's being shut down/consolidated in the Memphis bunker)

I feel as if you really wanted to hate on someone today and thus choose willful ignorance in the discussion that was started. Your point of a more streamlined business model is EXACTLY what the OP put forth. So why the hate on "the internets"?

Yea, closing down battle bunkers wouldn't surprise me. $$$

Not only have the prices of the miniatures increased ridiculously, the prices of the Codexes are also skyrocketing. (83 aud dollars for the eldar codex, 42 dollars 2 years ago (though now colour and hardback, still ridiculous).

Has anyone noticed that free painting/hobby guides have all been removed from the GW website. Dark Vengeance didn't even include a paint guide.

Now you can buy, individual guides for 10 dollars off ibooks, or sink 80dollars into "how to paint citadel miniatures").

At the same time they release a new set of paints and get rid of the old ones. They hope to invalidate every old official/unofficial paint guide and memory of how to paint so they can sell there new paint guides.

$$$$$$$$

Not that I would use an official GW paint guide these days. Youtube/blogs or experimentation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They don't seem to understand that all they are doing is alienating there loyal fan base at a time when they are facing increased competition. How are they going to indoctrinate the hardcore customers if those potential customers can't experience painting and playing.

Though battlefront isn't as big or has the same big distribution network as GW, look at the support for the hobby given on their youtube channel. Look at the miniatures that come with open fire. I am planning on buying that next, and the miniatures look very nice and the price is good and the game is apparently fun and easy to play. Battlefront's stuff is really improving.

MadMarkMagee wrote:

Has anyone noticed that free painting/hobby guides have all been removed from the GW website. Dark Vengeance didn't even include a paint guide.

It is irritating, I miss the old painting articles, and I prefer the old style of painting where they assumed people were intelligent enough to mix their own colours - but there's no point exaggerating, there are a number of guides on line, and it's only reasonable to assume they pulled the old ones because they have the wrong paint colours.

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m820035a_Painting_Faces_Redux.pdf

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m220293a_Painting_Space_Marines

Plus there's a certain amount of painting stuff comes up regularly on the blog, for instance:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=9400036-gws

Did they change the paint sets purely to annoy people and make more money? Well, I suspect they did want to make more money, but I think it's obvious they also wanted to give people more choice and make it easier for newbies. So while I don't like it, I can accept it's not a really heinous step

 Valkyrie wrote:
Any chance of breaking it up, making it more appealing than one massive blob of text?

Why are you on a forum if you don't want to read? They're not 'massive blobs of text' - they're paragraphs...

OP: They basically want as little interaction with hobbyists as possible - a seller buyer relationship and little more as far as I can see it.