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 insaniak wrote:

dereksatkinson wrote:
Management can't control everything and pointing to revenue dropping 12% as a "failure of management" is complete nonsense.

That would sort-of depend on the reason for that drop in revenue, surely?

If it's due to a down-turning market, and GW are just making the best they can of a bad situation, then no, that's not necessarily management's fault.

If it's due to regionalisation, supply issues, cutting independants off from new releases and large chunks of the range, 1-week preview windows, cutting off internet sales to drive people to their own webstore, price rises, resentment from dodgy litigation, poor PR, poor product support, lack-lustre releases and/or switching to one-man stores ... that would certainly seem to be the fault of management.



We keep hearing that the miniatures industry outside of GW is booming. The apparent rapid growth of a whole bunch of little games producers seems to bear that out. Which does seem suggestive, when trying to make a stab at which of those options would be more likely...

As a dedicated GW fan who has very little interest in other systems due to aesthetics or storyline, I welcome a little competition to push GW in the right direction towards focusing on improving player satisfaction and experience. Assuming that they actually take thought to do so.

Here's a question.

GW gave out a huge amount of computer game licenses last year. Armaggeddon, Warhammer total war, Space Hulk, the FPS Space Hulk to name a few off the top of my head. Which financial reports would the money they got from them have been in?

It will depend on what the licences were for

they could have been small cash payments now (escpcially as several went to relatively small companies)

with big royalty payments and/or cut of profits later

 Compel wrote:
Here's a question.

GW gave out a huge amount of computer game licenses last year. Armaggeddon, Warhammer total war, Space Hulk, the FPS Space Hulk to name a few off the top of my head. Which financial reports would the money they got from them have been in?

That Revenue might not come in untill said games go to market. Accounting has never been my strong suit thow, so i can't be bothered to read the whole report for "fun".

@_____@

 Compel wrote:
Here's a question.

GW gave out a huge amount of computer game licenses last year. Armaggeddon, Warhammer total war, Space Hulk, the FPS Space Hulk to name a few off the top of my head. Which financial reports would the money they got from them have been in?

That's in their statements. Revenues from licensing did in fact increase a substantial amount the previous 6 months.

 Jaiste wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Here's a question.

GW gave out a huge amount of computer game licenses last year. Armaggeddon, Warhammer total war, Space Hulk, the FPS Space Hulk to name a few off the top of my head. Which financial reports would the money they got from them have been in?

That's in their statements. Revenues from licensing did in fact increase a substantial amount the previous 6 months.

It definitely struck me as a bit desperate at the time. It seemed like a half dozen titles were announced in the span of a month or two.

Schmapdi wrote:

 Jaiste wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Here's a question.

GW gave out a huge amount of computer game licenses last year. Armaggeddon, Warhammer total war, Space Hulk, the FPS Space Hulk to name a few off the top of my head. Which financial reports would the money they got from them have been in?

That's in their statements. Revenues from licensing did in fact increase a substantial amount the previous 6 months.

It definitely struck me as a bit desperate at the time. It seemed like a half dozen titles were announced in the span of a month or two.

Exactly. GW was spamming out licenses to anyone with a few grand in their pocket. I took it at the time as GW attempting to rabidly monetize any existing assets, and now we know why. They knew it wasn't going to look pretty, so if you could throw $7K at them they took it and did't look twice.

weeble1000 wrote:

Schmapdi wrote:

 Jaiste wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Here's a question.

GW gave out a huge amount of computer game licenses last year. Armaggeddon, Warhammer total war, Space Hulk, the FPS Space Hulk to name a few off the top of my head. Which financial reports would the money they got from them have been in?

That's in their statements. Revenues from licensing did in fact increase a substantial amount the previous 6 months.

It definitely struck me as a bit desperate at the time. It seemed like a half dozen titles were announced in the span of a month or two.

Exactly. GW was spamming out licenses to anyone with a few grand in their pocket. I took it at the time as GW attempting to rabidly monetize any existing assets, and now we know why. They knew it wasn't going to look pretty, so if you could throw $7K at them they took it and did't look twice.

Well there's no question the loss of THQ derived income hurts and they needed to find new partners but as mentioned before, a lot of these licensing deals can go a long time before seeing revenues and games development is also no short term quick fix. Just look at the pre-alpha sneak peak at the 40k MMO out today, that thing is well over a year from being ready to hit shelves.

No, a licence isn't necessarily instant cash, but if you have reservations about the long term value of the licence you're selling....

weeble1000 wrote:
How much money did we spend on Kickstarter alone last year? 55 Million Dollars Yea, we're tapped out alright. Tapped out from buying an unprecedented amount of gaming products. Personally, I flushed more money into my hobby last year than I did in 2012, easily.

And how much of that was debt?

The consumer is levered to the hilt.

dereksatkinson wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
How much money did we spend on Kickstarter alone last year? 55 Million Dollars Yea, we're tapped out alright. Tapped out from buying an unprecedented amount of gaming products. Personally, I flushed more money into my hobby last year than I did in 2012, easily.

And how much of that was debt?

The consumer is levered to the hilt.

Well, for me, none. I don't have any debt other than home and car, but I get your point. There's no way for you to answer that question though, and 'yea, but it's probably debt,' doesn't do much to change the fact that the money was spent and that it went to tabletop game companies.

dereksatkinson wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
How much money did we spend on Kickstarter alone last year? 55 Million Dollars Yea, we're tapped out alright. Tapped out from buying an unprecedented amount of gaming products. Personally, I flushed more money into my hobby last year than I did in 2012, easily.

And how much of that was debt?

The consumer is levered to the hilt.

Whiff of goal post moving here.

It isn't relevant to GW's performance or their relative performance to other companies in their sector where the money came from. The relevant point is that money was spent, and large quantities were spent on things that GW doesn't make.

It might be pertinent to the argument about whether recession has gone away or is just hiding, but that isn't what we're talking about.

EDIT Largely ninjad.

Wouldn't all the money they get from licences just go to the lawyers in all the C&D and legal battles with CHS?

So they get from one hand, licences but give to the other hand lawyers and court battles.

I just want to know, how much money GW lost in money because of lawyers and court costs/battles.

Davor wrote:
Wouldn't all the money they get from licences just go to the lawyers in all the C&D and legal battles with CHS?

So they get from one hand, licences but give to the other hand lawyers and court battles.

I just want to know, how much money GW lost in money because of lawyers and court costs/battles.

HA! It wouldn't pay for it, no. Especially not with how much GW is paying for its own licenses.

GW is probably into seven figures already in the GW v CHS case. They spent close to $200,000.00 on printing for the trial alone. And they're looking at another several thousand bills in the appeal process. This doesn't count what GW normally budgets for in house legal counsel, which Mr. Jones testified last year has more than 200 targets it is considering. Of course, GW also got rid of its senior in house counsel last year too, maybe because she demolished he department's budget.

And then you have to consider the financial cost in terms of lost goodwill that this behavior has generated, especially considering that Kirby himself stated that the legal expenses are not spent to protect the company's profits. So no profits protected, lots of money spent, and massive loss of goodwill.

Rich at Wayland confirmed that in the last year, the sales of Wayland Games went up 15% and GW sales made up no part of that. Given Wayland's direct relationship with hobby distribution and their generalist approach to supplying the UK and Europe, it might be a fair corallary to the ICV2 numbers from the US reporting around the same level of growth.

People might be putting things on their credit card in completely irresponsible ways, but that money is going more and more to other places and less and less to GW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jaiste wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Here's a question.

GW gave out a huge amount of computer game licenses last year. Armaggeddon, Warhammer total war, Space Hulk, the FPS Space Hulk to name a few off the top of my head. Which financial reports would the money they got from them have been in?

That's in their statements. Revenues from licensing did in fact increase a substantial amount the previous 6 months.

The highest royalties were in 2009 and 2012 with £3.5m and this year they are on track for £2.0m. The fiscal year ending in 2013 was one of their worst years for royalties at only £1.0m.

In short, GW hasn't really had the explosive royalty growth they were talking about in the past. They had a bad year and are turning things around a bit, but it's been inconsistent.

I think that GW's willy nilly licensing might be a (not entirely bad) attempt to give the brand a more mass-market appeal, and to draw back in some of the market share that they've lost. The problem that i run into as a fan of the 40k universe is that even if as the IP holder, they retain some sort of quality control over the things that are done with their IP, you still might end up with finished product made by someone who doesn't understand what the universe is all about. Dawn of War really seemed this way to me, it seemed like a video game made by people who had read 1 paragraph blurbs about the different factions, instead of people who had studied the settings in-depth. Over time, this could lead to a weakening of the brand, but as an attempt to stave off the end of the road, it definitely makes sense.

As a fan, I don't think it's a good thing; as a business student, I understand what they're trying to do.

If you compared the current share price at 536.75p per share to the 52 week high of 823.5p per share this means that overall GW share have dropped 35% over that 52 week high. Worth noting isn't it?

 azreal13 wrote:
It isn't relevant to GW's performance or their relative performance to other companies in their sector where the money came from. The relevant point is that money was spent, and large quantities were spent on things that GW doesn't make.

It might be pertinent to the argument about whether recession has gone away or is just hiding, but that isn't what we're talking about.

Well.. My argument is that extrapolating a single data point into meaning that management has failed is silly. There simply isn't enough data to say that. Especially not a single earnings report.

Now, I do think we have enough data to suggest we are still in a recession and enough economic evidence to show that the consumer is struggling. See below..



We are now seeing the lowest amount of disposable income per capita in over 50 years. That is significant. That shows that people are having less and less money to be able to spend on recreation. Anecdotal evidence aside, I do think the consumer is the real story here. As it is with Best Buy, target, Sears and the list goes on and on.. http://www.retailresearch.org/whosegonebust.php

The point i'm really trying to make here is that for someone in the financial industry, it's pretty obvious that Games Workshop recognizes that they need to take a defensive posture with their business right now and not expand. They aren't acting the way you'd expect simply because they understand where we are in their business cycle. These are tough times and they are looking to survive.

dereksatkinson wrote:
We are now seeing the lowest amount of disposable income per capita in over 50 years. That is significant. That shows that people are having less and less money to be able to spend on recreation. Anecdotal evidence aside, I do think the consumer is the real story here. As it is with Best Buy, target, Sears and the list goes on and on..

And yet GWs competition seem to be experiencing massive growth right now.

 jonolikespie wrote:

dereksatkinson wrote:
We are now seeing the lowest amount of disposable income per capita in over 50 years. That is significant. That shows that people are having less and less money to be able to spend on recreation. Anecdotal evidence aside, I do think the consumer is the real story here. As it is with Best Buy, target, Sears and the list goes on and on..

And yet GWs competition seem to be experiencing massive growth right now.

That could well be a price point thing, that ties into the prior post about consumers having less money; maybe they cant afford a decent sized collection of GW anymore, but other games springing up demand smaller collections of figures, or just plain have cheaper price points. The rise in 'GW's competitors' you speak of could very well be people striving to maintain their hobby time on a decreased budget.

If that is the case, then it wont matter what GW does really... if they definitely wont drop the prices, then basically less people can afford it right now.

HairySticks wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

dereksatkinson wrote:
We are now seeing the lowest amount of disposable income per capita in over 50 years. That is significant. That shows that people are having less and less money to be able to spend on recreation. Anecdotal evidence aside, I do think the consumer is the real story here. As it is with Best Buy, target, Sears and the list goes on and on..

And yet GWs competition seem to be experiencing massive growth right now.

That could well be a price point thing, that ties into the prior post about consumers having less money; maybe they cant afford a decent sized collection of GW anymore, but other games springing up demand smaller collections of figures, or just plain have cheaper price points. The rise in 'GW's competitors' you speak of could very well be people striving to maintain their hobby time on a decreased budget.

If that is the case, then it wont matter what GW does really... if they definitely wont drop the prices, then basically less people can afford it right now.

hhuuummmmmm. Some interesting thoughts this brings up in my mind.

Isn't that implying that these other wargames that are growing are Inferior goods in the wargameing market? This implies that once consumer income rises, GW will grow well over companies shrink.

I feel alot of these companies are already positioning themselves for when income rises, they can start transitioning into being normal goods.

To me this also highlights that GW has made huge mistakes in trying to recession proof themselves. Specalist games could of been GW's "Inferior goods" product line for the same reasons you listed. I know a year or so ago when the recession was kicking into effect, alot of the specialist games had a huge comeback. In my area Catachan boxs and Empire Free company were flying off the shelfs for Necromunda and Mordheim gangs! Sadly GW's numbers probably never recorded this, or realized the renewed interest the games were haveing.

Infinity has a much lower model count and buy in than 40k but I'd never call the models 'inferior goods'.

On the same note (although I'll fully admit this is entirely anecdotal) I, as well as more than a few others I know, have gone out and bought a ton of dyst wars stuff. Sure it's cheaper than GW but 4000 points of dyst wars (when the average game is 1000) adds up.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Infinity has a much lower model count and buy in than 40k but I'd never call the models 'inferior goods'.

On the same note (although I'll fully admit this is entirely anecdotal) I, as well as more than a few others I know, have gone out and bought a ton of dyst wars stuff. Sure it's cheaper than GW but 4000 points of dyst wars (when the average game is 1000) adds up.

Inferior goods in economics doesn't always mean it's a Inferior Product. I included a link to the wiki article to try and avoid that confusion.

I don't know if I would go as far to say they are inferior goods, but an example; Mantic, Kings of War, £50 army deals are currently giving you 4-6 usable units for the game.
With GW Warhammer Fantasy many single units will set you back more than this, at best your looking at 2 or 3 small units.

The price speaks for itself if you check the model count, or look at Warmachine or Hordes where the figures arent particularly cheaper than GW but for a decent game your looking at a smaller collection.

I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference though; for the longest time GW were the main easy to acquire models, add a bit of selection and youl find that not everyone likes GW's itteration of skeletons, or goblins etc. Its totally reasonable that someone elses art or rulesets will satisfy consumers where GW's did not.
I'm looking at it like this; Offer kids at school icecream in the cafeteria at lunch, I'm sure many (nearly all) will like it and be happy.
Now offer those same kids a choice of 5 different flavours of icecream, and not everyone will stick to the original flavour.
Now add ontop pricing disparity between flavours and it gets pretty complex But unless theres something really wrong with it, then the cheapest flavour will probably see the best sales. Does that mean the more steeply priced ones are better product? probably not. Theyre all icecream. In this analogy probably from the same supplier
arguably the cheaper one is now the better item as its clearly more popular.

Another analogy could be clothing, High price point designer clothing compared to cheap mass produced stuff. take your pick of the designer names; does the quality of their item compared to the cheap stuff justify the high price point? ...ofcourse not, in many cases its far inferiour in terms of durability and totaly quantity of fabric, or perhaps fabric base price thus paying for the brand name, elitism kind of crap.

In economics, "inferior goods" means a cheaper version of something, that people buy when they haven't got enough money for the more expensive version.

An example is that during a recession Domino's Pizza does better, because more people decide to have a pizza at home rather than spend more to go out to a restaurant.

Either way you get a meal you didn't have to cook.

Ahh economics terminology
this is why I asked for the interpretation for the laymen back on pg1 which btw peoiple are doing a fine job at, untill now I was just reading hehe.

I definatlly cant comment on whihc comapny makes the 'best' miniatures.. but if price is the only criteria then GW are up there hehe (although theyre not the MOST expensive)

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In economics, "inferior goods" means a cheaper version of something, that people buy when they haven't got enough money for the more expensive version.

An example is that during a recession Domino's Pizza does better, because more people decide to have a pizza at home rather than spend more to go out to a restaurant.

Either way you get a meal you didn't have to cook.

exactly.

an inferior good is a good that decreases in demand when consumer income rises, unlike normal goods, for which the opposite is observed.

-In a normal product, when Income goes up, demand goes up. When income Goes down, Demand goes down. GW's warhammer games are Normal Product.
-In a Inferior Product Demand goes down, when Income goes up. Demand then grows then Income goes down. Games like infinity may actually be considered a Inferior Product as strange as that sounds. (We can all agree that they do have some stunning modles after all!)


If it is true that GW shrank because of the recession well the other products had growing demand, this means that these other products can be considered Inferior Products. For these small Companies who have managed to grow so much, they may need to start getting ready if they do not want to lose market share to a reinsurgent GW when the economy begins to grow agien.

Personaly I think GW's bad polices made a bad situation worse. A low point of entry game was sorely needed in their product line.(A Inferior good Product line, that did not compete with their normal good warhammer games.) By giving up the ghost on specialist games, GW left a niche for other companies to take up residence in. Many small companies have now gotten their foot in the door, and now are building for the long term. I don't think GW is done for yet, but I think they are going to need to start considering new leadership if they wish to survive.

The thing is that wargames are not just about the price point. You have to put in a lot of effort to build an army, learn the rules and find people to play with.

GW's advantage has been partly the large number of people ready to play. If this drops because of lower sales or switching editions, the game becomes less attractive.

For example, I haven't bought the new codexes because they are too expensive, so although I have a Tyranid army I can't play with it, so I may not play 6th edition at all.

Ok I went and read that link and I still think my point stands.
Infinity is not growing more popular because GW is too expensive at the moment and it will not decline in popularity as disposable income increases and people are once again able to afford GW.
Infinity is growing more popular because it has lovely models, a great ruleset and a company that doesn't treat it's customers like gak.

Sure that's all a little anecdotal but the idea of Inferior Product seems to be just that, it's an inferior product, a place holder until you can afford better. And GW no longer deserves the mantle of 'better'.

These financials reflect everything I already knew. There seems to be a groundswell of support for other games where I am. For the first time ever I walked into a games store and it had no GW shelf space or stock. Lots of everything else, Flames of War, Warmachine etc.

Like many Australians, I had found that GW prices (local) were fine for the occasional impulse buy, and for bulk army purchases I would grab everything from Wayland in the UK. I still find UK prices reasonable, but I don't think I should have to go through ebay or mail forwarders to accomplish this. Frankly, as a consumer, I was offended when GW cut off my entire country. The intended effect was obviously to wean me off Wayland. This didn't happen, I just kept buying products they are allowed to ship to Australia at a reasonable price.

I look forward to the day when GW allows UK independents to sell to me again, but by that time, their competition will be in a fine position to repel them. Its frankly a golden age of great games right now, and they only have poor GW decision making to thank.