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Charax wrote:
only 136,000 WH+ subscribers is a bit surprising given the amount of pushing they've been doing. Then again they haven't been pumping out content very consistently

Does anyone know how many subscribers there were in last summers financial report?

The Dublin store is a bit of an oddity in that it's now being used as their EU representation base - just look at the side of the paint pots and boxes and you'll see it's address so there are other reasons for having that store there. Gamersworld an FLGS is 1 street over and while they sell at normal retail price they generally have a better range in stock than the official store and they have a loyalty program so you can build up a discount - if for some reason I do shop in a B&M its there and not the official store.

Broadsword Wargaming cover the west coast being based out of Mayo so no real need for an official store there.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also there’s no franchising, so whilst it may seem bizarre on the High Street, they have complete control over where their brand is seen.

I’m sure there’ll be other companies doing more or less the same, but I can’t think of any off the top of my idiot head.

Certainly GW seem to be able to have their stores survive where FLGS might not. Of course there is the vital thing that GW clearly know how to setup and get a store on solid ground. FLGS….without being rude, negative or derogatory, it varies.

As I’ve said before, my local FLGS is clearly making its money. But with just a few lessons from GW’s approach I reckon they could do better business. Despite being the local gaming hub? They don’t even have a Notice Board. Which means whilst I’d love to run a Necromunda or Vampire campaign, there’s nowhere in their store for me to seek players.

I have to agree on the FLGS part. Most of them know how to buy and sell stock, but building a community; or engaging customers and getting them fired up and interested or doing demo games and such - totally blank areas for them. They often rely heavily on local clubs for that and even a good many local clubs don't even have a proper way to advertise, welcome, introduce, demo game and get people into them.

There's a lot of reliance on people walking in "pre-interested". Which is great and all, but hampers growth dramatically.

GW's store training, certainly in the UK, has always been pretty solid at ensuring they get and create staff who can engage with their customers and also parents of customers (who are often the paying customer for kids who are interested).


Of course the big leg-up is that a GW store can get a big boost in being able to site well because GW foots the bill and they can ride out slow periods with less risk than a regular store, which is often on its own and might have very little financial means to take slow periods well.

But even all that aside, I do agree that many stores could do so much more for helping grow their local scene. Even a noticeboard and encouraging more game groups to organise through them; advertise and spread the word is a huge help

the most interesting part for the hobby is actually at the very beginning:

We have two main universes/settings - our dark, gritty fantasy sci-fi universe, which encompasses ‘Warhammer 40,000’, ‘Warhammer The
Horus Heresy’ and ‘Necromunda’, and our unique fantasy setting that includes ‘Warhammer Age of Sigmar’, ‘Blood Bowl’ (albeit a tongue
in cheek parody) and, the soon to be released, ‘Warhammer The Old World’. We believe our IP to be among the best in the world.

comparing that to last year:

We design, make and sell products under a number of brands and sub-brands, which denote setting, tone and product type, the key ones being:
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - our unique fantasy setting
Warhammer 40,000 - our most popular and recognisable brand is a space fantasy setting
Horus Heresy - an offshoot of Warhammer 40,000, the Horus Heresy brand is presented as a ‘fictional history’ of that universe
We believe our IP to be among the best in the world.

from 3 key games they changed to 2 main settings with 3 main games each
not only it TOW to be said to release soon but also Necromunda and Blood Bowl are added as main games that are noteworthy

 Original Timmy wrote:

Charax wrote:
only 136,000 WH+ subscribers is a bit surprising given the amount of pushing they've been doing. Then again they haven't been pumping out content very consistently

Does anyone know how many subscribers there were in last summers financial report?

Valrak’s video from this morning suggested 101,000ish last year. So around 35,000 additional subscriptions. Sadly I doubt we’ll ever know the retention percentage. Whilst I’ve had an annual sub since it started, for all I can truly evidence, I may be the only ongoing subscriber, which just muddies those waters all the more.

Galway has a very good FGLS with great staff, Dungeons & Donuts. I think they will find it hard to tempt their regulars over the GW shop.

My take on this report:

Licensing revenue dropped! From £28M to £25.4M. Still, considering much of this revenue is likely to be profit it's not bad. Makes up 5.4% of GW's total revenue. A good little earner, though anyone who thinks GW are shifting from being a miniature selling company to a licensing company may not realise how far GW have to go to make this a reality.

Revenue has increased 15.1% in the last year. A big chunk of this increase will be due to the Pound getting weaker (doesn't state revenue at constant currency). Another big chunk will be due to price increases. Looks like actual volume sales of miniatures is flat, perhaps even a drop? Even if this is true I doubt GW are too alarmed, especially since a drop in sales in the post-COVID age should have been expected. I also wonder how much GW would have sold if they were able to produce enough of everything to meet demand.

I did skim through the rest of the report, though I prefer to focus on the numbers. They don't lie, or at least it's more difficult to lie with the numbers than with words


EDIT: Silly me, it does state Revenue at Constant Currency. Looking at this metric the increase has been 7.8% (as opposed to the nominal figure of 15.1%). So yeah, as I said a lot of this increase will be down to price increases, not volume increases.

Wait wait wait.

Can you better evidence the claim “ Another big chunk will be due to price increases.”

For my sins, I don’t keep track of price increases. But I don’t recall a 15% across the board price increase?

And it does state revenue at constant currency? Unless I’m misreading it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Original Timmy wrote:

Charax wrote:
only 136,000 WH+ subscribers is a bit surprising given the amount of pushing they've been doing. Then again they haven't been pumping out content very consistently

Does anyone know how many subscribers there were in last summers financial report?

Valrak’s video from this morning suggested 101,000ish last year. So around 35,000 additional subscriptions. Sadly I doubt we’ll ever know the retention percentage. Whilst I’ve had an annual sub since it started, for all I can truly evidence, I may be the only ongoing subscriber, which just muddies those waters all the more.

I've been a subscriber fromt he start too.

Although I went about 3 months without logging in from February time, so I'm not sure I'll keep going. I like the content, but even taking into account the cost of a free mini, I'm not sure its worth the £30 a sub actually costs, at least not on current showing.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wait wait wait.

Can you better evidence the claim “ Another big chunk will be due to price increases.”

For my sins, I don’t keep track of price increases. But I don’t recall a 15% across the board price increase?

And it does state revenue at constant currency? Unless I’m misreading it.

I edited my post before you posted, though not quickly enough I guess. Taking constant currency into account the revenue increase is 7.8%. So already that makes the 15.1% increase less impressive.

As for price increases, weren't Necromunda gangs (to name one example) £26 a year ago and £30 now? That's a 15.4% price increase. I might remember it wrong, I don't pay close attention to the price increases or their percentage. I acknowledge as well that some prices have remained flat, not everything has increased at the same rate. It's difficult to say how much of an impact price increases have had (due to not everything increasing at the same % rate) but I suspect that a lot of the 7.8% is simply down to GW charging us (and third party retailers) more.

So, 136k subscriber, and let's for simplicity say they are all £50 revenue per year each to balance out for those that don't subscibe to the full year so pay a higher premium.

That's just shy of £7m in revenue... With how much animation/production costs, or well can cost, are they losing cash on this?

Most of the animations are around 20 minutes long, ish. If the production cost is just lower than the professional rate, it could still be £5k a minute in costs to produce, so each episode is around £100k cost (all speculation, could be wildly over or under costed)...

Could they actually be making money on it, mainly down to how little new animation content is produced?

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
So, 136k subscriber, and let's for simplicity say they are all £50 revenue per year each to balance out for those that don't subscibe to the full year so pay a higher premium.

That's just shy of £7m in revenue... With how much animation/production costs, or well can cost, are they losing cash on this?

Most of the animations are around 20 minutes long, ish. If the production cost is just lower than the professional rate, it could still be £5k a minute in costs to produce, so each episode is around £100k cost (all speculation, could be wildly over or under costed)...

Could they actually be making money on it, mainly down to how little new animation content is produced?

I imagine GW expected to lose money on Warhammer+, at least for the first few years. The current 136k subscribers can be considered early adopters, and either will or won't justify more investment to entice more subscribers. How long did a company like Netflix take to become profitable? A quick Google search tells me it started in 1997 and declared its first profit in 2003.

And Netflix has the bonus of shopping out to stream a lot more content. GW has to make it to start with.

For GW the big pay-off is a deal like the Amazon one, where if it all comes to fruition as they want, it results in a show that gets mainstream exposure with the potential for mainstream appeal. Rather than pay for Google-ads or ads on buses, GW will create content for their customers that has the potential to reach out to others.


It indeed is likely a money sink for a good few years.


One thing I have noticed is that GW are doing more of their series this year in bursts or one-off releases instead of streaming one a week for ages. The result is it can feel like less because some are out and done over a few weeks; whilst others are a whole series of episodes in one go so you can binge it in one sitting very easily.

As I’ve speculated before? The genuine benefit of Warhammer+ is two fold.

First, for a company understandably protective of its IP, it allows GW to muck around a bit, without losing every penny invested. Hence the fare on W+ is eclectic, including Actual Proper Swears.

Second? It’s there to show other companies, such as Amazon, there is indeed a market for said IP put on the big or smol screen. Which, provided it works*, only increases the value of such a license.

*yes, works. Because nothing is properly done and dusted with Amazon, so could still go belly up.

But that to me seems to be the entire point. A way for GW to control its first faltering foray into proper multimedia channels, and in a way which, in theory, only increases its value. That they can evidentially do it that whilst attracting extra spending from consumers is just bonus.

Now of course, we simply do not and cannot know if it’s making a loss. Not for sure. But even if it is? That’s how investment works, no? You stump up cash in advance, in the hope of future profit;

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
A way for GW to control its first faltering foray into proper multimedia channels

Point of order: this is their third attempt at a foray into this market.

Kind of. First in the modern age where streaming is a thing, and TV Movies could be just as crap as they ever were (you know the ones!) or be genuinely quite brilliant.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
A way for GW to control its first faltering foray into proper multimedia channels

Point of order: this is their third attempt at a foray into this market.

I'd argue that its their most serious attempt at a proper long-term campaign. The previous attempts were more "one and done" productions; which were almost closer to vanity projects rather than a serious step into the market. Or if they were more than that, they were seriously hampered/underfunded by the end and failed to deliver. Warhammer+ clearly came with several years of planning and operation and such in its structure.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Original Timmy wrote:

Charax wrote:
only 136,000 WH+ subscribers is a bit surprising given the amount of pushing they've been doing. Then again they haven't been pumping out content very consistently

Does anyone know how many subscribers there were in last summers financial report?

Valrak’s video from this morning suggested 101,000ish last year. So around 35,000 additional subscriptions. Sadly I doubt we’ll ever know the retention percentage. Whilst I’ve had an annual sub since it started, for all I can truly evidence, I may be the only ongoing subscriber, which just muddies those waters all the more.

Thanks, theres certainly been an increase then. Im a monthly subber :/ if i do a 3rd year i think i will get a yearly sub and thats a big IF, as im only interested in the animation and that seems scarce now-a-days, it might come down to the "free" mini on offer whether i re-sub or not!

There's a good breakdown on B&C by N1SB as well : https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/379665-annual-report-2022-2023/?do=findComment&comment=5975383

The interesting point raised which I may have misunderstood, was that HH 2.0 did not have the impact expected and due to external circumstances simply stopped a shrinkage rather than actually promoted any growth or expansion.

 Original Timmy wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Original Timmy wrote:

Charax wrote:
only 136,000 WH+ subscribers is a bit surprising given the amount of pushing they've been doing. Then again they haven't been pumping out content very consistently

Does anyone know how many subscribers there were in last summers financial report?

Valrak’s video from this morning suggested 101,000ish last year. So around 35,000 additional subscriptions. Sadly I doubt we’ll ever know the retention percentage. Whilst I’ve had an annual sub since it started, for all I can truly evidence, I may be the only ongoing subscriber, which just muddies those waters all the more.

Thanks, theres certainly been an increase then. Im a monthly subber :/ if i do a 3rd year i think i will get a yearly sub and thats a big IF, as im only interested in the animation and that seems scarce now-a-days, it might come down to the "free" mini on offer whether i re-sub or not!

I suspect the easiest way to grow the subs would be to improve the quality and utility of the apps and pages. As it stands, the apps don't have great functionality and you have to purchase publications at full price in addition. Even if the digital app purchases came with a solid discount, many people would use the app (and subscribe) to get the cheaper ebooks.

I mainly use the Vault, and it is a great and growing repository of old publications (it currently includes every monthly White Dwarf back to August 2003, for example) but the page and reader are rubbish, and there is no way to save a store of publications offline. If they added categories, improved the search, made the reader better and less janky on mobile, and allowed you to store a "shelf" of saved publications without needing an internet connection, the utility would be waaay higher. The latter would require an app if they didn't want to hand out PDFs, but I think that would be worth it.

 kodos wrote:
the most interesting part for the hobby is actually at the very beginning:

We have two main universes/settings - our dark, gritty fantasy sci-fi universe, which encompasses ‘Warhammer 40,000’, ‘Warhammer The
Horus Heresy’ and ‘Necromunda’, and our unique fantasy setting that includes ‘Warhammer Age of Sigmar’, ‘Blood Bowl’ (albeit a tongue
in cheek parody) and, the soon to be released, ‘Warhammer The Old World’. We believe our IP to be among the best in the world.

comparing that to last year:

We design, make and sell products under a number of brands and sub-brands, which denote setting, tone and product type, the key ones being:
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - our unique fantasy setting
Warhammer 40,000 - our most popular and recognisable brand is a space fantasy setting
Horus Heresy - an offshoot of Warhammer 40,000, the Horus Heresy brand is presented as a ‘fictional history’ of that universe
We believe our IP to be among the best in the world.

from 3 key games they changed to 2 main settings with 3 main games each
not only it TOW to be said to release soon but also Necromunda and Blood Bowl are added as main games that are noteworthy

I noticed that too, made me feel a bit better that more Blood Bowl teams are coming despite this year's drought.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

For my sins, I don’t keep track of price increases. But I don’t recall a 15% across the board price increase?

Not sure if it was within the past "fiscal year" or whatever but I recall them first raising wholesale prices 6% and then shortly after announcing an "average of 6%" retail price rise that actually ended up being 15-20% for pretty much everything outside the main 2 games. LOTR infantry boxes going from 34 to 40€ for example.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

For my sins, I don’t keep track of price increases. But I don’t recall a 15% across the board price increase?

Not sure if it was within the past "fiscal year" or whatever but I recall them first raising wholesale prices 6% and then shortly after announcing an "average of 6%" retail price rise that actually ended up being 15-20% for pretty much everything outside the main 2 games.

The initial US price list was about 20% average but was "posted up in error" and replaced with one that was more in line with their statements, although you are correct that specialist games took the brunt of it. There was a lot of internet hype and anger about the "incorrect" (quotations as that will always a be did they/didn't they meant to use those figures), but then little discussion once it was corrected, so a lot of people likely recall the drama from the initial sheet rather than the actual price increases.

The US price list drama was due to them accidently putting CAD figures into the USD column in an Excel file.

The actual price changes in the period for this report involved increasing trade pricing from around 53% to 59% or RRP at the end of 2022. Then there was a general retail price increase of between 5-6% in March. The latter of these probably doesn't have a huge impact on this report, aside from anyone rushing to buy up stock at the old retail prices.

El Torro wrote:
I imagine GW expected to lose money on Warhammer+, at least for the first few years. The current 136k subscribers can be considered early adopters, and either will or won't justify more investment to entice more subscribers. How long did a company like Netflix take to become profitable? A quick Google search tells me it started in 1997 and declared its first profit in 2003.

And Netflix didn't actually have positive cash flow in a year until 2022 (it declared a profit but was borrowing quite signficant (dozens of times it's profits) amounts of money to fund the production of it's shows and rights budgets. Netflix was actually running at more like a US$4 billion pa loss for most of 2015 - 2020).