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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SphcF_wSeXM

If this is the level of understanding of typical investment advisors like iii, then no wonder the stock market is a shambles...

They've just taken GW's PR spin and regurgitated with a load of unecessary mockery of GW's customers...

If anyone at GW endorsed such a mockery of the people who pay his wages he deserves a kicking.

What patronising dreck!

I'm not all chewed up about it. Just feel its a shame that GW's official logo, image etc have been tied into a tired old stereotyping of its customers. Given that iii probably must have had GW permission to use their product and logos on TV I would have hoped they could have been able to at least exert a little control over the thing.

I'm not saying we should boycott them or anything, but I'm just a little disappointed that someone seemed to think that they needed to pimp their share prices at the expense of mockery of their core customer base. I find it a little distasteful, but not upsetting as it is all too predictable.

I would have hoped in an ideal world that GW would realise that their best interests would be served by moving gaming out of the "closet" and into the mainstream so that more customers are attracted to the hobby and not put off by its portrayal as a haven for freaks.

I'm "normal" in the sense I am married, have 3 children, a full time responsible job, a mortgage, short hair, I shower and rarely wear black t-shirts. That I happen to also enjoy some of the wargames GW produce should not allow me to be sterotyped and labled. (Not that I think having long hair, wearing black etc. is bad or freakish, but it isn't my inclination. Not showering is always bad though... )

I can put up with humour, I can take a joke. And if this was some sort of stand up comedian routine I would shrug my shoulders and take it on the chin like (say) Irish people have had to do with deprecating humour over the last century.

But this isn't a stand up comedy routine, it is a piece of cheap PR aimed at GW's shareholders with the implicit support of the GW senior management engineered by the iii people.

I don't want to go overboard. But I do find it distasteful and symptomatic of the dystopia in the higher echelons of GW management. It's like walking into a GW store and seeing a sign behind the counter saying "you don't have to be fat and smelly to play our games, but it helps..." It's cheap humour in poor taste, and will result in, I suspect, exactly the opposite effect of that intended. As cheap, un-thought-through PR stunts usually do in the long term.

I hope someone waves it under Mark Wells' nose and says "please try and not let this happen again". I took enough grief from GW paying their rediculous prices (and up until very recently their shockingly bad rules support). I don't want to also be mocked for being fat, beardy and smelly with poor social skills and no love life by them too....

At least its not a major news channel airing it. Thank goodness.

i hope she burns for that so bad!!!! GRRRRRRRRRR

Yeah, I watched it earlier. It's moronic.

It's such an awesome feeling to be patronized because one of my hobbies isn't mainstream. Just one more of many reasons to hate the media, I guess.

Let's all go and become anglers instead. That's much more mainstream.

But what if we already fish too?

They called it Warcraft, that pretty much sums up how much research they did.

There is no emoticon that can convey my outrage!

Is this meant to be a professional report?

I have no problem being called a nerd or a geek, but I have a problem being being stereotyped as a bearded immature social outcast with body odor.

This is the most disgraceful thing I've seen since Nintendo's slogan for Zelda: Ocarina of Time:

"Whilst thou rescue the girl, or play like one?"

I 2nd most of Osbad's comments, geeks are people too.

'Zactly. I have no problem acknowledging my own nerdiness....but seriously. Enough with the stereotypes in "legit" media reports!

@Osbad: Nice find and god post. Missed your comment on the last GW business report cause you someone who has something useful to say when it comes to numbers.

Yes right. We gamers have self irony and are pretty aware of our stereotype. These jokes are actually pretty fitting, even the change of voice as it is used in very popular miniature podcasts. We should have one of these fancy organisations enforcing everyone to be pc on us. Starting changing the term Table Top Wargaming into creative strategic playing.

It was an awful piece of media dross. Not the first we've seen and not the last. And at the end of the day we get a lot of enjoyment out of our hobby and with our partners.
She got to embarrass herself in front of an audience.

So we've lost nothing really. And she's has lost a little credibility as a journalist. A journalist who wears a track suit top (?) and makes cheap digs and spews badly researched articles. I think I know who the jokes on really.

Osbad,

What evidence do you have that Games Workshop has anything at all to do with the production of this video?

As far as I can tell it is an ongoing series that covers different public companies with their idea of 'humor' thrown in.

I mean, the fact that she calls it "Warcraft" at the beginning of the video should let you know that GW has absolutely zero input on this video.


While they clearly just take snippets from the financial report and run with their own opinions, I don't think this video is created or endorsed by GW in any way shape or form.

I agree, I don't believe permission has to be asked to use a company or their product in a news report, but I could be wrong. I also doubt GW would let the Warcraft thing slip in if they had anything at all to do with it.

yakface wrote:
Osbad,

What evidence do you have that Games Workshop has anything at all to do with the production of this video?

As far as I can tell it is an ongoing series that covers different public companies with their idea of 'humor' thrown in.

I mean, the fact that she calls it "Warcraft" at the beginning of the video should let you know that GW has absolutely zero input on this video.


While they clearly just take snippets from the financial report and run with their own opinions, I don't think this video is created or endorsed by GW in any way shape or form.

I don't have any evidence that this particular report was endorsed by GW. It may be the case that they walked into a store and just bought the models they use for set dressing> It maybe that they actually did their own research and got the pictures they use for cut shots off the internet or a book. But, knowing how lazy most journalists are (and the fact that this one has just word for word regurgitated GW's press release virtually verbatim would confirm this) I suspect that they asked for and were given some help from someone in GW with the report.

Now I have no basis for this, it is my own supposition from the report as presented and my own understanding of how typical corporate PR and journalists work hand in hand to save time and effort and meet deadlines.

If GW were involved it is likely that it is just some peon in the PR department that was.

I don't believe I suggested that GW actively endorsed the mocking of their customers. But as someone said "all that is needful for evil to prosper is for good men to sit by and do nothing". I don't expect GW (if they were involved) had a veto over the script. What I would expect them to do (if they were involved) is to have the integrity to say "if you want our co-operation in producing a programme again, you will refrain from overtly mocking our customers, because it is rude and bad for business".

Symbio Joe wrote:@Osbad: Nice find and god post. Missed your comment on the last GW business report cause you someone who has something useful to say when it comes to numbers.

I was on holiday with no internet access when the report was released, and by the time I came back earlier this week I thought it was old news.

For what it's worth, my analysis is that Turnover has fallen in "real" (i.e inflation adjusted) terms by around 4% against a published expected rise of 1% in real terms. Even taking into consideration adjustment for the discontinuation of Sabretooth. This is very bad considering this was the year of the 30th anniversary of WD and of the release of Apocalypse, both of which you would have expected would have boosted sales in comparison to 2006-07 where nothing much of interest happened. Of course costs have been saved, but that's only buying temporary respite, and the loss of key experienced staff only erodes the resources they have to generate interest in their product (witness the lack of a summer campaign this year, for instance). Will 5th edition save their bacon? I'm skeptical - 4th edition didn't make nary a blip in 2004, as neither did the latest editions of LotR and WFB. It gives a sounder base for the future, but I don't know where they expect sales growth to come from, and without sales growth its only matter of time before they stop being able to pay the bills again.

GW's strategy needs to help them retain existing customers and collect new ones. There continues to be no evidence that they are recruiting gamers faster than they are losing them. And that is a BIG problem for them.

Comparisons of a reduced loss compared to last year are a distraction and irrelevant to the company's long term prospects. Sure it's leaner, but the company's products are no more popular than they were last year, or in any year since 2001, so inevitably the company will return to massive losses in due course unless they pull a rabbit out the hat from somewhere. And I for one can see no bunnies.

I think the perceived problems in Europe and the perceived growth in the UK and the US are to an extent exaggerated by the impact of internet sales via independent retailers. GW's wierd international pricing strategy encourages international sales over the internet from cheaper countries. So this means that European buyers have been sourcing a lot of stuff from the US and the UK via the internet. Which boosts the apparent figures for the US and the UK and depresses European ones. Asia remains insignificant, as does Forgeworld (turnover growth of 700k) and Black Library (similar) and will likely continue to be mere sideshows to the core business of shifting plastic Space Marines.

So yet again shareholders are going to be denied a dividend because the cash is needed to pay off the loans they took out to fund the redundancies of the last 2 years.

I see no signs of any "green shoots of recovery", and just continued woes.

Don't get me wrong. As a gamer I buy their stuff - I just bought 5th edition and this month purchased aound £40 of terrain items. BUt with my financial analyst's head on, as opposed to my gamer's head on, it still looks like they are royally screwed. Despite what is spouted to the contrary by be-tracksuited iii employees...

Tee, hee!

Turns out that Alison Bell, the ever-so-smug presenter is in no position to mock the love lives of others...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/2004/07/28/bizarre-love-life-of-hewitt-s-girl-89520-14467765/

I think on balance I'd rather be thought of as a "smelly gamer" than a pathethic middle-aged, overweight slapper...

So she restates the obvious: GW isn't doing well. There's sarcasm and she's poking fun of NERDSSS. HAHA YOU NERDS. TAKE THAT!

This video is excellent.

I have no problem being called a nerd or a geek, but I have a problem being being stereotyped as a bearded immature social outcast with body odor.

'Zactly. I have no problem acknowledging my own nerdiness....but seriously. Enough with the stereotypes in "legit" media reports!

Wait, are you telling me you guys don't forget to shower and reek of cheetos every time you go to GW? You're not proper nerds and don't deserve to receive that title.
*Eats some cheetos, wheezes, then chugs some mountain dew.*

Osbad wrote:Tee, hee!

Turns out that Alison Bell, the ever-so-smug presenter is in no position to mock the love lives of others...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/2004/07/28/bizarre-love-life-of-hewitt-s-girl-89520-14467765/

I think on balance I'd rather be thought of as a "smelly gamer" than a pathethic middle-aged, overweight slapper...

Dear lord you brits are a bunch of gossip hounds. But I guess america is no different. We inherited all your bad traits!

To me, the financial report was "less worse" than last year, and I am somewhat more hopeful than Osbad about the longer term outlook.

The bit that rang least true was the theory that because X% of the UK population bought the game, they could get X% of the Japanese population also to buy it, which would be a big rise in sales.

If the UK sales really are distorted by internet cross-boarder selling (which is highly likely given the weakness of the UKP against the Euro) then X% of the UK population hasn't bought the game anyway.

Nice, osunds like someone has an active lifestyle. If that's the "gold standard" me and my ilk are being held to, I'll gladly take a failing mark, thanks.

Very well put, osbad. Nice to see I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

yakface wrote:


I mean, the fact that she calls it "Warcraft" at the beginning of the video should let you know that GW has absolutely zero input on this video.

That's about all that needs to be said right there.

Please save torches and pitchforks when it's actually us screwing things up. Plenty of chances to be had.

Chris

Seems like GW's content to take the conservative path and stick with "the plan" instead of making some real changes (meaning stuff other than layoffs and store closings). I guess only time will tell if that's the right choice.

Disclaimer: I'm not a financial analyst. I have, however, worked with analysts at investment firms and know that value investors (and I think GW falls into the value category now) look for a catalyst -- something that's going to spur growth and turn a company's fortunes around.

I haven't the foggiest what that will be. It isn't going to be Planetstrike or whatever niche 40K supplement they bring out next. Maybe it'll be more of a long, slow recovery driven by 7th ed. WFB and 5th ed. 40K...but then that's all the more reason to sit on the sidelines and avoid buying the stock until seeing some indication either way.

I want to see GW do well. But my view from outside is that there are too many longtime employees there at the UK HQ with too many entrenched (and IMO sometimes weird) "mindsets" for any real change to happen anytime soon. Unless there's a buyout and someone else calls the shots, I suppose.

So you're saying Chris that when our favorite armies are nerfed we can bring out the torches and pitchforks?

Stupid video. Little does she know that all the nerds are already running the world.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Osbad wrote: I don't believe I suggested that GW actively endorsed the mocking of their customers.

Don't worry Osbad. I don't think you did either. I think this is what gave that impression.

Osbad wrote:If anyone at GW endorsed such a mockery of the people who pay his wages he deserves a kicking.

But you did qualify that with a big fat "IF".

Reading skillz for the win.

Why all the anger? What do you see when you look into your local GW nerd pit? Let me paint the tableau:
Bearded, morbidly obese pimple hoarders with self-diagnosed aspersers. Lanky, long haired only-childs in unwashed black t-shirts concealed in a miasma of body odor. Obnoxious, interchangable brats from the Pokemon set, blood sugar levels orbiting the moon and with insufficient Ritalin. The manga-loving striped shirt tech support NPD basket-case with a creatively interpreted rulebook always falling out of his mouth that everybody hates but returns religiously regardless of the lack of welcome, like a rotund form of mold. One dumpy girl with profound sexual abuse issues and a push-up bra who thinks Final Fantasy is deep and meaningful, just bubbling in anticipation that she might meet another sixteen people she can tell she is bisexual and how special that is. Clustered about those gaming tables is a concentration of social disorders so statistically improbable that the paleosociologists in the future will scoff condescendingly and trot out the age of the universe. Face it: the wargaming community was exactly, precisely created by God to fill the unenviable broken persons niche slightly below Renfaire beast but just above the Furries and Otherkin. You're not angry because the women is denigrating the hobby. You're angry because she's holding the mirror so close that you can see yourself snorting while you laugh at your own unsolicited Red Dwarf impressions.

In summary, here's your lunch and ask Miss Creaver if she has aloe lotion because I have taken you to school and you have been burned.

stonefox wrote:So she restates the obvious: GW isn't doing well. There's sarcasm and she's poking fun of NERDSSS. HAHA YOU NERDS. TAKE THAT!

This video is excellent.

I have no problem being called a nerd or a geek, but I have a problem being being stereotyped as a bearded immature social outcast with body odor.

'Zactly. I have no problem acknowledging my own nerdiness....but seriously. Enough with the stereotypes in "legit" media reports!

Wait, are you telling me you guys don't forget to shower and reek of cheetos every time you go to GW? You're not proper nerds and don't deserve to receive that title.
*Eats some cheetos, wheezes, then chugs some mountain dew.*

I don't forget to shower, I consider it cultivating a personal force field that keeps people like you at a proper distance, and that's not cheetos that I personally reek of, it's thai peppers so stay away and keep your mouth shut unless you want to end up sucking on an armpit. Us nerds are a peaceful lot, but don't push it.

Triggerbaby wrote:Why all the anger? What do you see when you look into your local GW nerd pit? Let me paint the tableau:
Bearded, morbidly obese pimple hoarders with self-diagnosed aspersers. Lanky, long haired only-childs in unwashed black t-shirts concealed in a miasma of body odor. Obnoxious, interchangable brats from the Pokemon set, blood sugar levels orbiting the moon and with insufficient Ritalin. The manga-loving striped shirt tech support NPD basket-case with a creatively interpreted rulebook always falling out of his mouth that everybody hates but returns religiously regardless of the lack of welcome, like a rotund form of mold. One dumpy girl with profound sexual abuse issues and a push-up bra who thinks Final Fantasy is deep and meaningful, just bubbling in anticipation that she might meet another sixteen people she can tell she is bisexual and how special that is. Clustered about those gaming tables is a concentration of social disorders so statistically improbable that the paleosociologists in the future will scoff condescendingly and trot out the age of the universe. Face it: the wargaming community was exactly, precisely created by God to fill the unenviable broken persons niche slightly below Renfaire beast but just above the Furries and Otherkin. You're not angry because the women is denigrating the hobby. You're angry because she's holding the mirror so close that you can see yourself snorting while you laugh at your own unsolicited Red Dwarf impressions.

In summary, here's your lunch and ask Miss Creaver if she has aloe lotion because I have taken you to school and you have been burned.

Oh, Triggerbaby. You forgot the guy who stands by my table, yelling "It just impacted on the surface!" everytime, and I mean everytime, a heavy weapon misses. Sir Quotes-alot, the closest you'll ever get to a lady is that Princess Leia pin on your hat. Just stop.

Triggerbaby wrote:In summary, here's your lunch and ask Miss Creaver if she has aloe lotion because I have taken you to school and you have been burned.

Heh, you sound like you're channeling Roast Beef. (I know YOU know who that is, but most others probably don't).

I'm a little shocked that Triggerbaby's rant is on-topic, but it truly is. As I've always said, the biggest problem with playing games is that you have to play with gamers. That stereotype wasn't created out of thin air, but it doesn't mean that they're bad people. Some are insufferable, sure, but as long as they're nice (and don't cheat, and don't make my eyes fog over), I really don't care.

And Vallhallan42nd, I think that the only appropriate response to that comment is, "Shut up, Porkins."

I fully admit that I have Onstad all over the brainpan. In terms of influences, one could do worse.
Jesus- claiming to have "influences" like I released an album or something. I am a self-absorbed donggobbler and don't let me deny it if I get drunk at a party and make a pass at you or your closest female equivalent.

A question I've been meaning to ask you for a while, Iorek. Just what is your little avatar? I see what might be a clawed hand, and maybe some armor, and maybe some blood. But the collection of forms don't congeal into anything I can comprehend. Only guess: an armored polar bear having abdominal discomfort resulting from a Drano bender.

Yeah, it's a Panserbjorne. It's kind of hard to make out, but his body is facing the viewer, head looking to the left (the bear's right) with mouth open, running. All that red in the backround is just artsy stuff (I forgot where I stole this from, and now I can't find it again with Google Image Search).