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.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Whether the money would be better used for investment is a difficult question to answer. GW already have a lot of their own machinery and facilities and have been upgrading them. They have a large -- arguably too large -- range of products that they are constantly adding to. Diversification into more games is something I would like from a personal view, but it may not be a wise investment decision (see Dread Fleet.)

I think the best place for reinvestment would be advertising, employing people to work with FLGS's more to push the brand more, trying to get more good will with customers through events and more side products rather than trying to further bloat the 2 main games.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Anyone who's simply in the right place at the right time, went to the right school who knows the right people? They can go hang for all I care.

In other words, 99% of the people who earn that sort of money

weeble1000 wrote:
If GW can't capitalize on this market expansion, the company is doing something wrong.

I dunno... I could totally believe that GW is approaching saturation. They are the biggest players, I could believe that almost anyone who would potentially play table top games have already given GW a go. How many of the people buying in to all the new games already own or have owned a bunch of GW stuff?

I don't necessarily think it's the most likely answer, but I do think it's an answer that needs to be considered, GW have grown the market and for a lot of people were the only game in town, it's entirely possible that they've gone over their crest and now gamers are more educated and have broader tastes so no matter what they do they're not going to keep up with the growth in the rest of the market because the growth in the rest of the market is to some extent coming out of GW's existing customers, not simply new customers getting in to wargaming.

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I dunno... I could totally believe that GW is approaching saturation. They are the biggest players, I could believe that almost anyone who would potentially play table top games have already given GW a go. How many of the people buying in to all the new games already own or have owned a bunch of GW stuff?

I find the saturation argument difficult to believe when GW refuses to accept that marketing is a useful tool and doesn't seem to care about the huge up-front costs scaring away new players. I'm sure some of the growth of other games is coming at GW's expense, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see that it's also coming from those games recruiting new customers that GW failed to get. So until GW makes a legitimate effort to expand their business instead of acting like they can just sit back and let the cash come in I don't think we can say that it's impossible for GW to see similar growth.

Well we can't say anything for sure, I just tend to think GW's fall is partly because of their business practices but also partly because they are losing their top dog position in a natural progression of new games from other companies starting up and their customers becoming broader, the same way the iPhone didn't grow as much as the overall smartphone market once people starting buying Android phones, when new companies start up and are successful, it's mathematically impossible for the company that was previously top dog to grow at the same rate as the overall market.

The question is where is the balance... I don't want to sound too depressing but personally I think GW would only be doing mildly better if they had better business practices and better rules. Better, sure, but no where near as much as the rest of wargaming is growing. Anecdotally I'd have to say wargaming in my area is about the same size as it ever was, it's just now more scattered where as previously it was almost all GW.

As for the advertising thing, we can't really know unless GW give a decent crack at advertising. But even there, I don't think it's a stretch to say wargaming only really appeals to a small subset of the community, it's not like video gaming or movies where your potential market is damned near everyone who is alive, wargaming (especially the larger games like 40k and WHDB) is only ever going to appeal to a special type of nerd who is willing to spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours assembling an army. I don't think it's a stretch that those type of people don't need to be advertised to as heavily, I'd say most people who would be interested in starting a 40k or WHFB army probably already know about the game. I'm sure DoW has done a good job of marketing GW directly to the people who are most likely to play it.

But who knows, maybe if GW did some more advertising their sales would rise, I tend to be more on the fence about it.