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 notprop wrote:
Sales data clearly exists as it is needed to inform the Reports they publish and is a basic tool for management accounting.

Sales data tells you what is and isn't selling. It doesn't tell you why those things are or aren't selling, or who is buying them, or what they're using them for. All of which are fairly helpful things to know in order to tailor further releases.

 heartserenade wrote:

 Talys wrote:

I'm sorry, but this is not factually accurate. I have worked for companies up to 10 times the size of Games Workshop (in revenue) that think that market research -- beyond the scope of what their people tell them -- is a waste of time.

In my experience though as a graphic designer for advertising every client we've had has done market research. You may be right not everyone does it, but if you're sales are declining I think it's a good idea for you to do it. And maybe the companies you've worked with are not the kind of companies who deal with their customers in a direct manner? I have no idea idea about your previous work experiene so I'm spitballing here.

It's always a good idea to know your customer better so you know what they want and how to serve them. Happy customers = more money, usually.

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you that it can be a good thing

 heartserenade wrote:
You may be right not everyone does it, but if you're sales are declining I think it's a good idea for you to do it.
...
It's always a good idea to know your customer better so you know what they want and how to serve them. Happy customers = more money, usually.

Especially when you have fans visiting your head office anyway. Why not treat them to a cookie from Bugmans for spending 10 minutes telling you about their hobby, or even just go and ask them. The cost to GW for doing some form of research is pretty much nil.

 insaniak wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Sales data clearly exists as it is needed to inform the Reports they publish and is a basic tool for management accounting.

Sales data tells you what is and isn't selling. It doesn't tell you why those things are or aren't selling, or who is buying them, or what they're using them for. All of which are fairly helpful things to know in order to tailor further releases.

It also doesn't tell you why potential new customers or former customers aren't buying.

It also doesn't tell you who is buying, or why.

Just that x units of code y was sold. To a dozen new-starts or to that one superfan?

Herzlos wrote:
It also doesn't tell you who is buying, or why.

Just that x units of code y was sold. To a dozen new-starts or to that one superfan?

You can derive some of that out of your web orders, and some of it is anecdotally available from your store managers, though. Plus, certain items like codex releases are a good gauge of how many players you have, to determine average spend.

A lot of data can be mined out of an EIS system; but we don't know to what extent GW is analyzing what they have.

You could gather some info from the webstore, but then it's:

a. Only about 30% of sales, so you miss a lot of the demographics and
b. They lost all the historic sales data when they moved over to the new webstore.

Codexes give you some vague idea of how many people play or are interested in an army, but again anything more than that is hearsay.

There's a concept that exists in decision analysis, called "cost of perfect information". This idea basically associates a cost of obtaining the "perfect information" needed to make the ultimately "best" decision in any given situation. In a real world scenario, this could be the cost of running market studies and focus groups, or the opportunity cost of pulling your senior managers away from their usual tasks to run these studies. Of course, "perfect information" is an impossible-to-reach state, and therefore, this gets distilled down to the cost of information. If the marginal cost of information > marginal gains from having that information, meaning that you lose more by conducting market research than you gain from having the market research, then it is not worth it to conduct the research.

GW's statement that such studies are unnecessary in a niche makes sense once you look at it from that perspective, given that the innate properties of a niche market. GW isn't a new company - it's old, and I can accept the altogether human hubris that they've been in the industry for so long, that they feel their understanding of the market is good enough, and any marginal benefit of conducting further studies is outweighed by the marginal costs.

GW has done these kinds of surveys in the past. They also used to run pretty freely-available open betas. What ended up happening? A crap ton of stuff was leaked every time, and I'm sure it's cost them sales. I'm not surprised that the ghost of that still haunts GW to this day, given how irontight they are with their in-development knowledge now.

A lot of analytics can be found in trend-analysis these days from web-traffic and SCM information with their retailers for almost no cost. This might be enough to provide GW with the information they need to make decisions. But since none of us here are senior GW execs (that we know of), we can't speculate on what insights they do and don't hold, now can we?

Why do 'leaks' cost sales then? Because previews of other companies doesn't put me off buying their stuff, in fact I make a mental note to put some aside for it. MtG has organised 'leaks' and spoilers and that seems to whip up a lot of interest.

I think the secrecy is related to their concerns that third parties might steal their pigs. They've made it clear that's a major concern of theirs. But as so many of these products are supplemental and require a GW purchase, I don't buy the 'it steals our sales' claim. No one suggests that companies like Accurate Armour 'take' sales off Tamiya. Rubbish.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Why do 'leaks' cost sales then? Because previews of other companies doesn't put me off buying their stuff, in fact I make a mental note to put some aside for it. MtG has organised 'leaks' and spoilers and that seems to whip up a lot of interest.

I think the secrecy is related to their concerns that third parties might steal their pigs. They've made it clear that's a major concern of theirs. But as so many of these products are supplemental and require a GW purchase, I don't buy the 'it steals our sales' claim. No one suggests that companies like Accurate Armour 'take' sales off Tamiya. Rubbish.

One of the GW blokes I spoke to at Enter the Citadel mentioned that because very-early release rules were leaked, sometimes players had overreacting reactions (like they still do now, ironically) and made twitch decisions not to purchase things based on the rumors that they had heard. Ironically, we still see this happen.

 Enigwolf wrote:
One of the GW blokes I spoke to at Enter the Citadel mentioned that because very-early release rules were leaked, sometimes players had overreacting reactions (like they still do now, ironically) and made twitch decisions not to purchase things based on the rumors that they had heard. Ironically, we still see this happen.

Which they could fix without all the secrecy?

With the Warhammer replacement, there's been nothing official beyond the pre-order date, so rumour has been running wild for months now.

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Why do 'leaks' cost sales then? Because previews of other companies doesn't put me off buying their stuff, in fact I make a mental note to put some aside for it. MtG has organised 'leaks' and spoilers and that seems to whip up a lot of interest.

I think the secrecy is related to their concerns that third parties might steal their pigs. They've made it clear that's a major concern of theirs. But as so many of these products are supplemental and require a GW purchase, I don't buy the 'it steals our sales' claim. No one suggests that companies like Accurate Armour 'take' sales off Tamiya. Rubbish.

One of the GW blokes I spoke to at Enter the Citadel mentioned that because very-early release rules were leaked, sometimes players had overreacting reactions (like they still do now, ironically) and made twitch decisions not to purchase things based on the rumors that they had heard. Ironically, we still see this happen.

Perhaps if there were no outrageous rules or price hikes to be leaked, the amount of overreacting would be way lower, and sales wouldn't take a dent.

In short, from what you've explained, GW hates leaks because those leaks warn people in advance of the gak they're going to try to sell them.

 Korinov wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Why do 'leaks' cost sales then? Because previews of other companies doesn't put me off buying their stuff, in fact I make a mental note to put some aside for it. MtG has organised 'leaks' and spoilers and that seems to whip up a lot of interest.

I think the secrecy is related to their concerns that third parties might steal their pigs. They've made it clear that's a major concern of theirs. But as so many of these products are supplemental and require a GW purchase, I don't buy the 'it steals our sales' claim. No one suggests that companies like Accurate Armour 'take' sales off Tamiya. Rubbish.

One of the GW blokes I spoke to at Enter the Citadel mentioned that because very-early release rules were leaked, sometimes players had overreacting reactions (like they still do now, ironically) and made twitch decisions not to purchase things based on the rumors that they had heard. Ironically, we still see this happen.

Perhaps if there were no outrageous rules or price hikes to be leaked, the amount of overreacting would be way lower, and sales wouldn't take a dent.

In short, from what you've explained, GW hates leaks because those leaks warn people in advance of the gak they're going to try to sell them.

I'm speaking of a time more than a decade ago where your pewter blister-packs were an RNG of what model and what weapon combinations you got, not today. You know, back when GW still ran beta-tests and experienced leaks, which is why they don't do it anymore.

Edit:
For the record, I still think that turn 1 Land Raider charges with Khorne Berzerkers with chainaxes that made your best armour save (even Termis, which were blessedly rare those days) be a max of 4+ which could then consolidate into another close combat still ranks amongst the cheesiest armies I've ever fielded.

 Enigwolf wrote:

One of the GW blokes I spoke to at Enter the Citadel mentioned that because very-early release rules were leaked, sometimes players had overreacting reactions (like they still do now, ironically) and made twitch decisions not to purchase things based on the rumors that they had heard. Ironically, we still see this happen.

Well, yes, if someone is going to make a snap judgement not to buy something, whether they see that thing a week before release or six months before release doesn't seem like it would have any effect on that judgement. The secrecy would do nothing for them on that front.

How widely is GW stuff reviewed nowadays?

GW's own magazines don't count, for obvious reasons.

 insaniak wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

One of the GW blokes I spoke to at Enter the Citadel mentioned that because very-early release rules were leaked, sometimes players had overreacting reactions (like they still do now, ironically) and made twitch decisions not to purchase things based on the rumors that they had heard. Ironically, we still see this happen.

Well, yes, if someone is going to make a snap judgement not to buy something, whether they see that thing a week before release or six months before release doesn't seem like it would have any effect on that judgement. The secrecy would do nothing for them on that front.

Sorry, I forgot to elaborate further. The issue that they were facing was that often rules that were leaked were far from complete, and often only represented one set of beta-test options, and did not at all represent the final product that was intended to be released. In that 6-month gap, players would jump-ship to Battletech instead.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
How widely is GW stuff reviewed nowadays?

I think it's still the most popular wargames on forums/blogs, so the big releases will have reviews on blogs at least within a day or 2 of launch.

Folk like Beasts of War and Ravage will no doubt cover it too.

I think it is a lot more to do with the Chapter House case, to be honest. GW discovered that if they put a unit in a codex (the Tervigon, for instance, and the Spore pod) and did not make a model, then other companies would make models or conversion kits to satisfy player demand. On suing, GW were horrified to find out that having a picture in the codex did not prevent these third parties from making their versions. Thus, GW decided to keep their cards much closer to their chests in future. Nowadays, there are more releases of what might be called partial codexes, accompanied by the necessary models.

 heartserenade wrote:
It's the job of a business to make money. Of course you'll be judged on how much money you take in. That's the point of having a business.

People often give the excuse that GW is a business and they shouldn't care for their fans. Well, if they're failing as a business because a lot of fans don't feel GW cares then where does that put us?

You mean exactly what Kirby said - "Sales, is all the money we take in and we quantify by counting it."

Mind you, he said this as the boom began and GW's sales were slipping....

Maybe he is trying to make his job easier? Less to count?

Then, I believe the next year, he boasted about not doing market research.

I am sorry, whether folks like GW or not - getting the information that you need to grow is never a bad idea.

Ask Lego.

Ask Domino's.

Ask WotC.

But Kirby is so convinced that he knows his market that he does not bother to find out.

Or, maybe, he is gilding his parachute, and preparing to leap from the plane before it crashes.

The Auld Grump - I kind of doubt the latter - I think that his ego is too big to deliberately crash the company.

 Talys wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

If such a large percentage of my fans were upset with my work? Then yes.

And yet they must still have a lot of fans. At some point, as I said, if that number falls too low, they have to suck it up and do something they don't want to do.

To give you a comparable, nobody calls Mark at Dreamforge for being a failure for not growing past a 1 person company. It's his choice not to grow past that, and I'm happy that he's found his groove.

The point people are objecting to is you have to match justification to intent. GW's behaviour signals a clear intent that their focus is not on art, or their fans, or any other "higher" purpose, it is on maximising revenue and profits in order to generate dividends. They just took one of their two core IPs down to the local Halal butcher and cut its throat as an excuse to push more Newshiny ffs. It is therefore only fair that they be judged from a competitive, business-first, profit-first perspective, and on that metric their long-term trend is a mark against them.

If GW bought back their shares and went private again, started putting out smaller stuff(like the old SGs they canned) and allowing their staff to do "fun" side-projects(like FW used to be for before they turned into Space Marine Shoulderpads & Contemptor World), put some focus back on building & maintaining a community for their products and so on, then they could justifiably expect to be judged as artists and hobbyists first and profit-mongers second, but as it stands engaging in Cartman-esque "I do whut I want!" just doesn't fly.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

The Auld Grump - I kind of doubt the latter - I think that his ego is too big to deliberately crash the company.

No, but crashing the company might be a side effect/collateral damage of his ego wanting a big stock options payout

 notprop wrote:

MaxT wrote:

Spoiler:

 notprop wrote:
I'm curious as to what research people think GW could/should be doing?

They have 400 odd retail locations across the world feeding back sales data and one would assume more qualative information.

Each of which has a Facebook page which I understand allows comments.


They have 30years of experience that should inform them of what advertising does/doesn't work for them.

They already update production tech and materials regularly, so I'm sure they have that covered.

Customer surveys have been held recently.

The have both postal and electronic addresses and customer service personnel where you can contact then and ask/feedback whatever you want.

True they don't have a forum but why would you when there are already ample enough wargaming forums that do that role (which we know GW employees look at). With the added bonus of not exposing your employees to abuse, which can happen.

Based upon the above I would imagine they already have more information on the wargaming industry than any other entity that I can think of.

I can only think of a loyalty card system for more detailed data mining so to better use the info they already have.

I'm just not seeing how more research will improve sales given the data they already possess/have access to?

They don't do any of that though, even if they have the data to hand. How do we know that? GW say it themselves in their business model:

Sales data clearly exists as it is needed to inform the Reports they publish and is a basic tool for management accounting.

You do not need sales data (in the sense of "data you could analyse and draw meaningful conclusions from") to publish management accounts.

Herzlos wrote:
He's passed a motion for the last 2 years to allow GW to buy back stock that'd cover it, so I assume he's planning on selling it at face value internally when he leaves. But the dividend over that period will exceed the stock value, so again I assume he's aiming to maximize dividends rather than share price.

This is GW's board publically admitting they're doing a terrible job. There are two ways in which it could be meaningful. Firstly, buying back the shares could be used to boost the EPS, provided their profits remain at a sufficient level to have that effect. Secondly, it acts as a defence against takeover, both from the company' ability to reduce the available shares for a predator, and as a means to reduce the cash holding of the company (because company's with lots of cash on hand are attractive targets).

 Enigwolf wrote:
GW's statement that such studies are unnecessary in a niche makes sense once you look at it from that perspective, given that the innate properties of a niche market. GW isn't a new company - it's old, and I can accept the altogether human hubris that they've been in the industry for so long, that they feel their understanding of the market is good enough, and any marginal benefit of conducting further studies is outweighed by the marginal costs.

Anyone operating in the retail sphere in the UK who says or even thinks that should probably be not be in a decision-making position of company operating in the retail sphere in the UK.

 Baragash wrote:

 notprop wrote:

MaxT wrote:

Spoiler:

 notprop wrote:
I'm curious as to what research people think GW could/should be doing?

They have 400 odd retail locations across the world feeding back sales data and one would assume more qualative information.

Each of which has a Facebook page which I understand allows comments.


They have 30years of experience that should inform them of what advertising does/doesn't work for them.

They already update production tech and materials regularly, so I'm sure they have that covered.

Customer surveys have been held recently.

The have both postal and electronic addresses and customer service personnel where you can contact then and ask/feedback whatever you want.

True they don't have a forum but why would you when there are already ample enough wargaming forums that do that role (which we know GW employees look at). With the added bonus of not exposing your employees to abuse, which can happen.

Based upon the above I would imagine they already have more information on the wargaming industry than any other entity that I can think of.

I can only think of a loyalty card system for more detailed data mining so to better use the info they already have.

I'm just not seeing how more research will improve sales given the data they already possess/have access to?

They don't do any of that though, even if they have the data to hand. How do we know that? GW say it themselves in their business model:

Sales data clearly exists as it is needed to inform the Reports they publish and is a basic tool for management accounting.

You do not need sales data (in the sense of "data you could analyse and draw meaningful conclusions from") to publish management accounts.

How else would you be able to split and sort your revenue?

That same information can be used to glean all sorts of info and trends; it's what made Dunnhumby so mega rich.

 Enigwolf wrote:

GW's statement that such studies are unnecessary in a niche makes sense once you look at it from that perspective, given that the innate properties of a niche market. GW isn't a new company - it's old, and I can accept the altogether human hubris that they've been in the industry for so long, that they feel their understanding of the market is good enough, and any marginal benefit of conducting further studies is outweighed by the marginal costs.

Ok, let's play a game!

You be GW, I'll be me.

I've got a ~3000pt painted Space Marines army. I've not bought the new book, nor have I bought any kits for it in some time.

Why?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS
You can only answer this question based on information you, as GW, have declared you have on hand, therefore you cannot know anything outside of your own sales data to answer this question.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

GW's statement that such studies are unnecessary in a niche makes sense once you look at it from that perspective, given that the innate properties of a niche market. GW isn't a new company - it's old, and I can accept the altogether human hubris that they've been in the industry for so long, that they feel their understanding of the market is good enough, and any marginal benefit of conducting further studies is outweighed by the marginal costs.

Ok, let's play a game!

You be GW, I'll be me.

I've got a ~3000pt painted Space Marines army. I've not bought the new book, nor have I bought any kits for it in some time.

Why?

Answer: do you want a Stomper for that army? it would go great.......shall I take it to the till?

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Why do 'leaks' cost sales then? Because previews of other companies doesn't put me off buying their stuff, in fact I make a mental note to put some aside for it. MtG has organised 'leaks' and spoilers and that seems to whip up a lot of interest.

I think the secrecy is related to their concerns that third parties might steal their pigs. They've made it clear that's a major concern of theirs. But as so many of these products are supplemental and require a GW purchase, I don't buy the 'it steals our sales' claim. No one suggests that companies like Accurate Armour 'take' sales off Tamiya. Rubbish.

One of the GW blokes I spoke to at Enter the Citadel mentioned that because very-early release rules were leaked, sometimes players had overreacting reactions (like they still do now, ironically) and made twitch decisions not to purchase things based on the rumors that they had heard. Ironically, we still see this happen.

And this is the utter stupidity of GW. They make a decision based off of one reason, and don't look at anything else. Specifically, they don't look at what advertising for a new product does for sales, and how a good release of a new game will increase further sales. If none of your mates are playing a game, do you even care? How about 20 of them just picked up a starter set and are talking about it? Large release events are great advertising.

I beg GW for information, so I can work to advertise their product and sell more. Three weeks out from Age of Sigmar I have no information on the game, don't know the price. I can't schedule or plan an even.

I have zero pre-orders.

 notprop wrote:

Spoiler:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

GW's statement that such studies are unnecessary in a niche makes sense once you look at it from that perspective, given that the innate properties of a niche market. GW isn't a new company - it's old, and I can accept the altogether human hubris that they've been in the industry for so long, that they feel their understanding of the market is good enough, and any marginal benefit of conducting further studies is outweighed by the marginal costs.

Ok, let's play a game!

You be GW, I'll be me.

I've got a ~3000pt painted Space Marines army. I've not bought the new book, nor have I bought any kits for it in some time.

Why?

Answer: do you want a Stomper for that army? it would go great.......shall I take it to the till?

I don't know how you knew I'd already got a Knight and offered a Stompa, but kudos, apparently GW really do know it all!

Herzlos wrote:

 Talys wrote:
On the topic of "market research", I have no idea what other companies in the wargaming industry spend on this. For instance, do we have any idea if Dreamforge or Darksword or FFG do any market research? A lot of small companies just "put one foot in front of the other", and despite GW being the biggest fish in the pond, it's still a relatively small company.

Many companies have key figures that are active in the community. Cavatore attends Bolt Action tournaments, for instance. Priestly will happily talk to folk at conventions.

Many other companies run open betas (Privateer Press, Corvus Belli), many others have outriders of some description.

Most seem pretty responsive to feedback and seem genuinely passionate about the hobby.

They're not huge in the TTWG scene, but CMON has semi-open play testing of their game ideas on Friday nights at their HQ in Alpharetta, GA. Their developers will bring games in the beta stage to local game shops and hold play test sessions, then solicit feed back from the people who played. I've actually participated with these play test sessions on a small number of times, and it's interesting to see the changes made between sessions based specifically upon player feed back.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 notprop wrote:

Don't get me wrong Tom Kirby is a great one for grandiose self serving statements but taken in context I think we can see that he means 3rd part testing and testing within the greater toy market. I don't imagine for a second that the accountants and managers they already employ who are not using the information they generate from their own operations. How else would they know that Space Marines sell better than Hobbits?

But, there's a HUGE and GLARING problem with that approach.

Sure, they know that Space Marines sell better than Hobbits. However, they have no idea WHY that sales disparity exists. Consequently, they don't have any idea how to increase the sales of Hobbits, and could potentially make a change that hurts sales of Space Marines.

 mikhaila wrote:


And this is the utter stupidity of GW. They make a decision based off of one reason, and don't look at anything else. Specifically, they don't look at what advertising for a new product does for sales, and how a good release of a new game will increase further sales. If none of your mates are playing a game, do you even care? How about 20 of them just picked up a starter set and are talking about it? Large release events are great advertising.

I beg GW for information, so I can work to advertise their product and sell more. Three weeks out from Age of Sigmar I have no information on the game, don't know the price. I can't schedule or plan an even.

I have zero pre-orders.

Obviously they aren't GW FineFans™ as this is assured to be the time they listened and got it right. Just remind them to disregard any models or gaming materials that have been "retired". Kind of like when the massive errata that is 7E hit so soon after 6E; praise the minimal effort in modifications for a higher price!

Internal data is all well and good but if you have declining sales and your customers are observably moving to other, competing products AND you still don't perform any sort of market research by looking outside the company, you're asking for failure. If you completely ignore what the competition is doing, you are in danger of losing sales volume and generally this loss is compounded, year-on-year, if adjustments aren't made.

GW is currently financially healthy and produces a strong product but they seem to be completely ignoring market forces that have resulted in sales loss and instead have opted for a model of rapid releases because the sales losses obviously mean that people don't have enough product to buy and have nothing to do with companies competing for consumer spending.

That's the result of not doing any sort of market research. People can wave it away all they like but companies stay competitive by knowing what the competition is doing and learning how to not only keep their current clientele but expand into untapped market-share. Failure to adjust business practices to coincide with current market trends and pressures results in what is happening now with GW.

No doom and gloom, no implosion, just market retraction to the point where their overhead will eventually exceed their revenue and then with a quiet whimper they will just go away. No retail company is immune, no matter how many walls and moats they try to build and no matter how much they think that they are an entity unto themselves. Hubris is painful and GW will not be the first company to feel its effects. They can not keep up this rapid release schedule indefinitely; you can only rerelease a codex at $50 each with minor changes before your customers catch on and leave en masse. This means they have to do something different to attract new blood because the old way of doing things is obviously not doing it and they've handicapped themselves by cutting back their primary recruitment device, their stores.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mikhaila wrote:

And this is the utter stupidity of GW. They make a decision based off of one reason, and don't look at anything else. Specifically, they don't look at what advertising for a new product does for sales, and how a good release of a new game will increase further sales. If none of your mates are playing a game, do you even care? How about 20 of them just picked up a starter set and are talking about it? Large release events are great advertising.

I beg GW for information, so I can work to advertise their product and sell more. Three weeks out from Age of Sigmar I have no information on the game, don't know the price. I can't schedule or plan an even.

I have zero pre-orders.

This is the problem with not having a real marketing department in a company their size; anyone with any experience or training could have told them that hype is not generated in a vacuum. Not all of their customers read rumors on websites like Dakka and the email was extremely forgettable due to zero real information. Great, we have a name for a product but no information what it is or anything.