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I think the comment made about value really underlines why the hobby industry is less affected by macro economics. If you compare the cost of going to a movie it can run around $20 give or take for two hours of entertainment. The hobby industry, while having a greater up front cost, provides more than two hours of entertainment. Think about it. You spend X amount of $ on some figures, you get entertainment from assembling, painting, and using the product, and you get to repeatedly use the product. Once you have an army you can use it multiple times with no cost other than transportation to a place to game. When you compare this to one shot entertainment like going to the movies or a night out at the clubs etc... it really does have a greater value. A good friend of mine who owns a game store says that during times of economic strain, such as the recent gas crisis in the US, he actually sees an increase in sales for the very reasons I listed above. Vices such as drinking and gambling rarely see any disruption as a result of larger economic woes, and lets face it, for a lot of us this hobby is definitely a vice.

It is good to see that it looks like GW will weather this storm. Their games have been steadily improving and brought me back into the fold.

JohnHwangDD wrote:It's increasingly clear to GW that Apocalypse is their real growth engine, not Tournaments. This is why GW drastically cut Tournament support for 2009 (e.g. no GT LA), while pushing out another wave of Apocalypse. If Apoc and the Guard lanuch go well, as I would expect, I think we can expect further even consolidation of GW Tournament events in 2010, perhaps down to just GT Baltimore and maybe GT Vegas, with the rest of things being focused on Games Days and megabattles. This would allow GW to invest more into Apocalypse for things like, say plastic Warhound Titans or Eldar Scorpion Grav-Tanks. Or even, perhaps, a Thunderhawk Gunship.

That paragraph is amazingly full of assumptions and strange connections. It's all wrong, but how do I even argue with someone drawing a direct connection between Apocalypse sales and the U.S. GT circuit? Where do you even start? Your posts are like haywire grenades, sir.

Scottywan82 wrote:On the "experienced gamer" end of their customer base, you have people who DO know about cheaper alternatives and possibly have competition for their sales dollar. But the argument is that they will continue to a.) support GW as loyal customers, and b.) will sacrifice the urchase of other luxury goods in order to keep supporting GW.

I try to stick to a fixed "hobby & entertainment" budget for each year.

This year, GW is going to get the lion's share of that budget simply based on the things that they are releasing. Sure, there are other toys which would be cool, but they don't really have the same long-term playability as GW minis and models.

The three "big" items of that GW spend are tied to Apocalypse and new plastics:
- Shadowsword = Apoc
- Basilisk squad = Apoc
- Valkyrie squad = new plastic

And with the pound being weak, I nearly bought a Scorpion. Still might, if it gets priced right...

JohnHwangDD wrote:This is why GW drastically cut Tournament support for 2009 (e.g. no GT LA), while pushing out another wave of Apocalypse.

Games Day LA (which is an almost entirely hobby focused event) was cancelled. The LA GT was not cancelled, because, well.. there hasn't been a GT in LA in many years. Angelinos play their GT in Vegas... which as far as I know, is still on the books for '09.

gorgon wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:It's increasingly clear to GW that Apocalypse is their real growth engine, not Tournaments.

That paragraph is amazingly full of assumptions and strange connections. It's all wrong, but how do I even argue with someone drawing a direct connection between Apocalypse sales and the U.S. GT circuit?

It's full of assumptions, sure, I admit that.

As for the connection between Apocalypse and Tournament, it's very simple. Ever since 3E, GW used their GTs as the way to showcase "the GW Hobby" (tm). Now, GW uses Apocalypse.

So if GW changes their marketing push, then marketing doesn't subsidize Tournaments. If Tournaments don't stand on their own, then they get cut. OTOH, if Apocalypse is profitable, then GW makes more money overall.

Simple.

thanks for putting this up, I saw it on TTGN as well.

I am stoked on this as I am a true GW fanboi, and to all the nay sayers who have been preaching doom and gloom with their supposed "insider" knolwedge and amatuer foghorn leghorn industry analysis: kiss it!

No seriously though, I am very happy about this and it bodes well that they can turn it around in the middle of a global economic slowdown.

The rules have gotten mostly better, the models are amazing, and with lots of new ways to play the game to keep all types of gamers interested, the king continues to sit the throne, and deservedly so in my opinion.

Reecius wrote:
-snip-
The rules have gotten worse -snip-

Fixed that for you.

George Spiggott wrote:So with '5th edition', 'AoBR', 'SM codex' and SM kits' being released you have four of Games Workshops biggest sellers and a little bit of Christmas all in one six month period.

It'll be interesting to see if GW can sustain this.

Point of order:

The 6 months ending 30 November 2008 would not include Christmas.


Carry on.

Wow 2 pages and no H.B.M.C comment. Is he sick someone check up on him

sonofruss wrote:Wow 2 pages and no H.B.M.C comment. Is he sick someone check up on him

Two pages AND some JohnHwangDD comments AND still no H.B.M.C.

You're right, there is cause for concern!

@vladsimpaler

Hey, you are free to your opinion, even if it is totally, 100% wrong!

haha, just kidding. I think the rules are a big improvement though, all apart from kill points and str4 deffensive weapons.

Alpharius wrote:

sonofruss wrote:Wow 2 pages and no H.B.M.C comment. Is he sick someone check up on him

Two pages AND some totally baseless way out there guesswork JohnHwangDD comments guaranteed to make you wonder where in god's name did those opinions come from AND still no H.B.M.C.

You're right, there is cause for concern!

Fixed your typo for you

DFK! wrote:

George Spiggott wrote:So with '5th edition', 'AoBR', 'SM codex' and SM kits' being released you have four of Games Workshops biggest sellers and a little bit of Christmas all in one six month period.

It'll be interesting to see if GW can sustain this.

Point of order:

The 6 months ending 30 November 2008 would not include Christmas.


Carry on.

A certain amount of Christmas shopping happens in November though clearly the bulk of Christmas spending happens in December.

I work for a company that supplies hardware & software for the hair & beauty industry, which has been proven not to suffer too badly during recessions. Apparently having their hair done is a cheapish way for a woman to cheer herself up and treat herself. I think you will find that this applies to gamers as well. We may cut back a bit, but we still will go "oooo, nice shiney model/rulebook" and want it.

This appears to be confirmed when having a chat with a local GW store manager, who said that they'd not seen any major drop in sales. He also said that a manager friend of his who runs one of those one man stores was pulling in about the same as them. I've also got a couple of mates who run MCS Miniatures and they are still able to get people interested in new ranges.

GW grew during the recession during the 90's.

They have a product we want to buy, no matter how much they try to put us off with lame rules, over powered army books, and ever increasing prices.

They are looking in good shape ATM.
The real fear should be to the 2nd tier gaming companies that don't have the reserves GW does.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:GW grew during the recession during the 90's.

They have a product we want to buy, no matter how much they try to put us off with lame rules, over powered army books, and ever increasing prices.

They are looking in good shape ATM.
The real fear should be to the 2nd tier gaming companies that don't have the reserves GW does.

Indeed. Well, the bit about the smaller companies. They depend on the Indy Stores more than GW, so Indies going under is going to hurt their levels of recruitment (existing gamers will of course just buy elsewhere)

It seems like an awful lot of work for GW's Bavarian Illuminati to engineer a global recession just to knock out Rackham when Rackham seems to have already done most of the work themselves...

GW products is like drugs.

We are addicted as gamers, and we can care less if our baby's momma hates us.

We can care less if we eat, buy ipods, pay for gas.

We care about the game!

haha.

A lot of us, are still buying.

Also the sneaky pricing, 22$ per few models, instead of the fat 35-40$ in one shot, makes people think they are saving money.

Also, it allows us to actually spend our money, because we don't see it as being a 'lot'.

The publisher of hustler magazine (a skin-mag for anyway that doesn't know the porn mag industry) went to the US congress back in the fall and asked for a bail-out if the auto industry would get one.

His basic premis was: "When you're depressed you need more porn and sex. Currently business is booming, but we'd still like some of that money you're passing out to everyone else."

Why did I bring this up? Becuase (like sex) when you're depressed you still want your hobbies. Heck, we're doing more family travel now then the year before because prices are so darn cheap (I've got a federal job, fixed mortgage, so the downturn isn't hurting me). I'm still spending money on plastic crack - more this year then the previous 4 years combined beause of all the new ork stuff.

I want a govt bailout too though. With no oversight. Just like the banks...

budro wrote:The publisher of hustler magazine (a skin-mag for anyway that doesn't know the porn mag industry) went to the US congress back in the fall and asked for a bail-out if the auto industry would get one.

His basic premis was: "When you're depressed you need more porn and sex. Currently business is booming, but we'd still like some of that money you're passing out to everyone else."

Why did I bring this up? Becuase (like sex) when you're depressed you still want your hobbies. Heck, we're doing more family travel now then the year before because prices are so darn cheap (I've got a federal job, fixed mortgage, so the downturn isn't hurting me). I'm still spending money on plastic crack - more this year then the previous 4 years combined beause of all the new ork stuff.

I want a govt bailout too though. With no oversight. Just like the banks...

lol...

Maybe 40k is our anti drug.

Maybe 40k is the closest thing to sex we get =( (no offense!)

Its still underlying reasons why we pay to play this exspensive game.


It is indeed plastic crack. haha.

RogueMarket wrote:GW products is like drugs.

We are addicted as gamers, and we can care less if our baby's momma hates us.

We can care less if we eat, buy ipods, pay for gas.

We care about the game!

haha.

A lot of us, are still buying.

Also the sneaky pricing, 22$ per few models, instead of the fat 35-40$ in one shot, makes people think they are saving money.

Also, it allows us to actually spend our money, because we don't see it as being a 'lot'.

Meh, some have come down noticably despite some boxes being worse value for money. Bought me a box of Nobz today for £15, that when metal, would have been £25. Overall the price of putting together a force hasn't risen a great deal over the years.

RogueMarket wrote:Also the sneaky pricing, 22$ per few models, instead of the fat 35-40$ in one shot, makes people think they are saving money.

You mean like 3 Basilisks for $90 instead of $100+ if bought individually?

Or an entire company of Space Marines (with Transports) for $400?

Or a plastic Baneblade for $95 instead of $300 in resin?

I think you are *actually* saving money with the Apocalypse deals.

That's the whole point with those really. Most of those deals are also excellent for regular army expansion, like that boxed set of two Monoliths or the Leman Russ / Basilisk squadron boxed set.

A large portion of the demographic who purchased GW products are simply not effected by a recession. People who live with their parents and pay no bills already have 100 percent disposable income. People with careers and heavy amounts of disposable income may only have slightly less disposable income now. Finally long term entrenched gamers who have enough armies to always be entertained, who will no doubt keep purchasing rule books.

Myself I'm in a stable career with a family and still have about 1k a month of disposable income. The recession may keep eating into that but I'll always make room to purchase hobby stuff.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

RogueMarket wrote:Also the sneaky pricing, 22$ per few models, instead of the fat 35-40$ in one shot, makes people think they are saving money.

You mean like 3 Basilisks for $90 instead of $100+ if bought individually?

Or an entire company of Space Marines (with Transports) for $400?

Or a plastic Baneblade for $95 instead of $300 in resin?

I think you are *actually* saving money with the Apocalypse deals.

Ah the apoc sets, are actally a different deal. But then again, they just made you spend 95$, and the 400$, making you *believe* that its a great deal.

For the plastic =D. At the same time I can see some hits against GW themselves.. sort of? Because the online value significantly decreased, if you check ebay with all those resellers opening up boxes and selling it in en masse.

But that shouldn't shake the

In short change, they did down shoot their own prices, however the amount of sales allowed them to profitzed off us =( either way.

mind tricks!




Also - for anyone who want to know how GW is growing in the State of washington, they grew from 3-4 stores up to 8? 9? who knows.

They are even are expanding our battle bunker, and also relocated a store into a huge new area.

At least you have them up there there is no gw love in Oregon. I need to go to auburn to see one.

Still no man myth legend H.B.M.C.. He needs his chance at his

If I'm going to buy 3 Basilisks over the course of the year, and I save up for a bulk buy, how is that not a deal over buying individually every time I get $35 (or whatever) in my pocket?

I save my money, so I pay less.

That seems fair.

Or maybe he meant something like you needing one or two basilisks for your army, but OMG PRICE CUT I BETTER GET THREE WHAT A DEAL!! instead of the $35/$75 you would have spent.

Except, I *want* 3 Basilisks. If I only wanted 1, then I'd only buy 1. But 3 Bassies?

DO WANT!

So I'm going to buy 3 and get the discount (and then I can field the Apocalypse Basilisk Formation).

Now, granted, I already have 1 Bassie, so I only need 2.

But I also have 2 scratchbuilt Hellhounds, and can use a 3rd Hellhound to complete the set (although I think the Apoc Hellhound Formation is poo, so I won't bother with that).

So, for me, the 3 Basilisk boxed set gives me all of the Basilisk / Hellhound chassis that I "need" to "complete" my conventional Guard armor, and it saves me a few bucks.

So that's pretty darn good, IMO.

Any business with 70%+ gross margin that doesn't turn a profit is doing something horribly wrong...

There are no stores left open near me, methinks closing lots of branches has helped their figures a bit.