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.

It's surprising that a small company can survive only on making collectables based on one of the most lucrative IP properties in Hollywood history?!!?

GW has certainly developed a profitable property in 40k (and formerly the WHFB world) but somehow I don't see a 40k (or AoS, lol) movie grossing north of $1bn within a couple of weeks of release, or the IP selling for $4.05bn (and probably being a steal at that!)

Valete,

JohnS

 cygnnus wrote:
It's surprising that a small company can survive only on making collectables based on one of the most lucrative IP properties in Hollywood history?!!?

GW has certainly developed a profitable property in 40k (and formerly the WHFB world) but somehow I don't see a 40k (or AoS, lol) movie grossing north of $1bn within a couple of weeks of release, or the IP selling for $4.05bn (and probably being a steal at that!)

Valete,

JohnS

The reference is to Smaug being number 1 and that its part of the second biggest IP in the world which gets them noticed by the collectibles market ie people that do not mind paying $200+ for models and then having them customized.


How about the Streetfighter series from Prototype Studios then.. $220





Vince Vell Customs

Well add me to the list of people who didn't see that coming,

I think the list really shows that 'we' (the general internet forum user) probably as little grasp of what really makes money for a company like GW as they sometimes seem to do

The list contains a significant number of junk//mediocre units from a game play point of view so just writing good rules doesn't guarantee a new kit big sales (although it probably helps)

It contains a significant number of big expensive kits, so GW is right, from a revenue point of view going big works well

From the number of new kits/units on the list they do need to keep churning out new stuff no matter how many problems in terms of balance (or keeping your army up to date) that causes

And no Orks on the list makes me sad

I'm surprised the Chaos Space Marines kit was still that high up there at #18 considering how dated that kit is and the common perception of CSM's power level.

Also surprising to see almost no new Craftworld Eldar kits up there either. Though that is the curse of the Eldar, you get great rules, but a lot of your kits are ancient. The Eldar Falcon kit still has 1994 listed on it. Though that is a statement that it was a damn good sculpt when it came out.

The Skiitari also seem to eclipse the AdMech in terms of popularity as well.

All the Warhammer Fantasy models that are listed seem to be all Endtimes, rather than AoS.

Get it while stocks last... be one of the many who own this awesome model..

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Smaug?_requestid=13973550

I'm glad for GW that something like a Smaug resin kit can be a success, but I fear for the future when I see Smaug and 8 other Super-heavy/Gargantuan/Monster kits on the list. It just reinforces GW's inbred thought processes towards 40K and Fantasy/AoS. Why make a better game when you can just make larger kits?

In fairness, big plastic kits are a fairly recent move for them. We've had 30 years of infantry and tanks. In my gaming hayday, some 15 yrs ago, the leman russ and predator tanks were the biggest kits available (during those couple of years between landraiders). They are trying to offer something different for collectors, and centerpiece/statement models are clearly being well received. I know that many gamers don't like the effect that they have had on gameplay, but you can't blame them for embracing what the sales figures are showing customers want.

 JamesY wrote:
I know that many gamers don't like the effect that they have had on gameplay, but you can't blame them for embracing what the sales figures are showing customers want.

I don't blame them for doing it... even though I don't like them in game I still like the big kits themselves. If they better structured their rules to allow for large models then it would have been fine.

I don't blame the big kits, I blame GW's poor rules writing.

@allseeingskink yeah, I know what you mean. I don't think it's ever been a watertight game, which I appreciate a lot of people want. I don't think that will ever change though, the games writers seem to be more focused on disabling it from competitive play, which also destroys any hope of the clarity and balance that most of us seem to want. Hopefully the pendulum that the company is built on will swing the other way one day .

I like the big kits to look at, but as soon as I start thinking about storing or transporting them, I get a headache.

Probably because I've moved country twice in the last few years, but it's a big concern for me now. It's the main reason why I stopped playing Warmachine and Hordes - my collection arrived in Germany in pieces, and I just haven't been able to bring myself to repair them in 3 and a half years.

Without actual sales evidence, I'm inclined to believe gw just made these up, when I worked at a certain high street gaming store, we used to just make up most of the top ten games, this actually led to an increase in sales of those games, so this to me is just a marketing ploy, until proven otherwise.

I think its awesome that Smaug is #1 on the list. Gives me hope that they won't drop the LotR/The Hobbit line. I also noticed all the superheavy/gargantuan kits on the list. Indeed, there may have been more big kits on the list than small ones, especially when two or three of them were battleforce boxes. I'm partially to blame for that, as I bought a Bloodthirster and a Stormsurge last year. Also, as others pointed out, I think it is very telling that there was nothing in the top 28 for Age of Sigmar. The only fantasy stuff was really for WHFB End Times (although technically you can use them for AoS). This probably mean AoS has largely flopped. I think if GW was fudging their numbers we would see something from the Stormcast Eternals range and something from the Khorne Bloodbound range. Interesting indeed that we do not.

So no AOS specific items (and repackaged or rebranded WHFB stuff doesn't count) at all on the top 28? That doesn't seem like a rousing success for one of only two supported product lines during 2015.

Of the customers who enjoy AOS, I believe the portion that want to play the stuff GW has released so far (ground marines and Khorne) is pretty small.

Well, it appears that Smaug took 1st place.

It's a cool model, but its $490.

Smaug? Clearly they have made this up or used an algorithm to get the desired outcome.

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
Well, it appears that Smaug took 1st place.

It's a cool model, but its $490.

Hey, to be fair Smaug is $490 worth of AWESOME! If I could afford that for something that would just be a display piece, I would totally get one.

 warboss wrote:
So no AOS specific items (and repackaged or rebranded WHFB stuff doesn't count) at all on the top 28? That doesn't seem like a rousing success for one of only two supported product lines during 2015.

You need to bear in mind that all of the end times range was intended for AoS, which is why they didn't really sit well on square bases, and why they were packaged in the same style as the AoS releases.

 SickSix wrote:
Smaug? Clearly they have made this up or used an algorithm to get the desired outcome.

Could also be purely web shop sales, and based on revenue.

Well, what a surprise! I did not seeing Smaug being #1, what a rollercoaster this has been!

 the_Armyman wrote:
I'm glad for GW that something like a Smaug resin kit can be a success, but I fear for the future when I see Smaug and 8 other Super-heavy/Gargantuan/Monster kits on the list. It just reinforces GW's inbred thought processes towards 40K and Fantasy/AoS. Why make a better game when you can just make larger kits?

Plastic is ideal for large kits like Smaug (ironically made in resin, of course) and Baneblade, Mycetic Spore, etc.

However this perception and the ranking doesn't tell the whole story. GW currently have about 1,700 plastic and Finecast kits available, counting all the different factions for 40K, WHFB and AoS.

The fact that the number one kit, Smaug, is estimated to have sold about £175,000 worth, doesn't mean that kits nos. 29 to 1,750 sold nothing. How else did GW get to a total revenue of about £115 million in the past year?

The question is whether GW could survive by only selling the top 100 or so big kits like Smaug, Archaon, Carnosaur and Drop Pod. I suspect not. I reckon relatively few people want to collect the occasional weird SF/Fantasy big model unless it is part of an army.

GW could survive with only 750 SKUs instead of 1,750... Likely more profitable, too.

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:And no Orks on the list makes me sad

Amen!

I was secretly praying for a Dark Eldar kit too

JohnHwangDD wrote:GW could survive with only 750 SKUs instead of 1,750... Likely more profitable, too.

I'm sure they could. And actually, more or less, I think they do. I think close to 800 of the SKUs are web-store exclusives, and of those, probably 700 of them are kits that people either never buy or kits that some people occasionally buy one of. They're just tucked in somewhere in a warehouse at Nottingham, just in case someone wants battle pilgrims.

I don't think it makes sense to kill off maybe 400 of those SKUs, because those are characters or kits that have a game purpose or are represented in fluff, but aren't worth the investment to tool into plastic. Oh well, better on GW's website, where they do international shipping properly, than Forge World's, where they mangle it in the worst possible way.

On the flip side, I don't know why some of the kits are web-only (like whirlwinds, falcons, and shrine of the aquilla), and I don't know why some of the kits that would sell like hotcakes aren't retooled (like thunderfire cannon). I actually have a terrain project going, and if Aquilla weren't web, I'd buy a whole stack of 'em. The discount for me is a little less on web items from where I buy them, which sounds silly, since the actual dollar amount in the difference is not that significant, but it's a psychological thing... or something.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The fact that the number one kit, Smaug, is estimated to have sold about £175,000 worth, doesn't mean that kits nos. 29 to 1,750 sold nothing. How else did GW get to a total revenue of about £115 million in the past year?

That was my estimate and I admit I was off on it. They probably sold about 200 in each batch but I'm not sure how many batches they made of him, 4 or 5, perhaps many more? I haven't kept track.

But I think it's more likely that it's website only sales on the list. Roughly 20% of GW's revenue is from the website, from memory about 40% from independents (for which GW gets less revenue), so by that estimate around 1 in 7 kits are sold via the website... but Smaug being webstore only means all of his kits are sold through the website so Smaugs numbers would be biased by roughly 7 times (if my estimates are correct, of course there would also be some people who didn't buy Smaug but would have if he'd not been web exclusive, but I doubt there's many).

I'm almost certain that my friend who bought one got it through an independent at discount (I recall 20%, maybe I'm totally wrong, though). I kind of want one now that James says it's likely to be discontinued. If it's 25% off, I might be convinced to pull the trigger.

I'll ask my indie if they can get it, and if it's regular trade discounts.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW could survive with only 750 SKUs instead of 1,750... Likely more profitable, too.

Do you think they should eliminate entire factions, like Orks, Tau or Dark Eldar, or just eliminate the low selling kits from individual factions. For instance, they could drop Cadians, Heavy Weapons and BMPs from IG to just sell Leman Russes and Baneblades.

Interestingly, this probably also means that the $500 Smaug model is the most profitable model produced by a wargaming company in 2015.

Still amazed! I understand that Smaug has a wide appeal, but the thing is, GW isn't selling a finished sculpture. It's still a whole bunch of pieces of resin. It's not like someone who is just into LoTR can buy a finished Smaug from GW. It's got to get from bag of resin to a finished model somehow, so this is still going to be a product primarily for hobbyists -- I think.

Smaug is pretty surprising. I've never even met someone who played the LOTR games. Clearly, big kits are a hit for GW, and that part is no surprise.

 Talys wrote:
It's not like someone who is just into LoTR can buy a finished Smaug from GW. It's got to get from bag of resin to a finished model somehow, so this is still going to be a product primarily for hobbyists -- I think.

Or people who like LOTR but were not interested in scale models (Revell and other stuff from the toy store) found something they like and wanted to build it. In some AOS thread I mentioned a few times that they just creating the game and hoped and that it will find an audience by itself with zero advertisement and that it's a bad (or inefficient?) way of increasing ones customer base. Not everybody's first wargaming experience is through a dedicated hobby store and many people got into these games through the old MB/GW board-games. LOTR gave GW a way to tap into an audience that is not a traditional tabletop wargaming audience (probably somewhat related due to LOTR but so many people saw the movies who can be classified and not really huge fantasy/sci-fi fans) and they didn't really use it. They just had their LOTR bubble and then, apparently, fumbled The Hobbit instead of using that momentum to expand their audience and reach.

Maybe building stuff with your hands is not such an obscure hobby after all.

 JamesY wrote:

 warboss wrote:
So no AOS specific items (and repackaged or rebranded WHFB stuff doesn't count) at all on the top 28? That doesn't seem like a rousing success for one of only two supported product lines during 2015.

You need to bear in mind that all of the end times range was intended for AoS, which is why they didn't really sit well on square bases, and why they were packaged in the same style as the AoS releases.

Right, but the point he's making is that a lot of people could have bought them for use in End Times, which means they aren't a great metric to use for judging the success of Age of Sigmar. Given the lack of any Age of Sigmar specific kits on the list, I'm inclined to agree. Not a great sign for the system.