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 Accolade wrote:
I would to know exactly *how* 1-man stores are a great concept. Perhaps I'm missing something with all that fat in my head?

You pay less for exactly the same sales, duh! If the neckbeards are inconvenienced they'll just wait at the door until the staff member comes back.

 Yonan wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
I would to know exactly *how* 1-man stores are a great concept. Perhaps I'm missing something with all that fat in my head?

You pay less for exactly the same sales, duh! If the neckbeards are inconvenienced they'll just wait at the door until the staff member comes back.

I wonder if they really think that would happen... I wouldn't doubt it.

Honestly neither do I. They really do seem to think that little of their customers (see Facebook post up the page).

The funny thing is that they did have fans like that. Now those fans are drooling over every new release from *favoured other company here*.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
: talk to the actual people who make the game. They make themselves fairly well available, and really are interesting people to talk to.

Best sarcasm award goes to....wait....you were being serious?

Yes, because I find basing my opinions on multiple real life experiences, such as the ones I had today, much much better than taking one idiots responses and extrapolating out from a single data point. But hey, don't let "facts" or "logic" or even a passing nod to "balance" get in the way of another good anti-GW rant!

Next up: GW eat babies! A rumour said so!

So you provide a rumor that lacks the details to contradict my own and then further go on to post a statement that we cannot believe any rumor. It's funny that I've heard what I've heard in two different stores now that have zero overlap from what I've seen. It could be false and simply stemmed from the current condition of the game and business practices of the company. As Azrael put it, which is better, that they aren't testing or that this is the quality of product we get after play-testing? Ask yourself which truly is worse.

And while you're doing that, please ask your in-house friends what the points cost is for my Grey Knight Vindicators and Whirlwinds. I'm still waiting for that after they put them in the FAQs. Because test or not, we have definitive evidence that they aren't proof reading. Oh, and if you don't like the facts of the situation and rational discussion of them, I suggest you remove yourself from these discussions. These anti-Games Workshop topics arrive solely because of their own actions, remember this. You're defending the company that said, in a court of law, that the hobby is buying their product.

 TheKbob wrote:
The word-of-mouth rumor mill states that internal management teams feels like play-testing isn't necessary. That the writers should do it correctly the first time. Playing games is something you do off the clock, not on it. Given the break-neck speed of the current releases, one could imagine they wouldn't have adequate time to play test at all. The recent FAQ release and how slipshod it still continues to be would lean towards this concept.

That's really quite sad. I mean, pick up any FFG 40K RPG book (we need a shorter acronym for that...). Every single one has a legion of play-testers. As for "off the clock", well they need to outsource their play testing. You want mistakes found? You send it to a bunch of people who've never read it before. Fresh eyes, woods for the trees and all that - they get results. I mean I consider myself pretty diligent in this arena, and have (professionally) proof-read other books, but even I miss stuff so the more eyes the better.

Of course GW won't do that, because they're so determined to keep their iron curtain of secrecy up that it's to the detriment of everything else. This means that any "testing" they do is done in an echo-camber between the people who wrote the rules. x Infinity.

 azreal13 wrote:
A worse thought than "GW don't play test" is "GW actually try to play test quite hard"

That's... actually worse, yes. Frightening.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

That's really quite sad. I mean, pick up any FFG 40K RPG book (we need a shorter acronym for that...). Every single one has a legion of play-testers. As for "off the clock", well they need to outsource their play testing. You want mistakes found? You send it to a bunch of people who've never read it before. Fresh eyes, woods for the trees and all that - they get results. I mean I consider myself pretty diligent in this arena, and have (professionally) proof-read other books, but even I miss stuff so the more eyes the better.

Of course GW won't do that, because they're so determined to keep their iron curtain of secrecy up that it's to the detriment of everything else. x Infinity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:
A worse thought than "GW don't play test" is "GW actually try to play test quite hard"

That's... actually worse, yes. Frightening.

As I said, it's a rumor, but your addition is the summary of the matter. They are either not play-testing and we're getting a terrible product or play-testing and we're getting a terrible product.

 Yonan wrote:
You pay less for exactly the same sales, duh! If the neckbeards are inconvenienced they'll just wait at the door until the staff member comes back.

Yes. 'Cause this "internet" thing is just a fad, and no one will go home and order stuff "online". That's a myth. No one does that.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Next up: GW eat babies! A rumour said so!

I hope you're aware that "reductio ad absurdum" generally means you make the other person's argument look absurd and not that you make yourself look absurd.

Not caring about putting out a terrible product or being unable to put out a good product, they're both pretty damning.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

f2k wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:

Noir wrote:


2) Rewriting rules and changing point vaules to move product, with out play testing doesn't mean they care about the rules. Just, that they care about selling more models.

The word-of-mouth rumor mill states that internal management teams feels like play-testing isn't necessary. That the writers should do it correctly the first time. Playing games is something you do off the clock, not on it. Given the break-neck speed of the current releases, one could imagine they wouldn't have adequate time to play test at all. The recent FAQ release and how slipshod it still continues to be would lean towards this concept.

We can only connect the dots from reasoning based on what we see on the outside. I'd love for the book to be written in 20 years on "what happened behind the scenes at Nottingham".

Which just goes to show that they don't understand their own company at all. Or how to do business in general...

Testing and verifying the quality of your product is an integral part of being an manufacture.

But then again, they probably couldn't care less. Given their rather low opinion of their own customers, it's not really surprising that they thought they could get away with doing no testing.

The word of mouth is also complete bollocks, as usual.

Game Friday. From two close friends in the studio, the rules team writes rules, then plays them in a Friday. So, nope. Try again, maybe not listening to every rumour that confirms your viewpoint next time. Really question these things...

So word of mouth is bollocks and yet I'm supposed to trust what you're saying? As in, word of mouth...

I hope you can see the irony yourself.

In any case, I'm quite happy to believe the original rumour. The sorry state of the current rules would certainly suggest that they've been pushed out the door way earlier than planed and with very little play testing or forethought.

As for "Game Friday", please don't make me laugh.

Firstly, that actually seems to confirm the rumour that testing is done off the clock.

Secondly, for a game this complex, that's absolutely laughable. To really get to grips with this game you'd need a large public beta-test phase. A few thousand games a week for, say, six months or so might allow you to get to grips with the core issues. It would be utterly stupid to think that you could play test a game like this in the course of a few Fridays.


Bottom line is that Games Workshop has a horrible history with quality control lately. FineCast was so bad that they've now tried to bury that word again. And the rules are so shoddy as to make me wonder if they play test them at all.

 Yonan wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
I would to know exactly *how* 1-man stores are a great concept. Perhaps I'm missing something with all that fat in my head?

You pay less for exactly the same sales, duh! If the neckbeards are inconvenienced they'll just wait at the door until the staff member comes back.

That fits GW's short term view on life. I was buying stuff from my local GW (mostly paints and stuff that I don't like ordering online), right up until a few months back I had to wait 20 minutes to buy a couple of pots of paint because the 1 store manager had a couple of people who got there before me and needed more attention than me. I haven't bought anything from them since, if I have to wait 20 minutes to buy something I might as well drive the 5 minutes further to the FLGS down the road.

 MWHistorian wrote:

Very interesting to talk to.

Don't get me wrong azrael - I've heard first hand some of the insider playtesting stories, and gw doesn't seem to rate it highly at all. Some of the stories just had me shaking my head with their lack of professionalism.

Similarly, I don't disbelieve the corporate attitude that holds garners in contempt. I think its likely. But jervis was a nice guy when I met him. this was at the start of fifth though. So the company has changed since then, and not for the better.

Here are Games Workshop's most basic financial results of annual turnover and profit, converted to constant currency 2013 (meaning I have made adjustments for UK average price inflation.) The original figures came from GW's annual reports.

Column 1 is the year. Col. 2 is the turnover in millions of GBP. Col. 3 is the profit in millions of GBP. Remember that GW's financial year runs from the start of June to the end of May the next year, so the 2003 report reflects sales from mid 2002 to mid 2003.

2003 = 167.5 = 14.25
2004 = 192.5 = 15.64
2005 = 167.2 = 11.04
2006 = 136.1 = 2.36
2007 = 128.7 = -4.02
2008 = 125.1 = -0.84
2009 = 138.8 = 6.13
2010 = 135.0 = 16.09
2011 = 128.8 = 11.79
2012 = 133.7 = 15.01
2013 = 134.6 = 16.32

We see the LoTR Boom in 2003, peaking in 2004 (the last film was released in Dec 2003).

In 2005 to 2008 they suffer the burst of the LoTR bubble and turnover declines rapidly. In two years they make an actual loss.

In 2009 the 5th edition of 40K feeds into increased sales (my interpretation -- price increases must have helped too) and the cost cutting efficiency drive starts to take effect, increasing profits.

From 2009 to 2013 turnover is fairly flat, but profits are very good.

Remember there is lots that is not shown in these figures. For instance the effect of foreign exchange fluctuations. The GBP declined considerably in 2008 to 2009, and remained weak until mid-2013. This helped GW by making their overseas sales more valuable. I have not tried at all to work out the effect of this, and it is concealed in the figures.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Column 1 is the year. Col. 2 is the turnover in millions of GBP. Col. 3 is the profit in millions of GBP. Remember that GW's financial year runs from the start of June to the end of May the next year, so the 2003 report reflects sales from mid 2002 to mid 2003.

2003 = 167.5 = 14.25
2004 = 192.5 = 15.64
2005 = 167.2 = 11.04
2006 = 136.1 = 2.36
2007 = 128.7 = -4.02
2008 = 125.1 = -0.84
2009 = 138.8 = 6.13
2010 = 135.0 = 16.09
2011 = 128.8 = 11.79
2012 = 133.7 = 15.01
2013 = 134.6 = 16.32

Annoyingly, these figures are telling GW they're doing good. :C

 Kilkrazy wrote:
From 2009 to 2013 turnover is fairly flat, but profits are very good.

I'd disagree with this. Profits are flat despite price increases and aggressive cost cutting (which GW brags about in their own reports) during that time, which means that GW is working really hard just to break even compared to the previous year. This pretty strongly implies that GW's sales aren't in very good shape, and there are going to be some serious problems once they run out of ways to make the business run more efficiently.

Well their profits in the past few years have been as good or better than during the LoTR boom years.

 Selym wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Column 1 is the year. Col. 2 is the turnover in millions of GBP. Col. 3 is the profit in millions of GBP. Remember that GW's financial year runs from the start of June to the end of May the next year, so the 2003 report reflects sales from mid 2002 to mid 2003.

2003 = 167.5 = 14.25
2004 = 192.5 = 15.64
2005 = 167.2 = 11.04
2006 = 136.1 = 2.36
2007 = 128.7 = -4.02
2008 = 125.1 = -0.84
2009 = 138.8 = 6.13
2010 = 135.0 = 16.09
2011 = 128.8 = 11.79
2012 = 133.7 = 15.01
2013 = 134.6 = 16.32

Annoyingly, these figures are telling GW they're doing good. :C

Those figures are.... very much not the whole picture.

While yes, that probably is telling GW they are doing it right, there is mounting evidence that they have lost a massive amount of sales in the last 12 months or so. Their mid year report clearly ruffled their feathers. The guys over at Painting Buddha (the guy responsible for the Future of Games Workshop articles, if you haven 't read them go google that before discussing anything here) where saying that they where hearing that GW stores across Europe where struggling to make 50% of the sales they where this time last year. Someone (I forget who) was saying in Dakka Discussions a month or so back that their FLGS (and presumably others) was being offered discounts on next years stock if they bought it in this financial year. Then there was the release of 7th ed the week before the end of financial year.

Whatever those numbers say GW know they have a problem. Whether or not they know how to fix it is a whole different issue though.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well their profits in the past few years have been as good or better than during the LoTR boom years.

They haven't. £14.3m in 2003 is the equivalent of £19.7m today. Their profits are dopping in actual terms and this is despite prices rising several times inflation and with an extremely heavy cost cutting scheme.

And this is all in the context of their market increasing by double digits each year.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Column 1 is the year. Col. 2 is the turnover in millions of GBP. Col. 3 is the profit in millions of GBP. Remember that GW's financial year runs from the start of June to the end of May the next year, so the 2003 report reflects sales from mid 2002 to mid 2003.

2003 = 167.5 = 14.25
2004 = 192.5 = 15.64
2005 = 167.2 = 11.04
2006 = 136.1 = 2.36
2007 = 128.7 = -4.02
2008 = 125.1 = -0.84
2009 = 138.8 = 6.13
2010 = 135.0 = 16.09
2011 = 128.8 = 11.79
2012 = 133.7 = 15.01
2013 = 134.6 = 16.32

Annoyingly, these figures are telling GW they're doing good. :C

Those figures are.... very much not the whole picture.

While yes, that probably is telling GW they are doing it right, there is mounting evidence that they have lost a massive amount of sales in the last 12 months or so. Their mid year report clearly ruffled their feathers. The guys over at Painting Buddha (the guy responsible for the Future of Games Workshop articles, if you haven 't read them go google that before discussing anything here) where saying that they where hearing that GW stores across Europe where struggling to make 50% of the sales they where this time last year. Someone (I forget who) was saying in Dakka Discussions a month or so back that their FLGS (and presumably others) was being offered discounts on next years stock if they bought it in this financial year. Then there was the release of 7th ed the week before the end of financial year.

Whatever those numbers say GW know they have a problem. Whether or not they know how to fix it is a whole different issue though.

Not the whole picture indeed...

Considering the number of price-hikes we've seen, it's worrying that their turnover is largely static. And considering the aggressive campaign to cut costs, it's worrying that their profit is still largely static.

What this indicates to me is a steadily declining unit-sales. In short, Games Workshop is loosing customers and have only been kept in the black through price-hikes, cost-cuts, and royalties.

I suspect that what we saw in the mid year report was the indication that they're still losing customers (and at a frightening rate, these days) but is now unable to cut much further as they've already gutted their own retail chain. The premature launch of 7. edition 40K and the rapid pace of releases (with attendant fall in quality) further proves the point. And now, it seems, they've finally woken up and smelled the ashes of all the bridges they've burned behind them.

The full report will certainly be interesting.

GW will start going under when another wargaming company opens high street stores across the UK and US. Not before.

f2k wrote:
Not the whole picture indeed...

Considering the number of price-hikes we've seen, it's worrying that their turnover is largely static. And considering the aggressive campaign to cut costs, it's worrying that their profit is still largely static.

What this indicates to me is a steadily declining unit-sales. In short, Games Workshop is loosing customers and have only been kept in the black through price-hikes, cost-cuts, and royalties.

I suspect that what we saw in the mid year report was the indication that they're still losing customers (and at a frightening rate, these days) but is now unable to cut much further as they've already gutted their own retail chain. The premature launch of 7. edition 40K and the rapid pace of releases (with attendant fall in quality) further proves the point. And now, it seems, they've finally woken up and smelled the ashes of all the bridges they've burned behind them.

The full report will certainly be interesting.

Remember that it's possible that they may have remained steady for H2 due to major sellers like Knights and possibly 7th. I think the report will be flat (apart from H1) at best, but even that is a really bad sign for them with such a huge release.

 The Shadow wrote:
GW will start going under when another wargaming company opens high street stores across the UK and US. Not before.

How would this have any impact on whether GW is profitable or not? Competition would drive them down faster, sure, but a company doesn't magically stay profitable because it has no retail competition.

 The Shadow wrote:
GW will start going under when another wargaming company opens high street stores across the UK and US. Not before.

They have absolutely no need to. Other companies understand the important role that the FLGS plays in bringing in new players and moving product. And there ARE FLGSs opening across the road from GW stores (well, it's usually the other way around) and the GW stores are the ones struggling to get people through the doors while FLGs thrive.



*Edit, I see from your flag your from the UK. You see this kind of argument a lot from people there who have GW stores on every corner and no FLGSs left. The rest of the world is VERY different. GW stores play no role here anymore other than interesting a few new players, not nearly enough to keep them profitable.

 Daedleh wrote:
Remember that it's possible that they may have remained steady for H2 due to major sellers like Knights and possibly 7th. I think the report will be flat (apart from H1) at best, but even that is a really bad sign for them with such a huge release.

True.

However, going by the anecdotal evidence I've heard, 7. edition isn't selling very well. So I'm expecting the second half to be below expectations as well.

But since we can't really know how many books have been sold (especially directly from Games Workshop) I guess we'll have to wait another week before seeing just how bad it is.

 Daedleh wrote:

Remember that it's possible that they may have remained steady for H2 due to major sellers like Knights and possibly 7th. I think the report will be flat (apart from H1) at best, but even that is a really bad sign for them with such a huge release.

But also remember that the first half report included the period where they re-launched the Space Marines codex, their biggest selling line bar none.

If they launched a new SM codex and got such an abysmal half year report, I can't see how a single large kit and 1 week of new edition sales will make that much of a difference.

 Musashi363 wrote:
Ok, so Mark Bolger was only one example, but has GW given us any reason to think they don't feel this way? Answer: no. They have not given us any reason to think otherwise.

Was Mark Bolger really an example? He didn't actually work for GW at the time he posted that comment; word is that he was "let go." The fact that his one post has been copied dozens if not hundreds of times demonstrates, if anything, that there isn't any substantial contempt for GW customers - if there were, we'd have verified example from people actually employed by the company.

In fact, there are several people here at dakkadakka who've spoken to designers, and got their input and rationales for working the way they do. Those quotes don't seem to echo around dakkadakka forever, because the notion that most of the people at GW love the game, and their job, isn't as news-worthy.

The truth is mundane: GW is a pretty successful company with some talented people, which is unfortunately a Plc, and therefore beset by terrible short-termism. Seriously, I've been there, at a Plc, where when you hit December, you have to square April's budget and hit target.GW sounds even worse because it's helmed by an ex-taxman, hardly the visionary needed to push a creative company forward. It's a horrible, stupid, capitalist system - but it's not unique to GW.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 Musashi363 wrote:
Ok, so Mark Bolger was only one example, but has GW given us any reason to think they don't feel this way? Answer: no. They have not given us any reason to think otherwise.

Was Mark Bolger really an example? He didn't actually work for GW at the time he posted that comment; word is that he was "let go." The fact that his one post has been copied dozens if not hundreds of times demonstrates, if anything, that there isn't any substantial contempt for GW customers - if there were, we'd have verified example from people actually employed by the company.

So he just magically formed this opinion after leaving GW? Erm, no.

There's being an apologist and there's being an apologist. But, damn...

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 Musashi363 wrote:
Ok, so Mark Bolger was only one example, but has GW given us any reason to think they don't feel this way? Answer: no. They have not given us any reason to think otherwise.

Was Mark Bolger really an example? He didn't actually work for GW at the time he posted that comment; word is that he was "let go." The fact that his one post has been copied dozens if not hundreds of times demonstrates, if anything, that there isn't any substantial contempt for GW customers - if there were, we'd have verified example from people actually employed by the company.

So he just magically formed this opinion after leaving GW? Erm, no.

There's being an apologist and there's being an apologist. But, damn...

Was that even confirmed that he left?

I remember that thread in N&R when this happened, one account with about 8 posts behind it was swearing up and down that their local GW redshirt told them he left a while back but at the time his Linkedin profile still listed him as working for GW.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Daedleh wrote:

Remember that it's possible that they may have remained steady for H2 due to major sellers like Knights and possibly 7th. I think the report will be flat (apart from H1) at best, but even that is a really bad sign for them with such a huge release.

But also remember that the first half report included the period where they re-launched the Space Marines codex, their biggest selling line bar none.

If they launched a new SM codex and got such an abysmal half year report, I can't see how a single large kit and 1 week of new edition sales will make that much of a difference.

Absolutely true. It could be as bad as people are predicting, on the other hand it might not be *that* bad and be merely flat. I really don't see them making up for H1.

Either way, if they have managed to prop up H2 then it was only by the short term gains of 7th ed and the Knights. They don't have another large release which could bring in that sort of profit for H1 in the next report, even a new edition of WHF would do nothing at this point. If, and IF they have managed to remain level then the report after will be the interesting one.

 Daedleh wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well their profits in the past few years have been as good or better than during the LoTR boom years.

They haven't. £14.3m in 2003 is the equivalent of £19.7m today. Their profits are dopping in actual terms and this is despite prices rising several times inflation and with an extremely heavy cost cutting scheme.

And this is all in the context of their market increasing by double digits each year.

The figures I gave are already corrected to 2013 constant value. They did not make 14.3 million in 2003.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Daedleh wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well their profits in the past few years have been as good or better than during the LoTR boom years.

They haven't. £14.3m in 2003 is the equivalent of £19.7m today. Their profits are dopping in actual terms and this is despite prices rising several times inflation and with an extremely heavy cost cutting scheme.

And this is all in the context of their market increasing by double digits each year.

The figures I gave are already corrected to 2013 constant value. They did not make 14.3 million in 2003.

Gotcha, I stand corrected

However, the point of price rises being much, much higher than inflation meaning that there has been a significant drop in sales in that time still stands

 jonolikespie wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
GW will start going under when another wargaming company opens high street stores across the UK and US. Not before.

They have absolutely no need to. Other companies understand the important role that the FLGS plays in bringing in new players and moving product. And there ARE FLGSs opening across the road from GW stores (well, it's usually the other way around) and the GW stores are the ones struggling to get people through the doors while FLGs thrive.



*Edit, I see from your flag your from the UK. You see this kind of argument a lot from people there who have GW stores on every corner and no FLGSs left. The rest of the world is VERY different. GW stores play no role here anymore other than interesting a few new players, not nearly enough to keep them profitable.

Just because here in the UK things are "different" to the rest of the world does not make the influx of new games any different. Sure the FLGS might be the gaming engine in the US, in the UK its quite odd, we have many clubs dotted around and a few FLGS. However, the few FLGS i've been to i have not been overly impressed with them, at least with GW you can guarantee you will get swooped on and asked how you are doing etc. Even if you've had pot luck and the shop is actually open and not "on lunch" .

Its the UK club network that changes attitudes and perceptions, GW is hanging in there still, but many dropped GW as their main game and have branched out. Mostly to warmahordes but the other games do have a following not to mention the historicals are being given an airing. But that is my experience, so take it at that.

Personal preferences have a lot to do with it. However make no mistake the UK isn't the GW bastion it once was, it only seems that way from the high street chain.