GW Financials - page 30 latest

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**frozenwastes**

In the miniature category GW has been the largest for a couple decades now and even with the wider hobby growing while GW stayed flat, them being the largest hasn't changed.

In terms of the wider hobby sales channels and everything that is sold there, they will likely never be the largest as that channel includes Magic the Gathering and Pokemon cards.

With the way that the market has changed and how smaller companies can enter the market so easily and can use the internet for potential customers, I highly doubt GW will represent the majority of miniature sales like they were during the late 90s and early 2000s. They're probably going to remain the largest single company for good while even if they never get back to their domination of available shelf space that drove how games were distributed in the 90s.

**Lord Kragan**

While I know this thread hasn't been active for the last three months I think that this is kind of worth activating the thread, plus the financials for the end of year are on the way so it could be useful to start discussion again if we desired to.

https://19485-presscdn-0-14-pagely.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/GAW-announcement-June-17-MB-and-KR.pdf

**Azreal13**

It's a non event really. It's only 600 shares, and board level staff buying shares is both utterly routine and needs to be reported publicly.

**Gimgamgoo**

The equivalent in cash of about 10 GW starter sets changing hands in shares being bought by the CEO.

Might save someone having to dl the pdf.

**Chikout**

So GW stock is going crazy. It by far the highest it has ever been
I guess the 8th edition buzz has infected the stock holders too.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

That is quite the jump.

Should probably let my brother know - I think he's still got a few shares, and now may be a good time to sell them on, seeing as he's a student bum.

**Lord Kragan**

https://investor.games-workshop.com/2017/06/02/trading-update-on-close-of-financial-year-ended-28-may-2017/#more-'

Following the close of its 2016/17 financial year Games Workshop provides the following trading highlights:

Games Workshop is pleased to announce that the sales and profit growth, which was discussed in the March 2017 trading update, has continued in the period to the end of May 2017.

We expect the Group’s sales for the year to 28 May 2017 to be approximately £158 million and the Group’s profit before tax to be above market expectations at not less than £38 million. Sales and profits have benefitted from the continuing favourable impact of the weaker pound.

We will provide the detailed information on the audited results for the 2016/17 financial year at the time of our full year results announcement on 25 July 2017.

Exactly what was their result last year?

**Spacemanvic**

Well, I know they've gotten a fair amount off me in anticipation of 8th edition.

**silent25**

Just checked and GW revenue for 2016 was ~ £118M. If they come in at £158 that is a jump of ~34%. I think we can all agree Roundtree has been almost exactly what GW needed on the corporate side and the player side.

With GW announcing it's annual report, ICv2 normally releases their hobby industry statics shortly after. Will be interesting to see how GW fared relative to the industry.

**AllSeeingSkink**

If they're up to 158M that'll be reasonably impressive, I think that's back up to LOTR boom levels?

I wonder if this revenue boom has come mainly from their main games or their side games.

Largely thanks to Blood Bowl GW got more money out of me this financial year than they have the past 5 years combined.

I'm still just sad they felt they had to kill WHFB to get these sorts of numbers, I'm sure this level of success was possible without them killing WHFB.

**Inquisitor Gideon**

If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.

**tneva82**

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.

That assumes they never make mistakes.

They are humans, they make mistake.

They bin games that exceeded their own sale expectations by 400%...

**AllSeeingSkink**

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.

They had far from exhausted all other possibilities.

They'd done sweet feth all with WHFB for ages and made no attempt to fix the mistakes they'd made with 8th. The first thing they did with WHFB in ages was End Times, and it was really successful right up until people realised it was actually the end.

But anyway, that's all going off topic. I just wish they'd made put the effort in to getting revenue out of their existing system instead of killing it.

**silent25**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.
They had far from exhausted all other possibilities.

They'd done sweet feth all with WHFB for ages and made no attempt to fix the mistakes they'd made with 8th. The first thing they did with WHFB in ages was End Times, and it was really successful right up until people realised it was actually the end.

But anyway, that's all going off topic. I just wish they'd made put the effort in to getting revenue out of their existing system instead of killing it.

Not to keep this going, but it is relevant to the point of the new management. The whole WHFB/AoS debacle was under Kirby. Roundtree came in and at that point the damage had been done and the new management made the best of a bad situation. If Roundtree had come in a few years earlier, then yes, they might have tried other things to save WHFB. At this point, they have built up AoS into a strong product and killing it to bring back WHFB would be foolish. There might be a possibility of some sort of WHFB return, but at this point GW already has two Fantasy Battle games, LotR and AoS. The best we can hope for is the return of other Warhammer World games like Mordenheim. We got Bloodbowl.

**frozenwastes**

I think the success of post-GHB Age of Sigmar means the Old World is not coming back in miniature form outside of Forgeworld (if that). From a product perspective, AoS is probably also superior to the Old World in that it's not chocked full of generic fantasy tropes they can't protect like 15th century German fashion, questing knights, wood elves, and so on.

The most remarkable thing about GW since Rountree took over is the product design focused on smaller model count games working well. Both Age of Sigmar and 8th edition work with lower model counts very, very well. Then you have SW:A and AoS:Skirmish. Which not being their own separate world with gangs like Necromunda means you can actually transition from these smaller model count games to the larger sized battles.

If you were to go through all the things people said about how to fix GW during their stagnant Kirby period, it's like they've all been done. Even prices, while not being universally reduced, have been addressed with Start Collecting bundles that actually save a lot of money over buying them separately. The new AoS bundles that launched with the release of Skirmish are also quite well priced.

Engagement with the community. No longer pretending the internet is a fad. Game design that supports smaller model count games. Stand alone boxed games increasing in number. Bundles that save money (more of these hopefully) and a revamp of 40k. Doing more to engage with trade sales.

While I'm sure the pound declining will account for much of their increase in revenue, I think this may be one of the first periods in GW's history since the LOTR boom that they'll see actual volume in units sold going up. Some combination of more people buying more product instead of a lower number of customers buying some lower number of boxes of product. Kirby talked for years about some possible return to growth if only the retail staff and trade sales personel would hit their targets, but it looks like with him taking a back seat, actual growth is back for GW.

Not a sentence I thought I'd type.

**Lord Kragan**

silent25 wrote:
AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
If they could have done, then I'm certain they would have done. You don't kill off a flagship product and put considerable time and resources into an unknown replacement unless you've already exhausted all other possibilities.
They had far from exhausted all other possibilities.

They'd done sweet feth all with WHFB for ages and made no attempt to fix the mistakes they'd made with 8th. The first thing they did with WHFB in ages was End Times, and it was really successful right up until people realised it was actually the end.

But anyway, that's all going off topic. I just wish they'd made put the effort in to getting revenue out of their existing system instead of killing it.

Not to keep this going, but it is relevant to the point of the new management. The whole WHFB/AoS debacle was under Kirby. Roundtree came in and at that point the damage had been done and the new management made the best of a bad situation. If Roundtree had come in a few years earlier, then yes, they might have tried other things to save WHFB. At this point, they have built up AoS into a strong product and killing it to bring back WHFB would be foolish. There might be a possibility of some sort of WHFB return, but at this point GW already has two Fantasy Battle games, LotR and AoS. The best we can hope for is the return of other Warhammer World games like Mordenheim. We got Bloodbowl.

And we've got an RPG too incoming this year. From what I've heard, they may give us some very saucy bits.

**Osbad**

With putative turnover of £158m and putative profits of £38m I have charted out the results over the last few years (see attached graph), and it if they are true, then Rountree has pulled a blinder this year. Once the discounting effect of inflation has been accounted for, these are the best profit figures ever (or at least since they became a public company), and turnover is the best since the heights of the LotR bubble days. All power to his elbow.

We can discuss the merits of various game systems and product ranges, but personally, having been a customer of GW's on and off since the early 1980's, and pretty much off for most of the last decade, what I notice is that simply they are listening to customers again and bringing out stuff that people have asked for - Specialist Games, points values for AoS, not trying to sue everyone who looks at them funny, that sort of thing!

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Why 1997 prices? Genuinely intrigued. I'm far too ignorant to be clever on this one!

**Osbad**

Because that is the first year I have records for and it predates the public listing, so is as close to the "good old days" as I can get. Rebasing everything back to then by discounting with the UK RPI index shows how well (or otherwise) GW have done in real terms. It's a graph I have been keeping up ever since 2004 or so when people really started having a go at GW for becoming too corporate and losing their customer focus, and I thought it would be interesting to see what actually was happening over the long term - which Kirby used to claim was all he was about!

My particular interest was on the discounted (i.e. "1997 prices" turnover) figure as without access to GW's internal management figures this is the closest proxy I can find to the volume of sales (as opposed to the value of sales) over time - i.e. an indication of whether the GW H-H-Hobby is growing or shrinking by demonstrating whether people are really buying more stuff than they used to, or not.

If the proxy holds (and I have no reason to believe it doesn't in broad terms although clearly, the product mix has radically changed over time) then this year is the first in many - since the heady days of the LotR bubble, with the exception of a blip almost a decade ago - where we can truly see GW expanding their volume sales by any significant amount.

Without GW's internals we can argue what the components of that are, but my guess is that it is a combination of many things - new (old) products like BB, a pick up in AoS from a very low start, a nicer attitude from the company making engaging with them funner, and all of the above, not just one thing.

**Inquisitor Gideon**

So looking at this, what caused such a massive dip in the 07/08 period? Can't have been LotR, as the movies finished back in 03 I believe. And what was the big spike in the 12/13 period?

**Osbad**

The LotR bubble dragged on until 2007 or so. They were still doing reasonable sales of LotR (as opposed to the MASSIVE ones of 2003) in 2005 when they released the "One Rulebook" as a legacy of the BGiME magazine publicity primarily. 2007 was the year LotR sales really dried up for them and went away as they hiked prices and ran out of new movie-inspired designs to release. There were still a lot of people (including me) buying stuff up until that point. Incidentally, some of their financial success in 2017 is undoubtedly due to Hobbit sales via Forge World which seems to have been popular, relatively speaking. I also believe WFB started its long decline around that point. Not sure what 40k was up to, but it was mid-to-late 4th Ed at that point, if that's a clue.

2012/13 I am not so sure about. I was paying far less attention to what they were doing then, as I wasn't interested in WFB or 40k. If I was forced to guess I would say the release of 8th Ed WFB, which seemed to spike and then tank, but that is pure guesswork as I couldn't say for sure what year 8th Ed WFB came out exactly. it may have been something to do with 40k, or a bit of both. Anyone else care to speculate? There'll be a post in this forum from around July/August 2013, probably with this graph in it, with comments if anyone cares to dig it out.

**frozenwastes**

It really is an excellent graph.

The roll out of single employee stores saw each location thus transitioned have a sales drop of roughly 40%. The cost savings were larger than that though so they kept doing it, sacrificing volume for better margins. So the turnover dropped but the profit didn't drop nearly as far. When the company actually lost money in 2007-8, Mark Wells implemented a restructuring plan to cut costs as well as a shift away from volume towards selling some combination of fewer products to fewer people at higher prices. A picture can be worth a thousand words. Their UK Games Day:

They intentionally pursued a reduction in volume to cut costs and ended up with less customers as a result.

Since then, there's definitely been a shake up at GW. It's not just Kirby going into retirement. Alan Merrit is gone as the head of their IP and after spending what they did on suing Chapter Hourse and accomplishing nothing, their in house legal counsel is also gone. I can't think of a single web forum or online tool or 3rd party accessory maker that has gotten a cease & desist letter from GW legal since.

Instead we have the Age of Sigmar scrollbuilder site being integrated into GW's own warhammer community site. What a huge difference from sicking your lawyers on Talk Blood Bowl for daring to use "blood bowl" in their website name. I understood why they didn't fight back, but there's no way trade mark can be used to stop people discussing your product from having the name of the product in their name. It was insane to sick lawyers on your most dedicated fans.

I actually think the product has improved as well. First with Age of Sigmar over 7th and 8th edition fantasy and now with 8th edition 40k. It simply supports play at a range of model counts better than the previous versions and thus reduces barriers to recruiting new players.

They also seem to be very interested in keeping existing customers rather than going for a churn and burn strategy. It was almost like their social media and warhammer community approach for the launch of 8th edition was an attempt to get back lapsed customers rather than just assume they were lost.

This is a big change from ramping up starting costs as high as possible and hoping to get as much money out of each new customer before they quit. The real test will be when they release the first codex for 8th edition. Will it be an actual codex with all the rules you need or will it be split into multiple codexes so you need to buy more books in order to have all the rules for your army (Cult Mechanicus and Skitarii being an obvious example of that approach).

if Age of Sigmar is anything to go by, it won't be about front loading the costs as much as possible. They could have easily split Daemons of Tzeentch and Arcanites of Tzeentch into two separate books just like they did with the Mechanicus but they didn't.

**Mangod**

frozenwastes wrote:
It really is an excellent graph.

The roll out of single employee stores saw each location thus transitioned have a sales drop of roughly 40%. The cost savings were larger than that though so they kept doing it, sacrificing volume for better margins. So the turnover dropped but the profit didn't drop nearly as far. When the company actually lost money in 2007-8, Mark Wells implemented a restructuring plan to cut costs as well as a shift away from volume towards selling some combination of fewer products to fewer people at higher prices. A picture can be worth a thousand words. Their UK Games Day:

They intentionally pursued a reduction in volume to cut costs and ended up with less customers as a result.

Since then, there's definitely been a shake up at GW. It's not just Kirby going into retirement. Alan Merrit is gone as the head of their IP and after spending what they did on suing Chapter Hourse and accomplishing nothing, their in house legal counsel is also gone. I can't think of a single web forum or online tool or 3rd party accessory maker that has gotten a cease & desist letter from GW legal since.

Instead we have the Age of Sigmar scrollbuilder site being integrated into GW's own warhammer community site. What a huge difference from sicking your lawyers on Talk Blood Bowl for daring to use "blood bowl" in their website name. I understood why they didn't fight back, but there's no way trade mark can be used to stop people discussing your product from having the name of the product in their name. It was insane to sick lawyers on your most dedicated fans.

I actually think the product has improved as well. First with Age of Sigmar over 7th and 8th edition fantasy and now with 8th edition 40k. It simply supports play at a range of model counts better than the previous versions and thus reduces barriers to recruiting new players.

They also seem to be very interested in keeping existing customers rather than going for a churn and burn strategy. It was almost like their social media and warhammer community approach for the launch of 8th edition was an attempt to get back lapsed customers rather than just assume they were lost.

This is a big change from ramping up starting costs as high as possible and hoping to get as much money out of each new customer before they quit. The real test will be when they release the first codex for 8th edition. Will it be an actual codex with all the rules you need or will it be split into multiple codexes so you need to buy more books in order to have all the rules for your army (Cult Mechanicus and Skitarii being an obvious example of that approach).

if Age of Sigmar is anything to go by, it won't be about front loading the costs as much as possible. They could have easily split Daemons of Tzeentch and Arcanites of Tzeentch into two separate books just like they did with the Mechanicus but they didn't.

One) Wow, that image hurts. Would have been nice if it was time-stamped, though

Two) The line "reduces barriers to recruiting new players" I can't decide whether I should laugh or cringe at, since GW themselves introduced those same barriers intentionally via "ramping up starting costs as high as possible and hoping to get as much money out of each new customer before they quit". I wish Roundtree had been put in charge earlier, maybe he could have saved OldHammer...

**frozenwastes**

Mangod wrote:
One) Wow, that image hurts. Would have been nice if it was time-stamped, though

It's not mine, just one people posted after the pictures of the 2013 Games Day came out and people noticed it was the same space but with way less people. I have no idea if the 2003 picture is legit, though I do remember the 2013 one.

Two) The line "reduces barriers to recruiting new players" I can't decide whether I should laugh or cringe at, since GW themselves introduced those same barriers intentionally via "ramping up starting costs as high as possible and hoping to get as much money out of each new customer before they quit". I wish Roundtree had been put in charge earlier, maybe he could have saved OldHammer...

Warhammer Fantasy worked for GW for decades, so while I'm sure there have been changes in what's popular, it's pretty likely it was canned because of how late 7th and pretty much all of 8th was GW failing to make a version of WHFB that worked as a product. The barrier to entry in 8th edition was insane. And you're right, it's all self created. They (correctly) noticed that a new person starting spent the most money in their initial investment and within a year after and attempted to maximize what that amount would be. When the "Start Collecting" boxes came out, I was quite surprised at the reversal they represented. It's more than just GW offering a bundle at a discount for the first time in years, but bundles aimed at new players. And with AoS:Skirmish, they released bundles at a discount again, this time with a different character miniature in them than the start collecting boxes.

Another thing that surprised me was Rountree's statement in his first financial report that they needed to find a way to have products at multiple price points available in stores. That they needed more than just super expensive things. Then the little Storm of Sigmar mini starter came out. And loads of small boxes of just a few miniatures that beginners could get. And now the Skirmish book.

Storm of Sigmar + Skirmish book + free rules & warscrolls = lowest cost to enter for warhammer fantasy I can think of.

People have already gotten an easy to assemble Primaris marine as part of their launch day events at GW stores. If they end up making a sprue of those and a sprue of death guard, they might be able to make a mini 40k starter and an adaptation of the Skirmish rules for 40k and have an equally low cost to enter for 40k. What, SEK310 for Storm of Sigmar and the Skirmish book?

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

Another thing that surprised me was Rountree's statement in his first financial report that they needed to find a way to have products at multiple price points available in stores. That they needed more than just super expensive things. Then the little Storm of Sigmar mini starter came out. And loads of small boxes of just a few miniatures that beginners could get. And now the Skirmish book.

Storm of Sigmar + Skirmish book + free rules & warscrolls = lowest cost to enter for warhammer fantasy I can think of.

Holy crap, only £20 for 13 Heroic sized minis plus ruleset and dice? Thats pretty damn fantastic by GW standards, and a great way to tempt new players. Personally I would find it much easier to tempt my friends into starting a wargame with starting price of just £20. I've never heard of this set, when was it released?

I hope they'll do the same for The Hobbit SBG.

Say...the plastic Gandalf from Escape from Goblin Town, and a sprue of Hunter Orcs? You could call it "Escape from Dol Guldur" or something. You know, the scene when he investigates Dol Guldur and gets chased by Orcs and Azog.

**frozenwastes**

It was released July 2016. I hope it sold well as I'd like to see similar £20 starters leveraging their library of plastic kits. A 40k one for sure. Your Hobbit idea sounds cool as well, but I have no idea how much GW wants to concentrate on LOTR these days.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

frozenwastes wrote:
I can't think of a single web forum or online tool or 3rd party accessory maker that has gotten a cease & desist letter from GW legal since.

And spoke too soon:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/730031.page

https://wertstammer40k.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/website-is-down/

Reepy wrote:Hey guys,

A big pile of bad news now…

I was contacted by GW Legal. They requested that I remove the website and I did. It is their right and I must comply.

I was infringing on their IP with:

GW artwork (featured in the background of your website)
Photographs of GW’s painted miniatures (taken from the GW web store)
Legion logos/ iconography
Army points and stats for 40K units
The Warhammer 40,000 logo
Seeing all of these I feel lucky they didn’t actually sue me.

I didn’t actually remove the site but, as you can see, it is unusable – I am leaving it for now just for this news so you know what’s going on.

I cannot say I wasn’t expecting this. I really did use a lot of their data. But I have to say I just cannot use the new points without some kind of list builder. And using things like BattleScribe is total bs. Those lists are UGLY as hell.

I really hoped when GW contacted me it would be for some sort of collaboration. Not removal

**Bookwrack**

frozenwastes wrote:
It was released July 2016. I hope it sold well as I'd like to see similar £20 starters leveraging their library of plastic kits. A 40k one for sure. Your Hobbit idea sounds cool as well, but I have no idea how much GW wants to concentrate on LOTR these days.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

frozenwastes wrote:
I can't think of a single web forum or online tool or 3rd party accessory maker that has gotten a cease & desist letter from GW legal since.

And spoke too soon:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/730031.page

https://wertstammer40k.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/website-is-down/

Except this is a case of GW doing what it's supposed to. Don't use official GW art and pictures without permission for your webpage, especially if you're trying to use a Patreon to fund it as well.

**Baron Klatz**

Agreed. The fellow who made that page was awesome but crossed way too many lines.

**jmurph**

The note that they are still trying to protect game rules (points) is odd, though, as that is clearly not protectable. The pictures and art is a clear violation.

**frozenwastes**

The guy who ran the sight outright admitted he crossed multiple lines, but it still is an example of something I said GW wasn't really doing anymore, so I figured posting the correction was warranted.