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AllSeeingSkink wrote:
GW continue to sell more expensive kits to fewer customers. I think it's a bad thing, but to their credit they have managed to stop the arse end from falling out since the LOTR bubble bursting in the mid to late 00's.

No. GW is lucky because of licensing their IP to video games saved them this year. If sales stay the same this year like last year, GW will have their first loss in a very long time. I think it was 2 video games that saved them last year. Total War:Warhammer and I forget the other video game.

So GW needs to do something to increase sales because I am sure TW:W and the other video game will not be able to give GW the 3 or 4 million pounds (dollars?) to save them. I was shocked to read this.

They are not going to get £5 off video games every year.

Davor wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
GW continue to sell more expensive kits to fewer customers. I think it's a bad thing, but to their credit they have managed to stop the arse end from falling out since the LOTR bubble bursting in the mid to late 00's.

No. GW is lucky because of licensing their IP to video games saved them this year. If sales stay the same this year like last year, GW will have their first loss in a very long time.

They only lost 0.9% in sales revenue even if you exclude the royalties, which gives you a 2.8% rise in total revenue. Their operating profit pre-royalties was still £11M.

0.9% reduction in sales isn't great obviously, but it's still not like the arse end has fallen out. They're still a long way off posting a loss.

Royalties "saved" them in the sense they were expecting around £16M in profit but only got £11M profit, the royalties bumped them up to £17M.

I'm not a financial expert, but to me it seems like they're holding their own, maybe not expanding anymore like they were in the 90's or the LOTR boom of the early 00's, but also not dying.

Davor wrote:
I don't know how to take it. I read it as a "I am a nerd geek who loves GW but pissed off at them" but "I am also an investor and I love the money they give me."

It's like he is saying "I love the money GW is giving me, but as a gamer I am pained".

I think it's more like he's saying that on paper GW looks like a good investment; it's got a great yield, and is profitable, but as a gamer he doesn't think it's actually a safe investment, because he doesn't trust the board to keep it up.

Herzlos wrote:

Davor wrote:
I don't know how to take it. I read it as a "I am a nerd geek who loves GW but pissed off at them" but "I am also an investor and I love the money they give me."

It's like he is saying "I love the money GW is giving me, but as a gamer I am pained".

I think it's more like he's saying that on paper GW looks like a good investment; it's got a great yield, and is profitable, but as a gamer he doesn't think it's actually a safe investment, because he doesn't trust the board to keep it up.

It was definitely a strange article to read and that's sort of what I took away from it as well.

 oldzoggy wrote:

- A huge wave of licensing deals

Both are innovative, and should be focus of a decent article that goes further then the easy chicle's.

I don't think the licensing is innovative at all; it seems to just be lazy. They've been handing out licenses to anything that'll make them an offer, most of which is mobile phone shovelware.
The only innovate one may have been Total War: It's a massive franchise and fits WHFB pretty well, but I don't know if that was driven by GW or by the TW team? There was certainly nothing innovative about launching a AAA gaming title for your flagship game a few months after canning said flagship game and killing off any chance for crossover sales.

I still maintan GW's biggest risk is that it doesn't understand who gives them money and why. It does all seem to be "whales" these days, but they don't seem to have any way of recruiting them now; most seem to have been gamers in the 90's who left for a while and came back, whilst being in that honeymoon period in real work where they have lots of money but no real commitments for that money. Most of them will likely move on within a few years (I know dozens of ex GW gamers in my local club) when real life starts restricting their time/money and they move onto better value for money games. I genuinely can't see how they'll manage to replace them at anything like the rate they lose them, and I think that's showing in their sales figures.

Mario wrote:

fresus wrote:

Read these points again, but assuming we're talking about a drug cartel.
People's addiction to their products is their best marketing strategy.

Wouldn't a drug dealer want good word-of-mouth marketing of their product to expand their reach? If you can't (or don't) advertise in other ways that your only way to growth.

They advertise a lot actually. Just look at the amount of computer and board games that have been pooped out last year.

Is that advertising?

I think they actually ran a few ads for AoS in one of the collectors magazines, and had a few trade booths, but I haven't seen an actual GW advert for probably 20 years.

Herzlos wrote:

I still maintan GW's biggest risk is that it doesn't understand who gives them money and why. It does all seem to be "whales" these days

Face it you are a whale when your wife feels the need to restrict your money to a monthly budget. The amount a typical GW customer is willing to spend on GW stuff is something most other companies can only dream off. GW knows that most of us will stop once we reach high school but they also know that a portion of the players / collectors will return and continue buying like crazy. So every youngster has the potential to grow out to be a nice big juicy plastic krack addicted fish that will feed them for years to come in the future.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Herzlos wrote:
Is that advertising?

I haven't seen an actual GW advert for probably 20 years.

lol yes you have. You just don't accept it to be advertising. GW just likes to get paid for their adverts or at worse let others do their job for them.


Games like Dawn of war and Dark omen etc. are advertising.
-> Players who like the game will likely take a look at the physical game. I for sure still have the urge to wanting to play fantasy like I played it in Dark Omen.
-> The game itself generates lots of adverts in gamer magazines and youtube etc.

White Dwarfs have been an advertising leaflet since GW took over control from it and kicked out all the DND stuff.

But the biggest for of advertising directed at you might be all the rumour sites.
They are fed teasers by GW and the sites create the hype for them in return. No other companies advertising gets me so hyped up about a new product as GW does with this form of adds. Hell I even stayed up once in a while to look at the new rumors of an army I really cared about. Can you imagine ever staying up just to watch a regular add ?

Herzlos wrote:


I think it's more like he's saying that on paper GW looks like a good investment; it's got a great yield, and is profitable, but as a gamer he doesn't think it's actually a safe investment, because he doesn't trust the board to keep it up.

Did they say they were a gamer, I just thought it said investor/journalist?

GW aren't going to get into a loss in the next couple of years. At worst if they maintain the same level of profit loss and get no licensing revenue in then they will be in a loss making situation in three years. This is highly unlikely though as there are more licensing games in the works (at least two more TW games) and that they will reduce non-profitable areas to try and maintain profit levels (consolidation). Of course there are some unknown unknown risks around. The Brexit vote causing a recession in the UK might impact things (but a weak £ might boost profits on foreign sales) and things like a release of a tabletop Star Wars game could have a big impact.. Realistically though I would not expect GW to be in a loss making situation until the early 2020s at the earliest if they maintain current trends.

The big issue GW don't seem to be grappling with is the price of their products. In reality over the whole GW purchasing population their will be an average allowance per month per gamer. The fairly static revenue indicates this (the slight decrease may be due to leaving players). They will not touch their core goal of increasing prices over the whole year by approx. 3% (stated in the report), but when you consider that these are only applied on new models the actual price increase on these are significantly higher (I've heard 9% mentioned in another thread). Combined what this means is that people can only purchase less and less items each year. Some may be successful (BaC, Overkill, AoSQ) but these mean that people don't spend on other products. In essence although some products do well, you get a complete hold off on other ranges meaning the return on the capital expenditure is a lot worse (hence profitability goes down) - say for example they hadn't released the slayers - their investment capital costs would be lower but their income would likely be the same (hence profitability is higher).

On top of this the prices mean you lose a few more players year on year as they literally can no longer afford to play the game and either leave the hobby or find something cheaper (say BtGoA instead of 40K) and with no one filling these shoes because of sticker shock you can see the problem GW has. GW is unwilling to make a mass market feeder product that could be sold more widely (a few recut sets from previous additions in a few toy stores is not enough) because it prefers sales to be through its own sales channels (higher retail price) but gives nothing back to customers for this higher retail price (unlike some companies that have membership schemes with unique benefits etc).

Until GW wake up from this strategy the trend will continue to be a downward spiral as they get nibbled away from more agile competitors that understand the market better.

If you don't believe me ask yourself These questions:

- Who would leak? Anyone working at the company is directly in risk of dangering his work or the work of colleagues or even their jobs by bringing out classified information. Hell you would probably even be sued for leaking confidential information if you where really leaking and got caught.

- Why do they choose to leak what they are leaking:
What would you leak if you wanted to leak and had the codex in hand. Would you go for the time consuming task of making perfect scans of the art or would you just publish all the rules and unit entries etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Whirlwind wrote:

- say for example they hadn't released the slayers - their investment capital costs would be lower but their income would likely be the same (hence profitability is higher).

This is where things get tricky. MtG, 40k and starwars etc. are not like normal don't sell like normal stuff. Sales have a background rating but sky-rocket during good releases. Because we do buy more when they hype new releases. So while they don't want to spend too much on new stuff they have to do this to create enough hypes for us to keep at our higher rate of buying stuff. One of the high up Hasbro guys has written an article about this a while back. I can't find it now but you will surely find it if you look for MtG and hasbro.

Herzlos wrote:
and I think that's showing in their sales figures.

But is it really? If I look at the available revenue numbers it's hard to glean anything overly significant from it. They were high 2002-2005 (LotR), fell from 2005 to 2007 (LotR bubble burst), steady 2008, rising 2009 and 2010 (5th ed 40k) slight dip in 2011 (WHFB 8th?) up again 2012 and 2013 (6th ed), decent drop in 2014 (7th edition and exchange rate woes), smaller drop in 2015 and close to sideways in 2016.

The significant things to me are LotR fans didn't hang around after the movies and that was a significant impact. WHFB fans didn't like 8th and 40k fans didn't like 7th.... but not enough to deal a killer blow. It wouldn't surprise me if GW are correct in thinking most their customers rarely or don't at all play the games (though the game is important in marketing the miniatures).

But overall, the swings I don't think are big enough to say too much significant, they've been within a band of +/- 10% for the past decade. They're a company that has always been driven by new releases, in the most recent report it made up 30% of their sales, so you're going to get variation from one year to the next depending on the specific releases in that year.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Davor wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
GW continue to sell more expensive kits to fewer customers. I think it's a bad thing, but to their credit they have managed to stop the arse end from falling out since the LOTR bubble bursting in the mid to late 00's.

No. GW is lucky because of licensing their IP to video games saved them this year. If sales stay the same this year like last year, GW will have their first loss in a very long time.

They only lost 0.9% in sales revenue even if you exclude the royalties, which gives you a 2.8% rise in total revenue. Their operating profit pre-royalties was still £11M.

0.9% reduction in sales isn't great obviously, but it's still not like the arse end has fallen out. They're still a long way off posting a loss.

Royalties "saved" them in the sense they were expecting around £16M in profit but only got £11M profit, the royalties bumped them up to £17M.

I'm not a financial expert, but to me it seems like they're holding their own, maybe not expanding anymore like they were in the 90's or the LOTR boom of the early 00's, but also not dying.

Thanks for the clarification. My head starts spinning when reading numbers. I thought I read profit sales were down about 3 or 4 million pounds, and it was the 4 million pounds they got from licensing that I thought saved them this year.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That was dominated by LotR, so not really surprising, it's basically saying that GW's own products aren't as popular as a product tied to one of the most successful movie series ever.

We're at about half of their 03/04 financial year if you adjust for inflation, but they lost £15M from 04 to 05, another £20M from 05 to 06 and another £4M from 06 to 07 (which I think is the only year they had an overall loss in recent memory).

If you rewind to before LOTR, I think that'd be 2000? They made about £80M in 2000 which adjusted for inflation is about the same as they made these days.

Yeah, you're about right, close enough as makes no real difference.

The important question is how much of GW's revenue in say 2005-5 was LoTR, and how much was 40K, WHFB and other lines (e.g. specialist games.)

I got curious and started digging.

I've learned two things; Kirby was way more flying rodent gak crazy back in 2005 than in his years as acting CEO, and the LOTR bubble was well and truly finished by FY 2004/2005.


Fun stuff from Kirby;

"We at Games Workshop must all in our hearts hate mass advertising so we are never tempted into the destructive downward spiral a dependence upon it would bring."

"This is why I don't like publicity, especially photographs - it's not because, as Rick Priestley keeps reminding me, I am a seriously ugly man, or because I am shy - it's that it gives the wrong impression to the world. "

"In my various guises (chairman, chief executive, school governor, parent, visiting professor, beer drinker) ..."

"Rules of thumb are best if they are short, unequivocal, and absolute. That means they are usually broken all the time. In that time honoured tradition this is a rule we break all the time, but never, I hope, in spirit. So why do we have the rule, why do we break the rule, and why don't I care (much)?"

 Thud wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That was dominated by LotR, so not really surprising, it's basically saying that GW's own products aren't as popular as a product tied to one of the most successful movie series ever.

We're at about half of their 03/04 financial year if you adjust for inflation, but they lost £15M from 04 to 05, another £20M from 05 to 06 and another £4M from 06 to 07 (which I think is the only year they had an overall loss in recent memory).

If you rewind to before LOTR, I think that'd be 2000? They made about £80M in 2000 which adjusted for inflation is about the same as they made these days.

Yeah, you're about right, close enough as makes no real difference.

The important question is how much of GW's revenue in say 2005-5 was LoTR, and how much was 40K, WHFB and other lines (e.g. specialist games.)

I got curious and started digging.

I've learned two things; Kirby was way more flying rodent gak crazy back in 2005 than in his years as acting CEO, and the LOTR bubble was well and truly finished by FY 2004/2005.

What makes you think it was well and truly finished by 2005? The last movie came out end of 2003, about 6 months prior to the 2005 FY.

Going by the numbers, it makes sense to me that the drops from 2004 to 2007 were LotR. People aren't going to see the last movie and throw their hands up in the air and stop collecting within 6 months.

2016: 118M
2015: 119M
2014: 123M
2013: 134M
2012: 131M
2011:: 123M
2010: 126M
2009: 125M
2008: 110M
2007: 109M
2006: 115M
2005: 136M
2004: 151M
2003: 129M


So I'd say 2004 was high because of Return of the King, 2005 was a drop because people were still buying LotR but at a far lower rate, 2006 people had mostly abandoned LotR and then 2007 was their lowest year, 5th ed 40k came out right at the start of the 2009 FY so I think it's probably the biggest contributor to the turn around.

At least that's my guess.

If I were going to guess at overall trends...

I'd say late 90's 40k was popular, 40k was likely flat or slow growth through the early and mid 00's and growth in the late 00's and early 10's before flattening off and dropping slightly in the past couple of years thanks to 7th.

WHFB was likely also popular in the late 90's but under steady decline through the 00's and then rapid decline in the 10's coinciding with 8th, though 7th came out in the 2007 FY so it was likely also not terribly popular (unless it was popular and offset by still-falling LotR sales).

LotR obviously popular during the movies 2001-2004 then dropping there after.

AoS has picked up fantasy sales at the cost of 40k sales (more releases = more sales, less 40k releases = less 40k sales), but it's hard to tell where it's going from here. Big drop in Citadel miniatures (offset by a rise in FW miniatures) suggests to me AoS might not have been a complete flop but it also wasn't good enough to offset the drop in 40k releases, BaC was probably successful in getting people interested in HH.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
What makes you think it was well and truly finished by 2005? The last movie came out end of 2003, about 6 months prior to the 2005 FY.

Kirby writing in the 2005 report that LOTR sales had fallen off a cliff, going from an important revenue source to negligible, was a pretty useful hint.

Did he actually say it was negligible, and if it was negligible, how many millions of pounds is "negligible", and was it negligible for the whole year or only by the end of the year when the report was written? Remember that Kirby was writing the 2005 report before the 2006 results were known.

It could have fallen off a cliff in 2005 FY and then stumbled off another cliff in to the ocean by 2006 FY.

Unless there's another reason for the 20M pound fall from 2005 to 2006, LotR seems like as good a candidate as any. Though I think that report is still up so if someone feels like it they can read the 2006 report too.

"We at Games Workshop must all in our hearts hate mass advertising so we are never tempted into the destructive downward spiral a dependence upon it would bring."

Which is an obvious admission that it works. That it actually would bring in revenue to be dependent upon. I'm guessing that their De Agostini campaign worked really, really well and a similar campaign for AoS or 40k would also work really well. Battle Games in the Age of Sigmar, anyone?

Its never good when investor advisers write articles about your company.. and not in a good way.
I personally collected GW since the late 80's but last year was the breaking point for me..
The releases are nothing special and most release seem to be just re-boxing.
With AoS, they changed the base type, scale, game play, back ground and world..
Then told the older players they could continue to play as before... That caused a
vacuum of players they are just starting to recover after a year of changes back.
If McDonalds changed big mac to a teriyaki tofu nuggets and said it was the same thing..
People would think they are crazy..
I just seems they have really lost their way..new GW designs now look like old Rackham
stuff and nothing is there to draw me back...
Side note.. I had a White Dwarf subscription for decades and I left it run out earlier this year...
Not buying from them is the only way customers can send a message that they need to change what they are doing.

 oldzoggy wrote:


They advertise a lot actually. Just look at the amount of computer and board games that have been pooped out last year.

I wouldn't really call that advertisement. They just licensed out their IP to nearly everyone who would ask for it and quite a few games are really bad. That's not really a good image for a company that prides itself in the quality of their product. And the board games are mostly sold through the same channels as their other games. I think they have started going to trade show again (after a long time of ignoring them) and even sending a preview copy of their board games (and even AoS) to some youtuber/reviewer but that also a very recent development. They are slowly getting used to utilizing social media but I think these things need to be pushed further.

There's a reason they a big boost with the LotR license and when another company promoted their stuff more and also aimed for the general public. That was one moment when the company didn't rely only on incestuous advertisement to their existing fan-base. For the Hobbit they again had nearly no outside advertisement (and the ridiculous prices, I totally forgot to mention that LotR was cheaper than the mainline GW products) which led to a product range that didn't that well.

Advertisement can't solve all their problems but when they had good advertisement (LotR, the Dawn of War games) they also got new customers from outside the GW bubble. Total War: Hammer advertises a game that they don't sell anymore. :/

See it how you like it but videos like these are just a free adds for 40k, specificity targeted at a group of potential players.

Advertising through video games is basically the only advertising GW has ever done, and it only really works if it's a big budget game from a publisher who themselves are going to put money in to advertising it.

I don't get the impression GW puts much stock in advertising through video games otherwise why would they wait until they killed WHFB to start "advertising" it. It was probably once the royalty money started pouring in they had on "oh gak" moment where they realised the IP they just killed could pull in a decent amount of money when marketed to the right people.

frozenwastes wrote:
"We at Games Workshop must all in our hearts hate mass advertising so we are never tempted into the destructive downward spiral a dependence upon it would bring."

Which is an obvious admission that it works. That it actually would bring in revenue to be dependent upon. I'm guessing that their De Agostini campaign worked really, really well and a similar campaign for AoS or 40k would also work really well. Battle Games in the Age of Sigmar, anyone?

I heard somewhere that it was the most successful De Agostini publication DA have had.

@ Baragash.
I heard /read that as well.(Can not remember where though.)
The success it brought absolutely terrified Tom Kirby.A small to medium company with institutional shareholders that do not pay much attention to the Chairman/CEO, hubris driven rants , he can cope with.

If GW plc became a large successful company which is scrutinized much harder by shareholders/and senior board members.
Tom Kirby would be proven to be unqualified to be C.E.O./ chairman , and would be shown the door quite quickly.

This attitude from T.K. explains much of the 'pants on head stupid' corporate 'directives', and 'chairman preambles'.

I may get flack for laying the poor performance of GW at the feet of T.K.
But I believe he is the cause of slow decline into irrelevance GW was /is on.

Does that include when he led the buyout and saved the company?

The first shift happened in the late 90s. We know from former staff describing their projects that 40k and WHFB were intentionally redesigned to double the model count needed to play and then when the LOTR bubble burst, the company shifted again. Changing gears from trying to get their games into as many hands as possible to cutting costs at all cost (each store converted to a single employee operation had an average of 40% sales decline, for example) and protecting margins by jacking up prices. Selling as few kits as possible at as high price as possible.

I believe the LOTR bubble bursting truly changed GW's corporate culture and Kirby personally. I believe he became very, very risk adverse after that and seeing retirement within the next decade or two. Cut costs, hike up prices, pay himself dividends, repeat.

@Fenrir Kitsune.
He was very capable of running the small company GW was back in 1992.

The decision to work with MB games on Hero Quest and Space Crusade was the reason for GWs growth in the mid to 1990s.
MBs global marketing with reference to GW product put GW into the main stream.

The whole point is GW was very lucky in a few instances that resulted in outside influences promoting GW .Without which GW would never have been such a success in the first place.(Kirby had had very little to do with GW growth as a company. )

And the fact GW never progressed beyond word of mouth marketing, simply because other companies did global professional marketing it for them in their greatest periods of growth.(Milton Bradley Games and New Line Cinema ).
Indicates how scared T.K. is of any thing that would result in growing market share, and company size.

And you are right TKs management buy out saved the small company that was GW .
But to be chairman /C.E.O if a global corporation needs a completely different skill set to a Managing Director of a small medium sized minatures company.

Now that you mention it, I think you might be right about the marketing thing. Heroquest was so influential in spreading GW's type or product across North America, which GW now identifies as the target market for new stores they open. It's a shame they turned their back on the distributors and stores that make developing that market further possible. As well as on mass marketing that has proven to work well for them in the past.

@frozenwastes.
I totally agree that GW corporate management 'misunderstood' what caused the periods of growth in GW history.

In the beginning , GW did sell the best minatures in the opinion of most collectors/gamers.(Generalization alert. )
And people were happy to pay a bit more for the quality of the Citadel range.(Usually about 20% more in the late 1980s.)

Then the game developers created a range of games that covered lots of different types of game and gamer, and generally they were fun and inspiring, and the 'dodgy bits' of the rules were soon worked around. (Back when WD was a games supplement full of extra rules and alternative ways to add to many GW game systems.And frequent updates and Errata , before the internet years. )

During this period of the mid 1990s it was obvious the rules GW sold were just a starting point and it was up to the players to develop the game play how they wanted to. As WD was full of examples of how to modify and expand on the core rules.

So at the start it was the artistic talent and creativity of the GW studio that drove interest in Games Workshop.

During both periods of largest growth,(when MB and New line did global marketing.) GW plc opens up stores to accommodate the influx of new customers.
And as the marketing done out side GW , is not acknowledged by GW corporate management, they reenforce the idea the increase in market share and customer interest is JUST down to them opening more B&M stores.

As opening B&M stores was only a reaction to to increased interest in GW caused by external marketing.
No matter how GW plc try opening up more B&M stores, these store openings can not hope to grow market share just by themselves.(As has been proven)

And the reaction to this by GW corporate managers , is not to acknowledge that marketing is a valid and crucial part of an effective business plan.
But to adhere to their own hubris that that are the only people who know what their customers actually want.And so market research is not needed.
And take actions to force more trade through GW channels by restricting trade through third party outlets.
This is so stupid from every angle , it reduces trade, customer interest , market share and revenue.
It only makes sense if you want to show the views of the GW Chairman are right despite every piece of available data pointing to to contrary.

I am hopeful that when Tom Kirby leaves GW plc it will not be too late for the new C.E.O to correct the gulf TK has caused between potential customers and GW .
(I think the latest moves to try to re engage with customers is encouraging. )

To refer to 'GW loyal customers' in the terms used by Tom Kirby inside GW HQ would offend so many people I will not repeat it here. But he actively holds the GW customers in complete contempt ,and totally underestimates the value of the studio and store staff.

Lanrak wrote:
And as the marketing done out side GW , is not acknowledged by GW corporate management, they reenforce the idea the increase in market share and customer interest is JUST down to them opening more B&M stores.

As opening B&M stores was only a reaction to to increased interest in GW caused by external marketing.
No matter how GW plc try opening up more B&M stores, these store openings can not hope to grow market share just by themselves.(As has been proven)

If I was in charge of GW, job 1 would be contacting De Agostini about a Battle Games in the Age of Sigmar and Battles Games in the Dark Millenium magazine run for the EU and UK and also figure out some means to making that happen on the news stands and book stores of the major centres of North America as well. As well, I'd approach all of the largest board game manufacturers and look for an opportunity to do something like Heroquest. Something that shows off GW's style of miniatures. Then I'd investigate how other hobby games have successfully used advertising and go for similar channels. I'd approach popular geek culture youtube channels and have them do GW related content like Wizards did with Geek & Sundry. I'd find appropriate games that have advertising to buy. I'd buy youtube ads.

The rules would also be reviewed so that every single miniature that was not a grunt had more staying power. Veteran Sergeants, Orc Nobs, Chaos Champions, (everyone anyone might identify with) would get multiple wounds (even if it's just 2) so they'd feel more awesome on the table top. The mandate to the design studio would be that models need to be made to feel more valuable to the players because of the rules, not less. Instead of trying to get people to buy more miniatures by making the games concentrate on larger model counts where models are just meaningless wound counters, I'd go for smaller model counts and try to always be inspiring people to start additional armies. Codeces and army books would still have rules in them, but they'd be primarily about conversions, painting, art and fiction. The rules for all armies would be free PDFs and all units for all games would come with rules inserts. And not half baked useless ones but full on entries with all options.

I'd restart Citadel Journal as an online site. Fan contributions for articles. No forum, but moderated comment sections on the articles. Total social media integrate as well. Once a year I'd see about making an in print annual of the best stuff people contributed. I'd do everything I could to leverage the community in terms of volunteering. I'd give everyone who wanted a chance to contribute a chance to do so. And the best stuff would become part of the official universe. An awesomely painted space marine army with a popular engaging article attached would earn that person's Space Marine chapter a place in the published universe. With an actually competent head of IP, it'd be no problem to get people to agree to whatever legal terms are needed to make that happen. Citadel Journal would also be where all rules get publicly playtested. Models would be released with rules, but if changes were needed because of design mistakes the community found through play, they'd get fixed there and when the print run of rules leaflets ran out, the next set of boxes of that unit would have the corrected rules (there would also be "The Citadel Journal - Now accepting contributions" pamphlet. Oh, it would also have a weekly post of all the less than great stuff so if Timmy paints his space marine and sends a picture, it still gets posted somewhere.

I'd go back to all the hobby distributors that GW pulled away from in late 90s and offer a starter product line for any retailer to sell without having to get a trade account with GW. I'd want every little toy store and comic book shop to have a small section if they wanted, like they did in the 90s. I'd want them flying off the shelves through amazon and ebay sellers and discounters and whomever (though I'd try to ask distributors not to sell to those who discounted too deeply, but in a less public and acrimonious way than Privateer and Battlefront have done). Just a starter, a book and maybe an additional kit per faction to start and then a quarterly release for a handful of the factions-- enough that everyone gets something new for their faction every year. All the rest would only be available through trade accounts or direct. The eventual goal would be to have all products be available through all sales channels as painlessly as possible, but a transition would be needed.

The trade sales mandate would have a "hit with the new trade account, miss with the distributor order" mandate. If they call up a local toy store owner and can't get them to open a trade account, they'd be let know just how easy they can get the stuff through their existing board game distributors. Like, I'd have the rep call the distributor with them on the line and start the sales chat with the three of them. The distributors need to know that GW is not competing directly with them, but is actually giving them sales leads where appropriate.