Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

People have been complaining about GW and predicting it was going to go under "any day now"because of bad business practices since at least 2nd edition, yet, at least around here, the loudest complainers have been the biggest buyers.
An interesting thing to note are the people on this site that say the hate GW and it's games, pricing, etc, yet can't seem to pry themselves away.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Because people like me continue to buy the models, play the game and have a good time. I don't give a rat's poop chute about how GW delivers their rules or what gets updated at what time or how balanced it is.

I've got a FLGS and a group of friends to play games with and the friends have similar views on how the game is played, don't go crazy about power levels, enjoy throwing dice and play with the rules presented to us in all but the most obvious 'well this needs to be fixed' case. And when it needs to be fixed, we fix it between ourselves, don't make a fuss about it and carry on with our game.

I understand I'm not the only person in the world and that not everyone has the options that I do, but as long as there's enough casual players like myself playing the game and still enjoying it, the books released with it and the company itself because we interact with them in the 'I'll just buy my models from wherever' sense, GW will do just fine. So will the beer and pretzel companies.

This is it, right here, for my group, also.

Jaxler wrote:
So, I'm net to 40k, and been here for a few months. I keep seeing these endless complaints about GW, and stuff, and the more I see the more I wonder how this game and GW stay afloat.

The game is horribly balanced from what I see, and things like the new eldar aren't even rare from what I've heard.

The company has people who wright lore do the crunch, and people who do crunch wright lore.

The game keeps getting more and more expensive until large portions of the community leave. Literally most of the people who got me interested in 40K say they stopped playing/buying models because the prices are stupid high. It's like they enjoy killing off their customer base.

They go after fan and community sights, basically alienating more of their customer base.

They act like they have a monopoly when they don't.

They're website is useless, and only works as a marker place.

They release stuff that could have been easily balanced by less than a day's worth of play testing.

Seriously, I don't see why GW hasn't died yet, or at least 40k. It seems like a war game that the company doesn't want to treat like a game, while also having a company that wants to kill the community. How is GW and 40k not dead? They've been doing this for like 10 years. It doesn't make sense to me.

You are new to 40k and talking about things you have no idea about.
What do you know of the balance of the game or any of it?
People on the boards whine and complain and that is what they do.
Half of the people on these boards and other boards spend more time whining and complaining on the internet the past few months or even years than they do throwing dice.
They blame Games Workshop and everything else because they can not netlist something new or just can not come up with anything or they just can not get out of the rut of ther own play style that they have been stuck in book after book after book.
There are countless people out there who enjoy the game, continue to buy new releases and play with their friends and groups week after week and will continue to do so.

Bharring wrote:
Most other companies who's models are as good as - or better than - GW are much, much less modifiable/kitbashable.

At the end of the day, GW really does put out some really nice kits.

When it comes to infantry models and monstrous creatures i generaly agree, GW's newer stuff tends to be well done. Their vehicles on the other hand are lagging behind and tend to be overpriced compared to what is offered by the likes of Dragon, Hasegawa or Tamiya.

 BloodGrin wrote:

Jaxler wrote:
So, I'm net to 40k, and been here for a few months. I keep seeing these endless complaints about GW, and stuff, and the more I see the more I wonder how this game and GW stay afloat.

The game is horribly balanced from what I see, and things like the new eldar aren't even rare from what I've heard.

The company has people who wright lore do the crunch, and people who do crunch wright lore.

The game keeps getting more and more expensive until large portions of the community leave. Literally most of the people who got me interested in 40K say they stopped playing/buying models because the prices are stupid high. It's like they enjoy killing off their customer base.

They go after fan and community sights, basically alienating more of their customer base.

They act like they have a monopoly when they don't.

They're website is useless, and only works as a marker place.

They release stuff that could have been easily balanced by less than a day's worth of play testing.

Seriously, I don't see why GW hasn't died yet, or at least 40k. It seems like a war game that the company doesn't want to treat like a game, while also having a company that wants to kill the community. How is GW and 40k not dead? They've been doing this for like 10 years. It doesn't make sense to me.

You are new to 40k and talking about things you have no idea about.
What do you know of the balance of the game or any of it?
People on the boards whine and complain and that is what they do.
Half of the people on these boards and other boards spend more time whining and complaining on the internet the past few months or even years than they do throwing dice.
They blame Games Workshop and everything else because they can not netlist something new or just can not come up with anything or they just can not get out of the rut of ther own play style that they have been stuck in book after book after book.
There are countless people out there who enjoy the game, continue to buy new releases and play with their friends and groups week after week and will continue to do so.

A lot of assumptions there my friend.

At the end of the day, folks buy enough product to keep GW in business. Why folks buy the product is an entirely different matter.

 Sarigar wrote:
At the end of the day, folks buy enough product to keep GW in business. Why folks buy the product is an entirely different matter.

Actually, most GW stores have closed at the end of the day. It's probably more commonly just past noon.

ninety0ne wrote:Just guessing by looking at their financials GW returns profits to shareholders while absorbing losses into the business. If I had to make a educated guess the difference between US And UK (or IFRS) GAAP makes comparing financial statements really tricky for those of us in the USA. From what I can find GW is doing quite well.

From the perspective of an investment portfolio manager, GW has been (and somewhat, but not dramatically, less so will continue to be) more than quite well; it's a great investment. It's the one thing Kirby is spot on with in his dadaist preambles; GW is a cash machine.

As a company, though, Games Workshop Group PLC is doing pretty poorly. Revenue peaked a decade ago and today's sales are even nominally lower than ten years ago.

ninety0ne wrote:After looking at some (not enough for GAAS by any stretch) Id suggest the weakening of the euro and the whole eurozone Is the primary culprit for the losses in the last few years. Which fits with the reported positve 18 month outlook and strong dividend policy.

You don't need to look that hard to find that a) they've seen severe revenue decline in all regions, not just in Continental Europe, and b) the Euro fluctuations from June 2013 to June 2014 (first GW FY in the current decline trend) have not been sufficient to explain revenue losses in Continental Europe, especially considering a Euro rally during the Christmas shopping season, let alone overall.

Jun '14 to Dec '14 (covering the most recent of GW's HY reports) has been rough, though. But not as rough as right now. In the second half of this FY they'll lose ~£1.5-2m from the Euro being in the dump alone, so if that accounts for their entire revenue decline when the report is released in July, you can start talking about uplifting outlooks (since they have now decided that posting regional numbers make them look bad; deliciously ironic, isn't it?).

The problem with comparing the GW company decline wholly with the Euro decline is that while the euro has decreased it has also caused the Dollar to jump about $.20 a pound. So with the Euro in the can the Dollar has had more purchasing power and realistically I would say that America is the bigger market for GW and not europe. Do just a quick search of GW stores and you will realize that America has the bigger gaming community.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
The problem with comparing the GW company decline wholly with the Euro decline is that while the euro has decreased it has also caused the Dollar to jump about $.20 a pound. So with the Euro in the can the Dollar has had more purchasing power and realistically I would say that America is the bigger market for GW and not europe. Do just a quick search of GW stores and you will realize that America has the bigger gaming community.

Alternatively, you could just read their last annual financial report and see that they have more revenue in Continental Europe than in North America.

Well what % of GW's sales are actually in the UK, and what % are in the eurozone, and what % elsewhere?

They have the UK (and Ireland) as a separate sales region.

It's on their website. Go look it up.

 Thud wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:
The problem with comparing the GW company decline wholly with the Euro decline is that while the euro has decreased it has also caused the Dollar to jump about $.20 a pound. So with the Euro in the can the Dollar has had more purchasing power and realistically I would say that America is the bigger market for GW and not europe. Do just a quick search of GW stores and you will realize that America has the bigger gaming community.

Alternatively, you could just read their last annual financial report and see that they have more revenue in Continental Europe than in North America.

You are correct, I apologize. According to the annual financial reports, Continental Europe with a population of around 680million has roughly 8-9% more sales then North America, North America also only has a population of 528 million and thats including all North American countries that are south of America (IE Mexico and Cuba who realistically don't have large gaming communities.) If you just count America and Canada the two biggest consumers of GW by a significant amount thats only about 356million people.

So proportionally North America has the biggest Gaming community when compared to Europe. but by sales europe is about 8-9% greater.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 Toofast wrote:
Now the quality of the products are suffering because there's less time for play testing due to the release pace.

They never really tested the gak anyway. In the studio they literally "test" new rules out by playing a handful of games in super casual mode, using armies like the crap you see in White Dwarf where they just take one of everything. They aren't looking for mistakes, they aren't thinking outside the box, and they aren't actively TRYING to break the game which is how you find what's broken in the first place.

If they gave a damn they'd have actual gamers do the play testing, open up an avenue for them to leave feedback, and then actually listen to the feedback. Who knows, we might actually get a codex that's worth the fething $60 that way.

This is very true. Real playtesting is setting up specific conditions and combinations just to test those conditions, not playing out a game and seeing what happens and using that as evidence. for if something is good or not, because it could never come up.

I play because I have done since I was young. I'm now immersed in the world and have way more disposable income now than when I was a kid. GW exploit that, particularly in the Horus heresy FW / black library departments. The game will die for young folks who will never get to immerse themselves in the universe of 40k purely due to price. But that's ok there will be a different universe for them to play in like halo or something else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I play because I have done since I was young. I'm now immersed in the world and have way more disposable income now than when I was a kid. GW exploit that, particularly in the Horus heresy FW / black library departments. The game will die for young folks who will never get to immerse themselves in the universe of 40k purely due to price. But that's ok there will be a different universe for them to play in like halo or something else.