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 Commissar Benny wrote:

 Earth127 wrote:
The risk is that we don’t fully exploit all the opportunities that are available to us.

I'm hoping this means GW finally recognizes they have huge swathes of players waiting for models for their armies that they are not tapping into. The vast majority of 2017 was marines/chaos. The vast majority of new products coming from Forgeworld in recent years is marines/chaos/horus heresy. Meanwhile SoB, guard, xenos players are basically using models from 3rd edition. I'd likely be a few thousand dollars poorer if they would actually release models for the armies I collect.

It might mean that. It also might mean that they realize that some of the more ignored or Squatted stuff is worth money if they'd just release something. It also might mean that they're realizing that they were just leaving money on the table by ignoring a lot of their properties (like when Wells cancelled Specialist Games and Warhammer Historicals).

 oni wrote:
Hoping they reopen their NA facility in Memphis... Maybe even bring back World of Battle (a.k.a. NA Warhammer World). Who knows, maybe we'll even see a NA Warhammerfest - I really miss Games Day.

I need to stop myself, I'm getting too excited at the prospect of such things.

Damnit, now you've got me excited. I would love for a NA Warhammerfest. I have a suit Dark Angel cosplay armor that I would love to be able to get together with other 40K cosplayers. Always jealous when I see the pics from the UK of those gathering.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
[
The problems that Roundtree is addressing was caused by both of his predecessors- Tom Kirby and Mark Wells.

Wells ran the company to profits in unsustainable ways. He's responsible for a lot of GW cancelling good things that we liked, as well as alienating the online retailers and funneling sales through the online store. He knew it was unsustainable- that's why he left when he saw there wasn't any more fat to cut, and no more sales to funnel to direct.

Kirby was left holding the potato, and tried to keep doing what Wells had done. Of course, there weren't any more corners to cut, there weren't more sales to funnel through the online store, so the profits were simply dropping, while Kirby was left bewildered. I mean, this tactic had worked for Wells, right?

I'm not saying it's not true, I'm saying the exact same thing was said in the previous report (word for word the same thing) and it sparked discussion, articles, and blog posts where people brought up those exact things and 'ooh'ed and 'aaw'ed at the shade being thrown.

It's a little pedantic, I'll admit up front, but as it's a new year, let's try and strike a blow for precision going forwards..

Theres no D in Rountree

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 Commissar Benny wrote:

 Earth127 wrote:
The risk is that we don’t fully exploit all the opportunities that are available to us.

I'm hoping this means GW finally recognizes they have huge swathes of players waiting for models for their armies that they are not tapping into. The vast majority of 2017 was marines/chaos. The vast majority of new products coming from Forgeworld in recent years is marines/chaos/horus heresy. Meanwhile SoB, guard, xenos players are basically using models from 3rd edition. I'd likely be a few thousand dollars poorer if they would actually release models for the armies I collect.

It might mean that. It also might mean that they realize that some of the more ignored or Squatted stuff is worth money if they'd just release something. It also might mean that they're realizing that they were just leaving money on the table by ignoring a lot of their properties (like when Wells cancelled Specialist Games and Warhammer Historicals).

Could also mean something like making a Custodes army and failing to do so was lost revenue potential. Not necessarily Xenos related.

I guess these threads get a ton more interest when GW is doing poorly and we all get our opportunity to say how we think they should be doing things differently.

"Key to this sales performance has been our commitment to talking with our customers."

At least they're actually starting to do things differently that people called for during the Kirby years where the majority of public statements GW was making was through the filing of lawsuits and sending take down notices.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Sorry, commenting as I read through....

The greatest risk is the same one that we repeat each year, namely, management. So long as we have great people we will be fine. Problems will arise if the board allows egos and private agendas to rule. I will do my utmost to ensure that this does not happen

One suspects that's a dig at someone in particular. There is an obvious name that springs to mind, but who knows for sure.

Wasn't this exact verbiage used in the last financial report? I seem to recall Dakka thinking it was a sick burn that time too, perhaps it's just Roundtree's mantra.

Yeah that's been there before as well. Nothing new there.

 vonjankmon wrote:

 oni wrote:
Hoping they reopen their NA facility in Memphis... Maybe even bring back World of Battle (a.k.a. NA Warhammer World). Who knows, maybe we'll even see a NA Warhammerfest - I really miss Games Day.

I need to stop myself, I'm getting too excited at the prospect of such things.

Damnit, now you've got me excited. I would love for a NA Warhammerfest. I have a suit Dark Angel cosplay armor that I would love to be able to get together with other 40K cosplayers. Always jealous when I see the pics from the UK of those gathering.

Honestly, I think they should start moving into some of the existing venues (Gencon, Adepticon, etc). They could have a Golden Daemon competition, and a lot of gaming events going on, and also get some exposure to a lot of people who don't play their games.

 odinsgrandson wrote:



Honestly, I think they should start moving into some of the existing venues (Gencon, Adepticon, etc). They could have a Golden Daemon competition, and a lot of gaming events going on, and also get some exposure to a lot of people who don't play their games.

They were at last Adepticon, WarhammerTV and all and even broadcast from there. Everything points to them being there in big force again this year.

 Azreal13 wrote:
It's a little pedantic, I'll admit up front, but as it's a new year, let's try and strike a blow for precision going forwards..

Theres no D in Rountree

Yeah, a bit......
Maybe try standing up next time so we can hear you a little clearer..., you know, project that pedantry a little further

H'anyways....... enough face ass hand 3 sprues nonsense

Its good to hear GW doing well again, and not just from a massive release like the old LOTR. Its good to see that their core principles have come back to the fore again. We all know they need to make money, and that prices can still be 'quite high', but we have seen good things. Great new minis (even if some are still bemoaning no sisters, 'my army needs yadda yadda' and the like. Theyre listening to the community, have some great online stuff (twitch, fb, youtube vids) and are taking 'risks' again with one off games and the like. Its quite telling to see the paragraph on egos and that the new guy wants to do things for the company and community, not just himself...

It will be interesting to see whether this continues or there is a fall back.

You'd expect that there would be an increase because of the new 40K and new Marines in particular. As it is a completely new edition it will have encouraged changes to army dynamics, new rules being bought and so on.

That's not likely to continue as the new edition 'settles in'

Out of interest though assuming the 100,000 visitors per day to the websites are roughly GW gamers then based on their revenue the average customers is spending just over a £1000 on GW products every 6 months.

 Whirlwind wrote:
It will be interesting to see whether this continues or there is a fall back.

You'd expect that there would be an increase because of the new 40K and new Marines in particular. As it is a completely new edition it will have encouraged changes to army dynamics, new rules being bought and so on.

That's not likely to continue as the new edition 'settles in'

Out of interest though assuming the 100,000 visitors per day to the websites are roughly GW gamers then based on their revenue the average customers is spending just over a £1000 on GW products every 6 months.

I think this 100,000 is an underestimate, because it misses out most the younger players who have been pulled into the store by their parents. Therefore the average is probably under £1000 per customer.

 Whirlwind wrote:
It will be interesting to see whether this continues or there is a fall back.

You'd expect that there would be an increase because of the new 40K and new Marines in particular. As it is a completely new edition it will have encouraged changes to army dynamics, new rules being bought and so on.

That's not likely to continue as the new edition 'settles in'

Out of interest though assuming the 100,000 visitors per day to the websites are roughly GW gamers then based on their revenue the average customers is spending just over a £1000 on GW products every 6 months.

That assumes every customer visites their websites daily or even often. But remember customers aren't that active often. Especially forum using is tiny minority but even otherwise not that big thing neccessarily. Then there's some forum activists like me who rarely go to their sites(maybe like once every 2 week).

That 100,000 isn't even close to their customer base.

Roundtree killing it

 Whirlwind wrote:
It will be interesting to see whether this continues or there is a fall back.

You'd expect that there would be an increase because of the new 40K and new Marines in particular. As it is a completely new edition it will have encouraged changes to army dynamics, new rules being bought and so on.

That's not likely to continue as the new edition 'settles in'

Out of interest though assuming the 100,000 visitors per day to the websites are roughly GW gamers then based on their revenue the average customers is spending just over a £1000 on GW products every 6 months.

I think the real test will come once GW catches up on production and all of us existing players have bought everything we want, that will be the end of the new edition spike in sales. After that it will be GW having to convince existing players to start new armies in significant numbers or bringing new players into the game. GW has historically been fairly poor at bringing in new players so it will be an interesting test. They have their new easy to assemble and play models, which I think are an excellent idea but it will be interesting to see if new players brought in that way stop once they hit the pay wall of having to buy GW's normal models. There is a chance that getting 5 models for $20 and then finding out a month or two later that you need to spend $35 on one HQ choice to have a fully legal army could discourage new players.

 vonjankmon wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
It will be interesting to see whether this continues or there is a fall back.

You'd expect that there would be an increase because of the new 40K and new Marines in particular. As it is a completely new edition it will have encouraged changes to army dynamics, new rules being bought and so on.

That's not likely to continue as the new edition 'settles in'

Out of interest though assuming the 100,000 visitors per day to the websites are roughly GW gamers then based on their revenue the average customers is spending just over a £1000 on GW products every 6 months.

I think the real test will come once GW catches up on production and all of us existing players have bought everything we want, that will be the end of the new edition spike in sales. After that it will be GW having to convince existing players to start new armies in significant numbers or bringing new players into the game. GW has historically been fairly poor at bringing in new players so it will be an interesting test. They have their new easy to assemble and play models, which I think are an excellent idea but it will be interesting to see if new players brought in that way stop once they hit the pay wall of having to buy GW's normal models. There is a chance that getting 5 models for $20 and then finding out a month or two later that you need to spend $35 on one HQ choice to have a fully legal army could discourage new players.

Well eventually it has to slow down. Currently it's more of recovering old ground. However there's something in GW's favour here. Past year has been real low on new releases model wise. Generally model sells lion share of it's life sales in first few months. That they can keep this good sales with very sparse miniature releases means what happens when they start putting out lot more new models?

It is no coincidence that there has been a lot of work in recruiting new players and making entry easier - and this report shows more is coming.

 vonjankmon wrote:
and all of us existing players have bought everything we want

Silly you, that's not how Nerds work

Clearly, they're doing a lot of things right. Giving us nice shiny new models, changing up the 40k background with an advancement to the history. And of course AoS is proving popular, no matter what certain internet denizens might have you believe.

But to really understand why it's been such a dramatic turnaround, we'd need to go a whole lot deeper - and in particular try to figure out if other companies in the industry are seeing a similar boom.

Very broadly speaking....if others in the industry are seeing diminished sales, one explanation would be existing gamers driving GW's upswing.

If they're seeing sales continue as they have, one explanation would be GW have cracked their own recruitment.

If they're also seeing a sales boom, then there's other forces at work beyond GW's laudable efforts. Could be this is a natural progression of the fairly recent growth in the board games market. It could be TTG has just come back into 'vogue' with the yoof. Maybe that's driven by the number of successful super-hero movies - bright, gaudy, primary colours....just like GW and PP often use on their 'poster' armies.

 Whirlwind wrote:
Out of interest though assuming the 100,000 visitors per day to the websites are roughly GW gamers then based on their revenue the average customers is spending just over a £1000 on GW products every 6 months.

Working in web stuff and interacting with marketing, hits to the site are worth near nothing in understanding the scope of your customer base. More of them mean more eyes on product which means your customer base is likely expanding, but actual numbers can be much more difficult to put together.

That does not stop marketing from using these numbers as such at times though.

 Valander wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:



Honestly, I think they should start moving into some of the existing venues (Gencon, Adepticon, etc). They could have a Golden Daemon competition, and a lot of gaming events going on, and also get some exposure to a lot of people who don't play their games.

They were at last Adepticon, WarhammerTV and all and even broadcast from there. Everything points to them being there in big force again this year.

GW will very much be a 'big force' at AdeptiCon again this year. There will be a GW Studio Preview on Wednesday 3/21, Duncan will be putting two thin coats on everything in sight (for what looks to be several straight days), and Andy Smillie will be representing Black Library.

Cheers!

odinsgrandson wrote:

 vonjankmon wrote:

 oni wrote:
Hoping they reopen their NA facility in Memphis... Maybe even bring back World of Battle (a.k.a. NA Warhammer World). Who knows, maybe we'll even see a NA Warhammerfest - I really miss Games Day.

I need to stop myself, I'm getting too excited at the prospect of such things.

Damnit, now you've got me excited. I would love for a NA Warhammerfest. I have a suit Dark Angel cosplay armor that I would love to be able to get together with other 40K cosplayers. Always jealous when I see the pics from the UK of those gathering.

Honestly, I think they should start moving into some of the existing venues (Gencon, Adepticon, etc). They could have a Golden Daemon competition, and a lot of gaming events going on, and also get some exposure to a lot of people who don't play their games.

While I think it's fantastic that GW is attending Adepticon, I disagree with you overall.

Gencon is far too saturated and Adepticon isn't a convention IMO. Adepticon is really just a series of tournaments. I say this as an outsider looking in as I have never attended Adepticon - I have attended Gencon.

Warhammerfest allows GW to have uncontested control over the entire event - this is a good thing. Complete control of the event means no limitations on what/when/how the Warhammer hobby is celebrated... And that's really the heart of it right there - Warhammerfest, Games Day, whatever you want to call it is more about celebrating the Warhammer hobby, in its entirety, not a mere sales opportunity or brand promotion a-la Adepticon.

 oni wrote:

Gencon is far too saturated and Adepticon isn't a convention IMO. Adepticon is really just a series of tournaments. I say this as an outsider looking in as I have never attended Adepticon - I have attended Gencon.

Warhammerfest allows GW to have uncontested control over the entire event - this is a good thing. Complete control of the event means no limitations on what/when/how the Warhammer hobby is celebrated... And that's really the heart of it right there - Warhammerfest, Games Day, whatever you want to call it is more about celebrating the Warhammer hobby, in its entirety, not a mere sales opportunity or brand promotion a-la Adepticon.

I agree with you on GenCon (having been there), but I'm curious what your definition of a con is if you don't consider Adepticon a convention. I've attended Adepticon, too, and it had a dealer hall (granted, smaller than GenCon but...), had various demo tables set up throughout the day, various hobby seminars, and yes, several tournaments for various systems. Which, essentially, is exactly the same thing GenCon has, but at a different scale and with a much narrower focus; Adepticon is 90% about tabletop miniatures (there was some boardgaming last year), whereas GenCon is kinda all over the place.

 Crimson wrote:

Range management - we are reviewing our range to ensure that we are exploring all opportunities.
The risk is that we don’t fully exploit all the opportunities that are available to us.

Plastic Sisters!

I get the feeling GW instead puts SoB firmly in the distraction category.