silent25 wrote: You understand the concept of constant currency? An 11% rise in trade after adjusting for constant currency mean that the effects of the dropping pound have already been taken into account.
Ermmm , yes that is why I wrote
"Trade has gone to 6.6 from 5.8m (8.8 from 5.8m actual). So at constant currency that's an 11% rise. The actual rate is almost certainly to do with the collapsing £ and GW keeping prices the same for people not in the UK"
I'm assuming you got to the second sentence and stopped reading and failed to note that in third sentence I stated "The ***actual*** rate" is to do with the collapsing £?
No, I understood what you said. You seem to say constant currency number are only growing because of the falling pound throughout.
"Product and Supply has gone to 5.0m from 4.7m (6.1m from 4.7m actual). That's a 6.4% rise. Again it appears that the collapsing £ and keeping prices the same is boosting profits."
You claim the collapsing £ is part of that 6.4%. It's statements like that, that made question whether you know what you're talking about.
No, I understood what you said. You seem to say constant currency number are only growing because of the falling pound throughout.
"Product and Supply has gone to 5.0m from 4.7m (6.1m from 4.7m actual). That's a 6.4% rise. Again it appears that the collapsing £ and keeping prices the same is boosting profits."
You claim the collapsing £ is part of that 6.4%. It's statements like that, that made question whether you know what you're talking about.
OK, I can see that one can cause confusion as the two sentences could be seen as linked when it wasn't the intent. The 6.4% was referring to the constant currency the third sentence was relating this to the actual increase so hence the UK rate drop has effectively increased the profit from this segment by 1.1m. The second/third statements were always meant to be referencing the difference between constant and actual.
Effectively if we only look at constant currency and exclude cost saving measures and royalties then the increase in profits is only relatively modest (after a previous very poor year). It is probably why GW are being cautious because despite some big releases they haven't really recouped from the previous bad year. The large actual increase compared to constant in profit has been dramatically boosted by the declining £, it's artificially giving them a boost because of something outside it's control. However once (if?) this stabilises then growth could very well stagnate again. There was also nearly a million of profit allocated because of changing accounting methods. Conversely if the £ strengthens (or Trump taxes anything that could be made in the US to the hilt) then their actual profits could decline sharply for a short period.
No, I understood what you said. You seem to say constant currency number are only growing because of the falling pound throughout.
"Product and Supply has gone to 5.0m from 4.7m (6.1m from 4.7m actual). That's a 6.4% rise. Again it appears that the collapsing £ and keeping prices the same is boosting profits."
You claim the collapsing £ is part of that 6.4%. It's statements like that, that made question whether you know what you're talking about.
OK, I can see that one can cause confusion as the two sentences could be seen as linked when it wasn't the intent. The 6.4% was referring to the constant currency the third sentence was relating this to the actual increase so hence the UK rate drop has effectively increased the profit from this segment by 1.1m. The second/third statements were always meant to be referencing the difference between constant and actual.
Effectively if we only look at constant currency and exclude cost saving measures and royalties then the increase in profits is only relatively modest (after a previous very poor year). It is probably why GW are being cautious because despite some big releases they haven't really recouped from the previous bad year. The large actual increase compared to constant in profit has been dramatically boosted by the declining £, it's artificially giving them a boost because of something outside it's control. However once (if?) this stabilises then growth could very well stagnate again. There was also nearly a million of profit allocated because of changing accounting methods. Conversely if the £ strengthens (or Trump taxes anything that could be made in the US to the hilt) then their actual profits could decline sharply for a short period.
NP That is why I was getting confused. I do not see it as negatively as you do because revenue increased healthily for Trade and Retail (11% and 20%). That is good growth for a company that size. These areas have normally been relatively flat and only seen changes at the profit level. Trade is the big one because that means more independents are stocks and selling GW.
*edit* Though I suspect that Forgeworld falls under Retail and not Mail Order. That also could account for the growth there.
NP That is why I was getting confused. I do not see it as negatively as you do because revenue increased healthily for Trade and Retail (11% and 20%). That is good growth for a company that size. These areas have normally been relatively flat and only seen changes at the profit level. Trade is the big one because that means more independents are stocks and selling GW.
*edit* Though I suspect that Forgeworld falls under Retail and not Mail Order. That also could account for the growth there.
That it's decent is not in doubt, more that the actuals are a lot better because of the £. It is both a warning now that the GWs results aren't as amazing as they first appear and also next year when they potentially fall back again is not a disaster. They are still I believe behind from a few years ago though? When you take into account total war/streamlining/adjustments to accountancy (assuming these won't be repeated) and exclude them overall profit increase is about £1.5m, not bad but possibly statistically insignificant (when you compare previous years profit variations)
I'd be cautious about the Retail figures. They note that they've closed 8 and relocated 'some' (it's not specific). That could mean they have reduced expensive overheads (say shops on high rent streets) to lower rent areas (or smaller shops and so on). My suspicion is that a lot of this increase is from this factor. I was cautious and used about a 50% figure because that brings growth roughly in line with the trade increase.
Last years statement specifically stated Forgeworld fell under Mail Order not Retail and that could have changed, but I think they would have probably reported it. IIRC forgeworld made up a massive share of it too (about 30-40% I think).
As for stores, you have also to account the new stores they've opened too, so they are an additional expense that is unlikely to have reported much on their side.
Latest RNS confirms a strong Christmas performance on top of the half year results:
"For immediate release 17 January 2017
Games Workshop is pleased to announce a significant increase in sales and profits for the period from 28 November 2016 to 15 January 2017, compared to the same period last year. In light of the above, and having now finalised the product phasing for the year, profits for 2016/17 are likely to be above market expectations.
Sales and profits have further benefitted from the continuing favourable impact of the weaker pound. However, the Board remains aware that there is some uncertainty in the trading periods ahead for the rest of the 2016/17 financial year.
Games Workshop Group PLC also announces that the Board has today declared a dividend of 30 pence per share. This will be paid on 3 March 2017 for shareholders on the register at 27 January 2017, with an ex-dividend date of 26 January 2017. The last date for elections for the dividend re-investment plan is 10 February 2017."
LINK
This is good news.
If GW plc are actually growing their customer base and selling more product.
They will not have to put prices up to make up for falling sales volumes any more!
Hey, just be happy that it wasn't yet another uber pro-AOS rant.
I'd have been happy hadn't it been a gratuitous attack. I think I don't even need to think wether this comment was necessary or (obviously) not.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lanrak wrote: This is good news.
If GW plc are actually growing their customer base and selling more product.
They will not have to put prices up to make up for falling sales volumes any more!
So no price rises for the next 2 or 3 years..
I have very little faith in this statement, though some of the current releases DO feature recuded discounts in comparison to similar products (see bloodreavers versus kayric acolytes).
Hey, just be happy that it wasn't yet another uber pro-AOS rant.
I'd have been happy hadn't it been a gratuitous attack. I think I don't even need to think wether this comment was necessary or (obviously) not.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lanrak wrote: This is good news.
If GW plc are actually growing their customer base and selling more product.
They will not have to put prices up to make up for falling sales volumes any more!
So no price rises for the next 2 or 3 years..
I have very little faith in this statement, though some of the current releases DO feature recuded discounts in comparison to similar products (see bloodreavers versus kayric acolytes).
There is a difference between a "gratituous attack" and a lighthearted jab. I would love to demonstrate, but I'm sure mods would swoop in over it. That, and seeing as how aggressive you get when someone makes light of how aggressively you defend AOS, I can only imagine how you would respond to a genuine "gratituous attack".
We're just kicking off the year, and not counting the Spire of Dawn release, what has AOS gotten? Those Tzeentch cultists? Some stuff that can go either 40K or AOS? And also I'm wondering if they've pulled down all the 8th edition books yet from GW's storefront. I'm also waiting to see if starter bundles and possibly battalion/battleforce sets start to see more widespread release. Or even something like the transport/squad bundles. I think at this rate they will double down on what is working, so the release schedule will probably echo that really soon.
Lanrak wrote: This is good news.
If GW plc are actually growing their customer base and selling more product.
They will not have to put prices up to make up for falling sales volumes any more!
So no price rises for the next 2 or 3 years..
The word naïve falls short here.
Either that, or my sarcasm detector is not working well today
@Korinov.
I was pointing out that if GW plc actually made a profit off increased sales this year,because of out side influences.
That GW plc still have not fixed the core issues with their ' business plan'.
As some of the pro GW crowd are singing the praises of the new C.E.O for 'righting the ship.'
I simply wanted to point out the acid test of what a 'fixed GW plc' would actually do because it made sense for them to do it.
(Plastic manufacture heavily rewards the sales direction of economies of scale.EG high sales volumes= more profit.Raising prices to restrict sales is counter intuitive to the basic premise of plastic manufacture.AFAIK ONLY GW plc do this.)
El Torro wrote: £13 million profit over the last 6 months is pretty crazy, they seem to be doing something right. A lot of that will be due to the weak pound, though the statement does say that sales and profit are up when comparing like for like currencies.
Its not astonishing. They definitely did something right during the last year.
It seems that supplement books with formations in it are what players and other GW enthusiasts prefer these days.
Lanrak wrote: @Korinov.
I was pointing out that if GW plc actually made a profit off increased sales this year,because of out side influences.
That GW plc still have not fixed the core issues with their ' business plan'.
As some of the pro GW crowd are singing the praises of the new C.E.O for 'righting the ship.'
I simply wanted to point out the acid test of what a 'fixed GW plc' would actually do because it made sense for them to do it.
(Plastic manufacture heavily rewards the sales direction of economies of scale.EG high sales volumes= more profit.Raising prices to restrict sales is counter intuitive to the basic premise of plastic manufacture.AFAIK ONLY GW plc do this.)
Oh don't worry PP will do this soon enough. They are following a lot of GW practices of late.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Price per model is at parity in the U.K. at least, if not more for PP stuff.
Do you need as many models for an army as you do for 40k?
Are PP models of comparable quality ?
Don't know. Probably.
Metals and resin- absolutely.
Plastics(PVC) Nope. Works okay for beasts but is fething terrible for jacks IMO. Plus the problem of putting mould lines in bad places.
Plastics (HIPS) Not as good as GW, but getting there. Have been a few problems (see Desert Hydra) but on the whole on par with GW kits from about 8-10 years ago IMO.
Plastics(PVC) Nope. Works okay for beasts but is fething terrible for jacks IMO. Plus the problem of putting mould lines in bad places.
Plastics (HIPS) Not as good as GW, but getting there. Have been a few problems (see Desert Hydra) but on the whole on par with GW kits from about 8-10 years ago IMO.
I would just add a caveat to the metal and resin. It common to get a kit with horrendous mold slip. QC at PP is non-existant. When I do hobby stuff at the local game store it's at a table with a bunch of work for hires and they do a lot of PP stuff. Having to tell clients they need to exchange a kit because the kit has a 1mm mold slip is not uncommon.
With the PVC, yea atrocious. A nightmare to clean when I was trying to put together Cephalyx. Some of the local WMH players lament that PP blew their chance to bring a bunch of new people in with Mark 3 when they kept the starter kits PVC. One guy threw out the cryx starter because it was so bad.
PP is falling behind in the industry regarding figure quality. They are being leapfrogged by much smaller companies.
PP is doing great with their rules, that they can't get their act together with production remains mind blowing.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Price per model is at parity in the U.K. at least, if not more for PP stuff.
Do you need as many models for an army as you do for 40k?
Are PP models of comparable quality ?
Don't know. Probably.
Yes. Both lines have advantages, and the differences are fairly subtle.
Metal minis are far better than GW's finecast, and metal makes up most units. PP's designs tend to have more detail on them.
PVC plastic has mold lines where GW's stuff doesn't, but assembles in a lot fewer parts that don't lose detail/flatten toward mold line (flexible molds give similar results to metal casting). Works best on warbeasts (GW's HIPS plastic does worst on its organic shapes, generally giving them an inorganic look that's perfect for robots or tanks).
I haven't bought any of PP's HIPS kits.
PP resin is really nice to work with. I have a hard time saying anything bad about them. Really, their resin is super nice (in a way that Finecast really isn't). I have experienced none of the troubles the previous poster referred to.
And for pricing- PP prices are more solid across the board. GW will have a character that costs $35, and a unit of ten troopers that cost $45. PP's prices are based on the mini's weight/size directly, and so large units tend to cost more than GW, and characters cost a lot less.
And price per average sized army- PP is an order of magnitude cheaper (I've done the math, including a lot of swappables for a PP army).
And for pricing- PP prices are more solid across the board. GW will have a character that costs $35, and a unit of ten troopers that cost $45. PP's prices are based on the mini's weight/size directly, and so large units tend to cost more than GW, and characters cost a lot less.
And price per average sized army- PP is an order of magnitude cheaper (I've done the math, including a lot of swappables for a PP army).
I wouldn't say that with current releases. 10 PVC infantry for $50 US is common with PP releases. Their plastic colossals/gargantuans are $110 each and they are no where the size or complexity of the larger/similarly priced GW kit. Only seen the Convergence kit in the flesh, but the Desert Hydra is getting a lot of hate right now for it's price vs Size/Quality. It might be cheaper to start, but lower quality figures doesn't help and can render that point moot.
Lanrak wrote: @Davor. What sort of practices do you think PP will take from GW plc?
Well seeing how in Warmahordes 3.0 is, we now have more story telling than "balls to the wall" play. More scenarios and more terrain now. PP limiting sales on what stores can sell or do like GW did, but on a much less massive scale. How they are doing YouTube videos like GW now. (To be fair maybe they had it and I just didn't notice it until GW started doing them.) Now I could be wrong here, but I never noticed PP knives, and PP snips before. So I am guess they copied GW that way now as well. 5 year edition changes so people current people have to buy new products. (again this in not bad, because as a business, how do you keep people buying once they have everything correct?)
While they supposedly have spent lots of time making and testing a new edition, Just like GW it can be poorly received and a lot of people stop playing or buying. Something like what happened with GW 6th edition. I am not saying this is a direct copy but just seems like it's "following the footsteps" by accident in this case.
Games seem to be getting bigger and bigger, and more minis are needed to be bought to play bigger games. Again, not a complaint just seeing a similarity. Before Warmahordes seem to be played with not many miniatures, but now it seems games are bigger because more miniatures are on the board now, and they are even bigger now as well.
While I say PP is copying GW, I should have said they are copying them in mild ways, but seem to be following what they do, but on a much lesser scale or not as harsh. Sorry if what I said came out as a negative, I didn't mean it like that, just seeing what PP is going through right now, it seems GW has done it first, good or bad. So since I see PP following GW steps, I wouldn't be surprised if PP raises prices to restrict sales. I am not saying PP will do this, but seeing after how much they are copying GW they might do this inadvertadly somehow.
I don't play Warmahordes and only really know about it tangentially.
However, there are always some things to keep in mind. They Changed It Now It Sucks is such a thing that there's several pages on TVtropes about it. The tabletop games section even mentions warmahordes...
Doing youtube videos is quite simply a good idea, more companies should be doing them. Fantasy Flight Games do their main tutorials on how to play theirs via youtube. Nurturing community engagement and Social Media is a Big Thing in modern business.
Privateer Press in recent years had been very much receiving negative press about the whole "play like you've got a pair" tagline and concept. Not just because it was putting people off of the game but was also generating a toxic atmosphere that was not conducive to growth of the company.
I think PP wish they were GW and the bigger they get the greedier they will be.
I will be amazed if they ever reach GW levels without becoming far worse.
And with all the small players out there, they're hardly the only ones trying to take the market, and already showing signs of weakness compared to smaller entities.
I personally think GW would have an easier time making a game comparable to WMH, than PP making good miniatures and becoming as popular.
After all, it isn't really hard to make a WMH type game, i.e. big skirmish, interactive and updated very frequently to minimize the perception of imbalance.
Even showing 1000 or 800 point games, providing online rules which are frequently updated and gradually streamlined would very quickly close the gap.
The thing is, one of the main reason WMH is successful is because people want to try something else than GW... and that's not much of a long term position to hold.
GW have shown disdain for balanced rules writing for as long as I've been gaming (we'll call it Rogue Trader days). It would take a large paradigm (and priority) shift for them to have a good rules set to go with their minis. At least as big a change as for Privateer Press to change their minis (although- they've been changing them already- they have a history of figuring out new materials over a series of kits).
* Privateer Press got big on a lot more than being "not Games Workshop." There were plenty of not-GW games that had a lot more steam behind them back when PP was building up (Wargods, Dark Age, Confrontation and Battletech at least).
They built their empire off of having good rules, good fluff and good minis. The other minor players were each lacking in one category or another.
The trouble they have run into is that the market has diversified and improved, and they're not in a position to adapt easily. Actually, GW has run into a lot of the same issues.
That's why we're seeing board games from both companies. It is why the old world got nuked (watch out Imperium, you're next). It is why the new Warmahordes rules are a free download as well. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's why they're going with the constant errata updating system they've got in place (an interesting experiment- I wonder how it is going for them).
PP have gotten rid of their "Play like you've got a pair" slogan, because it was turning people away from their games (they dropped it when they went to 2nd edition). A lot of their early rhetoric was sort of an attack on GW, and they've really moved past that.
But industry standards of fluff, minis and rules have all gotten better and more diverse, and there are some very small players who have been able to put out some really stellar products. I play GW games and Privateer Press games, but I often find myself drawn to some of the smaller companies and their very cool games/minis. The market is really great right now for a small company that doesn't need a huge market share to survive (thank you Kickstarter).
If you want to play a good game with the best of all minis, I'd recommend either Kingdom Death or Arena Rex (ok, I haven't played Arena Rex, but the minis are fantastic).
Lanrak wrote: @Korinov.
I was pointing out that if GW plc actually made a profit off increased sales this year,because of out side influences.
That GW plc still have not fixed the core issues with their ' business plan'.
As some of the pro GW crowd are singing the praises of the new C.E.O for 'righting the ship.'
I simply wanted to point out the acid test of what a 'fixed GW plc' would actually do because it made sense for them to do it.
(Plastic manufacture heavily rewards the sales direction of economies of scale.EG high sales volumes= more profit.Raising prices to restrict sales is counter intuitive to the basic premise of plastic manufacture.AFAIK ONLY GW plc do this.)
Good, I see it now.
The pro-GW crowd that currently praises Rountree as GW's savior and "the man who's turning the ship around" are the same ones who two-three years ago adhered to the everything is fine, nothing is broken thing. Never ever expect to read the slightest amount of criticism from them, as AoS was perfectly fine when it was released ("who needs points anyway?") and now of course is the best game evar.
It happens when GW is everything you know.
The core issues won't likely be fixed anytime soon. Prices keep going up with each new release, and rules are more bloated than ever. I guess as long as they manage to put out enough shiny new toys at a constant rate, they'll somehow manage to keep going. It's obvious that, at this point, the remaining customers are the ones who do not care about insane prices nor abysmal rules (the ones who did left a while a go).
Kairic Acolytes? £30 for 20. That's cheaper than the Bloodbound equivalent.
Disciples of Tzeentch? £20 book, contains everything you need to play that army, apart from the models.
AoS rules? Quite the opposite of being bloated.
Bloodbowl? £20 for a team and themed tokens. Main game for £65, first expansion if you want to play league games, £15. So for £100 you can get everything releases to far. That's not overly expensive, especially if you buy from a discounter.
Calth and Prospero? Truly impressive value, even just using standard GW prices, and not looking at them from the FW equivalent.
40k however does need to go on a diet in both regards.
I'd be cautious with the BB comparisons, team boxes aren't the final purchase if you wish to partipate with league play, and star players could very well run you almost the cost of a team individually. Heaven knows what a non-plastic team will ultimately cost.
It's a low count game, so it isn't ever going to be ludicrous money, but, as with most of your examples, the prices only look really good when framed against other GW prices, if you compare them to what else is out there, they're at best competitive and in some cases still overpriced.
Azreal13 wrote: I'd be cautious with the BB comparisons, team boxes aren't the final purchase if you wish to partipate with league play, and star players could very well run you almost the cost of a team individually. Heaven knows what a non-plastic team will ultimately cost.
It's a low count game, so it isn't ever going to be ludicrous money, but, as with most of your examples, the prices only look really good when framed against other GW prices, if you compare them to what else is out there, they're at best competitive and in some cases still overpriced.
12 Blood Bowl minis in something like the Skaven team box vs. 3 Guild Ball minis in the Morticians "starter" box, for the same price, certainly looks good versus the competition...
of course, this is one time where i actually liked the Steamforged Games minis better than the Games Workshop ones, so i bought them last year, at our local conventions, Guild Ball was played at all three events...
it will be interesting to see if it has a stronger showing than BB, now that BB has been re-released...
i do hope GB continues to grow, because i am behind small companies with original ideas and great execution, 100%
Yeah, but two boxes to fill out a league roster, plus £10-15 a pop for a star player or two and all of a sudden you're spending the same on a BB league team as you are on a full tournament roster for GB.
Model count may be higher, but the cost to play is comparable. One can even argue that all GB minis are "star players" in the way that GW would portray them (i.e. they're individual characters that all differ, whereas the plastic BB stuff is all generic redshirt stuff) and then the cost per model stacks up well. Plus they're made from a higher cost material with a more labor intensive method by a smaller company with fewer economies, even if they are more per model, at least one can see why.
This is why it's important to take a holistic approach to the cost of a game and not just cherry pick what looks well priced and what looks expensive and put them head to head.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Plus BB probably better compares to Dreadball, which embarrasses GW in terms of VFM, but I'm not going to advance that as an argument because I can't be dealing with 10 pages about how GW's better quality somehow justifies a disproportionate price differential.
Azreal13 wrote: Yeah, but two boxes to fill out a league roster, plus £10-15 a pop for a star player or two and all of a sudden you're spending the same on a BB league team as you are on a full tournament roster for GB.
Model count may be higher, but the cost to play is comparable. One can even argue that all GB minis are "star players" in the way that GW would portray them (i.e. they're individual characters that all differ, whereas the plastic BB stuff is all generic redshirt stuff) and then the cost per model stacks up well. Plus they're made from a higher cost material with a more labor intensive method by a smaller company with fewer economies, even if they are more per model, at least one can see why.
This is why it's important to take a holistic approach to the cost of a game and not just cherry pick what looks well priced and what looks expensive and put them head to head.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Plus BB probably better compares to Dreadball, which embarrasses GW in terms of VFM, but I'm not going to advance that as an argument because I can't be dealing with 10 pages about how GW's better quality somehow justifies a disproportionate price differential.
you put forth the argument that Mad Doc Grotsnik examples of pricing only look good when framed against other GW prices...
i gave you an example where the economies of scale are giving us plastic teams for 4x cheaper than another company's metal models, and you still have to come back with a "yeah, but" just to prove you're right...
if the cost to play GB and BB are comparable, then that can only be a good thing, right???
much easier for people to choose GB, and its awesome models
you must have seen those rubbish Dreadball minis, if you already know that they are a much lower quality seriously, i wouldn't wish restic models on my worst enemy...
as soon as you lay them out, and see what a nightmare they are to prep and build, any VFM goes right out the window as you throw your Dreadball minis in a box, and never look at them again...
everyone that i know has been building their BB minis with big smiles on their faces...
besides, i have never once tried to justify GW's prices...
i've only ever said that i have no problem with the cost of any model, from any company, if i want the model enough, and it is in a material that i like to work with...
nothing justifies spending money on Finecast :(
did you miss the part where i said that in this comparison, my money goes to Guild Ball, even though they cost more per mini???
quality over quantity, and supporting the little guy
Azreal13 wrote: Yeah, but two boxes to fill out a league roster, plus £10-15 a pop for a star player or two and all of a sudden you're spending the same on a BB league team as you are on a full tournament roster for GB.
Model count may be higher, but the cost to play is comparable. One can even argue that all GB minis are "star players" in the way that GW would portray them (i.e. they're individual characters that all differ, whereas the plastic BB stuff is all generic redshirt stuff) and then the cost per model stacks up well. Plus they're made from a higher cost material with a more labor intensive method by a smaller company with fewer economies, even if they are more per model, at least one can see why.
This is why it's important to take a holistic approach to the cost of a game and not just cherry pick what looks well priced and what looks expensive and put them head to head.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Plus BB probably better compares to Dreadball, which embarrasses GW in terms of VFM, but I'm not going to advance that as an argument because I can't be dealing with 10 pages about how GW's better quality somehow justifies a disproportionate price differential.
you put forth the argument that Mad Doc Grotsnik examples of pricing only look good when framed against other GW prices...
i gave you an example where the economies of scale are giving us plastic teams for 4x cheaper than another company's metal models, and you still have to come back with a "yeah, but" just to prove you're right...
if the cost to play GB and BB are comparable, then that can only be a good thing, right???
much easier for people to choose GB, and its awesome models
You missed the bit where I said this
if you compare them to what else is out there, they're at best competitive and in some cases still overpriced.
Which is a shame, as it kinda heads the whole point of this little tangent off at the pass.
you must have seen those rubbish Dreadball minis, if you already know that they are a much lower quality seriously, i wouldn't wish restic models on my worst enemy...
as soon as you lay them out, and see what a nightmare they are to prep and build, any VFM goes right out the window as you throw your Dreadball minis in a box, and never look at them again...
everyone that i know has been building their BB minis with big smiles on their faces...
I've built and painted several DB teams, as game pieces they're fine, nothing special, but nobody could accuse them of being overpriced.
besides, i have never once tried to justify GW's prices...
i've only ever said that i have no problem with the cost of any model, from any company, if i want the model enough, and it is in a material that i like to work with...
nothing justifies spending money on Finecast :(
Yeah, you're in the "got mine" camp, this is well established.
did you miss the part where i said that in this comparison, my money goes to Guild Ball, even though they cost more per mini???
quality over quantity, and supporting the little guy
Missed? No. Why, was there supposed to be some sort of presentation of a digital lollypop or something because you bought some stuff that you liked?
Frankly you've tried to manufacture some sort of counter argument to my point that BB isn't necessarily as cheap is it appears when you take into account all of the expenses (note I wasn't claiming it was expensive, just that it wasn't necessarily a good example of "cheap") by manufacturing a comparison I hadn't drawn, disagreeing with a point I explicitly said I wasn't advocating, reiterating for about the thousandth time that you don't care what minis cost and then somehow expecting praise for buying stuff.
A cynic would think you were disagreeing with me for the sake of it, rather than presenting any sort of valid counterpoint. A hardened cynic may use a term that is frequently used to describe people disagreeing for the sole purpose of doing so, one beginning with T.
i am not trying to manufacture anything, Az...
i just posted the first thing that came to mind about my personal experience as a customer at the FLGS...
BB looks great, and nicely priced for the quality and amount of minis that you get, and it is setting people's nostalgia button on fire...
DB doesn't even get a look in...
GB does...
seems like a valid point to me...
i wasn't trying to argue with you at all...
there is no need to be rude with this "T" B.S., man...
the whole "got mine" thing is really played out...
when going to buy models at the game shop, i simply go with what catches my eye...
that doesn't mean i don't care about other people's perception of value...
i wasn't expecting praise for anything...
i was mistakenly thinking that you and i could have a civil discussion...
you've proven me wrong once again...
I'm more surprised that jah continues to come into these threads and proclaim his love of all things GW, and then refuses to ever see anyone else's point.
Warhammer brand to expand into new licensed categories after 2016 success.
UK tabletop games company – Games Workshop – has seen its move into the licensing space with its Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 brands begin to reap rewards.
The designer, manufacturer and retailer of tabletop battle games and miniatures saw significant growth in its licensing activity during 2016, and it is now eyeing further expansion for 2017.
Licensed products worth an estimated $109 million at retail were sold during the period from November 2015 to November 2016, principally from the company’s successful stable of licensed video games and apps.
These categories were augmented by new lines of licensed giftware, apparel, high-end art prints, accessories and comic books, with the early performance being promising.
Moving into 2017, limited edition statues, drinkware, computer accessories, time pieces and footwear are all headed to market in addition to the highly anticipated release of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, the latest entry in the seven million plus selling video game franchise.
Games Workshop is also set to exhibit at US Toy Fair in New York later this month, as well as at Licensing Expo in May.
Jon Gillard, head of licensing for Games Workshop, commented: “It’s been a great year for our licensed products, with numerous best-selling video games leading the charge.
“Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are world class IPs that have been around for over 30 years, during which time Games Workshop has released tens of thousands of products, and we feel sure we will continue to see huge success for the Warhammer brand as we move into new categories of licensing.”
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You know, IP retention has always been the big hurdle between us and a GW movie...
Could we be seeing that in years to come?
Considering the GW licensed games tend to completely ignore all the wonderful fiction in favour of "for the emperor" on an endless loop, I'd rather they didn't make a 40k movie.
I think there is a whole untapped market in the US making GW licensed weaponry. Who wouldn't like to own a real size bolter with explosive bullets (A shortened Ma deuce would work i think)
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You know, IP retention has always been the big hurdle between us and a GW movie...
Could we be seeing that in years to come?
Considering the GW licensed games tend to completely ignore all the wonderful fiction in favour of "for the emperor" on an endless loop, I'd rather they didn't make a 40k movie.
A Hollywood version of 40K? I don't know. Like can it actually get any worse than the Ultramarine movie? I don't think so, but it can just be as bad. It would be like New Star Trek lore compared to Old Star Trek. Totally different but in name only.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You know, IP retention has always been the big hurdle between us and a GW movie...
Could we be seeing that in years to come?
Considering the GW licensed games tend to completely ignore all the wonderful fiction in favour of "for the emperor" on an endless loop, I'd rather they didn't make a 40k movie.
A Hollywood version of 40K? I don't know. Like can it actually get any worse than the Ultramarine movie? I don't think so, but it can just be as bad. It would be like New Star Trek lore compared to Old Star Trek. Totally different but in name only.
Transformers movies are bad (even the animated one, despite it being a cult classic and a personal favourite). Yet also profitable. Marvel's works aren't great examples of cinema, yet massively popular and profitable.
Personally, I don't think you can film 40k, on account it's ludicrously violent (imagine a Bolter on screen...) yet to cut that down or out entirely completely misses the point of 40k. But if it's a revenue stream waiting to be exploited, who knows what we might see?
Herzlos wrote: There's plenty of things that are worse in terms of violence. It wouldn't be that far off something like Starship Troopers or Dredd.
You could probably do some awesome Anime or gore film.
But why would you set it in the 40K universe? You can do the same sort of spacemen Vs aliens thing without having to pay GW anything.
I think most adaptations come about for two main reasons:
1. Somebody with the movie business clout and/ or money loves a property and wants it made.
2. Somebody with the above clout has no idea about the IP but, as it's popular, thinks they can make a shed load of cash out of it, even if they completely change settings, motivations, characters and so on.
As examples, see both Dredd movies (without watching the Stallone one if you can help it).
I'm just glad at the moment that no-one has got around to attempting a Rogue Trooper movie.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You know, IP retention has always been the big hurdle between us and a GW movie...
Could we be seeing that in years to come?
Considering the GW licensed games tend to completely ignore all the wonderful fiction in favour of "for the emperor" on an endless loop, I'd rather they didn't make a 40k movie.
A Hollywood version of 40K? I don't know. Like can it actually get any worse than the Ultramarine movie? I don't think so, but it can just be as bad. It would be like New Star Trek lore compared to Old Star Trek. Totally different but in name only.
Transformers movies are bad (even the animated one, despite it being a cult classic and a personal favourite). Yet also profitable. Marvel's works aren't great examples of cinema, yet massively popular and profitable.
Personally, I don't think you can film 40k, on account it's ludicrously violent (imagine a Bolter on screen...) yet to cut that down or out entirely completely misses the point of 40k. But if it's a revenue stream waiting to be exploited, who knows what we might see?
Me and the family love the Transformer movies.
As much as I hate to say it, I think we would need Michael Bay to make a 40K movie. At least he will get the explosions and the over the topness of 40K correctly. Or maybe even James Cameron.
Herzlos wrote: There's plenty of things that are worse in terms of violence. It wouldn't be that far off something like Starship Troopers or Dredd.
You could probably do some awesome Anime or gore film.
But why would you set it in the 40K universe? You can do the same sort of spacemen Vs aliens thing without having to pay GW anything.
I pretty much entirely disagree.
Why did the makers of Starship Troopers and Dredd (awesome film!) make those, instead of Spacemen vs Aliens and Future Cop vs Generic Druggies?
As for levels of violence, I think you're underestimating the near comical levels of violence involved in 40k. Lasguns cause horrific burns - enough to kill or incapacitate through shock. Fleshborers? Beetle that eat their target alive. Bolters? internal detonation means body parts everywhere. Shuriken or Gauss? Targets flayed alive in two very different ways. Orks? Dear God such violence - chopping, shooting, stomping, head butting. Chainswords? Body parts everywhere, those unlucky enough to survive the initial slash will have chunks of their body ripped asunder. Space Marines are described as casually back handing renegade Guardsmen wearing helmets, and turning their skulls to paste.
No censor would ever, ever pass that. They couldn't. And you can't take the body horror out of 40k, without it turning out like Stallone's Judge Dredd, where it wears the badge but completely and utterly misses the point.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a prude. I'm certainly no Mary Whitehouse. I love my gore in movies. I usually find it laughable, no matter how well it's done. But 40k is something completely....other. Marines are terror troops. Their very weapons and total lack of camouflage is there to terrorise the enemy - your squadmates are detonating around you. Your shots are hitting, but they're not slowing. One of them is missing an arm....but he's still coming at you, killing all the time with inhuman precision.
Why did the makers of Starship Troopers and Dredd (awesome film!) make those, instead of Spacemen vs Aliens and Future Cop vs Generic Druggies?
As for levels of violence, I think you're underestimating the near comical levels of violence involved in 40k. Lasguns cause horrific burns - enough to kill or incapacitate through shock. Fleshborers? Beetle that eat their target alive. Bolters? internal detonation means body parts everywhere. Shuriken or Gauss? Targets flayed alive in two very different ways. Orks? Dear God such violence - chopping, shooting, stomping, head butting. Chainswords? Body parts everywhere, those unlucky enough to survive the initial slash will have chunks of their body ripped asunder. Space Marines are described as casually back handing renegade Guardsmen wearing helmets, and turning their skulls to paste.
No censor would ever, ever pass that. They couldn't. And you can't take the body horror out of 40k, without it turning out like Stallone's Judge Dredd, where it wears the badge but completely and utterly misses the point.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a prude. I'm certainly no Mary Whitehouse. I love my gore in movies. I usually find it laughable, no matter how well it's done. But 40k is something completely....other. Marines are terror troops. Their very weapons and total lack of camouflage is there to terrorise the enemy - your squadmates are detonating around you. Your shots are hitting, but they're not slowing. One of them is missing an arm....but he's still coming at you, killing all the time with inhuman precision.
You cannot film 40k
And yet they sell this game to 8 year olds.
So if they can sell it to 8 year olds, they can make a movie out it. Doesn't mean it will be good though. Hollywood has a tendency to screw up what they touch. Just look at Marvel comic movies. They look nothing like they do in the comics.
odinsgrandson wrote: Back when they were using Lead based pewter, the boxes all recommended 12+.
That stopped when they stopped using lead (and later stopped using metal of any sort).
GW definitely has two groups of customers- an older crowd of veteran gamers and a younger crowd (that probably starts around age 10ish).
For my part, I know 10 year olds who are gamers. A lot of them are into CCGs and board games (with minis).
The boxes still say 12+ on them.
But just because the boxes say 12+ on them doesn't necessarily mean they're targeting 12+ year olds, it might just be they don't want 8 year olds slicing their fingers off and the parents blaming GW because it should have been safe for their 8 year old Timmy.
I started when I was about 9 or 10 years old, but I was building models planes since I was about 6 or 7.
Same. Just regular hobby hazards along with blisters and greenstuff sickness.
You cannot film 40k
I don't think you can in this day and age. Back during the Robocop, Terminator and Ghost buster days where movies could freely swing between younger audience entertainment and inappropriate scenes would've been perfect for a 40k movie.
Now it'd have to be overly mature and lose it's charm or it'd have to give up the majority of the grimdark and be a hollow shell.
Maybe I'm wrong but it just seems everything has to categorized these days which hurts a "true" warhammer movie.
Further off-topic comment:
Spoiler:
At least I already got my Warhammer fantasy movie with Jabberwocky and it's mix of Monty Python humor and dark and gorey themes. (even if the quality is heavily dated by now)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8apNuRgWFWo
A Warcraft movie got made. Warcraft. Yet they can't do something like the Great War and Asavar Kul vs. Magnus the Pious? It'd look gorgeous, and would cater to the nerd culture we have going on. If God damned Warcraft (a direct rip off of WFB) can be made into a movie, then GW has no excuse with its current properties.
And people promptly forgot that the warcraft movie happened. It was billed as the next "Lord of The Rings" and yet there was a collective 'meh' across the world. As I understand it, the only reason the film was any sort of success was China.
I think Lord of the Rings was quite possibly a once in a generation shot, the perfect combination of a director with vision, an eye for 'how much is too much' and film production management that were too worried about an on-going corporate merger than looking closely at what bloke in New Zealand was up to.
A Warhammer Fantasy or 40k film I think would be far better off going small scale. - Maybe have some huge set pieces but ultimately small scale. - Fantasy-wise, I'm thinking less Great War, more "Gotrek and Felix." 40k-wise, the Inquisition is the way to go, as worked out by Damnatus and "Lord Inquisitor."
Warcraft is not a good example. They practically ripped up the lore to cater to the MMO fanbase. (Okay, nothing new there)
It was "meh" all over. If they stuck to the actual events of that time and when their novels and writing were good then maybe it could've been a good excuse for a Warhammer movie as it would've been good .
I think Lord of the Rings was quite possibly a once in a generation shot,
I think you're absolutely right about that.
Unfortunate as that is let's be grateful it at least it gave the fantasy genre the shot in the arm it needed.
Yeah but that's your own foolishness and you're not 8 years old, thus your parents can't blame the box having an inappropriate age label when you end up in the hospital with a severed nerve and a bunch of stitches.
You don't put an age label on that matches the age of your target audience, nor a label that matches some magical age where your customers will stop injuring themselves. You put on an age label that allows you to wash your hands of it all, so that parents don't have an avenue to complain about their kids injuring themselves or complain about their kids poor little minds being corrupted by the grim darkness of your setting and 56th scaled plastic boobies on your models.
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Baron Klatz wrote: Same. Just regular hobby hazards along with blisters and greenstuff sickness.
That's impressive, I wonder what's in it that makes them sick. It's an epoxy putty and we use epoxies at work that let off more fumes in 1 second than greenstuff lets off in an hour. Are you sure it's from them breathing it and not contact? You should be probably be wearing gloves if you use it for a long time.
Ah, maybe it was the contact. I just remember a few of them having to put their projects on hold because the doctors said the greenstuff was making them sick.
It was awhile ago so maybe I mixed up harmful glue fumes with greenstuff fumes.
Compel wrote:And people promptly forgot that the warcraft movie happened. It was billed as the next "Lord of The Rings" and yet there was a collective 'meh' across the world. As I understand it, the only reason the film was any sort of success was China.
I think Lord of the Rings was quite possibly a once in a generation shot, the perfect combination of a director with vision, an eye for 'how much is too much' and film production management that were too worried about an on-going corporate merger than looking closely at what bloke in New Zealand was up to.
A Warhammer Fantasy or 40k film I think would be far better off going small scale. - Maybe have some huge set pieces but ultimately small scale. - Fantasy-wise, I'm thinking less Great War, more "Gotrek and Felix." 40k-wise, the Inquisition is the way to go, as worked out by Damnatus and "Lord Inquisitor."
Baron Klatz wrote:
Warcraft is not a good example. They practically ripped up the lore to cater to the MMO fanbase. (Okay, nothing new there)
It was "meh" all over. If they stuck to the actual events of that time and when their novels and writing were good then maybe it could've been a good excuse for a Warhammer movie as it would've been good .
I think Lord of the Rings was quite possibly a once in a generation shot,
I think you're absolutely right about that.
Unfortunate as that is let's be grateful it at least it gave the fantasy genre the shot in the arm it needed.
I wasn't trying to use Warcraft as some sort of modern masterpiece, I simply pointed out that it was made. The genre is still attracting studios, it just needs to have that oooomph to attract audiences. That, and sink a few extra bucks to have the actors on the more modern geek shows namedrop it.
Compel wrote: And people promptly forgot that the warcraft movie happened. It was billed as the next "Lord of The Rings" and yet there was a collective 'meh' across the world. As I understand it, the only reason the film was any sort of success was China.
I think Lord of the Rings was quite possibly a once in a generation shot, the perfect combination of a director with vision, an eye for 'how much is too much' and film production management that were too worried about an on-going corporate merger than looking closely at what bloke in New Zealand was up to.
A Warhammer Fantasy or 40k film I think would be far better off going small scale. - Maybe have some huge set pieces but ultimately small scale. - Fantasy-wise, I'm thinking less Great War, more "Gotrek and Felix." 40k-wise, the Inquisition is the way to go, as worked out by Damnatus and "Lord Inquisitor."
You're forgetting that the Lord of the Rings is without a doubt one of the top 10 literary works of the past century and the top 1 fantasy story ever.
It was somewhat fethed up compared to the book but that was indeed a rather fair interpretation of the books.
He did add 10 parts of love story to a book which had one, changed the story and betrayed some of the characters... but yeah not bad at all.
We're used to so much worse after all.
Warcraft is just a video game with a slightly random background.
GW is probably just as random and low quality fiction, but then there's the added catch: 30M WoW subscriptions.
How many people are into GW?
Maybe 30.000?
Certainly not 300.000, because we do spend more than 100 a year on average.
I think Lord of the Rings was quite possibly a once in a generation shot, the perfect combination of a director with vision, an eye for 'how much is too much'
Sorry, which movies were these?
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AllSeeingSkink wrote: That's impressive, I wonder what's in it that makes them sick.
Amides?
Regardless, sensitization to whatever's in epoxy putty, including greenstuff, is a thing. Some just get it sooner than others. I've heard from a few people how putty that they once handled just fine, now makes them break out if they don't wear gloves. See Bob Naismith's quote about Nick Bibby here, just below the dreadnaught pics.
The LOTR movies were just as much a curse to the genre as a blessing. Rather than ushering in a new age of successful fantasy films they set the bar so high that most now won't even try.
The ones that were hugely successful, are loved the world over, and won so many awards that it's just nuts.
Also the ones that make book purists get really angry over nothing. I presume that based on your comment, you fall into this category. Correct me if I'm wide of the mark here.
H.B.M.C. wrote:The ones that were hugely successful, are loved the world over, and won so many awards that it's just nuts.
Yes, but based more on this:
morgoth wrote:
You're forgetting that the Lord of the Rings is without a doubt one of the top 10 literary works of the past century and the top 1 fantasy story ever.
Rather than this:
Compel wrote:a director with vision, an eye for 'how much is too much'
The Frighteners is about PJ's speed. Give him a big budget and a project that's already famous and iconic and you end up with three-year-long apatosaur stampedes, ice-skating gorillas, and a ~9-hour exercise in computer animation based on a short children's book. He has a vision, maybe, but it's got little to do with 'how much is too much'.
Also the ones that make book purists get really angry over nothing. I presume that based on your comment, you fall into this category. Correct me if I'm wide of the mark here.
You're especially cuddly today.
Is there a way to tie this even tangentially into the topic? GW fumbled the Hobbit license, but maybe there wasn't much of a new bubble to exploit anyway.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: That's impressive, I wonder what's in it that makes them sick.
Amides?
Regardless, sensitization to whatever's in epoxy putty, including greenstuff, is a thing. Some just get it sooner than others. I've heard from a few people how putty that they once handled just fine, now makes them break out if they don't wear gloves. See Bob Naismith's quote about Nick Bibby here, just below the dreadnaught pics.
Yeah as I said in the part of the quote that you cut out, "You should be probably be wearing gloves if you use it for a long time." People can develop allergies to lots of things.
But it was specifically the "breathing" part that impressed me and made me wonder if there's something special about greenstuff, as it doesn't actually put off many fumes compared to an epoxy glue or epoxy laminating resin or an epoxy paint. Try and paint a bathtub with epoxy paint and you'll see what I mean.
WoW is a rip-off of WHFB, LotR rage and Epoxy sensitivity in a Financial Thread - man you guys can tangent with the best of them. Everyone take acookie from the jar!
A licenced 40k film would be a strange beast though; Directors wouldn't know whether to go epic with the background panoramas and spend multi-Millions on the CGI or go dim (as in low light) and claustrophobic.
Between that and the almost casual but unremitting violence needed (it would be Sci-Fi War porn after all) it would take a special or insane individual to get close to right and even then half the fans would auto-hate simply on the basis that it would naturally be about Marines or not about their own-bestest-fav-awesome Chapter/whatever.
Oh man it would be grim viewing if done "properly". Like the un-relenting (and pretty unpleasant) first few episodes of the latest season of the Walking Dead which even turned fans off, but with large calibre weapons and chainswords.
We seem to have wandered far from the topic... could someone perhaps start a "SciFi/Fantasy Movie Making" discussion thread (either in this section or Geek Media) and link to it here?
Then we can let this thread drift down the page, unless someone wants to discuss GW's financials.
Edit for the mod compliance. Mods for the Mod Squad!
On the actual topic, the point about what is the size of the GW market was kind of interesting. I'm sure the math isn't so simple as the post indicated that the market for GW is only 300,000 people (mainly because most of GW's revenue is likely at wholesale pricing, thus what is spent at retail is mostly irrelevant), but what is the actual size of their customer base I wonder.
So with a customer base of 300 000 customers, and then making limited editions of 1000 no wonder they always sell out and can there fore create artificial hype and artificial supply and demand to make their product look popular.
I really wish GW could sell the product instead of relying on impulse buys. Make the product better and it will sell. I guess 40K 8th edition will be the proof in the pudding if GW has changed their ways or not.
Reason I say this is, I can never understand a company saying "we don't want to sell you these limited edition copies". Like the Stormcast book was limited to what 300? I wouldn't have minded buying that book for my collection but for GW says "we don't want you to buy it because I wasn't fast enough on F5f" just boggles me. I gave up on trying to buy GW limited edition stuff now.
Still relying on impulse buys is not a way to grow the company.
OgreChubbs wrote: Anyone else remember the old movies with outfits and like no special effects?
Lots of those "awesome" movies are on Youtube.
I think the way to go with a 40k movie is to see the action through a serf or a imperial guard that got caught in a war between space marines and whatever.
Just don't license it to Uwe Boll
Jeez chill out both of you, it was a joke. No need to be so hostile.
Geez, chill out all of you, that was a joke.
it's not hostile.
nobody would seriously consider that you are slicing your fingers for attention.
the joke is that you're telling us you're clumsy, as we all are, and i'm saying maybe you're cutting yourself because you're emo, on purpose, to grab attention.
For the period from 16 January 2017 to 26 February 2017
For immediate release 6 March 2017
Games Workshop is pleased to announce that the sales and profit growth, that was discussed in the January 2017 trading update, continues. Income from royalties receivable is also ahead of expectations. In light of the above, profits for 2016/17 are likely to be materially above market expectations.
Sales and profits have further benefitted from the continuing favourable impact of the weaker pound. However, the Board remains aware that there is some uncertainty in the trading periods ahead for the rest of the 2016/17 financial year. A further update will be given as appropriate.
BOLS is garbage anyways. Clickbait titles, shilling articles with OMG GUYS L@@K AT THIS NEW GW THING! GET YOUR WALLETS READY BOYS!, tactics that show nothing new, malware/redirects to sketchy sites (every time I go there on my mobile phone more often than not I get redirected to one of those "Your phone has 500 virus! install software now to fix!" fake detection sites), picking up and running with/stealing anything remotely resembling a rumor to get hits.
Good riddence. Now if only Spikey Bits would follow them, they are nearly as bad.
Natch, no sources were cited, presented or named. We just have to 'believe'....
Just like people need to believe that it is successful?
The increase in licensing revenue probably has something to do with Warhammer:Total War being the best selling TW game to date and there are 2 more games in the cycle. I would be very surprised if WHFB doesn't get relaunched.
Natch, no sources were cited, presented or named. We just have to 'believe'....
Just like people need to believe that it is successful?
The increase in licensing revenue probably has something to do with Warhammer:Total War being the best selling TW game to date and there are 2 more games in the cycle. I would be very surprised if WHFB doesn't get relaunched.
You are going to be waiting a long time a financial analyzer on bolter and chainsword(So we can get the bias argument out of the way) said AOS is carrying it's own weight. This is the previous report before this one, also royalties have been calculated before by a poster here the money is good none can deny that but majority of GW's money comes from their miniature line GW would see no reason to bring it back since they can just milk money from total war warhammer while making money with their miniature lines. If AOS was doing extremely poorly worse than whfb then I would see your point.
User 1(who is doing the analysis: I met with a 40k friend who has even more management experience as a financial controller than I do. We both had experiences in finance and sales & marketing, but also share a love for The Hobby, like you! This is a shortened version of our lengthy discussion/fist fight, shared in normal Low Gothic.
User 2:Great review but I am struggling to see how you can extrapolate AoS sales being the cause of growth. It's an assumption surely, based upon there being a summer campaign?
I'd say it's 40K gowing what with Genestealer Cults, Adeptus Mechanicus and Deathwatch being quite popular yet expensive armies to get into (actually the Deathwatch are fairly cheap if you're savvy).
User 1: We started with no assumptions. Regarding the summer campaign issue, it was only after we started looking for areas where growth was greatest, like in the clear case of where Trade and Retail grew by 30+ percent%+ while Mail Order only grew by 9%, that we started exploring what brick & mortar stores had.
The summer campaign, which directly matched the reported time period, was clearly the biggest change from Business As Usual. It happened to relate to AoS, and had a mechanism that was designed to drive sales, therefore seemed very relevant to the issue of sales growth.
In other words, we didn't start with a line of reasoning, or certain products, or theories, or personal preferences in mind.
User 2:I agree that solid rules does drive players, but I haven't witnessed, in my bubble, any increase in AoS.
How would we best quantify whether AOS has spurred sales? We might best glimpse 40K future if we can determine what encouraged the customer spending?
Personally, I interpret the increase is from boxed set sales like the HH games that drove army building. Battle of Calth was phenomenonal in its reception. Many players bought 2-3 copies and it sold out often. These fueled more purchases and that's before we start to count other boxed sets like the Knights and fliers.
I think AoS has been a blip compared to the 40K sales. 40K was losing ground each year despite being the biggest fish in the sea and I see it as this year GW finally reversed that trend.
User 1:I think I understand where you're coming from. I think the new way 40k products were bundled contributed to growth, too.
We agree AoS, until the release of the General's Handbook, was a blip. Therefore, by definition, it had the most opportunity to grow.
40k/30k basically held the line for all of GW in the last few years, since AoS, and before that Warhammer Fantasy. In last year's annual report, the CEO let slip a point that AoS, despite its unpopularity, had already outdid Warhammer Fantasy's sales for years, just to show how bad things had been.
The question we asked wasn't so much what's new; it was what's changed. The 0% or negative growth represented 40k/30k having to carry Warhammer Fantasy, then AoS, for years. GW doesn't borrow money for new development, meaning particularly 40k "paid" for all of WhF and AoS's development, with no return...until now.
What changed was that, these 6 months, the fantasy line, AoS, is finally pulling its own weight. That's something to be celebrated, that 40k no longer has to carry its load. If anything, some of the lessons learned from AoS, like how a summer event can drive sales, will benefit 40k.
Silent Puffin? wrote: GW killing off 30 years of WHFB right before the release of its biggest ever licensed game has to be the most idiotic decision that it ever made.
Given Magnus/Tzeentch, DW, GSC, BOP and Gathering Storm, I guess that depends on whether you count Silver Tower as AOS or not?
There've been some big 40K releases (and they keep coming) but (speaking as a non AoS player) I'm not aware of any release of a similar magnitude? Except maybe the GHB, which was pretty cheap so wouldn't put much in the bottom line even if it went (relatively speaking) gangbusters.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Plus, of course, "contributing" is a moving target. One box of Gryph Hounds sold would be "contributing', nobody's going to argue that it isn't selling stuff.
Sylvaneth and Disciples of Tzeentch are easily on part with any of the major 40k releases. If you're counting BOP for 40k you have to count the two Quest games. Overall AoS has had a pretty stellar 6 months and l99ks to be getting ready to release another AoS faction in March for dwarves with shadow elves supposed to be later this year.
I get that it's cool to hate things. But 40k had pretty good 40k things come up last fiscal year and it still didn't double out its previous year in profit in the first half of the year. GW says that AoS is selling well. They are telling their managers it's selling well and unlike wfb the managers agree from the ones I've talked to. At least since the ghb dropped.
We'll never see specific numbers for the last 3 years of wfb vs. the first 3 years of AoS once it gets there. But it's less of s stretch assuming it's helping their bottom line significantly than pretending that 40k suddenly doubled it's sales on the previous year when they've doubled down on 40k for an entire year and didn't see that kind of growth. And when 40k has been in a bit of a questionable place as people are nervous about 8th.
And that little comment makes any further dialogue with you on the subject a waste of time. Nobody was hating, but if that's the only way you can frame your response, we're done.
Excellent response sir. Take umbrage at a small portion so as to not have to discuss the relevant topics of the post. We'll done!
When one sets up a moving target dismissal before even discussing the topic it does tend to lead one to the conclusion that your mind is already made up.
If you want to talk "mind already made up" why not enter a topic with a line like
Christ almighty. GW is ahead their entire financial year at the half year mark but we're still pretending that AoS isn't contributing?
I'm tired of anyone who cannot handle a contrary opinion to their own reducing it to hate, its juvenile and after hearing it for so long I'm just going to take a zero tolerance attitude to it.
By all means hang out in the thread and see if someone else is willing to discuss why your claim that "contribute" is a stone cold absolute, not a vague and spurious term up there with "better" or "improved." I'm not going to.
You're adorable. I've been in this thread a fair bit.
Just to be clear it's not that I can't handle a contrary opinion. It's when you're willfully pushing against reason just to stand on your soap box of AoS not selling that I tend to roll my eyes. It's not to dissimilar to a political argument honestly.
Thing is even in 2002-2003 I SAW the numbers for sales for WFB. At the time the Space Marine line alone outsold the entire WFB range. I have it on good authority with people I trust that were still involved with GW in 2010 that the range had actually dropped below the Tactical Squad box sales. It was in a single digit percentage performance.
The idea that WFB died because of lack of support is incorrect. It died partially due to cost to collect (even back in 2002 it wasn't the game beginners were supposed to start with) and partially due to poor rules in the back half of 7th and then 8th doubled down on both issues of rules/cost.
AoS had a bad launch. That isn't in doubt and that has led to hesitancy in the independent retailers. But how GW has handled it since the CEO swap is night and day. And AoS does seem to be finally gaining traction. AoSGT's in the US are crushing Kings of War which seems to have squandered it's chance to grab the market and while I know that 9th age exists it's not even a blib on the radar in the US.
GW's numbers are higher than the entire previous year (that was largely kept level from royalties) in the first 6 months of the year. They released a statement that they were above what they expected originally for Jan/Feb.
Do you honestly think it is more likely that a decently a solid uptick with several strong releases for AoS, along with Bloodbowl, and several strong 40k releases resulted in an entire years profit (with much less percentage in royalties this time) in just 6 months OR that 40k releases and Bloodbowl resulted in it with a mere 5.1% of the sales being AoS when we had similar solid releases for 40k in the previous year created that result?
GW says AoS is selling well. Events are selling out and getting big attendance in the US and UK. AoS has had several strong releases. Things have CHANGED from the launch. But quite a few people don't seem to want to move on from the launch or accept that maybe, just maybe, AoS isn't a failure any more.
I pick an arbitrary number out of thin air, to demonstrate how vague "better than WHFB" is as a statement (and a point that's been made repeatedly since everyone wanting to defend AOS jumped on it) and you take that as some sort of serious assertion that AOS comprises 5.1% of revenue?
Read what I write, not what you read.
Everything else is mere supposition on both our sides, as we don't have the information to declare otherwise. I may believe that sales of the Magnus model alone will have generated as much cash as the total Sylvaneth and DoT releases combined. You're free to disagree, but nobody could argue that thinking a long awaited, well received, high unit cost model for the much larger system selling more in terms of revenuethan models for a system which, you yourself admit, got off to a shaky start and is decidedly still finding its way is exactly flawed logic.
Not to mention BB, which I'd forgotten to consider, which is definitely not allied to either system as they currently stand, and almost certainly generated a huge chunk of revenue.
From what I've seen GW's profits are better than the last five years, AoS is stated by insider sources to be 30% of their profit and one fellow calculated the combined royalties from the last report to be only 1/6 the profit.
I don't know why it's success is such a argued case, it's a fun and easy to get into game with amazing models and constant support and company feedback.
If that failed then there's no hope for any TT game.
Silent Puffin? wrote: GW killing off 30 years of WHFB right before the release of its biggest ever licensed game has to be the most idiotic decision that it ever made.
It would be easy to roll back as well.
Now? I disagree around the time it came out? Yes.
Indeed, by the time they'd be able to bring it back TW:W would be over and the hype gone anyway.
From what I've seen GW's profits are better than the last five years, AoS is stated by insider sources to be 30% of their profit and one fellow calculated the combined royalties from the last report to be only 1/6 the profit.
I don't know why it's success is such a argued case, it's a fun and easy to get into game with amazing models and constant support and company feedback.
If that failed then there's no hope for any TT game.
Silent Puffin? wrote: GW killing off 30 years of WHFB right before the release of its biggest ever licensed game has to be the most idiotic decision that it ever made.
It would be easy to roll back as well.
Now? I disagree around the time it came out? Yes.
Indeed, by the time they'd be able to bring it back TW:W would be over and the hype gone anyway.
You just merge the remaining production models to their WHFB faction and into to the old system. Put out for example 8th edition ( what is already written ) back on the store shelves? You think that they couldnt do this in a matter of months, if they wanted to?
Do you also think that the squatted minis dont have a CAD file or whatever on computer so they can remake the molds?
From what I've seen GW's profits are better than the last five years, AoS is stated by insider sources to be 30% of their profit and one fellow calculated the combined royalties from the last report to be only 1/6 the profit.
I don't know why it's success is such a argued case, it's a fun and easy to get into game with amazing models and constant support and company feedback.
If that failed then there's no hope for any TT game.
Silent Puffin? wrote: GW killing off 30 years of WHFB right before the release of its biggest ever licensed game has to be the most idiotic decision that it ever made.
It would be easy to roll back as well.
Now? I disagree around the time it came out? Yes.
Indeed, by the time they'd be able to bring it back TW:W would be over and the hype gone anyway.
You just merge the remaining production models to their WHFB faction and into to the old system. Put out for example 8th edition ( what is already written ) back on the store shelves? You think that they couldnt do this in a matter of months, if they wanted to?
Do you also think that the squatted minis dont have a CAD file or whatever on computer so they can remake the molds?
You have to think in the context of shelf space cost with the new AOS releases and relaunching everything that costs money and if GW and AOS is doing well why would GW be inclined to do it? Also the fact of pissing everyone off again which I doubt GW would like to risk again. Why do you think in 40k they keep hammering on it's not the end times!! When someone even breathes a word of it? Even on the twitch steam? In my opinion total war warhammer replicates whfb far better than the table top and is much more balanced.
I dunno if I was a shareholder I would be wondering why GW would go back to the thing that did not sell over the thing that is selling.
To "roll back" though GW would have to stop productions and schedules they have going that have been laid out for the coming years and try to keep the fanbase happy with a proper in-lore justification of the changes.
That's what would take a few years to accomplish.
Then there's having to compete with the systems and companies that sprung up to fill the void they left which is another big issue.
Easier to continue AoS and just add some Old World charm to the setting like they did with Hammerhal.
I haven't gotten into TW:W yet but when I do my head-canon is I'm battling for new established kingdoms in the beast realm. Anything from Wfb can easily fit into AoS.
Just one more thing. Although I dont check the AoS models regularly, because I am not a big fan of them, but I can tell you that the Empire pistoliers, Karl Franz on Deathclaw, Empire Archers and the Island of Blood/Dawn of Spire kits are often sold out.
Till today I failed to see any Sigmarine kit to be out of stock.n With the exception when they repacked them.
herjan1987 wrote: Just one more thing. Although I dont check the AoS models regularly, because I am not a big fan of them, but I can tell you that the Empire pistoliers, Karl Franz on Deathclaw, Empire Archers and the Island of Blood/Dawn of Spire kits are often sold out.
Till today I failed to see any Sigmarine kit to be out of stock.n With the exception when they repacked them.
Alot of 8th stuff that didn't sell is also going out faster because AoS made alot of models more effective than 8th did. Lord Kroak for example hardly ever moved before AoS.
I was actually think it'd take till TW:W 3 around 2020. The planning for AoS started around 2012 and the starter set was made in 2013 so these big changes take about 3 years.
Alot of 8th stuff that didn't sell is also going out faster because AoS made alot of models more effective than 8th did. Lord Kroak for example hardly ever moved before AoS.
I was actually think it'd take till TW:W 3 around 2020. The planning for AoS started around 2012 and the starter set was made in 2013 so these big changes take about 3 years.
Baron I dont say that 8th is best thing since sliced bread. What I say is that there little reason to providing support to game that existed for 30 years, if its going to get a AAA game developer to make a game out of it. Hell I can see AoS like system to be a gateway game to WHFB. And no. these are not big changes! If you add something to an already existing thing, what you sold before hand then that a far less work, when you need to build it from sratch.
Also when did you saw them out of stock on release? We can safely say that GW tends to make less stuff on release so it wont be collecting dust. A perfect example is the Stormcast limited edition battletome. 300 copies come on...
Alot of 8th stuff that didn't sell is also going out faster because AoS made alot of models more effective than 8th did. Lord Kroak for example hardly ever moved before AoS.
I was actually think it'd take till TW:W 3 around 2020. The planning for AoS started around 2012 and the starter set was made in 2013 so these big changes take about 3 years.
Baron I dont say that 8th is best thing since sliced bread. What I say is that there little reason to providing support to game that existed for 30 years, if its going to get a AAA game developer to make a game out of it. Hell I can see AoS like system to be a gateway game to WHFB.
Problem is GW is a public company and if what hulk said is true and my manager who I am good friends with has also told me tactical's out sold the whfb range of course said company will do something about it. In my opinion by large they don't care about our feelings or if some people liked reading the story on the internet(they are not actually customers GW don't care about them at all). The reality is GW rebooted it to salvage it and it had a hard launch but it's working now. Case example Duncan is doing all those painting videos to help us but at the end of the day those videos are also there to sell paints that's the cold hard truth.
GW has no reason as a company to spend money bringing it back, if they DO bring it back I can easily see forge world doing it, but it's not going to be their "flagship" fantasy game anymore it's not going to happen.
"Shrug" CA are really bad with time schedules and GW didn't want to keep 8th around which was sinking fast just to gamble that CA would make another Rome 2/ Empire game around 2017.
It's bringing in people into AoS anyway as most are fascinated with the armies rather than the setting so I can't see why they need to gear-shift now.
Just make Bretonnian/Tomb king-like armies and they're good.
[Edit]: Why would they make less stuff just on release? Cutting back stock would seem to be a all around strategy to me.
That the other older AoS releases also still go out of stock at times kinda balances out this argument anyway.
Baron Klatz wrote: "Shrug" CA are really bad with time schedules and GW didn't want to keep 8th around which was sinking fast just to gamble that CA would make another Rome 2/ Empire game around 2017.
It's bringing in people into AoS anyway as most are fascinated with the armies rather than the setting so I can't see why they need to gear-shift now.
Just make Bretonnian/Tomb king-like armies and they're good.
I don't know how it is in other places but I had plenty of people come into my local store who have only played the game and wanted to know what's going on I literally tell them that canonically archaon win's that conflict destroys the world, new worlds are recreated and they do it all over again. Then I point out that archaon got an upgrade and they start eyeing up his new mini. If they ask any more questions I answer them and it normally ends with "Huh it's not that bad compared to what people have told me on the internet."
Some take the plunge some don't but most people are not raging in real life like how they are on the internet. People generally don't take things that seriously.
Indeed, alot of new-comers on the forums and Reddit are the same. The Grombindal sale tactic also got alot of stories of TW:W players going into GW stores and walking out with AoS forces and actually enjoying the game once they tried it.
I pick an arbitrary number out of thin air, to demonstrate how vague "better than WHFB" is as a statement (and a point that's been made repeatedly since everyone wanting to defend AOS jumped on it) and you take that as some sort of serious assertion that AOS comprises 5.1% of revenue?
Read what I write, not what you read.
Sigh...The 5.1% was mostly a joke of showing the silliness of the position of asserting AoS isn't selling decently. Name another time in since the LOTR bubble that profits reached previous years profit (exceeded significantly once you take out royalties) in the first 6 months. You can't. What changed? No new editions were released (normal reason for massive sales bump). Just looking around you can see AoSGT's in the US and UK starting to take off in that 6 months (UK in particular). A popular release they had trouble keeping in stock (Sylvaneth) for AoS. An AoS summer campaign. Several solid 40k releases and two huge ones Genestealer Cult & BoP (If we're counting boardgames and I'm not sure Magnus actually made it but if he did it was pre-orders only). Oh and Bloodbowl.
It gets old reading over and over again from the same posters pedantic statements about the size of sales or trying to cut down how well AoS is actually doing. You and the same others are correct. We don't know the exact numbers that AoS accounts for. However we do know that GW is saying it's selling better than Fantasy has in years. We are seeing what looks to be the first year that they are going to profit and actually INCREASED unit sales. We're seeing large events for AoS showing up all over the place in the US and UK. That's non-anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is whatever people want it to be honestly. Your insistence on being contrary just to be contrary do get wearisome.
Alot of 8th stuff that didn't sell is also going out faster because AoS made alot of models more effective than 8th did. Lord Kroak for example hardly ever moved before AoS.
I was actually think it'd take till TW:W 3 around 2020. The planning for AoS started around 2012 and the starter set was made in 2013 so these big changes take about 3 years.
Baron I dont say that 8th is best thing since sliced bread. What I say is that there little reason to providing support to game that existed for 30 years, if its going to get a AAA game developer to make a game out of it. Hell I can see AoS like system to be a gateway game to WHFB. And no. these are not big changes! If you add something to an already existing thing, what you sold before hand then that a far less work, when you need to build it from sratch.
Also when did you saw them out of stock on release? We can safely say that GW tends to make less stuff on release so it wont be collecting dust. A perfect example is the Stormcast limited edition battletome. 300 copies come on...
I'd be beter to go back to 6th and port in the new units. I'd hit it.
GW doesn't publish its sales data so only GW really know how well AoS is doing. Anonymous financial analysis or not.
Exactly, this guy sounds like he tries way too hard to look smart, but at the end of the day, he just pulls a whole lot of assumptions out of his ass. We do know that AoS is selling better than Fantasy (are we even talking constant $ ???), but how much is due to Warhammer Quest, BloodBowl, Last Chance to Buy, Discount Bundles, Impact of Total War, Roundtree management over Kirby,... ???
I pick an arbitrary number out of thin air, to demonstrate how vague "better than WHFB" is as a statement (and a point that's been made repeatedly since everyone wanting to defend AOS jumped on it) and you take that as some sort of serious assertion that AOS comprises 5.1% of revenue?
Read what I write, not what you read.
Sigh...The 5.1% was mostly a joke of showing the silliness of the position of asserting AoS isn't selling decently. Name another time in since the LOTR bubble that profits reached previous years profit (exceeded significantly once you take out royalties) in the first 6 months. You can't. What changed? No new editions were released (normal reason for massive sales bump). Just looking around you can see AoSGT's in the US and UK starting to take off in that 6 months (UK in particular). A popular release they had trouble keeping in stock (Sylvaneth) for AoS. An AoS summer campaign. Several solid 40k releases and two huge ones Genestealer Cult & BoP (If we're counting boardgames and I'm not sure Magnus actually made it but if he did it was pre-orders only). Oh and Bloodbowl.
It gets old reading over and over again from the same posters pedantic statements about the size of sales or trying to cut down how well AoS is actually doing. You and the same others are correct. We don't know the exact numbers that AoS accounts for. However we do know that GW is saying it's selling better than Fantasy has in years. We are seeing what looks to be the first year that they are going to profit and actually INCREASED unit sales. We're seeing large events for AoS showing up all over the place in the US and UK. That's non-anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is whatever people want it to be honestly. Your insistence on being contrary just to be contrary do get wearisome.
While I don't care either way on the AoS argument, blood bowl surprising them with its popularity sounds like it was massive.
GW has no reason as a company to spend money bringing it back
Warhammer:total War has sold over 1.3 million copies (source)and there are 2 more games in the series which will almost certainly sell 1 million+ units each. That's a HUGE number of potential customers that GW has nothing to offer.
That's an extremely good reason to spend some money on bringing back Warhammer.
I believe a fun fantasy game that has rules for all their TW:W armies and the models for most of them while giving them a reasonable entry barrier doesn't count as "nothing to offer".
GW doesn't publish its sales data so only GW really know how well AoS is doing. Anonymous financial analysis or not.
Exactly, this guy looks like another idiot who tries way too hard to sound smart but who, at the end of the day, just pulls a whole lot of assumptions out of his ass. We do know that AoS is selling better than Fantasy (are we even talking constant $ ???), but how much is due to Warhammer Quest, BloodBowl, Last Chance to Buy, Discount Bundles, Impact of Total War, Roundtree management over Kirby,... ???
First, please don't insult my friend.
Second, while I'll agree Rountree's leadership is a massive reason for the increased profits, wouldn't the things you mention basically be categorized as AoS, Bloodbowl and 40k's overall profits?
The royalties from the games already served their purpose as a one-time shot in the arm for their profits, which was good as GW spent alot of money on new machinery. Now they're around 1/6 of the profits GW gets.
GW has no reason as a company to spend money bringing it back
Warhammer:total War has sold over 1.3 million copies (source)and there are 2 more games in the series which will almost certainly sell 1 million+ units each. That's a HUGE number of potential customers that GW has nothing to offer.
That's an extremely good reason to spend some money on bringing back Warhammer.
The money from Sega is money for nothing.
If the agreement includes royalties from the sequels to be produced then it is probable that they have 'shots in the arm' bi annually up to 2020/22.
Warhammer already exists in AOS and the synergy is there already. Play a rank and file game on PC then play the table top version which allows smaller games.
And I actually doubt the supposed surge in players flocking to GW to buy the TTG.
Second, while I'll agree Rountree's leadership is a massive reason for the increased profits, wouldn't the things you mention basically be categorized as AoS, Bloodbowl and 40k's overall profits?
You're right, there was no need for that and I've edited my post, though I was throwing it around mainly for shock value since I didn't consider he, or someone he knew, was posting here (and also because we, economists, usually hate on finance guy's since they usually dismiss the context casually)
GW has no reason as a company to spend money bringing it back
Warhammer:total War has sold over 1.3 million copies (source)and there are 2 more games in the series which will almost certainly sell 1 million+ units each. That's a HUGE number of potential customers that GW has nothing to offer.
That's an extremely good reason to spend some money on bringing back Warhammer.
Actually they have AoS to offer these customers, a game which has shown it's easy to pick up.
That'd be a better fit for TW fans anyway than the older editions since there would be no elite unit/monster spams but just large armies going at it while keeping your heroes in a good command position without getting killed.
You're right, there was no need for that and I've edited my post,
Thank you, there's enough bile on the internet without needing to drag it into a forum for discussing hobbies.
shinros wrote: Problem is GW is a public company and if what hulk said is true and my manager who I am good friends with has also told me tactical's out sold the whfb range of course said company will do something about it. In my opinion by large they don't care about our feelings or if some people liked reading the story on the internet(they are not actually customers GW don't care about them at all). The reality is GW rebooted it to salvage it and it had a hard launch but it's working now. Case example Duncan is doing all those painting videos to help us but at the end of the day those videos are also there to sell paints that's the cold hard truth.
GW has no reason as a company to spend money bringing it back, if they DO bring it back I can easily see forge world doing it, but it's not going to be their "flagship" fantasy game anymore it's not going to happen.
Problem is GW thinks not selling like space marines is automatically bad. Nevermind it's still top-3 game selling in the world. But nope. That sells badly. By GW logic there's just one game in the whole world that was selling well.
Then they cut off support killing off number of new releases. No new releases=not much sales since sales comes mostly from new releases than old kits that have sold most of what they will sell within few months.
Even if two lines would sell identically have 10 new releases for line A than line B and line A will sell AT LEAST 10 times as much in that year.
GW doesn't publish its sales data so only GW really know how well AoS is doing. Anonymous financial analysis or not.
Exactly, this guy sounds like he tries way too hard to look smart, but at the end of the day, he just pulls a whole lot of assumptions out of his ass. We do know that AoS is selling better than Fantasy (are we even talking constant $ ???), but how much is due to Warhammer Quest, BloodBowl, Last Chance to Buy, Discount Bundles, Impact of Total War, Roundtree management over Kirby,... ???
Hmm? I am not smart at all you would see in this very thread that I have outright said I don't have a head for these things the reason why I use that analysis since said person took time to do a whole run down of the report the reason why I use it because going by bolter and chainsword everyone mostly agreed with it and appreciated the analysis and two because it's a 40k forum so we can't talk about being biased to AOS.
If someone from AOS did it I would not link it since highly likely it would be subjective, I mean if you want to analyze the previous report and give us a run down of what's going on I would be more than happy to see it. Also I am not trying hard to appear smart all I type is what makes sense to me or what is logical to me. If it appears that I am being a smartass to you then my apologies? What he put there makes sense and largely matches up with what Hulk has just said recently.
GW's takings are on the up across the board. All sales channels are up (direct, store and 3rd Party). This naturally leads to greater profits, as reflected.
Licensing Revenues are also up.
What we've been told by third party sources.
GW is pleasantly surprised with the uptake of AoS, Bloodbowl, Quest etc. One figure bandied about from a managers meeting (came out just after one, which lends veracity) is that AoS accounts for 30% of sales).
What we do not know
Any official breakdown of what sells and what doesn't, on account GW don't release that info.
GW's takings are on the up across the board. All sales channels are up (direct, store and 3rd Party). This naturally leads to greater profits, as reflected.
Licensing Revenues are also up.
What we've been told by third party sources.
GW is pleasantly surprised with the uptake of AoS, Bloodbowl, Quest etc. One figure bandied about from a managers meeting (came out just after one, which lends veracity) is that AoS accounts for 30% of sales).
What we do not know
Any official breakdown of what sells and what doesn't, on account GW don't release that info.
shinros wrote: Problem is GW is a public company and if what hulk said is true and my manager who I am good friends with has also told me tactical's out sold the whfb range of course said company will do something about it. In my opinion by large they don't care about our feelings or if some people liked reading the story on the internet(they are not actually customers GW don't care about them at all). The reality is GW rebooted it to salvage it and it had a hard launch but it's working now. Case example Duncan is doing all those painting videos to help us but at the end of the day those videos are also there to sell paints that's the cold hard truth.
GW has no reason as a company to spend money bringing it back, if they DO bring it back I can easily see forge world doing it, but it's not going to be their "flagship" fantasy game anymore it's not going to happen.
Problem is GW thinks not selling like space marines is automatically bad. Nevermind it's still top-3 game selling in the world. But nope. That sells badly. By GW logic there's just one game in the whole world that was selling well.
Then they cut off support killing off number of new releases. No new releases=not much sales since sales comes mostly from new releases than old kits that have sold most of what they will sell within few months.
Even if two lines would sell identically have 10 new releases for line A than line B aknd line A will sell AT LEAST 10 times as much in that year.
Except this didn't happen. Even when fully supported and they were releasing new armies the entire wfb range wasn't outselling a 40k army. It only got worse from there. My understanding from people I trust is that even when they were still producing for 8th edition that sales had already dipped to single digits. The stopping g of support while they worked on AoS and doubled down on 40k didn't drop the numbers but a precent age point or two. In this instance it's a fallacy that if gw had supported wfb more it would have survived. It had a lot of baggage.
GW's takings are on the up across the board. All sales channels are up (direct, store and 3rd Party). This naturally leads to greater profits, as reflected.
Licensing Revenues are also up.
What we've been told by third party sources.
GW is pleasantly surprised with the uptake of AoS, Bloodbowl, Quest etc. One figure bandied about from a managers meeting (came out just after one, which lends veracity) is that AoS accounts for 30% of sales).
What we do not know
Any official breakdown of what sells and what doesn't, on account GW don't release that info.
I think that pretty much sums it up, yes?
Yep. Anything else is just wishful thinking. Including the notion that GW would bring back WHFB because a video game in the setting sold well, when we have no evidence of the crossover potential between the mediums, or that those who would crossover would care if the setting was WHFB or AoS (models are mostly the same, it's still fantasy), and taking into account that trying to supporting three big game systems that all require big releases and lots of attention is doomed to fail (unless you think they would cancel AoS, which is ludicrous at this point)... there's no way it would happen. They might do Mordheim though, that would be nice.
Even if they think the rules might be fun, they bear no resemblance to the computer game they've been playing. To say nothing of the background.
...and the models for most of them...
Whoop de doo.
...while giving them a reasonable entry barrier doesn't count as "nothing to offer".
The 'reasonable entry barrier' might sound like a good thing compared to 8th ed's 'buy and paint this massive expensive army before you think of playing' schtick, but I don't know if it means much when it seems that standard AoS armies require almost the same number of minis, and expense. What you see as 'a reasonable entry barrier', others could see as 'a hook for the marks'.
Overall, AoS is not the game that most TW players will expect or want if they come looking for the physical version of their game. I'd say they'll view it in the same way as WFB fans: the block manoeuvre is gone; the world is gone; a chunk of the mini range is gone; the remaining range are largely hangers-on, all but unwanted afterthoughts stuck in a different context and given excruciating 'comedy' rules in place of what strategy and tactics there were. You might have convinced yourself that AoS is the best game ever and a logical development of WFB, but others with no idea of the history and reasons for it are going to look at it as a completely different thing, just with the same GW logo. They'll come to find chess and they'll find snakes 'n' ladders instead. Snakes 'n ladders played with leftover knight and bishop pieces...
I've seen my fair share of instances of GW hhhobbyists complaining about GW games but refusing to look at other, perfectly good games and rules because they're not exactly like a GW game. The minis (if they even need new minis) are different; there's no micromanagement; there's no convoluted process; there's no untidy heap of special rules with a sign stuck in it saying 'This is fluffy. Honest.' And so on. I know how it goes. And now there'll be heaps of gamers ignoring the GW fanboy's game of choice... maybe not for the same motivation or details, but for the same reason (arguably better justified, too): it's not the same as what they're used to. In their eyes, GW will have 'nothing to offer' them.
I do get a bit of enjoyment from the irony, I have to admit.
"Snakes and ladders" huh? Glad you're not pushing your personal biases onto unsuspecting Total Warhammer crossovers What you're writing is what YOU think of AoS, not what someone coming from TWH (and again, we have no idea how many would even if WHFB still existed) would necessarily or even likely think.
edit: Oh, and saying that they'll view it "in the same way as WFB fans"... so I guess some will like it and some will hate it, and we have no idea how many are in each camp then? Just like WFB fans.
True. Equating it to Snakes and ladders is probably giving AoS too much credit. Snakes and ladders is neither unbalanced or pay-to win. And it's a lot cheaper to buy the "army" for it.
We've all had these discussions far to many times though. A major misconception is that the alternatives was to either keep WHFB exactly as it was or just say feth it all to the game and lore people had loved for decades and release AoS. I think no one disagrees that WHFB was in a death spiral, (which was due to the incompetence and neglect of GW, who seemingly had decided to scrap it all, years ago).
The argument is that a better alternative would have been to put the resources put into AoS to instead revitalize WHFB and enthuse the fanbase, instead of throwing everythin in the trash and start anew with just the hardcore of the most sycophantic of fanboys remaining.
Apart from indicating AoS has climbed out of the hole it found itself in at launch, the comparasions of 5% and 30% revenue doesn't mean much if we don't know which periods is compared. If the alledged 5% of WHFB is during the months after the end times when nothing was released and not a word said of the future whilst the 30% AoS is a period of almost exclusively AoS releases; that's a lot less impressive than if the 5% WHFB is from the height of the End times compared to a 30% AoS during a time of equal or more 40K releases.
Maybe GW has indeed managed to get themselves new customers to offset the loss of the old. The "tragedy" is that they could have had them both.
It's probably best for the hobby at large though that the people tired of GW's bs got the kick in the behind needed to seek out something else. And I'm sure there's at least someone that'll get pulled in by AoS who wouldn't have been interested in a competently made WHFB and can then eventually graduate to a more rewarding game.
Zywus wrote: True. Equating it to Snakes and ladders is probably giving AoS too much credit. Snakes and ladders is neither unbalanced or pay-to win. And it's a lot cheaper to buy the "army
Stopped reading there obviously, as I imagine most people would. If you actually wanted to discuss I assume you wouldn't intro with a troll. But maybe you just want those who agree with you to read your posts?
You and Vermis both assume that AoS is a gak game and that every sensible person, or non-GW fanboy, will agree with you. Having that as the jumping-off point for a discussion is not great. Notice how other people like Azrael13 manage to discuss without doing this?
Problem is GW is a public company and if what hulk said is true and my manager who I am good friends with has also told me tactical's out sold the whfb range of course said company will do something about it. In my opinion by large they don't care about our feelings or if some people liked reading the story on the internet(they are not actually customers GW don't care about them at all).
This is demonstrably untrue (with a little bit of inference)
Using North American sales (which anecdotally leaned heaviest to 40k vs Fantasy - compared to Europe as an example) in 2010 the Space Marine tactical box made $106,278 and the High Elf spearman box made $29,291 we can see that SM Tacticals were nowhere near outselling all of WHFB, if elf spearman sold almost 1/3 the amount of the tactical box.
The filing in the Chapterhouse law case. There was a file posted that was later taken down as it contained sensitive information ( GW sales numbers for specific items)
It's a different game that only shares the aspects of moving playing pieces across a board according to a set of rules, and it has nowhere near the inherent tactical complexity of chess. ("My model has all these rules on it's warscroll" doesn't count) Seems a pretty good analogy.
Edit: though yeah, what Zywus said.
What you're writing is what YOU think of AoS, not what someone coming from TWH (and again, we have no idea how many would even if WHFB still existed) would necessarily or even likely think.
edit: Oh, and saying that they'll view it "in the same way as WFB fans"... so I guess some will like it and some will hate it, and we have no idea how many are in each camp then? Just like WFB fans.
I didn't say no-one would go for it. But imagine you've never looked at GW in your life, and you're coming fresh from TW, which is about moving big blocks in big armies, in this case set in the gritty, finite, (relatively) down to earth Warhammer world. Then you go to GW to look for the corresponding tabletop game, which should have actual physical representations of the armies and troops you've become so familiar with on your monitor. What you've got instead is a game apparently about big golden ogre-knights with hand-cannons who fight in infinite, magical, planet-of-hats dimensions, with units that just seem to mill about in a group, and rules that depend less on pulling off flank charges and more who's brought the best warscrolls and battalions. Hey, where'd they put the Tomb Kings? Where are the high elf spearmen?
Do you honestly think that of those TW gamers who go looking, the majority are going to instantly squee and clasp that game to their breast?
The filing in the Chapterhouse law case. There was a file posted that was later taken down as it contained sensitive information ( GW sales numbers for specific items)
Fair enough (in case of doubt, I always ask for citation on such odd nuggets - it's never personal)
It's a different game that only shares the aspects of moving playing pieces across a board according to a set of rules, and it has nowhere near the inherent tactical complexity of chess. ("My model has all these rules on it's warscroll" doesn't count) Seems a pretty good analogy.
What you're writing is what YOU think of AoS, not what someone coming from TWH (and again, we have no idea how many would even if WHFB still existed) would necessarily or even likely think.
edit: Oh, and saying that they'll view it "in the same way as WFB fans"... so I guess some will like it and some will hate it, and we have no idea how many are in each camp then? Just like WFB fans.
I didn't say no-one would go for it. But imagine you've never looked at GW in your life, and you're coming fresh from TW, which is about moving big blocks in big armies, in this case set in the gritty, finite, (relatively) down to earth Warhammer world. Then you go to GW to look for the corresponding tabletop game, which should have actual physical representations of the armies and troops you've become so familiar with on your monitor. What you've got instead is a game apparently about big golden ogre-knights with hand-cannons who fight in infinite, magical, planet-of-hats dimensions, with units that just seem to mill about in a group, and rules that depend less on pulling off flank charges and more who's brought the best warscrolls and battalions. Hey, where'd they put the Tomb Kings? Where are the high elf spearmen?
Do you honestly think that of those TW gamers who go looking, the majority are going to instantly squee and clasp that game to their breast?
Spoken like someone who's never actually got the hang of AoS.
Flanks might not be formal. Formation marching may not be compulsory. But they're very much there, and in greater variety.
I'd point out that people that zoom in on fights in TW will see fights that look much more similar to aos. Even when they move, formations, charging it looks more similar to AoS. Honestly there is exactly one army that exists for AoS thay doesn't have a TW equivalent and that's Stormcast. The rest right now will come out at some point over the course of the 3 games.
Honestly having been the guy selling 40k to people coming in from the video game AoS is going to go over much better than fantasy would have.
The filing in the Chapterhouse law case. There was a file posted that was later taken down as it contained sensitive information ( GW sales numbers for specific items)
That's very interesting information thanks for the correction.
Vermis wrote: Hey, where'd they put the Tomb Kings? Where are the high elf spearmen?
And someone fresh from TW:W wouldn't even know what Tomb Kings and High Elf spearman were given they're not in the game. Assuming that TW:W is their only exposure to the Warhammer world of course.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:And of course, the scientific approach of calling those who enjoy AoS 'GW Fanboys'.....
Scientific? You wouldn't be putting words in my mouth, MDG? If you want to go there, it's more scientific than talking about things being 'cool to hate'.
'Cos with the amount of mental gymnastics I've seen to explain why WFB deserved to die (as opposed to being properly reworked), why four pages of non-rules buried under reams of special rules in warscrolls and battalions is much better (are those flank attacks and marches built into the game, or are they loopholes from vague core rules, or special rules intended to make you feel better about your purchases?), why GW is great again because it has a youtube channel and it's four quid per stormcast now, and why a little upwards waver in flat sales figures means AoS is the saviour of GW, I have to think that I'm not the only one showing off a lot of biases.
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TonyL707 wrote:And someone fresh from TW:W wouldn't even know what Tomb Kings and High Elf spearman were given they're not in the game. Assuming that TW:W is their only exposure to the Warhammer world of course.
Hulksmash wrote:Honestly there is exactly one army that exists for AoS thay doesn't have a TW equivalent and that's Stormcast. The rest right now will come out at some point over the course of the 3 games.
By the way, Hulksmash, the fact that you had to sell them on 40K doesn't mean anything? TW gamers may buy into a game that isn't Warhammer, but it's a far cry if Warhammer's what they came looking for in the first place.
Hulksmash wrote: You're adorable. I've been in this thread a fair bit.
Just to be clear it's not that I can't handle a contrary opinion. It's when you're willfully pushing against reason just to stand on your soap box of AoS not selling that I tend to roll my eyes. It's not to dissimilar to a political argument honestly.
Thing is even in 2002-2003 I SAW the numbers for sales for WFB. At the time the Space Marine line alone outsold the entire WFB range. I have it on good authority with people I trust that were still involved with GW in 2010 that the range had actually dropped below the Tactical Squad box sales. It was in a single digit percentage performance.
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This doesnt fit very well with those figures from the Chapterhouse case , someones making stuff up
People see a video game. It's called Dawn of War but it's got the brand Warhammer 40,000. They came looking for that game and the depth of what you needed and needed to do to play that game put off 50-60% of the people that came into my store at least and this was in 2002ish during the first DoW game.
Now imagine the same thing for Fantasy in 8th edition. It won't bring people in. You might get 1 in 1000 of the people that play the game to start Fantasy 8th. Especially considering it wasn't really being played. Now AoS has a much lower bar, similar to then 4th edition 40k but with FREE RULES. I can tell you right now which one would grow. And simply saying, as stated before, the game is basically the campaign that Archaeon won and now there are pocket kingdoms across several realms warring with the victorious Chaos is pretty easy.
I'd also dial back on claiming people are saying AoS is a savior of GW. I haven't seen a single person in this thread say that. What they have said is what GW has said. That AoS is contributing to their increased profits and is doing better than Fantasy has for years (even years with active releases). The mental gymnastics are coming from people who disliked it on release and still dislike it trying to show it's doing poorly so bring back WFB!
Hulksmash wrote: You're adorable. I've been in this thread a fair bit.
Just to be clear it's not that I can't handle a contrary opinion. It's when you're willfully pushing against reason just to stand on your soap box of AoS not selling that I tend to roll my eyes. It's not to dissimilar to a political argument honestly.
Thing is even in 2002-2003 I SAW the numbers for sales for WFB. At the time the Space Marine line alone outsold the entire WFB range. I have it on good authority with people I trust that were still involved with GW in 2010 that the range had actually dropped below the Tactical Squad box sales. It was in a single digit percentage performance.
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This doesnt fit very well with those figures from the Chapterhouse case , someones making stuff up
I can say for a fact the 2002-2003 numbers are correct. But I don't think anyone would argue that Fantasy was being outsold by the entire Marine Range on it's own. As for the Chapterhouse case and actual numbers maybe they were telling people it was below the tactical box to get them to push harder. I never claimed to see the numbers for 2010 so I'm good with people providing the actual numbers. Either way Fantasy was pretty heavily under performing even when it was getting new armies (TK's and Ogres) so they decided to reboot when it hit low numbers even with support.
Actually they have AoS to offer these customers, a game which has shown it's easy to pick up.
So a game with a different setting, different aesthetic and even different names for nearly everything? You may as well claim that 40k is a good tabletop surrogate of Starcraft.
Bringing back 8th would not be workable, mostly because the game as it stood was utter gak, but bringing back the Old World would be perfectly feasible. I would fully support a return of Warmaster.
The problem with WHFB is that its rules were terrible and the model count was inexorably expanding (much like 40k...) so people simply gave up on it. It wasn't a core game for 30 years for nothing.
Also anyone who claims that exposure to a potential customer base of 1.3 million+ people, most if not all of whom are your target demographic, isn't worth capitalising on clearly doesn't know what they are talking about.
Actually they have AoS to offer these customers, a game which has shown it's easy to pick up.
So a game with a different setting, different aesthetic and even different names for nearly everything? You may as well claim that 40k is a good tabletop surrogate of Starcraft.
Bringing back 8th would not be workable, mostly because the game as it stood was utter gak, but bringing back the Old World would be perfectly feasible. I would fully support a return of Warmaster.
The problem with WHFB is that its rules were terrible and the model count was inexorably expanding (much like 40k...) so people simply gave up on it. It wasn't a core game for 30 years for nothing.
Also anyone who claims that exposure to a potential customer base of 1.3 million+ people, most if not all of whom are your target demographic, isn't worth capitalising on clearly doesn't know what they are talking about.
The old world setting actually fits pretty well inside the current setting. I wouldn't say the aesthetic is that different either. Orks brutes would fit right in in WFB next to Ard Boyz and other orks. Same with the new Sylvaneth models. Fireslayers are literally slightly modified dwarf slayers. The Khorne models fit right in as well. So again we basically come back to Stormcast since that's a new army and one that people who wanted WFB to stay state could have been brought into WFB without much issue if Sigmar made his own warriors in the Old World. Name thing sure I'll give you but it's the same stuff. Not that I would be against the return of Warmaster. I think that'd be great!
Speaking as someone who has never played Warhammer Fantasy Battle or Age of Sigmar, some sort of Hybrid system would interest me.
Lord of the Rings did it quite well. You had a skirmish system (SBG) with individual models.But you also had a mass battle system (War of the Ring). You would simply group miniatures up together in movement trays for the mass battle system.
WOTR had a lot of promise and it really deserved a second edition, or at the very least an updated living rulebook sort of thing/ IMO it failed to sell well because 1. It was released towards the end of the LOTR bubble period and 2. It became prohibitively expensive.
They should do something similar for Age of Sigmar. Repurpose the old WOTR movement trays and create a mass battle system so AOS players can use their existing collections for larger games with a more in depth mass battle style tactics (blocks, flanking etc).
They should do something similar for Age of Sigmar. Repurpose the old WOTR movement trays and create a mass battle system so AOS players can use their existing collections for larger games with a more in depth mass battle style tactics (blocks, flanking etc).
will that work with everything being on 32mm bases now? Or is that just those fantasy marines on that base size?
The old world setting actually fits pretty well inside the current setting.
Remind me where Altdorf is, how about Barak Varr, Salzenmund, Lorien? Its a different setting.
It's also a far larger setting - near infinite one could say. There's a plain in the Realm of Ghur which is said to be so mind bogglingly vast, you could not cross it in a lifetime.
The Old World was cool. And will always remain cool. So cool, I've gone back to my Slayer novels yet again.
But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.
AoS doesn't have that restriction - but if you give City of Secrets and the Hammerhal short story a read, you'll see they are very much Old World in feel.
They should do something similar for Age of Sigmar. Repurpose the old WOTR movement trays and create a mass battle system so AOS players can use their existing collections for larger games with a more in depth mass battle style tactics (blocks, flanking etc).
will that work with everything being on 32mm bases now? Or is that just those fantasy marines on that base size?
Good point, they might have to design larger trays.
But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.
It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.
But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.
It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.
Apparently, if you cannot sink entire continents, blow up a bunch of capital cities, exterminate entire races or remove planets, the stories are meaningless.
It's a bit weird, since there's millions upon billions of fictional stories written that takes place in our own real world, where there doesn't even exist simple elves or orcs at all. If one was cynical, one could call that whole "limited scope" of the old world spiel as nothing but excuses by lazy and incompetent/disinterested writers, being parroted by apologists searching for justifications for AoS.
But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.
It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.
During its entire run Arabay was touched on but Tombkings really sorted that out,
Cathay was wishlisted. But even 20 years of GW listening to its customer base didn't see that area explored.
We got the misty island of Albion for a campaign setting.
WHFB is probably not coming back. GW may relent and produce an anniversary rulebook or create a campaign for within the AOS world but its marginal.
But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.
It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.
Apparently, if you cannot sink entire continents, blow up a bunch of capital cities, exterminate entire races or remove planets, the stories are meaningless.
It's a bit weird, since there's millions upon billions of fictional stories written that takes place in our own real world, where there doesn't even exist simple elves or orcs at all. If one was cynical, one could call that whole "limited scope" of the old world spiel as nothing but excuses by lazy and incompetent/disinterested writers, being parroted by apologists searching for justifications for AoS.
The gyst of the argument is "DON'T TALK gak ABOUT GW!!!!!" There were at least three continents that hadn't been thoroughly explored. NEW RACES could have been introduced at any time. No, this was more about Chaos winning, and that stupid bugbear wrapped around every crevice of WFB and 40K's necks.
It gets old reading over and over again from the same posters pedantic statements about the size of sales or trying to cut down how well AoS is actually doing. You and the same others are correct. We don't know the exact numbers that AoS accounts for. However we do know that GW is saying it's selling better than Fantasy has in years. We are seeing what looks to be the first year that they are going to profit and actually INCREASED unit sales. We're seeing large events for AoS showing up all over the place in the US and UK. That's non-anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is whatever people want it to be honestly. Your insistence on being contrary just to be contrary do get wearisome.
Thing is, I never actually said I thought AOS wasn't selling did I?
Initially, I highlighted how an unqualified statement in an editorial part of GW's financial statement cannot be taken at face value in response to Motski's post.
You took my aribitrary number of 5% for illustrative purposes as some sort of statement of belief on my part as to the current sales revenue. (Yeah, you said you were joking about that. No, I'm not buying it.) You then made the sweeping "Jesus Christ" post that prompted this exchange.
I responded with a variety of other things that have gone on sale this year which could explain the turnaround without being contingent on AOS dramatically improving at all.
You then take this as some sort of assault on the idea that AOS could be anything other than an unmitigated success.
So, to be clear - I have no issue with the idea that AOS is doing well. I can understand where one can get this idea from, and agree it's perfectly logical. Where I do have a problem is with you, or anyone else, trying to take a bunch of circumstantial, anecdotal and unqualified 'evidence' and trying to present those as some sort of self evident truth because it fits their opinion.
I would have exactly the same issue if someone was trying to argue AOS was still somewhat of a bit player and that it was solely down to 40K releases.
We do not have the necessary information to prove either view, and there is a good basis for either as a hypothetical argument.
TLDR: Your premise is fine, but your ability to support it with evidence isn't, don't speak in absolutes when you've no means of backing it up.
But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.
It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.
Apparently, if you cannot sink entire continents, blow up a bunch of capital cities, exterminate entire races or remove planets, the stories are meaningless.
It's a bit weird, since there's millions upon billions of fictional stories written that takes place in our own real world, where there doesn't even exist simple elves or orcs at all. If one was cynical, one could call that whole "limited scope" of the old world spiel as nothing but excuses by lazy and incompetent/disinterested writers, being parroted by apologists searching for justifications for AoS.
Being a moderator of the Mantic forums, are you required to troll Mantic's competitors (namely GW/AoS)?
I don't mean to pry, I'm just genuinely curious.
But the Old World was very limited in scope. To use your examples, we knew all about Altdorf, Barak Varr, Salzenmunda and Lorien. The scale of the setting didn't allow for much change at all.
It was an entire world, that's more than enough scope for anything you want.
Apparently, if you cannot sink entire continents, blow up a bunch of capital cities, exterminate entire races or remove planets, the stories are meaningless.
It's a bit weird, since there's millions upon billions of fictional stories written that takes place in our own real world, where there doesn't even exist simple elves or orcs at all. If one was cynical, one could call that whole "limited scope" of the old world spiel as nothing but excuses by lazy and incompetent/disinterested writers, being parroted by apologists searching for justifications for AoS.
Being a moderator of the Mantic forums, are you required to troll Mantic's competitors (namely GW/AoS)?
I don't mean to pry, I'm just genuinely curious.
Yep, I get paid by the post. The rate is pretty lousy though. Mantic has to recoup those disastrous men-at-arms somehow
(It's somewhat empowering to see that someone is interested enough in me to catalog my presence on various fora)
Not incorrect really as far as being able to change things up to increase interest away from relying on TW:W to do it.
Well, I certainly wouldn't call the Old World limited in scope but it was due for a big shake-up eventually if GW ever wanted to do more than "this hold gets retaken and the Empire temporarily loses a important city".
A post-End Times setting would've been interesting but there would still be flak from the fan-base as GW ruining the setting and the argument about TW:W not recognizing the setting from the game would still be an issue as many major lands and cities were destroyed.
Then there's the idea that GW would still get rid of everything non-copyrightable so Bretonnians, Cathy, Nippon and Ind stay gone and the name changes happen. The Aold Wyrld if you will.
Baron Klatz wrote: Not incorrect really as far as being able to change things up to increase interest away from relying on TW:W to do it.
It was incorrect. There were vast unexplored regions of the Old World. This is a fact. Unless of course you can point me to the main regions of Ind, Araby, Cathy and Nippon and the major cities and movers and shakers in those areas.
I was actually surprised at the amount of lore the lads in the TW forum were able to dig up about those places from going over their fluff through the editions. Spacebattles.com also had bit discussions that made early Ind and Cathy to be the superior lands of mankind as Cathay was always better in every respect to the western world and Ind's god were once far more powerful than the chaos gods.
There would have had to be major re-writes though if GW was going to make anything for those factions that fit the current Wfb style. "Tzu-Sun" would've been the first thing to go.
Aside from Mermen and Asian beastmen, all that was left to expand on was humans copied from real-life. I can see why GW would want to move in another direction, both for lore diversity and copyright.
Aside from Mermen and Asian beastmen, all that was left to expand on was humans copied from real-life. I can see why GW would want to move in another direction, both for lore diversity and copyright.
I've seen this argument several times now. How on earth can someone say "in this largely unexplored, fictional, universe, totally within the control of the creators, this is all there was left to write about?"
Other people can see the problem with this, right?
Aside from Mermen and Asian beastmen, all that was left to expand on was humans copied from real-life. I can see why GW would want to move in another direction, both for lore diversity and copyright.
I've seen this argument several times now. How on earth can someone say "in this largely unexplored, fictional, universe, totally within the control of the creators, this is all there was left to write about?"
Other people can see the problem with this, right?
I didn't even mention the massive land mass at the south pole of the map, which is simply mentioned as "The southern wastes" IIRC. There could be literally ANYTHING down there. Maybe it could have been Chaos worshippers too (on some it said "here be daemons"), that looked nothing like their northern cousins, leading to a whole untapped angle on a previously established faction.
The possibilities for what they could have done were massive.
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Baron Klatz wrote: True, the Old World could really fit anything they wanted in it.
Whether the fanbase would be okay with out of the blue things being dropped in it to change everything up is another story.
As has been mentioned in numerous recent 40k threads- A retcon=/=moving the story forward.
The Old World was a successful fictional world for decades. It was there making up a solid portion of the growth of GW from a UK based concern to a world spanning company. The success of TW:W and Fantasy Flight's board games proves it's utility as a basis for products.
There was something about 6th through 8th edition fantasy that failed the Old World rather than the Old World failing Warhammer Fantasy. My guess is that it was a callous jacking up of the model count and overall cost of the game combined with terrible balance as they cut budgets for development as sales dropped, creating a negative feedback loop.
GW bringing back an Old World based miniature game at this point would probably be a terrible idea though. Age of Sigmar is just getting going and is working for them. If they split their fantasy customer base then fewer locations would have a critical mass of either. And they'd be increasing their game development costs.
What they really should do is make some more stable chunks/realms that bring the Total War:Warhammer themes into Age of Sigmar. Anything can be in these warp bubbles so if they want to make a tie in product for the trilogy of successful video games, they should do it within the confines of AoS.
What they really should do is make some more stable chunks/realms that bring the Total War:Warhammer themes into Age of Sigmar. Anything can be in these warp bubbles so if they want to make a tie in product for the trilogy of successful video games, they should do it within the confines ofAoS.
Haha, that makes me think Warmaster: Lord of the Realms edition.
It'd also help if they'd remove the "no AoS mods" ban. I've already seen several great AoS units that the modders snuck under the radar. They even got the Varanguard in there under the cover of upgraded chaos knights.
I remember talking to a friend about my idea for a AoSTW campaign as well:
Spoiler:
They can even start the first realm as Ghur. It's closest in appearance to the Old World and has enough warring factions to easily start things out on as human tribes try to build up their foothold and contact Sigmar's army while holding off chaos hordes, Ogor armies and Greenskin Waaghs. Realmgates could even be a random factor as Undead, Fyreslayers/Sylvaneth or Beastmen can appear out of them. Then there's Skaven randomly popping up and doing horrible stuff like building city destroying weapons or awakening sleeping monsters and Flesh-Eater Courts spreading their madness with a corruption that, if it gets too big, can effect interface and you'll be talking to Bretonnian-like knights instead of cannibalistic horrors.
Baron Klatz wrote: Not incorrect really as far as being able to change things up to increase interest away from relying on TW:W to do it.
It was incorrect. There were vast unexplored regions of the Old World. This is a fact. Unless of course you can point me to the main regions of Ind, Araby, Cathy and Nippon and the major cities and movers and shakers in those areas.
Those were so slowed I'm happy they weren't expanded upon.
Baron Klatz wrote: Not incorrect really as far as being able to change things up to increase interest away from relying on TW:W to do it.
It was incorrect. There were vast unexplored regions of the Old World. This is a fact. Unless of course you can point me to the main regions of Ind, Araby, Cathy and Nippon and the major cities and movers and shakers in those areas.
Those were so slowed I'm happy they weren't expanded upon.
Yes, because that's really the appropriate response....
Baron Klatz wrote: Not incorrect really as far as being able to change things up to increase interest away from relying on TW:W to do it.
It was incorrect. There were vast unexplored regions of the Old World. This is a fact. Unless of course you can point me to the main regions of Ind, Araby, Cathy and Nippon and the major cities and movers and shakers in those areas.
Those were so slowed I'm happy they weren't expanded upon.
Yes, because that's really the appropriate response....
OF course, it would've been better if they had publicly apologized for that crap and done everything they could to erase everyone's memory of them.
It's like rough riders and some of the worse IG stuff for 40k - when GW adds random garbage to the game it destroys the immersion.
GW seem to be doing ok, and a lot of people obviously enjoy their products, and good luck to them, but having made the switch away from GW a few years back, it never ceases to amaze me that GW are still hanging in there.
There are better and cheaper paints/games/rulesets out there, and yet, GW manage to survive. Very strange.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: GW seem to be doing ok, and a lot of people obviously enjoy their products, and good luck to them, but having made the switch away from GW a few years back, it never ceases to amaze me that GW are still hanging in there.
There are better and cheaper paints/games/rulesets out there, and yet, GW manage to survive. Very strange.
Because people play and buy what they like, not what it's better. What never ceases to amaze me is that people keep on missing so thoroughly this point.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: GW seem to be doing ok, and a lot of people obviously enjoy their products, and good luck to them, but having made the switch away from GW a few years back, it never ceases to amaze me that GW are still hanging in there.
There are better and cheaper paints/games/rulesets out there, and yet, GW manage to survive. Very strange.
Because people play and buy what they like, not what it's better. What never ceases to amaze me is that people keep on missing so thoroughly this point.
Or maybe they're narrow minded people unwilling to branch out on other stuff?
As an example, I knew somebody who wouldn't buy PVA glue from an art store because it didn't have the GW logo on it.
Despite it being the same stuff, cheaper, and a bigger bottle, he opted for the GW product.
I nearly went blue in the face trying to explain to him that he paid more for the exact same thing
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: GW seem to be doing ok, and a lot of people obviously enjoy their products, and good luck to them, but having made the switch away from GW a few years back, it never ceases to amaze me that GW are still hanging in there.
There are better and cheaper paints/games/rulesets out there, and yet, GW manage to survive. Very strange.
Because people play and buy what they like, not what it's better. What never ceases to amaze me is that people keep on missing so thoroughly this point.
Or maybe they're narrow minded people unwilling to branch out on other stuff?
As an example, I knew somebody who wouldn't buy PVA glue from an art store because it didn't have the GW logo on it.
Despite it being the same stuff, cheaper, and a bigger bottle, he opted for the GW product.
I nearly went blue in the face trying to explain to him that he paid more for the exact same thing
So your counter-argument is anecdotal evidence? Apparently people can only play one game system now in order to "branch out".
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: GW seem to be doing ok, and a lot of people obviously enjoy their products, and good luck to them, but having made the switch away from GW a few years back, it never ceases to amaze me that GW are still hanging in there.
There are better and cheaper paints/games/rulesets out there, and yet, GW manage to survive. Very strange.
Great PR (in recent years), customer service, brand and IP recognition, high street presence, and a strong diverse range of products spanning three core games and several boxed games, several of which are modern iterations of famous and very popular classics.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: GW seem to be doing ok, and a lot of people obviously enjoy their products, and good luck to them, but having made the switch away from GW a few years back, it never ceases to amaze me that GW are still hanging in there.
There are better and cheaper paints/games/rulesets out there, and yet, GW manage to survive. Very strange.
Great PR, customer service, brand and IP recognition, high street presence, and a strong diverse range of products spanning three core games and several boxed games, several of which are modern iterations of famous and very popular classics.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: GW seem to be doing ok, and a lot of people obviously enjoy their products, and good luck to them, but having made the switch away from GW a few years back, it never ceases to amaze me that GW are still hanging in there.
There are better and cheaper paints/games/rulesets out there, and yet, GW manage to survive. Very strange.
Because people play and buy what they like, not what it's better. What never ceases to amaze me is that people keep on missing so thoroughly this point.
Or maybe they're narrow minded people unwilling to branch out on other stuff?
As an example, I knew somebody who wouldn't buy PVA glue from an art store because it didn't have the GW logo on it.
Despite it being the same stuff, cheaper, and a bigger bottle, he opted for the GW product.
I nearly went blue in the face trying to explain to him that he paid more for the exact same thing
So your counter-argument is anecdotal evidence? Apparently people can only play one game system now in order to "branch out".
Opinion is not prohibition. The smiley face i.e this = the person making a light hearted remark or joke.
People always seem to be ready to jump down people's throats at the slightest opportunity.
At the club there's around 8 Infinity players, and around 10 X-Wing players - most of whom also play various GW games.
And that's a hard position to assail.
Sure, I could probably get a decent mix of X-Wing or Infinity for less than a GW army - but that doesn't help if I just want to add a single unit to an existing GW army - why spend £60-£70 on a new game, when I could spend £40 to refresh an older army?
Momentum. That's the trick. They grew to be the biggest due to a total lack of credible completion. And when the credible competition finally arrived, GW still had thousands of gamers with valid armies - so whilst one might go and play another game for a long old time, the GW army still exists. Give that person an excuse to play again, and they're back at it.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: GW seem to be doing ok, and a lot of people obviously enjoy their products, and good luck to them, but having made the switch away from GW a few years back, it never ceases to amaze me that GW are still hanging in there.
There are better and cheaper paints/games/rulesets out there, and yet, GW manage to survive. Very strange.
Because people play and buy what they like, not what it's better. What never ceases to amaze me is that people keep on missing so thoroughly this point.
This surprises you?
How much fruit and vegetables have you eaten today?
I have eaten 1 Banana and some Pineapple, which is not exactly nutritionally optimal.
People eat what they like, not what is best and the consequences of such choices are more severe than if they support GW or some other hobby company.
GW is making some good stuff these days, when they make good stuff I will buy it.
Total War Warhammer is great and a long battle is about 20 minutes. It takes me about 20 minutes to put together 1 plastic Cavalry Mini.
I think the main miss opportunity was cashing in on the Legendary Lords from Total War.
Age of Sigmar is the 4th best selling game in the north-american table top miniatures market (the part not controlle by GW anyways). Still not as good as old Fantasy (top 3) in its heyday but it's a tendency and it certainly shows a noticeable growth in the game, since they didn't feature in the previous top 5s.
It's pretty obvious WHFB was not doing much for GW. Evidence is simple - when WHFB was killed and AoS got, shall we say, "lukewarm" initial response, did GW revenue collapse by 50%? Did it collapse even by 10%? No. Ergo, WHFB's enormous range was selling very little.
I always wanted to play WHFB but never got around it and my Fantasy playing pals were dumping it. Reason was simple - cost of entry was too high. Part of the blame obviously rests on GW pricing but community was also to blame, estabilished players were playing each other with their bloated armies. Too hard for newbies to get in it. I read a story of a kid wanting to start WHFB and being told that sure he could, but he would need to buy, build, paint and base full 2500 point army before anyone would play with him. Well, no surprise he didn't. Also, people seemed tired of the tournament scene which needed tons of comp to balance armies out. At that time, 40k was usually comp-less and was widely seen as "well balanced" compared to Fantasy!
Well, that's just an outsiders view, feel free to disagree. The point is that WHFB needed a reboot.
I was pretty invested to Old World in RPG form, and AoS does not interest me in the slightest, even though many people speak highly of the game. Why? It's because Old World felt like a real world with real people. Bulk of the armies was made up of everyday people (dwarves, clan rats etc) called up for war. Then there were smaller elites who were led by heroes and monsters who seemed ever so badder because they contrasted with everyday schmucks.
AoS universe is a vaguely defined group of dimensions where everyone is toughest, most vicious and badass, elitest of the elite, best of the best of the best and completely detached from any kind of real counterpart. It is just so TIRESOME. Here is a hint for fantasy writers: when everything is super, nothing is super.
The ICV2, whilst interesting, isn't completely reliable where GW are concerned, because GW themselves don't partake.
I went over this in another thread, so I can remember some of the specifics.
In North America, a little over £11,000,000 of GW's income was through third parties.
But, a little over £7,000,000 was from GW retail sales.
And to add intrigue? Their third parties (defined as 'Trade' on the annual report) includes sales direct to retailers, as well as through distributors - so we don't even know if the full £11,000,000 is included.
Ignore the Warmachine comment - I was having a thick.
Age of Sigmar is the 4th best selling game in the north-american table top miniatures market. Still not as good as old Fantasy (top 3) in its heyday but it's a tendency and it certainly shows a noticeable growth in the game, since they didn't feature in the previous top 5s.
Well now, here's a very pleasant turn up. Maybe this argument can finally be put to bed now.
The ICV2, whilst interesting, isn't completely reliable where GW are concerned, because GW themselves don't partake.
I went over this in another thread, so I can remember some of the specifics.
In North America, a little over £11,000,000 of GW's income was through third parties.
But, a little over £7,000,000 was from GW retail sales.
And to add intrigue? Their third parties (defined as 'Trade' on the annual report) includes sales direct to retailers, as well as through distributors - so we don't even know if the full £11,000,000 is included.
Though interesting that Warmachine has dropped off, but not Hordes. I'd have figured (through assumption, nothing more) that Warmachine was the bigger seller out the two.
I changed my point to "seems", since I remembered it to not be 100% reliable. Still, it's an interesting and usable (but not surefire) way of gauging the non-gw retailers.
Age of Sigmar is the 4th best selling game in the north-american table top miniatures market. Still not as good as old Fantasy (top 3) in its heyday but it's a tendency and it certainly shows a noticeable growth in the game, since they didn't feature in the previous top 5s.
Lol.
*someone uses ICV2 to show AOS hasn't been selling well*
GW Defenders: "Yeah, but ICV2 is a flawed system."
*ICV2 shows growth in AOS*
GW Defenders: "Look, ICV2 shows AOS is growing!!"
It's Armada that's dropped off.
Yeah, not really a surprise, FFG seem to have run out of steam with that one. One thing that history shows us is a game needs support to keep going, and Armada hasn't had a release of note in what feels like a looong time.
Still a puzzle why they categorise WM and Hordes differently too. There's odd licensing issues from way back when, but from a sales point of view it doesn't seem to make sense.
Age of Sigmar is the 4th best selling game in the north-american table top miniatures market. Still not as good as old Fantasy (top 3) in its heyday but it's a tendency and it certainly shows a noticeable growth in the game, since they didn't feature in the previous top 5s.
Lol.
*someone uses ICV2 to show AOS hasn't been selling well*
GW Defenders: "Yeah, but ICV2 is a flawed system."
*ICV2 shows growth in AOS*
GW Defenders: "Look, ICV2 shows AOS is growing!!"
I haven't used such a statement, so not sure why you're saying that on my comment (in fact I've said it was a perfectly valid system, only that the growth of AoS wasn't enough yet to make it to the top 5). Oddly enough, though, the one who's said it's not a 100% tool is chiming in that it isn't a 100% (AKA Grostnik)
Age of Sigmar is the 4th best selling game in the north-american table top miniatures market. Still not as good as old Fantasy (top 3) in its heyday but it's a tendency and it certainly shows a noticeable growth in the game, since they didn't feature in the previous top 5s.
Lol.
*someone uses ICV2 to show AOS hasn't been selling well*
GW Defenders: "Yeah, but ICV2 is a flawed system."
*ICV2 shows growth in AOS*
GW Defenders: "Look, ICV2 shows AOS is growing!!"
I think you mis-read my post, where I again demonstrated, and explained why, the ICV2 isn't entirely reliable.
I wasn't referring to any specific post, it's just a general trend that ICV2 always gets cited when it supports someone's argument and rubbished when it doesn't.
Azreal13 wrote: I wasn't referring to any specific post, it's just a general trend that ICV2 always gets cited when it supports someone's argument and rubbished when it doesn't.
It been like that for years now.
*Shrug*
That can be actually said about virtually anything though. Still, it's interesting that, even with the heavy releases it had this fall, 40k didn't reclaim top spot. Maybe because of the percentage of its sales made in GW stores but, who knows.
Given you quoted Lord Kragan's post - where he used ICV2 to show AoS is in fact doing 'alright' at the very worst.
It's possible you posted just after I posted my explanation though - but given my well known 'I like GW' stance - well, benefit of the doubt is a tad stretched....
No, I wasn't. You can accept that or are you going to call me a liar?
Also, Azreal, get Director Krennic back in there, it feels so frigging jarring seeing you with another avatar.
Back on topic. I think this points out (a bit) the kind of malaisie going on with 7th ed. This fall has been filled with 40k additions, great ones to boot. I think this goes to show that people are burnt out with the current system, a bit like what happened in WHFB's last iterations.
I just hope the "ultra" ultramarines is a hoax though.
Given you quoted Lord Kragan's post - where he used ICV2 to show AoS is in fact doing 'alright' at the very worst.
It's possible you posted just after I posted my explanation though - but given my well known 'I like GW' stance - well, benefit of the doubt is a tad stretched....
Grostnik, cut it out and calm down, no need to get on each others throats.
So that shows its doing somewhere in the same ball park than WHFB was until recently?
All we know is that it's sold less than 40K and more than Hordes, though the indy channels surveyed.
I'm always curious as to where things like Warhammer Quest are accounted, and things like the legacy WHFB stuff, but they should pretty much be cleared now.
That said, a new club near me plays it, so it's slowly gaining traction, and by all acounts it's a better game than the clusterfeth that they launched with.
Herzlos wrote: So that shows its doing somewhere in the same ball park than WHFB was until recently?
All we know is that it's sold less than 40K and more than Hordes, though the indy channels surveyed.
I'm always curious as to where things like Warhammer Quest are accounted, and things like the legacy WHFB stuff, but they should pretty much be cleared now.
That said, a new club near me plays it, so it's slowly gaining traction, and by all acounts it's a better game than the clusterfeth that they launched with.
Warhammer Quest is its own game and it would be, going by ICV2's metric, in the cathegory of boardgames.
That's one of the reasons I'd love to have a read of the stats behind the numbers - is it units sold, cash taken? What's the response rate to companies polled? How do they account for 'double dipping' stats (for instance, if Esdevium respond in full, do they then 'weed out' FLGS that stock that game via Esdevium).
It's possible you posted just after I posted my explanation though - but given my well known 'I like GW' stance - well, benefit of the doubt is a tad stretched....
Actually, that's exactly what happened.
Perhaps revise your sense of position to centre of the universe adjacent and stop casting aspersions. If I was responding to you, I would have quoted you, and addressed the things you were saying. This was unlikely as I already understand the limitations of ICV2 and don't disagree with what you've written, but the "ICV2's value is directly proportional to how well it supports my argument" issue hasn't been a thing for years, and Kragan's is merely the latest occurrence of that, which is what I was highlighting.
Also, Azreal, get Director Krennic back in there, it feels so frigging jarring seeing you with another avatar.
Actually this is more of a return to normal, historically my avatars have frequently been Wolverine derived, it's been so long I can't remember the details, but I chose one at random once, and another poster commented how, given my posting history, it seemed appropriate given his typical disposition and mine, so I've always looked at Wolvie avatars as "my thing" since!
Azreal13 wrote: I wasn't referring to any specific post, it's just a general trend that ICV2 always gets cited when it supports someone's argument and rubbished when it doesn't.
It been like that for years now.
*Shrug* I take it to mean that in spite of my expectations, AoS is doing okay. (It's anecdotal, it disagrees with what I perceive locally - but that does not mean that it is wrong.)
I will admit to being kind of amazed at how quickly things are turning back around for GW since Kirby handed over the reins - and this amazement is a good thing.
I thought that it would take years for the turn around to even get started.
I still have no interest in AoS, beyond maybe picking up the rerelease of IoB, but I am glad to see interest in the game from others, hopefully it will bring new blood into the Hobby (or even the H-H-Hobby).
It really can take very little to turn around a business, it depends on the circumstances of course, but if the fundamentals aren't being done correctly, small corrections can have a massive impact very quickly.
GW didn't even actually need to do things, just stopping some of their nonsense would have been enough to start turning things around.
Azreal13 wrote: It really can take very little to turn around a business, it depends on the circumstances of course, but if the fundamentals aren't being done correctly, small corrections can have a massive impact very quickly.
GW didn't even actually need to do things, just stopping some of their nonsense would have been enough to start turning things around.
Well...
Yes...
But Games Workshop's burned a LOT of bridges behind them over the years.
Azreal13 wrote: I wasn't referring to any specific post, it's just a general trend that ICV2 always gets cited when it supports someone's argument and rubbished when it doesn't.
It been like that for years now.
*Shrug* I take it to mean that in spite of my expectations, AoS is doing okay. (It's anecdotal, it disagrees with what I perceive locally - but that does not mean that it is wrong.)
I will admit to being kind of amazed at how quickly things are turning back around for GW since Kirby handed over the reins - and this amazement is a good thing.
I thought that it would take years for the turn around to even get started.
I still have no interest in AoS, beyond maybe picking up the rerelease of IoB, but I am glad to see interest in the game from others, hopefully it will bring new blood into the Hobby (or even the H-H-Hobby).
The Auld Grump
Honestly? The moment that anyone but Kirby took helm the turnaround would begin. It doesn't mean that they step aside from dickish moves fully, like the mess of releases CSM got or the increase in daemon of tzeentch prizes. But the moment where those dickish moves are splashed with good stuff (like SC! and Warhammer Quests) it does a hell of a job to soothe people's minds.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: As an example, I knew somebody who wouldn't buy PVA glue from an art store because it didn't have the GW logo on it.
Despite it being the same stuff, cheaper, and a bigger bottle, he opted for the GW product.
I nearly went blue in the face trying to explain to him that he paid more for the exact same thing
People also don't like their stupidity (inefficiency? irrationality some other less offensive word?) being pointed out. Yes, buying GW PVA is a really bad move when most people can grab a bottle of white glue from their grocery store or a local pharmacy or something and get way more for their money. Point that out to someone who already bought GW PVA glue and they're going to double down on their inefficient behavior as a form of ego protection.
Azreal13 wrote:It really can take very little to turn around a business, it depends on the circumstances of course, but if the fundamentals aren't being done correctly, small corrections can have a massive impact very quickly.
GW didn't even actually need to do things, just stopping some of their nonsense would have been enough to start turning things around.
I think this is a really good point. Kirby was actually accelerating the approach that pissed people off and drove customers away. Rountree at the very least took his foot off the gas and tuned on his indicators and started a course correction. Even just decelerating the stupid would have helped though.
Since the mid 2000s GW has not had great customer retention. They expect most people to quit after a couple years and most people to never play their game other than initial demos and maybe a bring and battle event. So it's okay if they burned bridges with people as they were already planning on replacing those people with new customers (their best source of money is a new customer as they can sell them lots of stuff to get started). What many people on forums like this fail to realize is that the people who buy thousands of points of multiple armies (and sometimes make lists of what they have in their signatures) are not the norm. The norm is someone who enjoys the demo game or the look of the models and buys a bunch and maybe paints some and maybe plays a few times before they quit.
The departure from Kirby's approach I applaud Rountree the most for: Not distributing more than they take in as profit in dividends. It's like a sane, sustainable pay out ratio has arrived. This leaves the company with money to invest in the future rather than looting it to make the stock look good in the short term and to give Kirby compensation out of line with his accomplishments. The current dividend is still high and a large portion of the profit, but it's not a draining of cash reserves (or worse, when they borrowed to prop up a dividend when LOTR was falling) that Kirby undertook. My guess is that the fall dividend will be even higher, but still represent about 75% of their earnings (which is still a very high ratio).
Automatically Appended Next Post: My opinion on the Kirby era was that if they could find the right combination of staff and store locations, they could make even Kirby's approach work with a reduced customer base but a higher margin on their product. They could find enough true believer customers that would buy no matter how expensive it was or how little effort was put into the rules side of things.
I think that's still true, but now they get to add in the benefits of stand alone games, reduced barrier of entry with start collecting boxes, an improvement of AoS rules support and a trilogy of very popular computer games adding in extra licensing revenue. Oh, and a depressed pound so all their foreign operations become even more profitable. Everything's coming up Milhouse.
I will admit to being kind of amazed at how quickly things are turning back around for GW since Kirby handed over the reins - and this amazement is a good thing.
GW still haven't made anything that I am particularly interested in for over a decade now though. Perhaps Adeptus Titanicus will change that?
Herzlos wrote: So that shows its doing somewhere in the same ball park than WHFB was until recently?
All we know is that it's sold less than 40K and more than Hordes, though the indy channels surveyed.
I'm always curious as to where things like Warhammer Quest are accounted, and things like the legacy WHFB stuff, but they should pretty much be cleared now.
That said, a new club near me plays it, so it's slowly gaining traction, and by all acounts it's a better game than the clusterfeth that they launched with.
Warhammer Quest is its own game and it would be, going by ICV2's metric, in the cathegory of boardgames.
I don't think that's the case. Pretty sure everything that's linked to the system (as Calth and Prospero for 40k) get fused with it. Might be wrong though.
Herzlos wrote: So that shows its doing somewhere in the same ball park than WHFB was until recently?
All we know is that it's sold less than 40K and more than Hordes, though the indy channels surveyed.
I'm always curious as to where things like Warhammer Quest are accounted, and things like the legacy WHFB stuff, but they should pretty much be cleared now.
That said, a new club near me plays it, so it's slowly gaining traction, and by all acounts it's a better game than the clusterfeth that they launched with.
Warhammer Quest is its own game and it would be, going by ICV2's metric, in the cathegory of boardgames.
I don't think that's the case. Pretty sure everything that's linked to the system (as Calth and Prospero for 40k) get fused with it. Might be wrong though.
*shrug* I haven't checked the previous periods so I don't know right now on this. You might as well be right. Still, ST is pretty much a non-factor on the fall period, most of the people had already bought it months ago. WHQSOH too since this one is just the fall period (as opposed to the Fall+holidays they've done a few years).
That's a good point. I thought that it was for the whole period since the last report. But if it's only for Fall, ST is probably rather negligible
Automatically Appended Next Post: I just downloaded the whole mag. It said that the GW recent growth is mostly based on 40k, and that AOS is selling better than the last years of WHFB (which is something we already knew). Nothing too interesting in it
Are there even enough GW stores in the USA (which I think ICV2 is based on?) for GW's own sales to be particularly relevant? Considering America's independent game store focus...
Global trade is about 40% of revenue. By the way has anyone pointed out that GW's stock price is the highest it has been possibly ever? I cannot see earlier than 2004.
Chikout wrote: Global trade is about 40% of revenue. By the way has anyone pointed out that GW's stock price is the highest it has been possibly ever. I cannot see earlier than 2004.
I remember hearing that 2004 was its peak/former peak, so you ain't missing anything.
Yep, took a big dive around about then, when the LotR movies had all been released.
I couldn't tell you what it was immediately prior though - but one suspects if you sniffed around Dakka with searches and that, you might be able to turn up very, very old threads with the info?
Seems to me with the resurgence of AOS on top of the highest stock price pretty much ever, that if GW knocks it out of the park with the new 40k rules that they would be poised to not only NOT die "any day now" like has been said since the plastic land raider debut in 2000 and GW was "price gouging the hell out of us with a $45 tank model", but that they could even reclaim the #1 position again.
auticus wrote: Seems to me with the resurgence of AOS on top of the highest stock price pretty much ever, that if GW knocks it out of the park with the new 40k rules that they would be poised to not only NOT die "any day now" like has been said since the plastic land raider debut in 2000 and GW was "price gouging the hell out of us with a $45 tank model", but that they could even reclaim the #1 position again.
I don't think GW ever was out of the #1 position.
They have been really bad in growth rankings sure, but what company really compares?
As covered, the ICV2 isn't massively reliable, because as GW don't partake there's at least £7,000,000 worth of sales not taken into account - or around 40% of their US sales.
And to add to that, I've no idea what percentage of companies polled actually respond, nor which products they stock. So we don't know if say, all of FFG's X-Wings sales or PP's Warmahordes sales are taken into account - we don't even know if the responses are substantive or not.
If anyone's got a full copy of the ICV2 thing and can shed any light, please do share with the class
In the miniature category GW has been the largest for a couple decades now and even with the wider hobby growing while GW stayed flat, them being the largest hasn't changed.
In terms of the wider hobby sales channels and everything that is sold there, they will likely never be the largest as that channel includes Magic the Gathering and Pokemon cards.
With the way that the market has changed and how smaller companies can enter the market so easily and can use the internet for potential customers, I highly doubt GW will represent the majority of miniature sales like they were during the late 90s and early 2000s. They're probably going to remain the largest single company for good while even if they never get back to their domination of available shelf space that drove how games were distributed in the 90s.
While I know this thread hasn't been active for the last three months I think that this is kind of worth activating the thread, plus the financials for the end of year are on the way so it could be useful to start discussion again if we desired to.
Following the close of its 2016/17 financial year Games Workshop provides the following trading highlights:
Games Workshop is pleased to announce that the sales and profit growth, which was discussed in the March 2017 trading update, has continued in the period to the end of May 2017.
We expect the Group’s sales for the year to 28 May 2017 to be approximately £158 million and the Group’s profit before tax to be above market expectations at not less than £38 million. Sales and profits have benefitted from the continuing favourable impact of the weaker pound.
We will provide the detailed information on the audited results for the 2016/17 financial year at the time of our full year results announcement on 25 July 2017.
Just checked and GW revenue for 2016 was ~ £118M. If they come in at £158 that is a jump of ~34%. I think we can all agree Roundtree has been almost exactly what GW needed on the corporate side and the player side.
With GW announcing it's annual report, ICv2 normally releases their hobby industry statics shortly after. Will be interesting to see how GW fared relative to the industry.
If they're up to 158M that'll be reasonably impressive, I think that's back up to LOTR boom levels?
I wonder if this revenue boom has come mainly from their main games or their side games.
Largely thanks to Blood Bowl GW got more money out of me this financial year than they have the past 5 years combined.
I'm still just sad they felt they had to kill WHFB to get these sorts of numbers, I'm sure this level of success was possible without them killing WHFB.
If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.
That assumes they never make mistakes.
They are humans, they make mistake.
They bin games that exceeded their own sale expectations by 400%...
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.
They had far from exhausted all other possibilities.
They'd done sweet feth all with WHFB for ages and made no attempt to fix the mistakes they'd made with 8th. The first thing they did with WHFB in ages was End Times, and it was really successful right up until people realised it was actually the end.
But anyway, that's all going off topic. I just wish they'd made put the effort in to getting revenue out of their existing system instead of killing it.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.
They had far from exhausted all other possibilities.
They'd done sweet feth all with WHFB for ages and made no attempt to fix the mistakes they'd made with 8th. The first thing they did with WHFB in ages was End Times, and it was really successful right up until people realised it was actually the end.
But anyway, that's all going off topic. I just wish they'd made put the effort in to getting revenue out of their existing system instead of killing it.
Not to keep this going, but it is relevant to the point of the new management. The whole WHFB/AoS debacle was under Kirby. Roundtree came in and at that point the damage had been done and the new management made the best of a bad situation. If Roundtree had come in a few years earlier, then yes, they might have tried other things to save WHFB. At this point, they have built up AoS into a strong product and killing it to bring back WHFB would be foolish. There might be a possibility of some sort of WHFB return, but at this point GW already has two Fantasy Battle games, LotR and AoS. The best we can hope for is the return of other Warhammer World games like Mordenheim. We got Bloodbowl.
I think the success of post-GHB Age of Sigmar means the Old World is not coming back in miniature form outside of Forgeworld (if that). From a product perspective, AoS is probably also superior to the Old World in that it's not chocked full of generic fantasy tropes they can't protect like 15th century German fashion, questing knights, wood elves, and so on.
The most remarkable thing about GW since Rountree took over is the product design focused on smaller model count games working well. Both Age of Sigmar and 8th edition work with lower model counts very, very well. Then you have SW:A and AoS:Skirmish. Which not being their own separate world with gangs like Necromunda means you can actually transition from these smaller model count games to the larger sized battles.
If you were to go through all the things people said about how to fix GW during their stagnant Kirby period, it's like they've all been done. Even prices, while not being universally reduced, have been addressed with Start Collecting bundles that actually save a lot of money over buying them separately. The new AoS bundles that launched with the release of Skirmish are also quite well priced.
Engagement with the community. No longer pretending the internet is a fad. Game design that supports smaller model count games. Stand alone boxed games increasing in number. Bundles that save money (more of these hopefully) and a revamp of 40k. Doing more to engage with trade sales.
While I'm sure the pound declining will account for much of their increase in revenue, I think this may be one of the first periods in GW's history since the LOTR boom that they'll see actual volume in units sold going up. Some combination of more people buying more product instead of a lower number of customers buying some lower number of boxes of product. Kirby talked for years about some possible return to growth if only the retail staff and trade sales personel would hit their targets, but it looks like with him taking a back seat, actual growth is back for GW.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.
They had far from exhausted all other possibilities.
They'd done sweet feth all with WHFB for ages and made no attempt to fix the mistakes they'd made with 8th. The first thing they did with WHFB in ages was End Times, and it was really successful right up until people realised it was actually the end.
But anyway, that's all going off topic. I just wish they'd made put the effort in to getting revenue out of their existing system instead of killing it.
Not to keep this going, but it is relevant to the point of the new management. The whole WHFB/AoS debacle was under Kirby. Roundtree came in and at that point the damage had been done and the new management made the best of a bad situation. If Roundtree had come in a few years earlier, then yes, they might have tried other things to save WHFB. At this point, they have built up AoS into a strong product and killing it to bring back WHFB would be foolish. There might be a possibility of some sort of WHFB return, but at this point GW already has two Fantasy Battle games, LotR and AoS. The best we can hope for is the return of other Warhammer World games like Mordenheim. We got Bloodbowl.
And we've got an RPG too incoming this year. From what I've heard, they may give us some very saucy bits.
With putative turnover of £158m and putative profits of £38m I have charted out the results over the last few years (see attached graph), and it if they are true, then Rountree has pulled a blinder this year. Once the discounting effect of inflation has been accounted for, these are the best profit figures ever (or at least since they became a public company), and turnover is the best since the heights of the LotR bubble days. All power to his elbow.
We can discuss the merits of various game systems and product ranges, but personally, having been a customer of GW's on and off since the early 1980's, and pretty much off for most of the last decade, what I notice is that simply they are listening to customers again and bringing out stuff that people have asked for - Specialist Games, points values for AoS, not trying to sue everyone who looks at them funny, that sort of thing!
Because that is the first year I have records for and it predates the public listing, so is as close to the "good old days" as I can get. Rebasing everything back to then by discounting with the UK RPI index shows how well (or otherwise) GW have done in real terms. It's a graph I have been keeping up ever since 2004 or so when people really started having a go at GW for becoming too corporate and losing their customer focus, and I thought it would be interesting to see what actually was happening over the long term - which Kirby used to claim was all he was about!
My particular interest was on the discounted (i.e. "1997 prices" turnover) figure as without access to GW's internal management figures this is the closest proxy I can find to the volume of sales (as opposed to the value of sales) over time - i.e. an indication of whether the GW H-H-Hobby is growing or shrinking by demonstrating whether people are really buying more stuff than they used to, or not.
If the proxy holds (and I have no reason to believe it doesn't in broad terms although clearly, the product mix has radically changed over time) then this year is the first in many - since the heady days of the LotR bubble, with the exception of a blip almost a decade ago - where we can truly see GW expanding their volume sales by any significant amount.
Without GW's internals we can argue what the components of that are, but my guess is that it is a combination of many things - new (old) products like BB, a pick up in AoS from a very low start, a nicer attitude from the company making engaging with them funner, and all of the above, not just one thing.
So looking at this, what caused such a massive dip in the 07/08 period? Can't have been LotR, as the movies finished back in 03 I believe. And what was the big spike in the 12/13 period?
The LotR bubble dragged on until 2007 or so. They were still doing reasonable sales of LotR (as opposed to the MASSIVE ones of 2003) in 2005 when they released the "One Rulebook" as a legacy of the BGiME magazine publicity primarily. 2007 was the year LotR sales really dried up for them and went away as they hiked prices and ran out of new movie-inspired designs to release. There were still a lot of people (including me) buying stuff up until that point. Incidentally, some of their financial success in 2017 is undoubtedly due to Hobbit sales via Forge World which seems to have been popular, relatively speaking. I also believe WFB started its long decline around that point. Not sure what 40k was up to, but it was mid-to-late 4th Ed at that point, if that's a clue.
2012/13 I am not so sure about. I was paying far less attention to what they were doing then, as I wasn't interested in WFB or 40k. If I was forced to guess I would say the release of 8th Ed WFB, which seemed to spike and then tank, but that is pure guesswork as I couldn't say for sure what year 8th Ed WFB came out exactly. it may have been something to do with 40k, or a bit of both. Anyone else care to speculate? There'll be a post in this forum from around July/August 2013, probably with this graph in it, with comments if anyone cares to dig it out.
The roll out of single employee stores saw each location thus transitioned have a sales drop of roughly 40%. The cost savings were larger than that though so they kept doing it, sacrificing volume for better margins. So the turnover dropped but the profit didn't drop nearly as far. When the company actually lost money in 2007-8, Mark Wells implemented a restructuring plan to cut costs as well as a shift away from volume towards selling some combination of fewer products to fewer people at higher prices. A picture can be worth a thousand words. Their UK Games Day:
They intentionally pursued a reduction in volume to cut costs and ended up with less customers as a result.
Since then, there's definitely been a shake up at GW. It's not just Kirby going into retirement. Alan Merrit is gone as the head of their IP and after spending what they did on suing Chapter Hourse and accomplishing nothing, their in house legal counsel is also gone. I can't think of a single web forum or online tool or 3rd party accessory maker that has gotten a cease & desist letter from GW legal since.
Instead we have the Age of Sigmar scrollbuilder site being integrated into GW's own warhammer community site. What a huge difference from sicking your lawyers on Talk Blood Bowl for daring to use "blood bowl" in their website name. I understood why they didn't fight back, but there's no way trade mark can be used to stop people discussing your product from having the name of the product in their name. It was insane to sick lawyers on your most dedicated fans.
I actually think the product has improved as well. First with Age of Sigmar over 7th and 8th edition fantasy and now with 8th edition 40k. It simply supports play at a range of model counts better than the previous versions and thus reduces barriers to recruiting new players.
They also seem to be very interested in keeping existing customers rather than going for a churn and burn strategy. It was almost like their social media and warhammer community approach for the launch of 8th edition was an attempt to get back lapsed customers rather than just assume they were lost.
This is a big change from ramping up starting costs as high as possible and hoping to get as much money out of each new customer before they quit. The real test will be when they release the first codex for 8th edition. Will it be an actual codex with all the rules you need or will it be split into multiple codexes so you need to buy more books in order to have all the rules for your army (Cult Mechanicus and Skitarii being an obvious example of that approach).
if Age of Sigmar is anything to go by, it won't be about front loading the costs as much as possible. They could have easily split Daemons of Tzeentch and Arcanites of Tzeentch into two separate books just like they did with the Mechanicus but they didn't.
The roll out of single employee stores saw each location thus transitioned have a sales drop of roughly 40%. The cost savings were larger than that though so they kept doing it, sacrificing volume for better margins. So the turnover dropped but the profit didn't drop nearly as far. When the company actually lost money in 2007-8, Mark Wells implemented a restructuring plan to cut costs as well as a shift away from volume towards selling some combination of fewer products to fewer people at higher prices. A picture can be worth a thousand words. Their UK Games Day:
They intentionally pursued a reduction in volume to cut costs and ended up with less customers as a result.
Since then, there's definitely been a shake up at GW. It's not just Kirby going into retirement. Alan Merrit is gone as the head of their IP and after spending what they did on suing Chapter Hourse and accomplishing nothing, their in house legal counsel is also gone. I can't think of a single web forum or online tool or 3rd party accessory maker that has gotten a cease & desist letter from GW legal since.
Instead we have the Age of Sigmar scrollbuilder site being integrated into GW's own warhammer community site. What a huge difference from sicking your lawyers on Talk Blood Bowl for daring to use "blood bowl" in their website name. I understood why they didn't fight back, but there's no way trade mark can be used to stop people discussing your product from having the name of the product in their name. It was insane to sick lawyers on your most dedicated fans.
I actually think the product has improved as well. First with Age of Sigmar over 7th and 8th edition fantasy and now with 8th edition 40k. It simply supports play at a range of model counts better than the previous versions and thus reduces barriers to recruiting new players.
They also seem to be very interested in keeping existing customers rather than going for a churn and burn strategy. It was almost like their social media and warhammer community approach for the launch of 8th edition was an attempt to get back lapsed customers rather than just assume they were lost.
This is a big change from ramping up starting costs as high as possible and hoping to get as much money out of each new customer before they quit. The real test will be when they release the first codex for 8th edition. Will it be an actual codex with all the rules you need or will it be split into multiple codexes so you need to buy more books in order to have all the rules for your army (Cult Mechanicus and Skitarii being an obvious example of that approach).
if Age of Sigmar is anything to go by, it won't be about front loading the costs as much as possible. They could have easily split Daemons of Tzeentch and Arcanites of Tzeentch into two separate books just like they did with the Mechanicus but they didn't.
One) Wow, that image hurts. Would have been nice if it was time-stamped, though
Two) The line "reduces barriers to recruiting new players" I can't decide whether I should laugh or cringe at, since GW themselves introduced those same barriers intentionally via "ramping up starting costs as high as possible and hoping to get as much money out of each new customer before they quit". I wish Roundtree had been put in charge earlier, maybe he could have saved OldHammer...
Mangod wrote: One) Wow, that image hurts. Would have been nice if it was time-stamped, though
It's not mine, just one people posted after the pictures of the 2013 Games Day came out and people noticed it was the same space but with way less people. I have no idea if the 2003 picture is legit, though I do remember the 2013 one.
Two) The line "reduces barriers to recruiting new players" I can't decide whether I should laugh or cringe at, since GW themselves introduced those same barriers intentionally via "ramping up starting costs as high as possible and hoping to get as much money out of each new customer before they quit". I wish Roundtree had been put in charge earlier, maybe he could have saved OldHammer...
Warhammer Fantasy worked for GW for decades, so while I'm sure there have been changes in what's popular, it's pretty likely it was canned because of how late 7th and pretty much all of 8th was GW failing to make a version of WHFB that worked as a product. The barrier to entry in 8th edition was insane. And you're right, it's all self created. They (correctly) noticed that a new person starting spent the most money in their initial investment and within a year after and attempted to maximize what that amount would be. When the "Start Collecting" boxes came out, I was quite surprised at the reversal they represented. It's more than just GW offering a bundle at a discount for the first time in years, but bundles aimed at new players. And with AoS:Skirmish, they released bundles at a discount again, this time with a different character miniature in them than the start collecting boxes.
Another thing that surprised me was Rountree's statement in his first financial report that they needed to find a way to have products at multiple price points available in stores. That they needed more than just super expensive things. Then the little Storm of Sigmar mini starter came out. And loads of small boxes of just a few miniatures that beginners could get. And now the Skirmish book.
Storm of Sigmar + Skirmish book + free rules & warscrolls = lowest cost to enter for warhammer fantasy I can think of.
People have already gotten an easy to assemble Primaris marine as part of their launch day events at GW stores. If they end up making a sprue of those and a sprue of death guard, they might be able to make a mini 40k starter and an adaptation of the Skirmish rules for 40k and have an equally low cost to enter for 40k. What, SEK310 for Storm of Sigmar and the Skirmish book?
Another thing that surprised me was Rountree's statement in his first financial report that they needed to find a way to have products at multiple price points available in stores. That they needed more than just super expensive things. Then the little Storm of Sigmar mini starter came out. And loads of small boxes of just a few miniatures that beginners could get. And now the Skirmish book.
Storm of Sigmar + Skirmish book + free rules & warscrolls = lowest cost to enter for warhammer fantasy I can think of.
Holy crap, only £20 for 13 Heroic sized minis plus ruleset and dice? Thats pretty damn fantastic by GW standards, and a great way to tempt new players. Personally I would find it much easier to tempt my friends into starting a wargame with starting price of just £20. I've never heard of this set, when was it released?
I hope they'll do the same for The Hobbit SBG.
Say...the plastic Gandalf from Escape from Goblin Town, and a sprue of Hunter Orcs? You could call it "Escape from Dol Guldur" or something. You know, the scene when he investigates Dol Guldur and gets chased by Orcs and Azog.
It was released July 2016. I hope it sold well as I'd like to see similar £20 starters leveraging their library of plastic kits. A 40k one for sure. Your Hobbit idea sounds cool as well, but I have no idea how much GW wants to concentrate on LOTR these days.
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frozenwastes wrote: I can't think of a single web forum or online tool or 3rd party accessory maker that has gotten a cease & desist letter from GW legal since.
I was contacted by GW Legal. They requested that I remove the website and I did. It is their right and I must comply.
I was infringing on their IP with:
GW artwork (featured in the background of your website) Photographs of GW’s painted miniatures (taken from the GW web store) Legion logos/ iconography Army points and stats for 40K units The Warhammer 40,000 logo Seeing all of these I feel lucky they didn’t actually sue me.
I didn’t actually remove the site but, as you can see, it is unusable – I am leaving it for now just for this news so you know what’s going on.
I cannot say I wasn’t expecting this. I really did use a lot of their data. But I have to say I just cannot use the new points without some kind of list builder. And using things like BattleScribe is total bs. Those lists are UGLY as hell.
I really hoped when GW contacted me it would be for some sort of collaboration. Not removal
frozenwastes wrote: It was released July 2016. I hope it sold well as I'd like to see similar £20 starters leveraging their library of plastic kits. A 40k one for sure. Your Hobbit idea sounds cool as well, but I have no idea how much GW wants to concentrate on LOTR these days.
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frozenwastes wrote: I can't think of a single web forum or online tool or 3rd party accessory maker that has gotten a cease & desist letter from GW legal since.
Except this is a case of GW doing what it's supposed to. Don't use official GW art and pictures without permission for your webpage, especially if you're trying to use a Patreon to fund it as well.
The note that they are still trying to protect game rules (points) is odd, though, as that is clearly not protectable. The pictures and art is a clear violation.
The guy who ran the sight outright admitted he crossed multiple lines, but it still is an example of something I said GW wasn't really doing anymore, so I figured posting the correction was warranted.
jmurph wrote: The note that they are still trying to protect game rules (points) is odd, though, as that is clearly not protectable. The pictures and art is a clear violation.
It's double odd once you consider that scrollbuilder, which does have ALL point costs for AoS (and it's up to date), is available for free in their very own website and is still running. The hammer went for the artwork.
Yeah, I think they added the rules offense because they had to rather than them actually caring about it.
Alot of this could've been avoided if the page owner just didn't use any official images but did like every other fan project and use only fan-made content.
Following on from the Group’s good performance in 2016/17, trading has continued strongly into 2017/18 such that sales and profits for 2017/18 to date are well above the same period in the prior year. Profits for 2017/18 are therefore likely to be above market expectations.
However, the Board remains aware that there is some uncertainty in the trading periods ahead for the rest of the 2017/18 financial year. A further update will be given as appropriate.
As a direct result of our significant sales and profit growth, we rewarded all of our staff with a £1,750 discretionary
payment in addition to a £250 profit share payment each (total cost £3.4 million). We also honoured our commitment to
pay 20% of any sales increase to our retail store managers (total cost £1.8 million) who achieved growth whilst
maintaining costs broadly in-line with last year — an impressive achievement, well done to you all!
Well done to the management in recognising the staff at the frontline, especially if this was truly a discretionary payment.
Gross margin improved in the year (2017: 72.4%; 2016: 68.3%), benefitting from sales volume growth and, as always, it is affected by the sales mix of new and existing product: (34% of sales from new releases and 66% of sales from existing product).
It's really refreshing to hear GW finally connect their margins with volume. Sales volume growth improves margin when you have a high up front cost and low marginal cost. Each plastic sprue they make is relatively expensive to design, tool and bring to production, but once you are making them, each sprue is incredibly cheap to produce.
For years GW was on the path of intentionally reducing volume and increasing price to get their margins up. So it's actually really cool that when their margins do finally go up, the guy running the company points at the connection with volume. I don't think Kirby ever would have done this.
We continue to offer a broad range of price points and we have maintained our policy of aiming to only increase the prices of our new releases to reflect the necessary investment in our product quality. The annual impact of this increase on our UK RRP price list is an average increase of 3%.
I actually like this approach much better than the years of "price adjustments" that happened after the decline of LOTR sales. So many people I played with (and eventually myself) just quit out of exasperation as prices went up 10%+ each June year after year after year.
It should also make any army or faction with existing models that you like a more attractive ongoing project. If you are going to start an army that already has kits you want to get, you won't need to worry about prices shooting up unless you get new stuff- which isn't that bad of a problem to have.
The other thing publishing the break down in sales of new vs existing products and the effective price increase of 3% allows us to do is to be certain that GW has actually increased the number of products sold. After years and years of declining sales volume where each price increase meant that some combination of less people and less bought per customer was occuring. Now we have a known price increase (3% effective based on 34% of sales being new releases) and an increase in revenue well beyond that rate, we know that some combination of more people are buying more product.
Black Library 2017: £2,296,000 2016: £1,776,000
For those of us who were hoping GW would decrease the time between the launch of their books and when they become available in normal bookseller distribution or were hoping to see their eBooks in our favourite market place rather than buying them direct from GW, I think we are going to be disappointed. GW is going to continue on this path of selling directly at high prices and only having books go to normal bookseller distribution long after they've had a chance to sell them direct.
Whatever we might think of how GW is handling their fiction publication, it's working for them.
So their retail operation is no longer costing them money to run but is now actually profitable. I hope they realize that this is a result of higher actual sales volume. That they need a certain critical mass of customers and units sold in order for their retail operation to be profitable and that it is not sustainable to have very fixed retail costs in the face of declining revenue and a shrinking customer base, even if each customer is paying a higher price.
One thing I've blasted GW for over the years was talking about a theoretical return to growth but never actually having a plan to get there. And at the same time intentionally pursuing margins through declining volumes sold at a higher price. That they were doing a controlled shrinking of their business to drive their margins up as high as possible.
We know from previous reports that Rountree saw some of the cuts to retail administration and support as going too far and has reversed those cuts, so I think it's safe to say that GW is no longer cutting costs as their means to maintain margins. That was Mark Wells' plan to deal with GW actually losing money and then when Kirby was both chainman and CEO he doubled down on it. "Cut costs and raise prices!" was Kirby's one move and it wasn't even his idea but taking Wells' approach to turning around a money losing business and continuing to apply it even if it was sub optimal.
I haven't heard from too many of the more recent ex-employees of GW, but it seems like Kirby's enthusiastic cost cutting may have inadvertently cleaned up their internal culture. All the middle managers who played office politics and looked down on their fellow co-workers who actually played GW's games in the North American production and distribution centre are gone. And so is the production-- it's been only a distribution centre for quite some time. It's been a long, long time since I have heard any inkling of contempt for their own customers that would occasionally pop up. Kirby is gone (now formally) and Merrit is gone and I'm beginning to think that GW might now actually see their customers as something other than "goobering" or "plebs."
Where to from here? Predicting the future is the worst, but I'm going to guess than 8th edition 40k is going to be the best selling and most profitable version of 40k ever made. Rountree has been consistent in his payout of dividends in relation to the actual earnings of the company, so I expect the first indicator we will see of how much money new 40k is going to bring in for them will be a large dividend.
I'm talking about around October. The proportional increase over last October's dividend of 25p will be a pretty clear indicator of just how well the launch of 8th edition 40k has gone.
Not too shabby. Actually chasing your customers and treating them respect and not, as one Merrit said, "Goobering plebs" actually nets you cash. Of course, having a quality product that people want at the right price is king, but it's good to know they actually care again!
Very good work, though it's always going to be a bumper year when you launch a new (well received) product. GW needs to make sure they have the kind of big headline releases every year to keep this kind of performance/momentum.
Elbows wrote: Very good work, though it's always going to be a bumper year when you launch a new (well received) product. GW needs to make sure they have the kind of big headline releases every year to keep this kind of performance/momentum.
What did they release this year? You do realize that 40k was intentionally held till after the 2016-2017. That means that 2016-2017 was a massive year increase in a year where people knew their flagship game was ending for 6 months of it. That's frigging amazing when you think about it. It helps that AoS turned into a full fledged game this year but in when you can have the first increase in volume in a decade (ish, not sure real time) in a transition year of your flagship game you're doing damn good work.
Also good on them for giving a little back to their frontline employees.
Bloodbowl and Shadow War releases certainly seem to have had a strong impact on generating sales. 8th has been going gangbusters so it'll likely drive those sales even further when they are figured into the next annual and yearly reports.
Yeah, a number of AoS released, Blood Bowl, Shadow Wars, a heap of FW stuff, the three books/kits from that trilogy etc. That's not "small potatoes" as they have in some years.
Add to that the semi-panic buying of people who wanted to stick with 7th (probably not many) and they had a decent amount of product. I don't recall if any of the boxed games came out this "year" though. Prospero, etc?
GW has had a few scant years, scraping by with IP payments from video games for the past few years. They needed a shot in the arm.
Panic buy to play 7th? They weren't destroying the setting, models weren't getting culled. I know exactly zero people who wanted to continue 7th or who purchased with the intent of using in 7th. Either way it's impressive to have that kind of boost in a year without an edition change and on the cusp of a 40k edition change.
@Coldgaming,
Pre-1.3 update that would've been a possibility but not now that 9th ticked it's oldhammer fanbase off so much and began becoming it's own thing.
Also, they have so many alternative hobby options and kickstarters listed that it's hard to believe they contributed much of anything to GW to whom they have a big grudge against.
Captain Joystick wrote: Does the report show any sign that GW is putting more stock in the idea that their games are a gateway into the hobby and not a superfluous extra?
Any mention of how threatening they consider 3rd party infraction of their IP, bootleg models, and 3D printing to their continued business model?
No. And no.
On the first point they have a section about their mission statement and it's all about miniatures, not rules.
On the 2nd, my guess is that during times of success you don't need to blame things for failure.
So time to update the title to ding dong the witch is dead? Still not happy he is pulling a paycheck as a consultant.
Looks like Roundtree likely got an ally appointed as director and they are starting the process of removing the remaining Pro-Kirby board members. If this is the case, I'm all for it because that means there will be little chance for Kirby to be brought back. No one will be left on the board who could advocate for his return.
Given how many shares Kirby owns, I'm guessing he's probably pretty happy to have his approach proven the inferior. The share price change since Rountree took over represents millions in Kirby's pockets. And now he's no longer on the board, he can sell and get that money without it looking like the guy running the business is selling out of it.
I won't deny I got a lot of fun from GW products over the years when I played their games, and a lot of my fellow dakka members still enjoy GW products and I respect that, but I do wonder where the profits are coming from, because a lot of their prices are still crazy IMO.
GW PVA glue is £5 for 120ml. I get 568ml for £2 from the budget art store.
GW plastic glue is £4 for 0.7 fl oz. I buy Revell poly cement, also the same amount, for £2.20 from the same art store.
GW superglue is £5.25. I get 10 tubes for £1 from poundland, and it's not bad. Just make sure the area is well ventilated before using it
And of course, Vallejo textured paint and brush on primer is cheaper and bigger than their GW counter-parts, and so on and so on....
And the mini prices are even worse. A box of Genestealer hybrids is £50 for 15 models
and a box of bolt action minis is £25 for 30 minis...
As always, each to their own, but these GW prices are crazy to my eyes.
I don't think GW's business model revolves around selling hobby material to anyone but new hobbyists and a few diehards, and presumably sells in fairly small volumes so needs high margins.
Not that they aren't a rip off.
All in though, well done GW - they really seem to be turning around in behaviour (sales up quite a lot) and attitude (the money going to front line staff).
Hopefully these are signs of real change and not just side effects of 8th Ed and some specialist games. I know my local gaming group is getting back into 40K pretty hard, though my wider area group seems to be a lot of people selling up (mostly due to kids rather than dislike of the game).
With regard to branded hobby equipment - it's there to make sure anyone can walk into a GW/Warhammer store, and walk out with not just an army, but a battlefield if they so wish, and tools fit for the job.
For someone not otherwise into building model kits, will they even know what Poly Cement is, let alone that Revel do a very nice line in it? Superglue? Far less necessary these days thankfully, but having an 'endorsed and up to the job' bottle isn't a bad idea.
All about the customer convenience, rather than some Machiavellian scheme to make millions of quid on something.
Consider a tool we all almost certainly take for granted - clippers. The GW ones are sharp enough to get the job done quickly and cleanly. More general purpose sidecutters for IT jobs? I personally don't find their cuts to be sharp enough - and I find them curiously unwieldy, as their tips tend to be blunted rather than pointy. YMMV of course, but this is after all just to demonstrate the purpose.
Aye, not everyone cares about getting the most out of their pound notes, there are plenty of people that prefer convenience over value for money and would rather get everything in a one stop shop rather than scour different outlets for different hobby equipment.
That is why I was getting confused. I do not see it as negatively as you do because revenue increased healthily for Trade and Retail (11% and 20%). That is good growth for a company that size. These areas have normally been relatively flat and only seen changes at the profit level. Trade is the big one because that means more independents are stocks and selling 
