Why can't GW freelance?

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**Wolfstan**

Some time ago TK indicated that GW were more interested in selling figures than in their rules, which from a business point of view does make sense. If this is the case, why doesn't GW freelance under the Citadel brand?

I mean there are loads of 28mm Wargamers out there, with some of the models on offer to them not that great. Generally the GW models are of a high standard, so why not allow Citadel to expand in to this area. No need to make rules, just supply quality models. If sold in store, the GW red shirts can then pounce and spread the word on their other products.

**efarrer**

Posted By Wolfstan on 10/29/2007 5:56 AM

Some time ago TK indicated that GW were more interested in selling figures than in their rules, which from a business point of view does make sense. If this is the case, why doesn't GW freelance under the Citadel brand?

I mean there are loads of 28mm Wargamers out there, with some of the models on offer to them not that great. Generally the GW models are of a high standard, so why not allow Citadel to expand in to this area. No need to make rules, just supply quality models. If sold in store, the GW red shirts can then pounce and spread the word on their other products.

IIRC Citadel can barely keep up with it's own figures. As well since they would be Citadel mins the company would then have to allow non IP figures into competitions, diluting thier own sales.

**Wolfstan**

Are you so sure? You have your regular GW gamers coming in anyway and you also have non GW gamers coming in.

The GW gamers may end up buying the non GW IP stuff, but a sale is still profit. You also have the added bonus that GW don't have the hassle of supplying rules, just quality figures.

The non GW gamer comes in for his figures and at that point they are a potential new GW customer. If not, they still buy models, again it's profit wthout the hassle of rules.

Is this scenario that far out there?

**efarrer**

Posted By Wolfstan on 10/29/2007 7:04 AM

Are you so sure? You have your regular GW gamers coming in anyway and you also have non GW gamers coming in.

The GW gamers may end up buying the non GW IP stuff, but a sale is still profit. You also have the added bonus that GW don't have the hassle of supplying rules, just quality figures.

The non GW gamer comes in for his figures and at that point they are a potential new GW customer. If not, they still buy models, again it's profit wthout the hassle of rules.

Is this scenario that far out there?

The company is just barely capable of producing the IP related minatures. This is not a company dedicated to producing masses of random figures. They abandoned that years ago. THe best way to look at is below

Decision making flowchart

1. Is the model going to sell massive numbers?

2. Is the model for one of our new lines?

3. Can we boost those sales by rewritting rules to make them more attaractive?

4. How much can we save by not selling it?

5. Does another company produce a similar range related directly to thier IP? Will they be more able to sell thiers?

edit: because I forgot to add this

6. Is it likely that we can say just play one of our games instead, or at least use one of our existing models?

**Wehrkind**

Yea, I tend to agree that Citadel doesn't stray from its niche because it has no real competition. To play 40k/Fantasy you have to buy their minis. (Assuming you intend to play in a GW store or tourney.) As soon as they start making say 25mm Zulus and British Regulars, they have to compete with every other mini-maker who produces those, and do so for whatever games use those. That gets a little awkward since it is much harder to track the market trends, and thus much harder to predict future trends and produce accurate production forcasts and schedules.
Consider this: GW knows pretty accurately how many Codex's get sold every month. They also know pretty accurately how codex sales have historically correlated with miniature sales. Thus, if they see that in some season say Tau codex sales increase 25%, they know roughly that mini-sales are going to increase 25%.
Now the trouble arrises when you make minis for someone else's game. How many lists do they sell? Do they sell lists, or just a book of stats and rules (like many historic games I used to play.) You lose a great predictive tool in that you don't geat the leading edge Codex/book sales followed by mini sales. You simply see the number of minis sold going up and down. This is extremely difficult to plan for, and leads to the cycle of build stock/sell at discount one sees in retail outlets. GW currently avoids a lot of this by their plethora of indicators.

Probably the other big issue is that just like GW doesn't let anyone make "Space Marines", many of the other popular games are pretty tocuhy about their IP. Sure, you can make "knight with sword" or "GI with rifle." However you can't make "Gunjack" or "Cyclops with clixx base". In other words you are going for the less popular games that don't have the model/rule tie in built in.

It just seems to me that that sort of diversity is what ended up being Ral Partha's downfall. Too much stock and production for too questionable a market.

**efarrer**

Posted By Wehrkind on 10/29/2007 12:25 PM
Yea, I tend to agree that Citadel doesn't stray from its niche because it has no real competition. To play 40k/Fantasy you have to buy their minis. (Assuming you intend to play in a GW store or tourney.) As soon as they start making say 25mm Zulus and British Regulars, they have to compete with every other mini-maker who produces those, and do so for whatever games use those. That gets a little awkward since it is much harder to track the market trends, and thus much harder to predict future trends and produce accurate production forcasts and schedules.
Consider this: GW knows pretty accurately how many Codex's get sold every month. They also know pretty accurately how codex sales have historically correlated with miniature sales. Thus, if they see that in some season say Tau codex sales increase 25%, they know roughly that mini-sales are going to increase 25%.
Now the trouble arrises when you make minis for someone else's game. How many lists do they sell? Do they sell lists, or just a book of stats and rules (like many historic games I used to play.) You lose a great predictive tool in that you don't geat the leading edge Codex/book sales followed by mini sales. You simply see the number of minis sold going up and down. This is extremely difficult to plan for, and leads to the cycle of build stock/sell at discount one sees in retail outlets. GW currently avoids a lot of this by their plethora of indicators.

Probably the other big issue is that just like GW doesn't let anyone make "Space Marines", many of the other popular games are pretty tocuhy about their IP. Sure, you can make "knight with sword" or "GI with rifle." However you can't make "Gunjack" or "Cyclops with clixx base". In other words you are going for the less popular games that don't have the model/rule tie in built in.

It just seems to me that that sort of diversity is what ended up being Ral Partha's downfall. Too much stock and production for too questionable a market.

Ral Part died not as a result of mismanagement or over extending. The focused on liscenced ranges (DnD and Battle Tech). They died the contractor's death, they were taken over by FASA who then gave up and the Ral Partha line was lost for a time.

**Asmodai**

GW has spent the better part of two decades redefining wargames as 'The GW Hobby' and putting blinders on fans eyes to the fact that other games even exist. I don't see why they would abandon that.

**Wehrkind**

Ral Partha also made random non-licsensed things. It had nothing to do with mismanagement, but they made models for other people's games, and a range of just "stuff" covering all sorts of things. They started focusing on D&D and Battletech I suspeft largely because that is where the money was. Lots of people make "stuff"; it's a very competitive market. That's why many of the very successful miniature companies also produce their own rules. It creates their very own market that they control. However, anyone with some sculpting skills or knows someone who does can go into business producing "stuff" minis.
In other words, I suspect Ral Partha's liscensed end went down to the reasons I specified (difficulty in prediction of demand) and the non-liscensed stuff didn't help because there is very little margin to be made. Perhaps if they had come out with their own game rules that were good, and a line of minis to back it up they would have done well, but that would still just be attaching a fairly profitable buisiness model to a less than exciting one.

**Ghaz**

Perhaps if they had come out with their own game rules that were good, and a line of minis to back it up they would have done well...

Ral Partha did have their own game system called BattleStorm

**Wehrkind**

But was it any good? I could write up rules for a game on my lunch break, but I am not saying it would be compelling

**Ghaz**

Did you read the reviews linked from the page I posted?

**mikhaila**

It had nothing to do with mismanagement,

No, it had everything to do with FASA management specifically and callously driving Ral Partha into bankruptcy.

When any moneys for RP products go to FASA, and all bills go to RP, and FASA doesn't put money into the RP bank account, even to the point where they bounced paychecks to the RP employees, it's not an 'accident', or mismanagement.

I had a very good friend who was managing RP at the time. When FASA decided to do VOR, they had RP stop producing fantasy figs, battletech, and everything else, to make 10,000 copies of that horrible dog of a game. VOR came with 4 pounds of lead miniatures, it took a lot of production to make 10,000 copies. Then the in house team at FASA, sure it was going to be a hit, tried to get RP to make 10,000 more, 'just to make sure there was enough'. RP was told "We're FASA, we don't make bad games". "You're RP, you make what we tell you, when we tell you, package it the way we say, use the price we set, and use the sculpts we send you"

In the ensueing screaming match over the additional 10,000, someone suggested checking distributor orders. Worldwide, they didn't amount to 200 copies. It died a bad, ugly death, and RP got stuck with all the bills, bankrupted, Zocchi distributing ate a big chunk of it, FASA disappears, and somehow Wizkids emerge from the ashes.

Definitely not mismanagement.

**Necros**

is Citadel even a separate company? I guess maybe at one time they were but I always figured Citadel Miniatures was was just the name of GW's model making dept. Or is it more like GW owns Citadel same as they own Forge World?

**Asmodai**

Citadel was formed as part of GW in 1979.

They became more prevalent following the management buy-out in 1991.

The Wikipedia entries for GW and Citadel are good sources for background.

**kitsandbits**

i think the monopolies commision may also have a few things to say if GW started to expand in to traditional arena's like 15mm historical or napoleonics, that said i think GW would have quite a counter argument as many companies keep producing model purely aimed at the GW market to play in GW games .
How many time on these forums have you seen a product that is completely aimed at the GW specialist game market ?

**Kilkrazy**

GW do not own the SF skirmish game market or have any right to do so. It existed before 40K and will continue after 40K falls.

There is no need for other companies to make figures for 40K because there are plenty of SF rules for people who don't like 40K.

There is a very large number of makers of historical miniatures. No way could GW monopolise that market. They have WarHammer Ancient Battles and Warmaster Ancients which do OK but are in no danger of dominating the market.

There is some overlap between WFHB and historicals because historical figures can make good units for WHFB.

Basically GW makes WHFB and 40K. The IP (Fluff) rules and figures are tied up together and support each other. They write the fluff. They make the figures highly conforming to the fluff, and they write the rules so that people have an excuse to buy lots of figures.

**Death_Master**

Kilkrazy wrote:

There is a very large number of makers of historical miniatures. No way could GW monopolise that market. They have WarHammer Ancient Battles and Warmaster Ancients which do OK but are in no danger of dominating the market.

I can't agree with that point. I go to a local games club where 90% of the members play historical games and most of the people there say that GWs plastics are by far the best available and if they spread out into historical games they would go straight to their range first. That and the money/marketing behind them could easily force many out of business. Especially if GW started poaching some of the sculptors.

Craig

**Kilkrazy**

Death_Master wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:

There is a very large number of makers of historical miniatures. No way could GW monopolise that market. They have WarHammer Ancient Battles and Warmaster Ancients which do OK but are in no danger of dominating the market.

I can't agree with that point. I go to a local games club where 90% of the members play historical games and most of the people there say that GWs plastics are by far the best available and if they spread out into historical games they would go straight to their range first. That and the money/marketing behind them could easily force many out of business. Especially if GW started poaching some of the sculptors.

Craig

To fully monopolise ancients GW would need to make about 300 different armies in five different scales. Do you think they can realistically do that and make a profit?

**Stelek**

They wouldn't need to monopolise it in that way.

Making a dozen armies would satisfy quite alot of ancient gamers.

However that kind of outlay isn't something GW is going to do without a very strong IP (aka LOTR) and I certainly don't see one out there.

**Kilkrazy**

Stelek wrote:They wouldn't need to monopolise it in that way.

Making a dozen armies would satisfy quite alot of ancient gamers.

However that kind of outlay isn't something GW is going to do without a very strong IP (aka LOTR) and I certainly don't see one out there.

We can argue about it all day without agreeing.

You are right about the IP angle. The point about Ancients is there is no way to lock it up in terms of IP because the knowledge to make figure designs is all in the public domain and so is the "fluff", and rules cannot be patented. GW cannot lock up any historical period the way they have locked up WH40K. Their profitability relies on a unique and uncopiable product.