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.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Good numbers again. Guess the “boycott” was the hot air we suspected

I remember a "boycott MW2" group on Steam awhile back. On release day, if you looked at the group, 75% of the members were "online: playing CoD MW2". Every time I hear a call for boycotts, I think of how effective that one was. Even the people organizing the boycott didn't follow through.

Lets face it, a lot of "boycott" calls on geeky subjects are just creators keen to cause drama because its what their youtube/twitch/kik/whatever fanbase expects of them; or because they want to get a bigger fanbase and posting edgy stuff like that gets attention.


I'm sure if you started a "Boycott GW " thread on Dakka you could raise pages of attention VERY quickly.

Oh yeah, much easier to complain online and look hip with the crowd than it is to actually follow through when there's no real way to hold people accountable.

aka_mythos wrote:To say GW doesn't care, might be overstating things a tiny bit. They don't care until they do. I've heard it a number of times from different retailers, that to get a retailer to setup an account directly with GW they'll buy back older unsold product at a percent that the retailer may have originally bought through wholesalers. GW puts a lot of emphasis on its brand image, so while sales and profit are important. GW really doesn't want to oversell and ever give the appearance their product doesn't sell.

They had a similar issue ages ago when online stores were selling GW stuff at a discount and GW didn't like that and implemented (or wanted to implement, depending on your region) all those rules for how online only stores were allowed to sell their stock of GW products.

GW's stuff has a good profit margin (it's expensive enough even then) and online retailers wanted to use that to their advantage but GW was worrying about B&M retailers who were losing customers while they were paying rent for spaces where these customer/people were playing but who also bought all, or most, their stuff online. Or that was at least one of GW's main arguments while they were putting their own stores next to independent stores with high sales to siphon that off (and according to some these store were also conveniently getting supply issues at the same time as GW showed up in their neighbourhood).

The other one, and for GW more important problem, was that perpetual discounts made their product look less like the Porsche of the miniature industry that they wanted to feel like.

Mario wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:
The other one, and for GW more important problem, was that perpetual discounts made their product look less like the Porsche of the miniature industry that they wanted to feel like.

It's also a problem because GW has a very abnormal product in todays market. A lot of products today come out and within 1-2 years they are being replaced with new fancier versions. 5-10 years and the product is gone from the market, its ancient and fully replaced with something new. So a lot of products de-value very quickly.

GW isn't like that - they've kits 20 years old that have increased in value or at least remained (relative to incomes and other stuff) mostly the same value.

Their products are very long lasting, so they don't want stores to be steep discounting products all over the place for "hot fast sales" because GW hasn't got a new kit coming out next month to replace that kit. Those Aelf Archers are going to be on the shelf for year upon year and GW can't afford to have them slashed in price over and over.




GW aren't alone either, the whole model market follows pretty much the same pattern with the exception of STLs and 3D printing where the race to bottom has pretty much already happened ni the last 2 years. Patreons encourage insane value for money as to Kickstarters. You can quite literally buy an entire army's worth of STLs for less than £10. Yes on top of that you have to buy resin, printer etc.... so its not quite that insanely cheap as a whole process; but its still insanely cheap for the design work.

In the end any model company that has stock being slashed in price is often an unhealthy sign; its like Privateer Press having to clear stock and inventories and dumping them onto the market fast; retailers stripping out stock because it won't sell fast enough or just won't sell at all. It's not healthy if it happens all the time with your products. The wargame and miniature market just isn't geared up for mass market product shifting. Heck GW's attempt at that - original Age of Sigmar - got huge backlashes against it (and that was before they'd even got up to speed with the churn and burn release cycle of models on newer things).

 Overread wrote:
Lets face it, a lot of "boycott" calls on geeky subjects are just creators keen to cause drama because its what their youtube/twitch/kik/whatever fanbase expects of them; or because they want to get a bigger fanbase and posting edgy stuff like that gets attention.


I'm sure if you started a "Boycott GW " thread on Dakka you could raise pages of attention VERY quickly.

It's trends that are important. There will always be naysayers on any item. However, it is just as bad to say that it has no effect compared as saying there was an effect. The report is simply there to 'pacify' investors so they don't throw out the CEO etc. There's increasing concern that these reports and when they are audited are less sound than they seem after a number of high profile cases of 'profitable' companies suddenly collapsing over a couple of years (not that I am saying GW is in that position but just that statements should be taken with some caution).

It is really changes relative to underlying trends that you want to compare to because that gives a better picture of what might be going on

At a high level:-

Revenue = + 6.4%
Operating Profit (exc royalties) = -16.3%* (-10.3%* after factoring increased capital spend)
Royalties = +235%*

*I've factored in an even split on the changes to constant currency here.

However we should compare this to inflation overall as to stand still you want growth to be at least equal to inflation otherwise inflationary growth is just masking lower sales. [On an aside this is always worth considering when you get given a country's growth as the same principles apply to consider whether the country is growing or just paying more for the same (or less) stuff]
For the UK this stands at 6.1% (Retail Price Index excluding mortgages for October)

As such overall GW revenue is pretty aligned with inflationary growth (basically standing still). However profit from the 'core' business is significantly down. This may be for a number of factors - GW are swallowing extra costs at the moment and not passing onto consumers; capital investment (about £5m); less units sold per item (i.e. the actual cost to design per 'box' is higher).

We must also be careful about generalised statements of success. AoS being the greatest fantasy release is just a statement with no facts, it doesn't explain over what period, whether by units or sales (if the last box set was £80 and the new version £100 you would expect a sales increase); what were the sales like over a longer time frame (were there no sales 3 months before which offsets the increase).

Even the £3,000 per year bonus has been inflated to sound better than it is (because a lot of employees are on low wages anyway - there is no guarantee so you can't base a mortgage on it etc).

Hence both sides could argue their own point of view and claim victory over a boycott vs it never really happened. Without knowing the real figures we'll never really know.

My greatest caution would be the decrease in profits - a decrease of 10% is quite substantial and shows significant headwinds - Brexit was specifically referred to in the report and it isn't fully implemented yet - for example rules of origin are only just being implemented, the potential additional quality standards that will have to be met (needing to validate against both CE and UKCA quality standards etc). The reality is that without the increased royalties there would certainly be questions being asked (which then does explain GWs rush to try and capture some of that market). They should expect the TW:WIII to help here but if the core business continues to see lower profits then they will need the royalties to increase to compensate.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
They absolutely count them, they're recorded separately from direct sales (and are called, unsurprisingly, indirect sales) but they still count.

They basically then don't give a gak what happens to them, if the guy has a storage unit full of them then it doesn't matter, from the GW perspective the units are sold.

So it's like the comic book industry?

"Look how many copies we sold*!!!"


*to distributors...

Like most industries. It's really rather rare for companies to sell goods to distributors or retailers on a sale or return basis.

Though it does happen occasionally and GW has some schemes for retailers where they sign up to get a discount in return for letting GW determine exactly what they have to stock (they can buy extra stuff if they want, but base stock levels are determined by GW) . They have a fixed range of products they have to keep in stock all the time, while some other products cycle in and out. If a retailer in this position has something still in stock after it has been cycled out GW take it back and give the retailer a credit. It's a very limited form of sale or return.

It would seem you can't really glean much from the report's numbers. They're bragging about stuff without hard data, and otherwise not claiming anything horrible has gone wrong. What's clear is they don't seem to be going through any great collapse, or any great growth.

If it helps, in the U.K. such reports have to be independently verified?

 Overread wrote:

Spoiler:

Mario wrote:

The other one, and for GW more important problem, was that perpetual discounts made their product look less like the Porsche of the miniature industry that they wanted to feel like.

It's also a problem because GW has a very abnormal product in todays market. A lot of products today come out and within 1-2 years they are being replaced with new fancier versions. 5-10 years and the product is gone from the market, its ancient and fully replaced with something new. So a lot of products de-value very quickly.

GW isn't like that - they've kits 20 years old that have increased in value or at least remained (relative to incomes and other stuff) mostly the same value.

Their products are very long lasting, so they don't want stores to be steep discounting products all over the place for "hot fast sales" because GW hasn't got a new kit coming out next month to replace that kit. Those Aelf Archers are going to be on the shelf for year upon year and GW can't afford to have them slashed in price over and over.

Spoiler:

GW aren't alone either, the whole model market follows pretty much the same pattern with the exception of STLs and 3D printing where the race to bottom has pretty much already happened ni the last 2 years. Patreons encourage insane value for money as to Kickstarters. You can quite literally buy an entire army's worth of STLs for less than £10. Yes on top of that you have to buy resin, printer etc.... so its not quite that insanely cheap as a whole process; but its still insanely cheap for the design work.

In the end any model company that has stock being slashed in price is often an unhealthy sign; its like Privateer Press having to clear stock and inventories and dumping them onto the market fast; retailers stripping out stock because it won't sell fast enough or just won't sell at all. It's not healthy if it happens all the time with your products. The wargame and miniature market just isn't geared up for mass market product shifting. Heck GW's attempt at that - original Age of Sigmar - got huge backlashes against it (and that was before they'd even got up to speed with the churn and burn release cycle of models on newer things).

I think I corrected the runaway quote tags under the spoilers (you just have to remove the other user's starting quote tag).

Are GW actually that different? I remember reading years ago (like a decade or so) that most of their products sell over 90% of their numbers in the first three months or so which is rather similar to most video games where the sales numbers are front loaded even more (I think I remember reading one to two months). Anything older than that is apparently mostly (besides the standard Marines stuff like Rhinos, Tactical boxes, and a few others) just sitting on the shelves. Video games discount those games heavily and multiple times (whenever there's a new Steam sale) while GW just keeps selling stuff at the same price. That kinda being one of the reasons they focused so much on the model company idea and them not caring too much about their games before Roundtree got into power. People mostly bought new releases so churning through new stuff at a faster rate is good for short term revenue while the constant change made things a bit more unstable on the gaming side of things.

Individual kits might keep their value on the second hand market as GW increased prices on the new stuff (so the old stuff looked cheaper than that even at full price) but that was more of a reflection of the sticker GW put on their products. Like, for example, Apple who kept old hardware that hadn't gotten a new version in years at the same price it had when it was brand new (while being years old tech by that time). GW even increased the price.

I think we've seen as few examples of frames from the same old moulds getting a price increase with new cover art while being otherwise the same inside simply because GW prices changed quicker than their product line due to how they released work (with this "one army after another" focus). That goes even beyond Apple's approach of keeping the price constant for old PCs/gadgets that haven't been replaced yet.

When it comes to STLs for 3D printing it feels like these companies are going for a MAAS system (Model as a service, like SAAS: Software as a service). As they get more Patreon subscribers they hire more people to sculpt those models while keeping a constant profit margin. And if they can make the pile you get at the end of the month bigger they can lure more people into subscribing which can increase their output. But I've also seen them breaking up those subscription piles into smaller chunks and sold, more or less, like regular miniatures. They just don't care how many you print of it. You kinda pay for one copy but can have as many as you want (as long as you print them yourself). It's another revenue stream from people who only want a few models and don't feel like subscribing to everything (of course, at a higher overall cost if they were to buy everything a subscriber gets).

As a business they give up the higher revenue from owning the whole stack, from design to production, but gain more freedom and flexibility by not needing to pay for the whole manufacturing infrastructure that supports this. They just sell you files, no guessing about how much to stock, no logistics to worry about, no real estate rent to consider. The subscription also buys them some stability in contrast to having to bet on miniatures selling well enough with each new release. Once they have a big enough spread of miniatures and/or armies they might start writing/selling rules systems too. Some already include D&D rules for some models as they sell miniature batches that fit in both types of games: RPGs and skirmish wargaming rules.

Mario wrote:
I remember reading years ago (like a decade or so) that most of their products sell over 90% of their numbers in the first three months or so..

I read this too (on this forum) and I instantly disbelieved it. People in this hobby are often complaining about how expensive it is, but if this is the case, how is it that 9/10ths of people can afford everything they want, exactly when they want (apparently on release week)?? I've been in and out of this hobby for nigh on three decades, as a young child with no money and as a grown man with a relatively large hobby budget and still there's stuff that I want to buy but I don't yet own, and I'm not even that much of a price complainer. I actually buy quite a lot of GW miniatures. I really just can't believe that almost everyone else buys almost everything they ever want on the day of release and GW don't sell any additional units of that kit. This theory makes no sense at all.

I can well believe that there's a peak of sales volume during the first few months of a new kit going on sale. However total sales is a hard one for me too.

I could believe it for an army like Ossiarchs which had a slightly luke-warm reception and haven't seen any major kit or battletome updates since. But at the same time its a super new army; it hasn't had a big battletome update or a second wave of models released. Heck I bet the Lumineth sold a LOT of models when their second wave landed and that a good portion were first wave models.


Even if models sell 90% in their first few months, they are still on the market 10 years later (in most cases). Plus don't forget if GW slashed prices on older kits without replacing them, eventually whatever army had the first release would become the cheapest army to collect, which would likely result in them becoming very very popular simply because they'd be cheaper than all the others. New armies would have to have insane rules imbalances to sell because who will spend £30 on 10 troops when they can spend £10 on 10 troops for an army that's 4 years old and still has great sculpts.



IT just doesn't work for GW's model of business. IT doesn't really work for the entire wargame market. Which, whilst the actual price points vary, is why we rarely see models going down in price. Heck Pendragon have a thread with a small price rise being announced only in the last few days.

 Overread wrote:
I think GW still has plenty of growth room in the USA, how easily they can tap into that is hard to guess at. We know they tried and failed to run local production because they found there just wasn't a skill base in the USA nor a support network for their machines so it meant constantly moving staff and machines around between USA and UK. Now it might be with more contacts and time they might source a better local approach to moving some machines to the USA for production

How is that true when Wargames Atlantic just moved all plastics production to the states?

This is what we got from a GW interview once, and actual statement was that if a plastic kit does not make it its investment back in the opening weekend, it never will

that kits for an army have their highest sales during a codex release and before and after that the sales drop to 0 is known from the Chapterhouse case (with the exception of the tactical Marines box, which always sells)

than there was also the statement that because of those things GW does not want people to save their money for a specific release but have impulse purchases on the weekend of release

but if this is the case, how is it that 9/10ths of people can afford everything they want, exactly when they want (apparently on release week)?? I've been in and out of this hobby for nigh on three decades,

this is a tricky thing, but that is why poorhammer, papercraft, 3D printing and 3rd party model maker are a thing, because there are not many who can afford to keep buying

McDougall Designs wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think GW still has plenty of growth room in the USA, how easily they can tap into that is hard to guess at. We know they tried and failed to run local production because they found there just wasn't a skill base in the USA nor a support network for their machines so it meant constantly moving staff and machines around between USA and UK. Now it might be with more contacts and time they might source a better local approach to moving some machines to the USA for production

How is that true when Wargames Atlantic just moved all plastics production to the states?

Well the USA is huge so it might be GW just picked the wrong bit; or perhaps since then the industrial situation in the USA has changed. Or it could be that GW uses very specific plastics machinery that just isn't used in the USA so there were no people experienced with their machines and way of working; whilst Wargames Atlantic use a different method/machines/equipment or such

kodos wrote:This is what we got from a GW interview once, and actual statement was that if a plastic kit does not make it its investment back in the opening weekend, it never will

that kits for an army have their highest sales during a codex release and before and after that the sales drop to 0 is known from the Chapterhouse case (with the exception of the tactical Marines box, which always sells)

than there was also the statement that because of those things GW does not want people to save their money for a specific release but have impulse purchases on the weekend of release

but if this is the case, how is it that 9/10ths of people can afford everything they want, exactly when they want (apparently on release week)?? I've been in and out of this hobby for nigh on three decades,

this is a tricky thing, but that is why poorhammer, papercraft, 3D printing and 3rd party model maker are a thing, because there are not many who can afford to keep buying

I can appreciate that GW wants to make back the investment in a mould fast, that makes very good sense. I could see that "A model makes back 90% of its investment in the first 3 months" being a statistic that is more believable. Meanwhile if a model doesn't make its investment back in that time then its potentially a sign that

a) The model is a sculpt that people just do not like

b) The army the model is a part of is very unpopular.

Both of which mean the model will still sell, just not very fast and not within a financial period that considers the money recovered significant even if it eventually does cover its investment costs. I could well see it being a metric GW uses to adjust its future forecasting of production; eg if a model isn't making its investment back after 2 months or so they might well look at why. Is the army just unpopular; is the army all old models with one new model; is the army "small" and not attracting interest because of its limited visual and mechanic offerings compared to others etc... Ergo those numbers might be, for example, what makes GW give Lumineth a second wave much earlier and larger than many other armies in order to recover the market interest and thus boost sales across the whole range etc...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:

but if this is the case, how is it that 9/10ths of people can afford everything they want, exactly when they want (apparently on release week)?? I've been in and out of this hobby for nigh on three decades,

this is a tricky thing, but that is why poorhammer, papercraft, 3D printing and 3rd party model maker are a thing, because there are not many who can afford to keep buying

Having dabbled in 3D printing its REALLY not a "poor mans warhammer" approach that its touted as. The setup cost of getting going runs you £100s even if you get a cheaper printer. You can easily spend £3-400 just getting started once you add together the printer, accessories, resin, STLs.

I would argue its only "cheaper" once you are looking at printing a second army or printing a very big first army. Once you are "running" the live costs are lower with the only big single costs being a bottle of resin (1-2 boxes of models and one bottle will print many times that) and replacement consumables with the greatest cost being a new LCD.

Long term its cheaper, but the actual start-up costs are way higher.

those were not meant to be 1, poorhammer is something very different from papercraft or 3D printing

and 3D printing is much cheaper for 40k if you look at GWs prices (even the start up costs are lower than going fresh into 40k with GW stuff)
if you look at Wargaming/Tabletop in general, it is not and the start up costs are way too high compared to getting a starter army for a non-GW game

 Gert wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
When I read, "...equates to [GBP]15,000..." I see it as the average payment, not one that everybody gets. I mean, I can't imagine them giving the executives the same bonus as the guy that puts sprues in boxes.

GW has 2436 employees. The average is in favour of the lower-paid workers than executives. And IIRC the last time this was in the news, it was made clear that all employees received the same bonus from top to bottom.

The quote about GW promising £15,000 over the next five years is incorrect. Here is the actual quote from the report:

We are committed to ensuring that all staff are paid fairly for the job they perform and to rewarding our staff for their considerable contribution. We always manage the business for the long term and aim to get the right mix of annual pay rises and variable cash rewards. In the last five years we have increased fixed base pay on average of 3% per year, a total of £20 million over the period. Over the same period, we have also rewarded staff with a discretionary payment and group profit share payments of £35 million, equating to c. £15,000 per staff member on top of their base pay.

As noted in the highlighted text, over the last 5 years GW has increased base pay by an average of 3% per year and given profit sharing around £15,000 per staff member. I expect the "c" has more to do with employment status (part-time versus full-time) than base salary.

 kodos wrote:
those were not meant to be 1, poorhammer is something very different from papercraft or 3D printing
and 3D printing is much cheaper for 40k if you look at GWs prices (even the start up costs are lower than going fresh into 40k with GW stuff)
if you look at Wargaming/Tabletop in general, it is not and the start up costs are way too high compared to getting a starter army for a non-GW game

£65 Starter Set vs £200 3D Printer.

GW also creates a product that is part of a different sort of human habit: hobby.

iirc, two certain industries tend to do very well, even in depressions: alcohol and hobby. People aren't willing to give up their vices, even when money is tight.

I also know that GW thought fully that Covid was going to ruin their sales, and they pulled back on a LOT of things through the past year to brace for it, but then ended up making record profits regardless. In spite of shipping issues, in spite of slower releases and backlogs, in spite of people in many places not even able to play with the games.

Now, we hope that GW will have the wherewithal and opportunity to put this money towards making more models, especially for the factions that really need it.

 frankelee wrote:
It would seem you can't really glean much from the report's numbers. They're bragging about stuff without hard data, and otherwise not claiming anything horrible has gone wrong. What's clear is they don't seem to be going through any great collapse, or any great growth.

Which is quite good in the current economic climate. Dividends are up.

When I was a red shirt in 2001, the cell (basically area, usually about 6 stores in close proximity) manager gave the timeframe for a kit making the bulk of it's sales as the first 3 weeks.

I was told similar by Mantic in 2017.

Sounds like bollocks to me. There would be little point in keeping a product in inventory past three months if that were the case. May as well just design, produce, and release another, if the profit is 10x, 'old' (aka three weeks) vs new.

That only makes sense if you don't know how, well, anything, works.

Okay do you want to, well, explain, how, it works?

Not really, that you're suggesting it means it's already a lost cause, I'll use my energy for something more constructive.

Yeah thought so.

Oh no, you've outwitted me! I will now commit to writing the lengthy essay needed to address all the flaws in your plan.

I'll edit this post, keep hitting refresh until it appears.

What plan? I'm not making any plan. Are you alright? No, don't answer that, focus on that essay.

JWBS wrote:
There would be little point in keeping a product in inventory past three months if that were the case. May as well just design, produce, and release another

??