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 Talys wrote:
why did Australia so dramatically outperform Europe, in terms of revenue per capita and year over year revenue?

Because revenue per capita is not a good measure of actual performance or price sensitivity or anything much that you've tried to use it for to be honest.

It's interesting to look at, but really it's silly to try and read much in to it without looking at the whole picture which is not what you're doing when you relate sales per capita to price sensitivity. There's just far too many variables in between to draw that conclusion.

1. What percentage of GW's Australian customers left GW?

I don't have numbers going back to the period which I'm talking about (10-15 years) as I can't find any financial reports going back that far.

BUT, lets look at 2011-2012 compared to 2014-2015. 2015 total revenue in Oz was £7.6M, in 2012 it was £11.3M. Now the exchange rate has changed over that time, accounting for the exchange rate £11.3 in 2012 was about £8.85M in 2015. If we then also adjust that for inflation, it's £9.46M.

That's a decrease of 19.5% I would have to check, but I tend to think GW's price rises in that period probably outstrip inflation, but even if we just estimate that it's similar to inflation, that means Australians are buying nearly 20% less than they were just a few years ago.

That's also in spite of GW opening more stores in that period (I can't find data for 2012 number of stores, but they seem to be increasing stores by 3 a year last year and also the year before so I'm going to guess there wasn't a decrease in 2012 -> 2013).

So when you look at the 2015 report and see Oz revenue is flat, you have to take in to account it's flat after having falling quite significantly in previous years.

I believe that more likely, it's confirmation bias: I think it's too expensive, I see him think it's too expensive, so EVERYBODY who is rational must think it's too expensive.

And I think you are suffering from confirmation bias by wanting to read price sensitivity from revenue per capita

Even looking at the anecdotal evidence (like I said 40k is a shadow of itself). Having a decent revenue per capita doesn't invalidate that in the slightest, it just means it's fallen from a higher height and/or GW has spread in to other regions of Australia while dying in the one I'm in.

Again I mention the statistic of it being likely that GW customers number in the region of 1 in 2500 people... that makes looking at any sort of statistics like you are trying to do almost meaningless because market penetration is going to be one of the key variables and price sensitivity is only a small part of that.

I think the primary factor in GW's decent revenue per capita in Australia is that when GW started expanding out of the UK, they followed the same model as they used in the UK. They opened their own stores in shopping centres and on the high street. That strategy worked in Australia and didn't work in the USA (for lots of reasons that I could guess at).

Even GW realises that, they are closing more stores than they open in North America, but continue to open more stores than they close in Australia.

@Skink -- But let's not look at all the previous years. Let's look at the one year in isolation. Just 2014-2015.

Do you think, in this one year, there was a large outflow of customers that left GW, in this period?

I certainly do not deny that GW's revenue has decreased since its peak. I think LoTR is a big factor here, but let's not get into that; at the end of the day, the two questions worth answering are:

(a) whether GW is stabilizing, continuing a slow decline, or continuing in an accelerated decline; and

(b) why did Australians outperform Europeans in 2014-2015, when they clearly have the highest prices in this same period?

The first question is pertinent for all sorts of obvious reasons. If GW has indeed shed itself of the customers it doesn't really want, and has stabilized its revenues based on a core that it is its ideal customer base, and is making them happy -- that's good for GW, and bad for a whole bunch of ex-fans (because in this scenario, GW would unlikely change the things that disappoint the ones that left).

The second question is relevant for all sorts of reasons too. Is Australia the test market for GW pricing? If GW increased its prices in other regions to Australian levels, would their revenues actually go up? Or is it that Australians are richer, ore that there are more diehard Australian 40k'ers? Or is this just a one-year fluke?

By the way, I think revenue per capita IS important. If you have region with a small population buy a lot of product, the question becomes, what makes that product so popular in that region? It's even more startling (and counterintuitive) when you consider that the prices are HIGHER in that region, by a really substantial amount. Population of Australia is 23m + 4m or so for NZ, for a total of 27m. Population of US is 320m, Canada is 35m for 355m -- let's exclude Mexico's 122m for argument's sake. That's a factor of 13! Yet sales is 7.6m vs 27.5m, or a factor of 4. That discrepancy is massive. If the ratio held, the Australian sales (retail and trade combined) should be closer to 2.1m GBP.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I thought GW had stopped reporting sales by geographic region and changed to doing it by channel, e.g. retail, web.

No, it's Retail, then retail regions breakdown; Trade, then retail regions breakdown. But web is not broken down by region.

Specifically, I'm talking about this:



Looking at this one year in isolation, I'm looking for a better answer than crazy superfans went nuts and made up for the half of GW customers that quit. Yes, there were more releases. But not TWICE as many releases, and anyways, it's not like even superfans buy every release of every GW property.

Plus, Australia did a lot better than Europe, and North America (relatively).

 Talys wrote:
@Skink -- But let's not look at all the previous years. Let's look at the one year in isolation. Just 2014-2015.

That's not how analysing trends works.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Talys wrote:
@Skink -- But let's not look at all the previous years. Let's look at the one year in isolation. Just 2014-2015.

That's not how analysing trends works.

Yes, but I'm not trying to analyze a trend. Plus, we don't have region-by-region breakdowns for each year (GW didn't always provide it).

I'm trying to determine what happened in 1 year, and why in this one year, Australia/NZ outperformed Europe. Is it just a fluke? I'm willing to accept that as a possible answer.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Even GW realises that, they are closing more stores than they open in North America...

Yep. Of the nine stores that were once open in my state, there are now only four remaining, and only two of those are within an hour's drive of where I'm at. Thank goodness I've got no more reasons to go there.

That being said, one would wonder why GW is even investing in Brick & Mortar stores in NA; it's not like they provide much of anything in the way of events, products, or service. Hell, the only one with decent gaming space in my area was the damn battle bunker - which is one of the ones that got closed down.

Well, looking at the 2011-2012, and 2013-2014 data, which also contains region-by-region breakouts, it looks like in YE2013, Australia ALSO overperformed versus Europe, and in YE2012, Australian sales followed similar ratios to declines in Europe and North America. (not to ignore our New Zealander friends, I'm just not typing the region out fully each time)

So my question holds: Why don't the higher prices have a more significant impact on the loss of customers in Australia?

Come on, that's not so unreasonable a question.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xca|iber wrote:
one would wonder why GW is even investing in Brick & Mortar stores in NA; it's not like they provide much of anything in the way of events, products, or service. Hell, the only one with decent gaming space in my area was the damn battle bunker - which is one of the ones that got closed down.

I have personally wondered the same thing, before. However, GW in my area is clever. They moved their store away from an area where there was good service, to an underserviced area that has high population, and therefore (probably) does alright.

I, personally, can't imagine why I'd what to pay 15%-30% more for exactly the same thing, either. But hey, I game with a guy who buys all his 40k stuff from GW's website.

If I might put forwards a theory about Australia outperforming Europe I'd say it is because GW currently seems to be moving as much of their sales direct as possible. This means they get a 100% profit instead of the 60 or so from a trade sale.

I think in Australia this is working, their falling sales are generally being covered by increased profit per sale.

People one might call 'GW hobbyists' retreat to the official GW stores as poor trade terms and inconsistent releases (in terms of quality). This means greater profit. Then the group we could call 'general hobbyists' for lack of a better term continue to play at their FLGS and simply stop buying GW.

Despite profit or revenue values I would theorize that the actual sales volumes are plummeting in Oz. This is of course based on mostly anecdotal and what I've seen with the reports, but it seems like while GW is successfully herding the superfans to their stores, outside of direct sales channels their sales are depressingly bad.

 Talys wrote:
@Skink -- But let's not look at all the previous years. Let's look at the one year in isolation. Just 2014-2015.

Do you think, in this one year, there was a large outflow of customers that left GW, in this period?

Who cares about just one year? I don't think anyone has said that there's been a huge outflow of customers specifically in the last 12 months (there *might* be in the next 12 months because of AoS, that remains to be seen).

2014-2015 is a singular flat year in a trend of a declining customer base. You can't go saying Australians are more price insensitive based on 1 flat year when GW has been continually raising prices and losing customers for the past 15 years.

I certainly do not deny that GW's revenue has decreased since its peak. I think LoTR is a big factor here, but let's not get into that; at the end of the day, the two questions worth answering are:

When talking specifically about Australia we're talking about larger declines than the rest of the world and the period I'm talking about (2012-2015) is quite recent and hard to blame on LotR.

(b) why did Australians outperform Europeans in 2014-2015, when they clearly have the highest prices in this same period?

You're still stretching to say Australia outperforms Europeans. Because...

a) Revenue per capita is not a measure of performance.

b) Looking at only 1 year's worth of data is meaningless.

c) What exactly is "Europe"? Australia is one country (2 if NZ is included, I'm not sure if it is), we have half a dozen major cities that hold most our population (in fact, 40% of the population of Australia is contained in just TWO cities, Melbourne and Sydney and their greater metropolitan areas). If you're comparing to "Europe" you're comparing to a bunch of countries with population spread over dozens of different cities and a wide range of cultural and economic differences. I'm not sure what GW classifies is "Europe", but I'm guessing it includes the likes of Poland with their extremely low wage or the likes of Greece with their 25% unemployment rate.

Personally, I think Australia's densely packed suburbs are a very large contributor to GW's success (per capita) in Australia because it suits the way they set up their stores.

The second question is relevant for all sorts of reasons too. Is Australia the test market for GW pricing? If GW increased its prices in other regions to Australian levels, would their revenues actually go up? Or is it that Australians are richer, ore that there are more diehard Australian 40k'ers? Or is this just a one-year fluke?

And again you're extremely tunnel visioned if you're seeking an answer to that question while only looking at a single year's data.

Don't pretend that GW just raised prices this year in Australia and miraculously revenue didn't go through the floor. GW have been raising prices for years and the market has slowly been falling away.

If you have region with a small population buy a lot of product, the question becomes, what makes that product so popular in that region? It's even more startling (and counterintuitive) when you consider that the prices are HIGHER in that region, by a really substantial amount. Population of Australia is 23m + 4m or so for NZ, for a total of 27m. Population of US is 320m, Canada is 35m for 355m -- let's exclude Mexico's 122m for argument's sake. That's a factor of 13! Yet sales is 7.6m vs 27.5m, or a factor of 4. That discrepancy is massive. If the ratio held, the Australian sales (retail and trade combined) should be closer to 2.1m GBP.

It's an important question but you're only looking at the absolute most surface level of it. You can't just look at prices and revenue per capita for a single year and ignore all the other stuff to think people are price insensitive. That's just crazy

Australia isn't the BEST performing region by capita, the UK is. Australia is 2nd and the USA is miles off. GW has achieved better market penetration in Australia (though not as good as the UK) I think largely because their strategy of opening dedicated stores worked better in Australia than it did in the USA. And you have to remember, we're talking about a long time period, not just 2014-2015. Personally I think this comes down to geography and potentially cultural differences. Australia has its population in densely packed surburbs (get outside the few major cities and you'll find very few GW stores, if any, which is sufficient because the population also tends to disappear) compared to the USA which likes to spread itself more thinly (my observation having driven across large portions of both countries). From what I've been told, the USA also had a stronger "play wargames at home" culture before GW even showed up on the scene, which I don't really think was the case in the Australia before GW showed up. You also have the fact that given the smaller population, you can reach a larger amount of it for less money. GW can't just go opening 5 stores in every in every major North American city, they don't have the finances to do it, they have to slowly build it up. They can, however, do that in Australia.

We have 40 stores and if I recall correctly about 30 of those are only in the capital cities, mostly in Melbourne and Sydney, by doing that GW is reaching a larger portion of the total population AND maintaining more customers per store than is possible in North America.

When it comes to revenue per capita, market penetration >> price insensitivity and while price sensitivity is certainly a factor in market penetration, it's not the only one and I would say not even the biggest one (unless your prices are just batgak insane like $1000 per model ).

So rather than trying to draw links between price insensitivity and revenue per capita, you should be looking at...

a) Why does GW have greater market penetration in Australia (which is an interesting question to which the answer is a complex analysis of geography, culture and financial strength of a region)?

b) If you are genuinely interested JUST in price insensitivity, you can't just go around looking at 1 year's worth of data comparing vastly different regions You have to look at the trend over several years within individual regions, not across them.

As someone who does research for their job, if someone told me they came to a conclusion based on 1 data point when there's at least half a dozen variables between the measured quantity and the conclusion, I would laugh at them

Looking at this one year in isolation, I'm looking for a better answer than crazy superfans went nuts and made up for the half of GW customers that quit.

I don't think anyone is stupid enough to suggest half of GW customers in Australia left in just 1 year, if they did can you please point me to them so I can whack them over the head with my hat, cheers.

 Talys wrote:

Yes, but I'm not trying to analyze a trend. Plus, we don't have region-by-region breakdowns for each year (GW didn't always provide it).

Any speculation as to why that is?

Why would a company, which will have fairly detailed trading reports for each store/country/region, keep changing their reporting regions, and now get rid of them entirely by moving to channels?

Do you think it makes it easier for them to report, do is it more likely it's an effort to hide poor numbers?

 -Loki- wrote:

 Talys wrote:
@Skink -- But let's not look at all the previous years. Let's look at the one year in isolation. Just 2014-2015.

That's not how analysing trends works.

But is the best way to move goalposts.

@Herzlos & Skink - Prior to the current financial statements, mail order was not attributed to the sales region. In 2014-2015, mail order was separated out. The regions also moved around a bit; for example, in some years, UK & Continental Europe are stated together, in other years, it's separated (though this is easy to fix; just add them together where separate).

This makes regional comparisons very hard to do between statements. For example, Europe including Mail Order in 2014 was 64.3m. Europe without Mail Order, as stated in the current statement, is only 50.5m. Since we don't have the mail order breakdown, we can't directly compare Europe 2013 to 2015; though we can compare 2013 to 2014; and 2014 to 2015.

Does that make sense as to why direct meaningful analysis between multiple periods requires assumptions that may not prove accurate? For instance, we could attribute web orders proportionately to the regions, but in fact, web orders could be much more popular in North America, and much LESS popular in Europe, because in Europe, independents are allowed to sell via web stores and with a discount (within the region).

I'm not trying to be difficult; it's just we can only do what we can do with the data we have.

It seems that there are some years (such as 2013-2014) where Australia underperforms Europe; but in other years, such as 2012-2013, where Austria basically follows Europe.

I chose to use Europe as a comparable, as the fundamentals in Australia, I believe, are more similar to Europe than North America. For example, costs of fuel, housing, living, and luxury items are all generally and significantly cheaper in the United States than either Australia or the UK/Continental Europe. Just compare the price of an XB1 in the UK vs US.

And while you are right, Skink, that Europe is not just one country, the Eurozone does share a common currency have free borders, and trade freely in many instance. Conversely, you could say Mississippi is nothing like Washington State.

At the end of the day, it is simply to satisfy a curiosity:

I see that the prices are really high in Australia. So much so, that I, being a pretty big GW fan, would take pause before making purchases. Not that I'd necessarily buy *nothing*, but I might certainly buy significantly less at Australian prices.

Yet, it seems that in the last report, Australia did a little better than other regions. I'm not claiming it to be a trend and it doesn't really matter in the long term, but it IS curious and begs the question of whether GW has hit a sweet spot (so far as the Company's profits are concerned) in the price elasticity in Australia.

@HBMC - I'm not moving goalposts.

My goalposts were always the same:

1. to point out to you, specifically, that Australians as a whole didn't react to GW's higher prices in their own region in any manner of outrage by boycotting GW product en masse during the period. So it would be hardly surprising that I, being a Canadian, wouldn't be outraged at GW Australian prices or boycott GW either. That's not to say that I don't comprehend that SOME Australians find the prices totally unreasonable and have quit; nor that if I were in Australia, I might find the prices too high for my liking too (maybe: I'm not sure).

2. And more generally, that revenues in Australia having stabilized in the last year *might* herald GW reaching a "good place" as far as it's concerned, for pricing. In other words, its at the right price to retain most of its remaining core customers, and possibly to attract new customers in that demographic. Of course, 1 year is not a trend; we'll see this play out in the next few years. But it's still interesting to talk about, no?

 Talys wrote:
2. And more generally, that revenues in Australia having stabilized in the last year *might* herald GW reaching a "good place" as far as it's concerned, for pricing. In other words, its at the right price to retain most of its remaining core customers, and possibly to attract new customers in that demographic. Of course, 1 year is not a trend; we'll see this play out in the next few years. But it's still interesting to talk about, no?

No matter how you argue it, no growth in a period of cost cutting and increasing RRP is not stabalising. It's negative growth. The cut costs and increased prices kept the revenue flat, which meant less was sold.

This has been the argument against you for a long time. You can't fall flat revenue when GW is doing their fething hardest to cut costs, increase prices and move discounted trade sales to full price direct purchases stable, because it's simply not. When you're operating costs have fallen, and sales remain at least stable, revenue should increase. As it should when you increase prices. When you do both, and revenue is flat, all you're showing is that you're counteracting less sales and keeping revenue the same. It's simply not possible for sales volume to increase or even stay stable and revenue to be flat in that situation.

As you say, we can only do what we can with the data we're given. But if you cherry pick data that supports you and misread (intentionally or not) that data, then you're not going to come to the correct conclusion.

 Talys wrote:
@Herzlos & Skink - Prior to the current financial statements, mail order was not attributed to the sales region. In 2014-2015, mail order was separated out.

I hadn't noticed that, but it doesn't change the numbers all that much because we can still see the falling revenue from 2012-2014 while mail order was still included in the stats, the 19% drop I spoke of occurred in the time when they were still reporting the numbers the same way. So no matter which way you slice it, revenue has fallen significantly in Australia since 2012 off the back of rising prices which means far less product leaving the shelves.

And this is only in the last 3 to 4 years.... personally I think the damage was done in Australia before then.

Actually, the way they are reporting numbers now we're going to be getting less meaningful information about future regional data because they've removed much of the data necessary for proper evaluation.

 Talys wrote:
1. to point out to you, specifically, that Australians as a whole didn't react to GW's higher prices in their own region in any manner of outrage by boycotting GW product en masse during the period OF ONLY ONE YEAR . So it would be hardly surprising that I, being a Canadian, wouldn't be outraged at GW Australian prices or boycott GW either. That's not to say that I don't comprehend that SOME Australians find the prices totally unreasonable and have quit; nor that if I were in Australia, I might find the prices too high for my liking too (maybe: I'm not sure).

I fixed that for you. You say you're not trying to be difficult but at the same time you are ignoring some key data in coming to the conclusion that "Australians [haven't ] react[ed] to higher prices".

If those are your goalposts then you might as well just remove them from the field because you're ignoring too much information to come to your conclusion.

 Talys wrote:
Yet, it seems that in the last report, Australia did a little better than other regions. I'm not claiming it to be a trend and it doesn't really matter in the long term, but it IS curious and begs the question of whether GW has hit a sweet spot (so far as the Company's profits are concerned) in the price elasticity in Australia.

...

2. And more generally, that revenues in Australia having stabilized in the last year *might* herald GW reaching a "good place" as far as it's concerned, for pricing. In other words, its at the right price to retain most of its remaining core customers, and possibly to attract new customers in that demographic. Of course, 1 year is not a trend; we'll see this play out in the next few years. But it's still interesting to talk about, no?

But how can you possibly say that after knowing that in previous years the revenue was falling?

If it flattened out after rising, then yes, you could say they might have hit a sweet spot. But it was falling, not rising. The damage was already done in previous years. So more likely they've hit a point where their remaining customers are the ones who are indeed quite price elastic.

Just because Australia has higher revenue per capita than other regions (not including the UK) doesn't mean it's a sweet spot, for all we know the sweet spot for Australia might be twice the revenue they currently have (and it might not, we can only guess, but certainly coming off the back off falling revenue is not an encouraging sign that they might have hit a sweep spot).

Obviously the true "sweet spot" will have to take into account the amount of money required to sell X amount of product, but that's something we have no information about because GW doesn't publish those figures consistently by region from one year to the next AND we would somehow have to account for aggressive cost cutting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Talys wrote:
2. And more generally, that revenues in Australia having stabilized in the last year *might* herald GW reaching a "good place" as far as it's concerned, for pricing. In other words, its at the right price to retain most of its remaining core customers, and possibly to attract new customers in that demographic. Of course, 1 year is not a trend; we'll see this play out in the next few years. But it's still interesting to talk about, no?

No matter how you argue it, no growth in a period of cost cutting and increasing RRP is not stabalising. It's negative growth. The cut costs and increased prices kept the revenue flat, which meant less was sold.

This has been the argument against you for a long time. You can't fall flat revenue when GW is doing their fething hardest to cut costs, increase prices and move discounted trade sales to full price direct purchases stable, because it's simply not. When you're operating costs have fallen, and sales remain at least stable, revenue should increase. As it should when you increase prices. When you do both, and revenue is flat, all you're showing is that you're counteracting less sales and keeping revenue the same. It's simply not possible for sales volume to increase or even stay stable and revenue to be flat in that situation.

As you say, we can only do what we can with the data we're given. But if you cherry pick data that supports you and misread (intentionally or not) that data, then you're not going to come to the correct conclusion.

I think you're mistaking revenue for profit. Revenue is the one before you subtract costs, so it's only a measure of product shifted, if sales and prices remain stable then revenue should also be stable regardless of what's happening to costs.


EDIT: Sorry, lots of small edits, I'm doing other work while typing this and keep thinking of different things

 Kilkrazy wrote:
To be frank, my impression of Visions and WD was that one major purpose was to economise on expensive hand drawn artwork by using cheap digital photography of models that had to be painted for box art in any case and might as well be quickly arranged into a different layout, snapped from several angles and Photoshopped.

Obviously this approach has the added benefit of showing off this month's new purchasing opportunities.

Call me a sad old cynic if you will.

Agree, WD lost a lot of its magic when they stopped the beautiful art covers. Old covers were fantastic, flick through your old copies and see what I mean! It probably did loose money but it's the thing I miss the most, so I will continue to mourn my beloved WD of old. (With its lovely drawn covers!)

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Talys wrote:
@Skink -- But let's not look at all the previous years. Let's look at the one year in isolation. Just 2014-2015.

That's not how analysing trends works.

But is the best way to move goalposts.

Remember you've got to use Bizarro-world logic here, where up is left, down is right, burgers eat people and nothing is what it seems.

 Talys wrote:
I see that the prices are really high in Australia. So much so, that I, being a pretty big GW fan, would take pause before making purchases. Not that I'd necessarily buy *nothing*, but I might certainly buy significantly less at Australian prices.

I see that Talys has finally admitted there is a ceiling - even for Superfans. If Australian super-prices are approaching the limit for a superfan, one might think the normal prices are pretty much strangling the gak out of normal fans. But GW is still making profit. Nothing to see here.

Play nice kids, I'm trying to take a nap.

At this time we have a snapshot of GW's financial position - which is better than last year, if only because last year was terrible for them.

Next year... I am pretty sure we will see a bump from AoS - but that it will only be a bump.

I do not see AoS taking over the lead from WH40K, nor do I see it lasting more than a couple of years as a meaningful bump to GW sales.

AoS's success is being measured from 8th edition WHFB - which was part of the big decline that affected GW last year. (*More on that below.)

AoS has a nice shine of newness to it for the moment - but if nothing else, it should shore up GW for another year.

The Auld Grump

* WHFB 8 just did not grab the target audience - in my local area it led to a mass exodus to Kings of War (and even to the ancient Battle System by TSR).

Part of that departure was pricing - the hardcover army books were a terrible idea. The price of the core rulebook was also pretty damned steep.

The starter box... was a good value - I have painted four boxes of the danged thing for commissions, though only one of the Skaven armies in the box. (The High Elves are much, much better than I had expected them to be, and deserve calling out as such.)

But those excellent High Elves are being used for a Kings of War army.

I think that GW would have been better served, in the long run, by examining the reasons that WHFB 8 failed, rather than trying to reinvent the game.

But there is nothing to stop GW (or Forge World) from releasing a Heritage Edition of Warhammer - I actually hope that it goes over to Forge World - they seem to have their heads about them.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:


I think that GW would have been better served, in the long run, by examining the reasons that WHFB 8 failed, rather than trying to reinvent the game.

And we have a winner. This is what more rational companies that cared about their games and customers would have done.
Fantasy was fine (sales wise) before 8. So, what changed? Assuming there wasn't a drastic change in the player base themselves, it must be the change from 7th to 8th. What changed in the game that drove players away? Why not fix that/those problem(s)?

For a company that claims to care about the narrative, they sure tossed out years of lore at the drop of a hat.

It's our fault for not enjoying all the thoughtful changes more. I mean, they go to all that trouble deciding what we're going to like, and we just turn around and go off and play other things!

@TheAuldGrump - My intuition tells me that you're right: AoS will give GW a bump that will taper off, because it doesn't seem like it's a game "with legs"; in other words, something that, while cool, shiny, new, and fun, does not have the ability to suck a player in to a lifelong addiction of miniatures, dice, and paint.

But I've been wrong plenty of times before, so who knows. Beyond GW's success, I'm much more interested to see if a game like AoS, which whether we like it or not, is radically different from other games on the market and is not written to appeal to the current majority of wargamers, can actually succeed. Or, if GW must in a year or two course-correct for its Fantasy line again.


@Skink - Look, I don't disagree with much of what you're saying. Yes, there's a big revenue drop from GW's peak. But whatever the reason for that isn't what perks my interest at the moment. What has gotten me curious through this line of discussion is a simple question of why Australian sales don't decline more, specifically relative to other markets. Intuitively, one would believe that with higher prices in Australia (and I'm not talking a small percentage), there would be a BIGGER drop in revenue during each year, as compared to other regions.

In 2014-2015, doing the arithmetic, Australia/NZ experienced a 1.2% increase in revenue in Trade and Retail. That's in contrast to Europe, which suffered a -7.8% downtick, and North America, which went up by 3.9%. These don't include mail-order, but again, intuitively, Europe's mail order should be less, because other companies compete with GW at webstores in Europe. It's just counter-intuitive to me, and figuring out the reason why is interesting. Is it because Australians are somewhat desensitized to higher prices on goods anyhow, so they *expect* higher prices? Is it that there are more superfans in Australia? Is it just that there are more wargamers in Australia? Curious minds want to know (at least this one does) .

 keezus wrote:

 Talys wrote:
I see that the prices are really high in Australia. So much so, that I, being a pretty big GW fan, would take pause before making purchases. Not that I'd necessarily buy *nothing*, but I might certainly buy significantly less at Australian prices.

I see that Talys has finally admitted there is a ceiling - even for Superfans. If Australian super-prices are approaching the limit for a superfan, one might think the normal prices are pretty much strangling the gak out of normal fans. But GW is still making profit. Nothing to see here.

This is how this thread of conversation started -- I said that I'd re-evaluate my GW purchases at the current AUD prices, and I'd no doubt feel differently about pricing.

To which a few people pounced and said basically that I don't care about the plight of Australians, or whatever -- implying that I shouldn't support a company like GW, which has significantly higher prices. My position is just that (a) if I took that attitude and applied it to every vendor, I'd end up with an empty house and (b) there seem to be a disproportionate number of Australians who aren't mad enough at GW to quit 40k (and I guess other GW properties pre-AoS).

 Talys wrote:

In 2014-2015, doing the arithmetic, Australia/NZ experienced a 1.2% increase in revenue in Trade and Retail. That's in contrast to Europe, which suffered a -7.8% downtick, and North America, which went up by 3.9%.

2014-2015 is the year GW got permission to change the trade terms? So I'd imagine that some of that boost in profit is the closing of retailer accounts in Aus and the resulting customers being forced to go direct to GW for more profit.

Bear in mind that even they admit prices went up by an average of 3% in the same time period, so even ignoring inflation they are still down.

So it certainly sounds like sales in Australia are still down but they've managed to claw some of it back by cutting out some of the middlemen. Will they be able to do the same next year? I can't imagine how.

 Talys wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Talys wrote:
@Skink -- But let's not look at all the previous years. Let's look at the one year in isolation. Just 2014-2015.

That's not how analysing trends works.

Yes, but I'm not trying to analyze a trend. Plus, we don't have region-by-region breakdowns for each year (GW didn't always provide it).

I'm trying to determine what happened in 1 year, and why in this one year, Australia/NZ outperformed Europe. Is it just a fluke? I'm willing to accept that as a possible answer.

I think it's irrelevant. The uptick in ANZ sales was minute, only a bit over 1%. The AUD strengthened by about 4% versus the GBP during the year. That would tend to indicate that actually unit sales fell.

 Talys wrote:
@TheAuldGrump - My intuition tells me that you're right: AoS will give GW a bump that will taper off, because it doesn't seem like it's a game "with legs"; in other words, something that, while cool, shiny, new, and fun, does not have the ability to suck a player in to a lifelong addiction of miniatures, dice, and paint.

But I've been wrong plenty of times before, so who knows. Beyond GW's success, I'm much more interested to see if a game like AoS, which whether we like it or not, is radically different from other games on the market and is not written to appeal to the current majority of wargamers, can actually succeed. Or, if GW must in a year or two course-correct for its Fantasy line again.

The biggest problem is that the two games did not even overlap all that much, concept wise.

Had they kept the old scale for the miniatures then GW could have introduced AoS as a game that could be played those same figures, but with a much smaller force than WHFB - used AoS as an entry drug for their larger battle game.

AoS... just feels like something rushed out the door to make up for lost revenue.

A smaller problem is that it leaves another market open for their competition - Kings of War, HotT, and other large scale wargames are already out (and KoW is making hay while the sun shines - coming out with Not-Beastmen, Not-Empire, Not-Tomb Kings, and Not-Skaven) and I am certain that somebody else will make moves to occupy the territory as well.

At this rate, GW will be left with only 40K....

The Auld Grump

There's also the possibility that people will buy AoS models for games like KoW, especially with the new reduced prices for models and if that trend continues. I think that at $3 - $5/model, Citadel plastic miniatures become awfully attractive for large scale fantasy.

For high fantasy, the terrain pieces are also nice; and the large kits (like dragons) are much better than competitors' kits at similar price points, if you're looking for a "premium" model (as opposed to a Reaper Bones dragon, for instance).

On the other hand, I think some stores are cautiously optimistic about AoS. Maybe it'll flop, maybe it will retain a core that's at least as big as the WHFB core that's into the AoS storyline enough that they'll buy a bunch of expensive books. The couple of stores I go to all the time says that the best sellers for them are actually the books -- they've sold a lot of the $75 264-pager, with a long list of preorders for the next 240-pager. The shop I get most of my stuff from says they actually sold more of the 264 pager than Eldar codexes to date (I have no idea how that's possible). If GW can cash in on that, they will be one happy company. I mean, holy crap markup, right? There isn't even much text in those books. There are so many places where it's, full page photo, half page art plus a little text in a 2 page spread. And all of it is big print big spacing that's a super easy read -- Gary Gygax's Dungeon Master's Guide this is not.

 Talys wrote:


For high fantasy, the terrain pieces are also nice; and the large kits (like dragons) are much better than competitors' kits at similar price points, if you're looking for a "premium" model (as opposed to a Reaper Bones dragon, for instance).

I'm sorry, all the usual disclaimers about taste aside, but if you're using the word "premium" to describe this rangy, anorexic, wooden monstrosity then we have very different ideas about what constitutes premium.

The only good thing about that kit is the wings for converting other stuff.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bones dragon for less than half the money..




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actual premium dragon..



This cuts to the heart of GW proper, unlike FW, they're trying to be premium, and they're just.. not.

GW's premium tag would have worked if it wasn't for that pesky technology, social media, and competitors producing objectively better product.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
GW's premium tag would have worked if it wasn't for that pesky technology, social media, and competitors producing objectively better product.

wait a minute...
how is any competitor's product objectively better???

out of the three dragons Az posted, i like the GW one the best...
it harks back to the old Dragon Masters dragon, the was projecting from the rock, but this one is much bigger...
it is HIPS, rather than metal, so it is easier to assemble, and more durable...
it comes with two cool High Elf riders (a Lord and a Wizard), and is easy to convert to a Dark Elf dragon, which is cool, because i like this one better than the DE one...

the Reaper one does nothing for me, and i am not a fan of Bones...
i have bought a ton of Reaper metals, especially the Werner Klocke sculpts, but just cannot get up the desire to paint them...
yet, i have no trouble getting inspired to paint a GW mini...

the third dragon is definitely the most badass of the sculpts, but doesn't have the cool flying pose, or riders...
while i like it, it does look very much like the Rackham dragon, so i don't know if i would buy another dragon that looks so much like one i already own...
i also suspect that it will be cast in resin, rather than HIPS, which is a bit more of a pain to work with, and more delicate, just like the Rackham one is...

of these three, i have bought the High Elf one, so i know where my money went...
given people's varying preferences for material, aesthetic, and price points, i think it is pretty hard to say any one company's product is objectively better than another's, but very easy to determine a personal preference...

cheers
jah

Personal tastes do not pertain to the quality of the sculpt

I know they both start with the same syllable, but 'preference' =\= 'premium.'

That's why it's perfectly acceptable to prefer a Big Mac to a fillet steak, but one is on a sticky wicket if one starts trying o argue that makes the Big Mac superior.

Yes, but n this case, Az, the High Elf one is MUCH better made than Reaper dragons. I own 3 Reaper Bones dragons, and they're cheap, with shoddy fit that requires as much GS around the pieces as metal dragons of old. The GW plastic dragons are a marvel to assemble and paint compared to everything else I've come across.

If you want to talk about the coolest of them all, and resin is on the table... Smaug does that for me.



Incidentally, I'm working on this (metal) dragon ATM. It's an old GW one, and man, prepping it is major work.