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.

Thought so. Should be interesting.

Cheers

 insaniak wrote:
The January report had a definite hit to their bottom line. So the mid-year report will go some way towards establishing whether that was (as Mr Kirby claimed) a one-time aberration from the restructuring of their stores, or the start of a downward slide.

The period ending in May is their year end. They are a retail company hence the 52/53 week year. Their FY 15 will have a slight bump due to the extra week in the final month of their fiscal year.

Adding "miniatures" as a comparison is *very* interesting. I tried "wargaming" but that probably includes non-tabletop results, though it seems to rise in the "kickstarter" period.

"Gaming" in general (video games mainly no doubt) is on the rise. "Board Game" results are static - though the christmas spikes are hilarious.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It is worth understanding that Google Trends is calculated roughly speaking as an average against all search terms, therefore if over 10 years the amount of searching doubles, the amount of searching for Games Workshop could half in comparison while the actual number of searches for Games Workshop stayed at the same level.

Of course we might expect that the more people there are on the internet, the more people would be searching for Games Workshop.

Another possible explanation is that people have moved away from searching for Games Workshop and search for GW instead.

Unfortunately, GW is a relatively common term, so lots of non-Games Workshop items muddy the result.

The "Space Marine" trend line is also interesting.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Space%20Marine&cmpt=q

I would say that the overwealming majority of new internet users over the past 10 years have come from Africa and Asia, areas where the market for GW goods is poor.

Incidentally the trending for Warhammer 40k is pretty steady. It peaks then dips a bit in 2012 but that's it. If you compare it to Games Workshop, they both appear to be trending towards each other. Not sure what to make of that. Maybe the ip is keeping the lore side of it alive as the wargaming interest dwindles.

Africa and Asia? What makes you think that?

Almost all of the new games on the market seem to be Europe or the US, and we know from ICV2 that the US is on the rise.

Surely its not entirely a matter of people who are only now accessing the internet driving these trends.

Infinity the Game seems to match the interest in the game I've seen grow over the years. it also matches their website URL and the only real way to get a hit on their website. But obviously, it does still cross with the dongle game.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=infinity%20the%20game

Forgeworld:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Forgeworld&cmpt=q

No surprises for this one though:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Horus%20heresy&cmpt=q

Definitely the GW cash cow

Forge World looks pretty flat (with a slight downward trend at the end) showing that it may be isolated from the general GW trend.

I keep wondering if FW could exist as a separate entity from GW? They have the fans, their own production base (but in a GW building), own sculptors, painters writers etc.

 Koppo wrote:
I keep wondering if FW could exist as a separate entity from GW? They have the fans, their own production base (but in a GW building), own sculptors, painters writers etc.

You tell me. But the truth is you can use these graphs to prove anything.

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing, Lego!

I'd never actually heard of Google Trends before, quite an interesting little tool to use actually.

Thanks Lego, this is something to see.

In 9 days we will see what bearing it has.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Koppo wrote:
I keep wondering if FW could exist as a separate entity from GW? They have the fans, their own production base (but in a GW building), own sculptors, painters writers etc.

You tell me. But the truth is you can use these graphs to prove anything.

Clearly, people are having less fun, while dying slowly of asphyxiation is relatively stable over time.

I really love Google trends. I was trying to find out why my area was considered a "dead zone" for Privateer Press some time ago, and this would have been a nifty thing to use.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Africa and Asia? What makes you think that?

Almost all of the new games on the market seem to be Europe or the US, and we know from ICV2 that the US is on the rise.

Surely its not entirely a matter of people who are only now accessing the internet driving these trends.

What he is saying is that the growth in internet use has been happening in China and Africa, since Europe and the Americas have been relatively well wired for years.

Chinese and Africans don't search for Games Workshop, but they do search for "Fluffy kittens", "Sex" and so on. Therefore GW's share of the total number searches has declined.

There is possibly something in this, however if you look at the trend for Games Workshop for UK only, it is definitely heading downwards.

Malifaux is trending up

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=malifaux&cmpt=q

The Blood Bowl reigns over the classic specialist games

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=necromunda%2C%20gorkamorka%2C%20mordheim%2C%20blood%20bowl%2C%20space%20hulk&cmpt=q


Automatically Appended Next Post:
hmmm... how can these trends be trusted when you get results like this?

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=games%20workshop%2C%20pokemon&cmpt=q


Automatically Appended Next Post:
DnD vs GW, both trending down
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F026q9%2C%20games%20workshop&cmpt=q
add in Warcraft (which is also trending down)
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F026q9%2C%20games%20workshop%2C%20warcraft&cmpt=q
and for comparison sake Call of Duty and Angry Birds
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F026q9%2C%20games%20workshop%2C%20warcraft%2C%20call%20of%20duty%2C%20angry%20birds&cmpt=q
GW vs MLP
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=games%20workshop%2C%20my%20little%20pony&cmpt=q

Please note (as Lego has mentioned a few times now) using the term "warhammer 40,000" or similar will skew the results as they pertain to our interests. Generally we're only interested in the tabletop game. Data that includes the term 'warhammer 40,000" or similar will include results for all of the video games. You can easily see this by the MASSIVE search spike in late 2004 - This is when the original Dawn of War game was released.

Tannhauser42 wrote:It may be interesting to note that, over the past few years, there have been less and less reasons to actually go to the GW website, unless you just want to purchase something from them. No more Specialist Games, no more hobby articles, no more gaming articles, and even the FAQs are on a different website now.

While true and I understand what your meaning, this data is based on Google searches and does not reflect specific website hits.


[edit]
I think we also need to take into account social media trends, the natural spread of information and gravitation to specific online outlets for our content. Meaning, that as time has progressed we've needed Google less and less. We've all gradually moved to using online forums or other media outlets such as blogs to get our warhammer content.

If you wanted to know how to paint Orks, would you Google it? No, you'd come to Dakka or another forum or I'd look for a tutorial on YouTube. If you wanted to know the latest news about Warhammer 40K, would you Google it? No, you'd go to BoLS or similar. We're an informed group that no longer relies on Google to find information for our hobby.

 insaniak wrote:
The January report had a definite hit to their bottom line. So the mid-year report will go some way towards establishing whether that was (as Mr Kirby claimed) a one-time aberration from the restructuring of their stores, or the start of a downward slide.

I'd add that this would be the start of a downward slide in profits. The downward slide in sales is many years old now, isn't it?

 Flashman wrote:
This is quite fun...

Skaven are generally more searched for than Necrons (except for November 2011 when the Codex Necrons was released). Who knew?

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=skaven%2C%20necrons&cmpt=q

By and large though, whatever GW specific term you type in, it's on a downward trajectory.

now look at ork and orks vs skaven and necrons
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=skaven%2C%20necrons%2C%20orks%2C%20ork&cmpt=q

Welsh_Furey wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
This is quite fun...

Skaven are generally more searched for than Necrons (except for November 2011 when the Codex Necrons was released). Who knew?

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=skaven%2C%20necrons&cmpt=q

By and large though, whatever GW specific term you type in, it's on a downward trajectory.

now look at ork and orks vs skaven and necrons
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=skaven%2C%20necrons%2C%20orks%2C%20ork&cmpt=q

'Ork' isn't a GW specific term even when it's spelt with 'k' (though neither is 'Necron' to be honest). And judging from some of the highlighted news events, 'Ork' may mean something else entirely in other languages.

 oni wrote:
Please note (as Lego has mentioned a few times now) using the term "warhammer 40,000" or similar will skew the results as they pertain to our interests. Generally we're only interested in the tabletop game. Data that includes the term 'warhammer 40,000" or similar will include results for all of the video games. You can easily see this by the MASSIVE search spike in late 2004 - This is when the original Dawn of War game was released.

Tannhauser42 wrote:It may be interesting to note that, over the past few years, there have been less and less reasons to actually go to the GW website, unless you just want to purchase something from them. No more Specialist Games, no more hobby articles, no more gaming articles, and even the FAQs are on a different website now.

While true and I understand what your meaning, this data is based on Google searches and does not reflect specific website hits.


[edit]
I think we also need to take into account social media trends, the natural spread of information and gravitation to specific online outlets for our content. Meaning, that as time has progressed we've needed Google less and less. We've all gradually moved to using online forums or other media outlets such as blogs to get our warhammer content.

If you wanted to know how to paint Orks, would you Google it? No, you'd come to Dakka or another forum or I'd look for a tutorial on YouTube. If you wanted to know the latest news about Warhammer 40K, would you Google it? No, you'd go to BoLS or similar. We're an informed group that no longer relies on Google to find information for our hobby.

Google is the way I search for blogs and forums about stuff. Basically, Google is the way I search for anything online. I use Google Maps to search for stuff geographically.

I even use Google to look up the Games Workshop webstore. I type in Games Workshop, hit 'search' and it pops up as the first result.

Perhaps I am just old fashioned. I don't bother a lot with bookmarks any more because it is a tedious bore keeping them organised and lots of sites don't automatically update from their bookmark to the latest version of the site.

Chaos god popularity as ranked by trending:
Nurgle, Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=slaanesh%2C%20khorne%2C%20tzeentch%2C%20nurgle&cmpt=q

 bbb wrote:
Chaos god popularity as ranked by trending:
Nurgle, Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=slaanesh%2C%20khorne%2C%20tzeentch%2C%20nurgle&cmpt=q

Loving that Warhammer Online spike for Tzeentch.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 bbb wrote:
Chaos god popularity as ranked by trending:
Nurgle, Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=slaanesh%2C%20khorne%2C%20tzeentch%2C%20nurgle&cmpt=q

Loving that Warhammer Online spike for Tzeentch.

I'm loving that he colour coded the trend lines more or less correctly

 Flashman wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 bbb wrote:
Chaos god popularity as ranked by trending:
Nurgle, Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=slaanesh%2C%20khorne%2C%20tzeentch%2C%20nurgle&cmpt=q

Loving that Warhammer Online spike for Tzeentch.

I'm loving that he colour coded the trend lines more or less correctly

Looks like elves win the battle of the fantasy races. Love the yearly December spikes...

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=dwarf%2C%20ogre%2C%20goblin%2C%20orc%2C%20elf&cmpt=q

 oni wrote:

[edit]
I think we also need to take into account social media trends, the natural spread of information and gravitation to specific online outlets for our content. Meaning, that as time has progressed we've needed Google less and less. We've all gradually moved to using online forums or other media outlets such as blogs to get our warhammer content.

If you wanted to know how to paint Orks, would you Google it? No, you'd come to Dakka or another forum or I'd look for a tutorial on YouTube. If you wanted to know the latest news about Warhammer 40K, would you Google it? No, you'd go to BoLS or similar. We're an informed group that no longer relies on Google to find information for our hobby.

Uh... what? If I want to paint an ork, i'm going up to my browser bar on chrome and typing "painting orks." Why would I bother combing a bunch of websites manually? That's what search engines are for!

 Flashman wrote:

Welsh_Furey wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
This is quite fun...

Skaven are generally more searched for than Necrons (except for November 2011 when the Codex Necrons was released). Who knew?

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=skaven%2C%20necrons&cmpt=q

By and large though, whatever GW specific term you type in, it's on a downward trajectory.

now look at ork and orks vs skaven and necrons
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=skaven%2C%20necrons%2C%20orks%2C%20ork&cmpt=q

'Ork' isn't a GW specific term even when it's spelt with 'k' (though neither is 'Necron' to be honest). And judging from some of the highlighted news events, 'Ork' may mean something else entirely in other languages.

ork is GW specific now if I said orc I would agree with you bur ork is copyrighted by GW the spelling makes a big difference

Operational Record Keeping has been copyrighted by Games Workshop? GW's 'copyrights' are so full of holes that they could be used to strain pasta, as the CHS copyright case has made clear.

For the general concern about GW's searches being diluted...you can do geographic areas instead of global searches. While the BRIC countries are expanding (and even African countries are coming online) most Western countries have had fairly substantial internet access for the last decade.

Trend is still largely downwards when you look at the core regions (and non-existent in many areas they could potentially expand into).

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Africa and Asia? What makes you think that?

Almost all of the new games on the market seem to be Europe or the US, and we know from ICV2 that the US is on the rise.

Surely its not entirely a matter of people who are only now accessing the internet driving these trends.

What he is saying is that the growth in internet use has been happening in China and Africa, since Europe and the Americas have been relatively well wired for years.

Chinese and Africans don't search for Games Workshop, but they do search for "Fluffy kittens", "Sex" and so on. Therefore GW's share of the total number searches has declined.

There is possibly something in this, however if you look at the trend for Games Workshop for UK only, it is definitely heading downwards.

Conversely, 40k is actually going up in the UK (source), though Fantasy appears to have collapsed. I don't know what, if anything, to conclude from this.

I'm not sure a graph that describes a line that finishes at a lower point on it's Y axis than it starts can be considered a trend of 'up?'

 azreal13 wrote:
I'm not sure a graph that describes a line that finishes at a lower point on it's Y axis than it starts can be considered a trend of 'up?'

That's because trends are taken from the data as a whole rather than the first and last data points. The graph clearly shows an upward trend in 40k search queries.