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 brassangel wrote:
People said that 20 years ago. Then 15 years ago. Then 10 years ago. Still today they say it, yet their player base is bigger now than it was during any of those stretches. Even during the LotR "bubble" from 2001-2003.

Source please. I suspect it's purely anecdotal and limited to within a 10ft radius of yourself.

If this isn't just a cleaned up rulebook its all sorts of bad. Even if 7th is the best ever, it shows that GW is willing to invalidate your armies at an ever increasing rate.

 warboss wrote:

 brassangel wrote:
People said that 20 years ago. Then 15 years ago. Then 10 years ago. Still today they say it, yet their player base is bigger now than it was during any of those stretches. Even during the LotR "bubble" from 2001-2003.

Source please. I suspect it's purely anecdotal and limited to within a 10ft radius of yourself.

edit3: Apparently Warboss was referring to the player base part of brassangel's statement so the rest of my post doesn't make a lot of sense.

Your original quote:

But those who make the decisions at GW fail to realize that they're going to price themselves out of their own market the more they hike prices up, the more that they add more supplements and additions to the game, and the more competition willing to fight them in the arena for the hearts and minds of their customers; customers they're more than willing to listen from in order to make their games better (not be beholden to them but listen and respond).

How about 1996?
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/games$20workshop$20price/aus.games/N0uhGPaQfEI/IfjrvWZqox0J
Re: Warhammer 5th Edition - Games Workshop price gouging again.

Oh, here's a boycott thread from 1995:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/games$20workshop$20price/rec.games.miniatures/IQjcmtdHCuI/nACo3s-5PlMJ

2000, price fixing thread:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/games$20workshop$20price/rec.games.miniatures.warhammer/XMBaw-ERVgE/5F4MqK0QYI8J

edit: Moral of the story: People have been complaining about GW's prices and proclaiming that this is the last straw for nigh on as far as google goes back.

edit2: From 1996:

"Speaking from the standpoint of a fairly long-term player - I feel
thoroughly abused by Games Workshop. I've invested a hell of a lot in
my armies and am loath to just drop all of that to play another
system. Nor would I like to just freeze my armies and rules as they
are.
So I'm caught in the continuing price rise. Eventually I'll reach
breaking point and bail out.
Games Workshop is marketting very well, doing their job as a company
very well. But I think it sucks."

Pretre, you missed my point entirely. I was asking for the source of his data that "their player base is bigger now than it was during any of those stretches". I'm curious where he gets the exact insider knowledge of the size of the GW playerbase to make a claim like that.

 warboss wrote:
Pretre, you missed my point entirely. I was asking for the source of his data that "their player base is bigger now than it was during any of those stretches". I'm curious where he gets the exact insider knowledge of the size of the GW playerbase to make a claim like that.

Bah. That's what you get for not cropping your quotes.

I withdraw part of my response then.

No worries. I'm fully aware that people have been complaining about GW prices likely as long as GW has been selling products. I want him to list his source(s) for the exact size of the player base "during those stretches" which is why I included the time periods he stated to know the size of the GW player base.

 warboss wrote:
No worries. I'm fully aware that people have been complaining about GW prices likely as long as GW has been selling products. I want him to list his source(s) for the exact size of the player base "during those stretches" which is why I included the time periods he stated to know the size of the GW player base.

Pretty sure even GW doesn't have those numbers.

azreal13 wrote:

 brassangel wrote:


People said that 20 years ago. Then 15 years ago. Then 10 years ago. Still today they say it, yet their player base is bigger now than it was during any of those stretches. Even during the LotR "bubble" from 2001-2003.

Citation needed. Revenue is flat, more or less, when adjusted for inflation, prices have increased. That isn't an indication of more players than ever buying models to my eye.

Anecdotally, just under two years ago my local club was de facto GW exclusive, it now probably at best takes up 50% of tables each week, for a while this year it was a bit of a challenge to get a pick up game, things have swung back a little bit now, as we've got some new guys started in the last few weeks, but one wonders how long before their heads are turned by other systems, like others before them.

Going over time, I'm thinking the pure volume of sales might indicate a growth from 20 years ago...
Ouch, was ninja'd with better data too... Not to mention completely missing what he was talking about.


Whether or not the pricing on this new rulebook(which itself is still a rumor) will be exorbitant or not would depend on if they reprint all the fluff from the Core, Stonghold, and Escalation(if there IS any in the last two-I haven't really been interested in either). If it's just rules, it may be the same as the rulebook is now, but with less filler. Not saying that the corebook isn't already overpriced mind, but it may not rise beyond the current price.

@Pretre:

Agreed. The only sources I know of are the subjective ICV2 quarterly polls (which don't give any hard numbers). WOTC did a very expensive study of the gaming community/retail market over a decade ago according to a gaming business seminar Lisa Stevens of Paizo (formerly of WOTC) gave at Origins last time I went but I don't know of any similar such thing (let alone one that has been secretly repeated over and over for decades) on GW's part.

The only hard data from GW we get is the semiannual (or is it annual?) investor report that seems to indicate flat or declining player base (flat sales despite price increase = less units sold).

 warboss wrote:
The only hard data from GW we get is the semiannual (or is it annual?) investor report that seems to indicate flat or declining player base (flat sales despite price increase = less units sold).

I think that flat sales despite price increase just means less units sold. That doesn't mean that the player base is declining. Just that they sold less units. Keep in mind that playing the game doesn't require a lot of purchases year after year. Add in the strong secondary market and you have a big problem figuring out how many people are playing just based on GW data.

I've been priced out of buying any new armies that aren't 100% 2nd hand. : /

 Moopy wrote:
I've been priced out of buying any new armies that aren't 100% 2nd hand. : /

Welcome to the club.

In my opinion it is 7th edition rumors 2 years early...

 SpaceMonk wrote:
In my opinion it is 7th edition rumors 2 years early...

In two years time, it wouldn't have been a rumour though, but a simple extrapolation from past patterns into the future. Just like those "Ork Codex, Imperial Guard Codex, etc. soon"-"rumours.

Doesn't take "sources" to make guess-work based on recurring regularities. It does, however, take "sources" for predictions that break with such regularities.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 SpaceMonk wrote:
In my opinion it is 7th edition rumors 2 years early...

In two years time, it wouldn't have been a rumour though, but a simple extrapolation from past patterns into the future. Just like those "Ork Codex, Imperial Guard Codex, etc. soon"-"rumours.

Doesn't take "sources" to make guess-work based on recurring regularities. It does, however, take "sources" for predictions that break with such regularities.

Yep agreed. You just clarified what I was thinking

I am more hoping for an evolution 6.1 than a revolution 7th.

A few nip/tucks that make all types of builds more viable.

Vehicles could probably do with something. MC's are just way better than vehicles.

Odd one this.

It seems poor judgement business wise, apart from the 'fleecing the customers' angle it also relegates fantasy even further down the pecking order, which seems to me to be the opposite of what they should be doing, if anything at all drastically needs an overhaul it is certainly fantasy.

However, its also from a reliable source, so who knows.


If true, the problems I see in it -2 years and your fancy double price limited edition rulebook is suddenly worthless, never mind the limited edition codexes they are still putting out there -£150 for the current space marine one that will be out of date inside 12 months? Thats sure to annoy the playerbase who lap that limited stuff up. But mainly it smacks of panic , a company not in control with a plan going forward, that doesnt bode well at all.

I'm not a fan of 6th, but I sure hope this rumour turns out false.

Those people giving those rumors on 7th are hilarious.

Not hilarious in the way that they are wrong. No, I'm not questioning their reliability or their information.. Just the way they are trying to say how GW actually cares about things being too powerful.

Interceptor? Really? THAT'S what they think is too powerful? In fact, I'm pretty sure GW doesn't care what's powerful and the last thing they would do is tone something down intentionally.

I'm under the impression that anything that gets nerfed or boosted is simply a coincidence.

Interceptor/skyfire change isn`t necessarily because it is overpowered, it can be because of that strange link between skyfire and interceptor, which is just poor rules-writing. So if it is a patched 6th ed (and they are certainly learning from the video game industry - we now have micro transactions and bundles, so why not start patching as well? They have patched their digital releases already), it could be an example of poor rules being patched.

I would think that if this is true, we would also be looking at a digital version of the rulebook.

A digital rulebook could do away with the edition-problem in its entirety, just keep patching it.

As long as we don't end up paying for each patch...

This thread needs to be deleted.

There will be NO 7TH EDITION in 2014. Natfka, or whoever started this "rumor" should be ignored going forward.

Off-topic but since it was brought up and people might actually want to know what's really happening with GW...

Pretre's chart is a bit old and even it shows a declining trend. I own GW stock so I have to take more than a cursory look at the financials each 1/2 and full year when reports are released; based upon me putting my prognosticator's hat on, I tanked slightly more than have my holdings in GW in October and was actually correct in doing so this time (there was this little bio-tech stock that burned me once..ick.)

What's happened until now.
Over the past 10 years GW's done a very good job of "trimming the fat" which has made them an attractive stock. The cut out a great deal of overhead costs, greatly reduced debt and explored other revenue streams (licensing). Within the past 8 months though, they've gone very rapidly from a "buy" to a "sell", skipping "hold" status entirely.

I won't bore you all with why it's not a good idea to buy GW stock right now but will address the conversation that was brought up earlier, volume of sales.

The quickest, dirtiest way to get this information is on the financials, page 43, Inventories. Simply compare the amount of raw materials purchased by the company for the year, the work in progress numbers and the amount of finished goods for resale (called resale here because of the resale of the raw materials as a finished good) and you get the following:
Comparing 2012 and 2013:
- GW spent 68.73% less, year on year on raw materials.
- I'll ignore work in progress as this will vary depending on what's being manufactured at the time that the financials are written but you have to admit, that's nearly half from the previous year.
- GW created 5.31% less goods in FY2013 than they did in FY2012.

I don't know where the person who made the statement that they're bigger now than they've ever been got their information but it's just wrong. GW is shrinking. They've shrunk as a company by cutting themselves to the bone and closing everything that could be closed and they've shrunk production wise (5.3%).

Next. Look at the "Trade and other receivables" section on page 43. Just go through and compare these numbers and realize that they represent actual orders for product from "trade partners" (i.e. FLGSs or warehousers). Trade receivables is a U.K. term, in the U.S. we call this "Accounts receivable". Also bear in mind that these numbers are prior to the big push by GW corporate for kits to go to direct sales only. I'll be interested to what this looks like at the next annual report.

So, my not expert opinion. Doom and gloom? No. GW declining, yes. Pushing 5% less product is a HUGE concern for an international business and GW can't get any leaner.

Another interesting side note is that until recently the majority of GW stocks were owned by several group buyers, the largest of which was Phoenix group which held upwards of 20% of GW stock at one time; since May-June of this year, they have divested themselves of the majority of their stock and are now down to around 5.9% and falling. Nomad is now the biggest stock owner at 9.8% but they own less now than May-June of this year as well. In fact look at the shareholder statistics currently and compare with a year ago and it's a scary picture. Large brokerages owning stock usually means stock price stability as they follow rules when they divest but when the majority of the company is owned by small shareholders like me, it only takes one big scare to ruin a company's stock value.

The institutional investors didn't take Wells leaving very well and now appear to have little faith in Kirby's ability to run the company. (my opinion)

Aftermath. wrote:
This thread needs to be deleted.

There will be NO 7TH EDITION in 2014. Natfka, or whoever started this "rumor" should be ignored going forward.

Other than 40K Radio have attributed it to a source that has been fairly reliable over the last few releases?

Unless of course you are in possession of information to the contrary, and aren't merely stating your opinion as fact?

Aftermath. wrote:
This thread needs to be deleted.

There will be NO 7TH EDITION in 2014. Natfka, or whoever started this "rumor" should be ignored going forward.

There you have it people. Aftermath. spoke! Time call it quits and go home.

 Darkseid wrote:

Aftermath. wrote:
This thread needs to be deleted.

There will be NO 7TH EDITION in 2014. Natfka, or whoever started this "rumor" should be ignored going forward.

There you have it people. Aftermath. spoke! Time call it quits and go home.

A new entry for the rumormongers list!

I will gladly buy new edition if it means that at least some of the issues with the current edition get fixed. However, I'm not interested in some sort of super-special compiled 6+Escalation edition.

 Crimson wrote:
I will gladly buy new edition if it means that at least some of the issues with the current edition get fixed. However, I'm not interested in some sort of super-special compiled 6+Escalation edition.

Well pistols in the shooting phase while you're in combat is interesting, especially when you consider that every single space marine has a bolt pistol.

 agnosto wrote:
-snip-

Hush now, doomsayer; everything is fine, There Are No Tanks In Baghdad, our Glorious Leader Kirby will yet show us to the Promised Land, nothing emerges from the Holy Gob of Kirby but Great News and ever shall it be.

And pretre, every time this discussion comes up someone invariably digs up examples of people complaining about prices in the past, and it's invariably a total red herring as it in no way refutes the reality that sales are declining, as the company's own financials show. Now, if you want to argue that the declining sales has nothing to do with pricing, or is just one factor out of many, feel free(on the latter I'd agree), but don't pretend people complaining or pointing out flaws when times were good invalidates the current reality; a few economists out there complained about the financial system and predicted crashes and long-term stagnation years before '08, and people of certain political persuasions opined that such outcomes were inevitable back in the 80's when the initial deregulation took place - they were dismissed out of hand, and right up until the crash came people used them as examples of why the criticisms of the day must be flawed, afterall, if people were "moaning" about financial regulation in the 80's, and we had decades of growth since then, obviously they were completely wrong and so was anyone presenting a similar view in the present. Now, I'm not arguing that some forum post from 1996 is actually a prescient foretelling of GW's imminent downfall, but neither does the fact such posts exist negate current analyses of GW's situation.

 pretre wrote:
edit: Moral of the story: People have been complaining about GW's prices and proclaiming that this is the last straw for nigh on as far as google goes back.

And for a lot of people, it was. I'd hazard an estimate that there are damn few 90s veterans still active in the hobby. I have no doubt a lot of those old boycott criers and complainers were in earnest and lived up to their word.

 Ravenous D wrote:
Well pistols in the shooting phase while you're in combat is interesting, especially when you consider that every single space marine has a bolt pistol.

Marines finally getting to hit at S4 ! That would be a revelation.
It's more about character with plasma pistols, and… seraphims ! More inferno pistols ! Or maybe D3 auto hits for hand flamers !

However, I don't see plasma pistols just becoming better than most non-shooting assault weapon, that wouldn't make sense. Maybe you won't be able to make more pistols attack than the number of shots your pistol can make.