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https://www.google.se/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/806bcc35-ceb2-3c31-915f-1ed63a2bd5d8

Little figurines, big investment gains.

Games Workshop, the best performing stock this year on the London market, said its revenues and earnings climbed significantly over the past six months.

The group, known for its table games based around characters with names like Gutrot Spume and Festus the Leechlord, said in a trading update that preliminary estimates point to sales of £109m in the half-year to November 26, up 53.7 per cent over the same period in the previous year. Operating profits climbed at a more rapid rate to £38m from £13.8m.

Games Workshop, founded over 30 years ago, makes miniature figurine armies that are used in intricate fantasy games, like Warhammer 40,000 and one based on The Hobbit. Players spend time customising their models — such as tanks and various creatures — by painting them and swapping out their bases. (“True mastery” of the art, “takes time and dedication”, the company says.)

The group’s shares have soared 174.4 per cent since the end of last year, making Games Workshop by far the best-performing stock on the FTSE All-Share index, according to FactSet data.

Games Workshop is based in the UK, but 70 per cent of direct sales are generated overseas from countries such as the US, Australia, China and Japan, helping to buffer its exposure to British economic tumult.

Good for them! Who would have thought interaction with the community and attempting to make the game more user friendly would have had a positive impact...

I hope someone is rubbing this in the face of the old top managers.

Awesome job, GW!

Keep up the great work and may the good times never end!

I just hope GW can keep up and then easily settle back when things slow down a bit (as with most things they will slow down after a while). Certainly this last year to half a year has been a massive change for them and a huge boost!

It's also really great to see them adopting changes the community, at large, wanted and seeing a positive reaction in terms of increased revenue and value of the company. Ergo its a win-win where customer and company are both benefiting.

Let's all celebrate with an across-the-board price rise!

Only for New Zealand however. I do however wish I had pulled the trigger on picking up a few hundred shares a few years back. Oh well, that's the stock market for you.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Let's all celebrate with an across-the-board price rise!

Only in australia and new zealand, though!

2 things:

1. It's hilarious everytime someone outside the hobby tries to describe it.

2. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD. This pretty much has to end up in every major business textbook for the next 50 years right? 174.4% increase in share price, 50% increase in sales, operating profit tripled?

People are really heavily focusing on what this means for GW going forward but I think it's actually going to be much more valuable as a case study on the effects of consumer engagement.

Here's hoping we're not seeing a localised boom and bust!

They're definitely doing the right thing at the right time. But man, I don't want to see a bubble burst here. That'd be rubbish!

Lord Kragan wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Let's all celebrate with an across-the-board price rise!

Only in australia and new zealand, though!

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:Only for New Zealand however. I do however wish I had pulled the trigger on picking up a few hundred shares a few years back. Oh well, that's the stock market for you.

You people are so mean.

It is good to see that GWs new policies are paying off so well.

 Skinnereal wrote:
I hope someone is rubbing this in the face of the old top managers.

Ironically, unless they sold off their interests in GW, the old management that put the company close to being in trouble will be doing quite well from the new approach.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Here's hoping we're not seeing a localised boom and bust!

They're definitely doing the right thing at the right time. But man, I don't want to see a bubble burst here. That'd be rubbish!

It'll burst eventually. You can't always keep going up without a little bit of down. The test will be how they've planned for when a down happens and how to turn it around again.

There's a burst, and there's a planned for and managed decline.

Given the exponential growth here, only a fool would think that sustainable. Indeed, GW have said as much in their own reports.

Proof of the pudding will be when things start to settle down. That doesn't mean sales drop off, just growth levelling off - two different things!

I'm confident they'll make a controlled glide. This boom has been by them getting their act together and putting in the hard work to earn it. That all pays off in the long run better than any shiny new releases could.

alphaecho wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
I hope someone is rubbing this in the face of the old top managers.

Ironically, unless they sold off their interests in GW, the old management that put the company close to being in trouble will be doing quite well from the new approach.

There's no rest for the wicked, only riches.


Also yes, people describing this hobby from the outside is nothing short of hilarious.

I wouldn't describe it as a boom. More the end of artificial suppression through incompetence.

Obviously the huge growth won't continue forever but it should stabalize at the kind of levels it should have been all along. Hopefully with sustainable growth (which would be much lower than we are seeing).

Great news considering the company is filled with 'incompetent idiots who don't know how to make a game'.

ERJAK wrote:
2 things:

1. It's hilarious everytime someone outside the hobby tries to describe it.

2. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD. This pretty much has to end up in every major business textbook for the next 50 years right? 174.4% increase in share price, 50% increase in sales, operating profit tripled?

People are really heavily focusing on what this means for GW going forward but I think it's actually going to be much more valuable as a case study on the effects of consumer engagement.

Don't forget that this is relative to their last year.

They did get a very good year, but they also did a lot of things wrong before, so part of the increase is just them finally leaving the hole they had been digging under their own feet.

Not that they are perfect nor do I expect them to sustain the increase, but it means that they are at least on the right track ... or at least that they stopped moving backwards .

Good job GW! I know I personally have begun supporting them again, as has my gaming group. Great to see them turn around and begin giving customers what they want

I just hope this don't become another LOTR bubble!

Nice but yeah hope they dont go overboard with success.

reminds me about that extra credits vid about how well there IP shotgun tactic is working out for the video game side.

 Galas wrote:
I just hope this don't become another LOTR bubble!

It'll level out for certain, but unlike the Lord of the Rings that was tied to the movies (and GW made some dodgy decisions along the way like halving box content) 40k and Age of Sigmar are their core business, so the larger part of people buying from them should be on board with what GW are doing with the systems right now. 8th ed and Age of Sigmar with simple core rules and cheaper bundles were introduced to get more customers, and since they are basically new systems and settings one would assume that GW found a large enough audience that supports their current approach.

I don't see much of a bubble character to this upswing,

Edited to elevate the post slightly above monkey with typewriter level...

That's why you communicate with your customers.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Let's all celebrate with an across-the-board price rise!

They probably have soooo many loses because of Brexit they have to compensate for. I'm rakeing in some models before that dumpsterfire is extinguished.

GW was so badly run under Kirby, it's a miracle that it survived (well, it only survived cause peeple really liked the IP). While current GW is far from perfect, the improvements are stagerring.

But to be honest, a lot of the growth is without a doubt due to 8th edition (IIRC, pretty much every new 40k edition is accompanied by a large growth in sales), so it's not sustainable in the middle term nor long term.

Ouch. Now they'll never regret that terrible 8th edition rules set...

30 million of operating profit is a lot of money to reinvest in the business, though. Maybe some new plastics... Maybe Sisters, huh, GW? Maybe Plastic Aspects? You can't tell us you can't afford it now...

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Ouch. Now they'll never regret that terrible 8th edition rules set...

30 million of operating profit is a lot of money to reinvest in the business, though. Maybe some new plastics... Maybe Sisters, huh, GW? Maybe Plastic Aspects? You can't tell us you can't afford it now...

GW needs to invest in the capacity to produce more plastic kits first.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Ouch. Now they'll never regret that terrible 8th edition rules set...

Something something silent majority. At least your free to maintain your crummy opinion.

 Ghaz wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Ouch. Now they'll never regret that terrible 8th edition rules set...

30 million of operating profit is a lot of money to reinvest in the business, though. Maybe some new plastics... Maybe Sisters, huh, GW? Maybe Plastic Aspects? You can't tell us you can't afford it now...

GW needs to invest in the capacity to produce more plastic kits first.

They've got to invest that 30million in some-

Oh right. More Space Marines. How silly of me.

Lets hope this translates to more models for all armies. Many armies are still using miniatures from like 2000-2001.