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 Vermis wrote:

Davor wrote:
LOL so Privateer Press is finally going down the Games Workshop slope now eh?

Personally, I thought that when they first showed up...

In some ways, PP has moved in that direction. For example, when the game first came out, a typical game consisted of less than 20 models. For a Khador army, it might have had fewer than 10. Games today consist of significantly more models, even in smaller formats.

However, I feel it is very unlikely that PP will ever abandon their attention to the quality of their rules or their engagement with their customer base.

 Coldhatred wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

Davor wrote:
LOL so Privateer Press is finally going down the Games Workshop slope now eh?

Personally, I thought that when they first showed up...

In some ways, PP has moved in that direction. For example, when the game first came out, a typical game consisted of less than 20 models. For a Khador army, it might have had fewer than 10. Games today consist of significantly more models, even in smaller formats.

However, I feel it is very unlikely that PP will ever abandon their attention to the quality of their rules or their engagement with their customer base.

Not really disputing anything you've said, but I'm sure there we many people who thought the same thing about Games Workshop back in the day.

Haha...having played since Rogue Trader, GW rules always kind of sucked. They might have been cool or interesting, but they always had wonky interactions that required the players to figure out how to handle it mid-game.

It's just always been an idiosyncrasy of GW; they've never thought that quality rules matter that much.

I can remember when Avalon Hill went under. I remember several of our gaming group hoping that GW would hire some of the rules writers from there to write GW rules. Sure, the rules wouldn't be as interesting to read, since they'd have almost all been written in outline form rather than paragraph form, but there would have been a lot less room for misinterpretation.

 Murenius wrote:

Herzlos wrote:


That is all in the annual reports. Cost of manufacture is pretty low as a percentage of RRP (<20%), and most of the cost is in the stores.

Thanks, I will have a look at that. The big question is then: if they stopped having the stores, could they still maintain a customer base big enough to support such a model range and all the other stuff? How many people play because of the stores, how many would stop if they couldn't go to one?

I, for one, always hated playing with the people in the stores and almost entirely play with friends, aquaintances and their friends.

Outside of Great Britain, I get the feeling that a relative minority of players solely shop and/or play at GW stores.

However, significantly reducing or eliminating entirely their retail branch network is something I don't think they have the intestinal fortitude to even consider. It would involve a lot of backtracking on the way they've engaged the customer base and the independent retailer over the last decade. The short term negative impact on their bottom line from such a move is something that GW would have a hard time to survive.

 Squigsquasher wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Squigsquasher wrote:
There's nothing GW can do. The internet's GW hate cult is so massive that even if GW gave out their models for free, released the most solid set of rules ever, allowed any and all conversions and made a cure for AIDS, people would still be decrying them as the Wargaming Great Satan and whinging on about how much better Warmachine is.

Better late than never coming to defend fair lady GW...

*Gasp* How DARE I find the endless torrents of "GW SUXX I BET I COULD RUN A HUGE COMPANY MUCH BETTER THAN THEM BAAAAWWWWW!" tiresome! I must flagellate myself and bow before the shrine of Infinity and crappy kickstarter projects!

Are you familiar with the concept of the Unpleasable Fanbase? Because I'm pretty much convinced that's exactly what GW's fandom is. In fact I'd compare them to Transformers, Star Wars and Pokemon; it doesn't have any fans, just lots of people who allegedly liked it so they have an excuse to complain about how terrible it is now and how it's been ruined forever.

But I must be quiet and go along with the hate bandwagon like a good little dakkatard, lest I be noticed for not hating everything GW does and be banned again.

Or, you could accept the fact that much of the criticism is justified.

And, you could understand that most of the people who are complaining are people who have a long standing relationship and extensive investment of time and money with GW. These aren't people who are merely fans of another game that are trying to pull down another company. They are fans of what GW used to be and could still be in the future who are unhappy with what GW is today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Murenius wrote:


"and the companies will shutdown, like its starting to happen to GW." Now you are the one claiming things without proof. GW's revenue is pretty constant since 2009, so on what do you base your assumption?

Their most recent annual report?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Murenius wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Wait so your argument is that GW's problems are due to being a big company, and not because they're run by fething morons?

GW is a small portion of the wargaming market; they might be the largest currently but they're also steadily declining when their competitors are slowly increasing.

No, they're not. These are their figures for the last 9 years.

Year, Rev, Prof, Rev(IA)
2014, 123.5, 12.3, 123.5
2013, 134.6, 21.3, 134.6
2012, 131.0, 19.1, 135.0
2011, 123.1, 15.3, 130.8
2010, 126.5, 16.0, 141.5
2009, 125.7, 9.0, 147.1
2008, 110.3, 2.5, 128.4
2007, 109.5, (1.8), 132.6
2006, 115.2, 4.2, 145.2

None of those figures have anything to do with what percentage of the overall market share GW possesses.

In the USA, at least, the wargaming market has been growing, year over year, at about a 15% for several years. GW's sales numbers during that time have been flat or declining. That indicates that GW's percentage of the market share is declining.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Murenius wrote:


Check the figures above. Compared to the last 9 years this is not really a strong fluctuation. Taking one year out of the context doesn't say anything about the trend.

You mean the trend in gross revenue that has been moving downward since 2009?

Profits are nice, but if revenue consistently drops, eventually it has to come home to roost. That's pretty basic business school stuff.

GW's most recent business year's gross revenue was almost 17% lower than 2009. The general trend over that period is downward. Their profitability remained high during that period primarily through dramatic cost-cutting measures combined with price increases. If one combines their price increases with the revenue decreases, it's easy to show that the company is selling somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% fewer units than they were in 2009.

The information is from ICV2, a trade group that reports on the sales results in the gaming industry in the USA. I'm pretty sure you can find their reports online, or someone who has the link handy can post it. They report on the various facets of the overall gaming industry by product type (RPGs, board games, TTGs, etc.). While it's not as detailed as something like the annual report filed by GW, it is a resource relied upon by people in the industry.