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 Savageconvoy wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
I remember Dakkanauts like HBMC speaking of GW, saying things like "we don't make what they want, they buy what me make." I didn't believe I would see Tom Kirby saying the exact same thing.

The letter from Kirby would have me extremely worried if I were an investor. It was poorly and unprofessionally written and did nothing but try and deflect criticism instead of talking about any strength.

The whole comment about hiring based on attitude and not ability really scared me. It sounds like he enjoys being surrounded by Yes Men. If only the investors and customers could see things the way that people he pays to agree with him see things.

Hell, even the person he hired as the NXD sounded concerned that her resume was never even looked at (though Kirby uses the term "exasperated")

I honestly think that in order for GW to save themselves, they need to do the following:

1) Lower prices. You cannot tell me that molds are expensive, because they made that back 100 times within a few months of the product being on the shelves. $82 for a Stormraven, $74 for a Land Raider, $78 (might be a bit off on this one) for three frakkin Centurians is criminal, and it kills interest for people to get into the game because of the expense. It is NOT expensive to produce these models, so a price drop would sell more models and help with profitability.

2) Interact more with the community, and keep open lines of communication. How hard is it to answer simple rules questions or discrepancies? I am all about the roll off, but honestly some rules just need clarification. Drop the cone of silence. Have an active FB page and Twitter feed to answer rules questions or promote new things.

They could also do well with listening to the community for things that the game is trending about and make adjustments as necessary. I could go on with this topic forever, but will close it with, listen to your customers, we know what's up.

3) Make editions last longer. Stop nerfing units, instead add new units to counter 'broken' or 'op' units. I personally believe you should either buff existing units, leave them the same, or do nothing to them at all. This will ensure that the people who spend money on a particular unit now, won't feel like they wasted their money because in the next edition it sucks.

While not really a true fix, as I don't know what their bottom line is, I know that these things are tried and true methods to keep a player base going and bring in new players. GW won't go under, but it is extremely disconcerting to see Kirby announce that he is stepping down, just ahead of dropping what I can see as awful sales figures for the year.

I'm honestly surprised. I thought IK, IG, 7th would have picked their sales up more than this. Instead it's another drop. Things are worse than I thought in Nottingham.

Share Price: 590.00 Bid: 590.00 Ask: 595.00 Change: -15.00 (-2.48%) Faller - Games Workshop

I'm not a hysterical type but I think these figures are disastrous and I'll try and set out why.

Despite the new release schedule and the introduction of the imperial knight which has sold like hot cakes and the increased pace of new stuff they have dropped 8% in sales. Given that the recession is now lifting and many are seeing wage increases at long last, with increasing confidence, i.e. conditions in which you would expect an uplift in trade, especially for luxury non-essentials when people think "things are looking up now I can think about that new ork army...". The strategy has failed, so far at least.

The cuts in their costs have not been reflected in their profits. They've slashed the costs of their shops and cut all over the show and ok it cost £4m but they should be looking to see a return quickly simply on lower wages.

The incredible, almost unbelievable cost of their website, I'm no expert but £4m is crazy money for a pretty simple storefront. There is nothing complex there it's just a database isn't it in effect? I can think of some answers as to why this amount was spent but I'd best not put them in writing...

Overall given improving trading conditions, immense cuts in costs and a huge attempt to change their release strategy they have failed to turn things around.

Luckily they are still in profit and not in imminent danger but the new CEO has to address the sales drop. He/she can't keep on raising prices to try and counteract the volumes. This won't work in the long run, it is suicide. They need to look at ways to shift more units, probably by restructuring their prices and looking at how they interact with their fanbase to enthuse them. They need to consider sales, promotions, etc.

What really creeps me out about all of this, is I haven't seen one honest attempt to put a positive spin on this. Not one person coming to say "lol sky if falling, been saying that for 20 years! GW too big to sink."

Sim-Life wrote:
I wonder how bad the numbers would have been without 7th Ed, Codex: Space Marine, Imperial Knights and IG the staff cutting.

Honestly I don't think it would be so bad. If there was no 7th, then people wouldn't have left because 6th would be still holding value. I believe a lot of people just didn't want to buy a new version in less than 2 years. Now we have to worry 8th edition will come out in 18 months from now. Also if there was no IK we wouldn't have a $170 Canadian Kit. If there was no IG (well there is no IG) people wouldn't be dismayed from the name change. I don't think that lost sales though, but this leads into Tyranids and Space Marines and Orks. Price Hikes. While it wasn't a yearly price increase the new kit prices are just insane. Especially the Imperial Knight like I said before. Look at the Orks insane prices.

So insane prices, with a new rule set, which had a price increase, people are just fed up and GW finally priced people out of the hobby.

BUT that shouldn't be a big deal anyway. We were not GW target audience anyway, so the money lost from us shouldn't matter. GW didn't want us to buy in the first place. Well that is how I feel. GW doesn't want me and don't care. I am sure others feel like that as well. Now I wonder if these share holders care.

I think the current version of GW is cooked. The only way the company is going to turn around is with drastic change from the top down. When the new CEO comes in, the company needs to be treated like it was bought out and redone from the top down, board of directors included. This is the only way things will change.

However, as the board like their cushy checks and don't really want to make any changes, I suspect they will make the worst possible decisions. We'll see more rushed product, higher prices, more 1 man stores and probably more GW only models. I expect the non-UK market will drop substantially over the next year as Kirby ramps up his war on FLGS.

The next year will be a fun trip.

They need to keep Kirby around to assist the new CEO with financial and business advice.
New guy: "What do you think we should do to reach out to our customers?"
Kirby: "Not sure what that means, but just produce something blockish and ugly and they will buy it."
NG: ".... Yeah... I'm just going to do the opposite and ask the market directly. Let me just check the foru-where's the site's forum section."
Kirby: "We don't have one."
NG: "Right... how much did you pay for this?"
Kirby: "Around 4 million"
NG: "4 Million and you couldn't afford a forum... "

Take it back. GW is siting on a sitcom gold mine if they just tapped into it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, there certainly are various elements of GW's behaviour that seem logically contradictory.

I certainly agree that a lot more people would have bought the 7th edition rules if GW had released the rulebook only, prices say £20 or more likely £25, as an option to the whole set at £50.

Just bought the 7th edition rulebook and it is the only full size one I have ever bought exactly because they split it into 3. I found the others too unwieldy with the pics and fluff all in one book. It's essentially the same product as before, but much easier to wield. The rulebook is actually very well laid out [or much better than previous ones anyway] in a logical order. Even my graphic designer friend is impressed with how it has been put together.

Would I have bought the rulebook only at £25? Difficult to say, but I certainly hadn't been looking for the mini-rulebook on Ebay prior to my purchase. I like looking at pictures of models and reading fluff, and I think the split into 3 was a good decision. I've now got a couple of [admittedly very geeky] coffee table books that I will flick through every now and then. Also, for new entrants to the hobby, the fluff and pics books would be pretty essential.

Having said all that, I completely understand why someone who had bought the main 6th edition rulebook would be annoyed. Another friend bought the limited edition rules, and, while I have little sympathy for people that buy limited edition stuff, I can understand why he is reluctant to move over to 7th.

I'm sure someone mentioned this before in this thread. Go back in time ask all the worlds AD&D fans if TSR would fall. What do you think the answer was? The same as most people here would say about GW...No. The difference is GW is at a point where it can still learn from its current marketing mistakes. However as with all people of the world common sense and ego are inversely proportional. I’m no different, just in this case I’m on the outside looking in. Now GW is not going fall today or the next year but the current trend is not looking so good in my area for GW products. My FLGS has only seen 3 40K games played since the new rules. It used to be 5-6 on a Friday night. GW product sales are extremely down according to the owners. They have only sold the new rules and the new box set with the mini rulebook. (3 rulebooks and 6 box sets) In 3 months they have not sold any new units, tanks etc. Other regional local stores aren’t doing much better.
I’ve heard rumors of areas doing really well, I don’t doubt it. It’s just the grim outlook locally for me makes it kind of doubtful. Do I want this game to die hell no. I invested a lot of time and money in this game. My area can’t seem to find a common ground for an alternate game and I hate warmahoards. GW can turn it around, maybe even close to their glory days, if the ask themselves some hard questions and make some hard to swallow decisions.

Just what I think.

Litcheur wrote:

Despite some easy frags on our wallets : Imperial Knights, 7th edition...

The next financial report will be dreadful.

The "GW had <insert huge release here> yet the numbers are bad" argument comes out every year. I don't really buy it. Sure, it may have some effect but generally every year there is something "big" coming up which will cause splash and get people buy (or so GW hopes).

Look at this list of GW financial periods, respective revenues and notable releases:
Autumn 2011: £62.7 Necrons...ummm...anything else?
Spring 2012: £68.3 New Citadel paint range, Vampire Counts
Autumn 2012: £67.5 6th edition 40k and starter set
Spring 2013: £67.1 release schedule accelerated, new Tau codex (and Riptide!), Specialist games sell-off
Autumn 2013: £60.5 Space Marines & Eldar
Spring 2014: £63 Imperial Knight, Tyranids, Wood Elves, 7th edition 40k (one week, two if you count pre-orders).

As you can see, overall impact of any single release is actually pretty limited. Period with 6th edition 40k had actually slower sales than preceding financial period.

How does GW get new players? Word of mouth. Who supplies that word of mouth? Veteran players. Who's GW pushing away? Veteran players. Who's now likely to have bad things to say about GW? Veteran players.
No research about its customers so they really have no idea who's buying their stuff or why.
No communication to customers.
Growing too expensive.
Public bullying of other companies and independent stores.
Downward trend in sales despite cost cuts and huge releases.
Releases that have actually alienated many customers.

I frankly don't see a long future for them. Can they pull up? Absolutely. Will they? Their attitude suggests otherwise.

Right, but the release of a new edition is actually very important. In other words, if you aren't selling the rules, they aren't playing your game. If they aren't playing your game, they aren't using your armies. If they aren't using your armies they aren't buying codex and supplements. If they aren't buying codex and supplements they won't be getting those shiny new models.

The bad launch of an edition can kill the entire edition. This is after people have been steadily trickling out of the hobby after the last several editions with no effort made to get people back in.

Especially since they don't know who they would target to try and get back in and they even bragged about it. "People are buying our stuff! We don't know who and we don't know how. Couldn't care less."

Backfire wrote:

As you can see, overall impact of any single release is actually pretty limited. Period with 6th edition 40k had actually slower sales than preceding financial period.

Autumn 2011: £62.7 Necrons...ummm...anything else?
Autumn 2012: £67.5 6th edition 40k and starter set

Huh?

AFAIK, when you are comparing financial periods, you compare the same period from the preceding year.

I think this annual report can be a good thing for the company.

You can spin this as much as you want to the public, but behind closed doors, there is no way to sugar coat this to the rest of the Board of Directors.

A nearly 10% drop in sales during the time you released 7th edition, space marines, and Imperial guard? These are your bread and butter releases. THE flagship products of your flagship range.

You can't spin this. You can't ignore it. It's dangling in your face, exposed for the world to see.

Now is the time for them to address the problems of recent years and DO SOMETHING.

Yea I'd guess GW has less than 4 years left in its current configuration. Corporate leadership has no idea why they are losing customers, their practices prove that.

I don't see them making the immediate, sweeping changes that are needed for them to survive intact.

Going public made a bunch of people a lot of money, at the expense of the hobby. It couldve worked with better leadership, oh well.

WH40k is too strong of an IP to disappear completely; but it is quite possible it will be dethroned as the king of TT wargames when the dust has settled.

Ultra-capitalism is a terrible thing. It rewards greed and sociopathic behaviors.

sand.zzz wrote:
Yea I'd guess GW has less than 4 years left in its current configuration. Corporate leadership has no idea why they are losing customers, their practices prove that.

I don't see them making the immediate, sweeping changes that are needed for them to survive intact.

Going public made a bunch of people a lot of money, at the expense of the hobby. It couldve worked with better leadership, oh well.

WH40k is too strong of an IP to disappear completely; but it is quite possible it will be dethroned as the king of TT wargames when the dust has settled.

Ultra-capitalism is a terrible thing. It rewards greed and sociopathic behaviors.

I don't see how GW is being rewarded in this case. They're in a decline.

I think he means is that it gets the mind focused on profits as fast as possible.

The infamous quote about how they don't know their market is the perfect example. They start producing models like crazy and don't know why some sell and others don't. But it doesn't matter because one of them is selling so they'll make more of that and sell it.

That's something that will bother me all day long. They don't bother to check their consumer base to find out why things aren't selling. They don't know if people like the Riptide for the model of if the rules are driving the sales. They don't know that people aren't buying mutilators because the model is ugly and has terrible rules.

This is what kills me. Such an easy fix to the problem from a vocal fan base. Just survey some people and bring those surveys to the next studio meeting.

I just wanted to see a drop in sales, a little turbulence. I didn't want to hear the captain saying that cutting out on radar and landing gear has steadied out the payouts on all those lawsuits.

PhantomViper wrote:

Huh?

AFAIK, when you are comparing financial periods, you compare the same period from the preceding year.

Usually yes, however seasonal effect for GW seems to be quite limited. The "autumn" period covers Christmas, but they're seldom noticeably bigger than "spring" periods.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I don't see how GW is being rewarded in this case. They're in a decline.

They aren't, but GW management doesn't care. Short-sighted greed is very rewarding, as long as you're in the right position to benefit from it. The company is just a means to an end, paying their inflated salaries. If keeping the company profitable and the paychecks coming in for another year or two means running the company into the ground then that's perfectly fine with them, they'll just sell their stock before the final crash and move on to loot the next company.

They didn't publish employee numbers, but Kirby was very clear about middle management.

They're all gone.

It's your local store manager who talks to the one guy who runs the stores for your whole region who then talks to Kirby.

If GW has another decline in revenue like their current one in their next report, there's nothing left to cut.

Just wait until GW takes the next step and cuts out the one man from the one man store.

Honestly sends shivers up my spine when they talk about cutting as much excess as possible while not stopping to consider what exactly is excess.

If you ask me what they need to do to fix things are:

1) Price things better. There is zero reason for the current prices. Look at Mantic (do not bring up quality as an argument here), Warlord or Perry and do the same. If they want the game to be large that's fine, but then price the figures reasonably so it doesn't cost several hundred to play at a normal points level. When I can buy 40 figures for $40 that are equal to or better than GW's quality (Perry) versus $40 for 10 like GW puts out, there's a problem. WHFB should be prices similar to Kings of War, Hail Caesar et all and Perry Miniatures. 40k should be built around the size of Bolt Action as the normal/recommended size, where a tank is a large chunk of a normal army and if you want say more tanks, play a higher point game.

Some birdbrain on BOLS (BTW if you want to see justification and "It's just trolls", go there) tried to argue that the reason they can't do this is because they're a public company.

2) Balance the fething rules. Take the risk and work on 8th edition 40k, and rewrite it from the ground up, using something like Warmahordes as the basis for how it should read (i.e. clear and concise, with every faction getting updates at once instead of spreading it out over years). Hire Alessio as a contractor (if he'll do it, that is) to make solid rules that work, or hell if they really want to pretend they're a miniature company not a game company, get rid of the game part entirely and license Mantic's Warpath as the new version of 40k, and work on new army lists for it.

3) Engage the community. The fact that they are PROUD of not engaging in market research is a blatant "WTF?!" moment. You do not dictate to customers, you let cusotmers dictate to you within reason. Get a forum again, get a blog or something for the designers to have something like the old Chapter Approved, with musings and notes and the like from the designers, maybe even scenario ideas (forge the narrative!) or "Try this in friendly games" kind of optional house rules (like back in 3rd edition, long before Index Astartes there was a drafted White Scars army list custom made for Paul "Fat Bloke" Sawyer and reprinted to allow players to experiment with it in home games). Have them on Twitter where they can answer questions (a la WoW).

But I seriously doubt they'll do anything to fix it. They seem to think the problem is "just" that less people are buying, and don't really care *why* they aren't buying. Even a new CEO is likely to just be a Krony and will keep things the same.

Some more anecdotal evidence I'd like to toss into the mix...

Miniwargaming's Youtube channel and website are more popular than ever, and the demand for more 40k content (particularly the Battle Reports) is leading the charge.

Now, this may just be due to the quality of the channel, but if you read the Youtube comments, it seems like there are a lot of new people getting into 40k.

But I agree, the GW price gouging is getting a bit ridiculous..

5 Space Marines for $39 or whatever is a joke.

Without getting into the details about drawing any sort of conclusion using a single youtube channel, your comment about seeing a number of new players may be completely neutralized by all the people leaving the game you don't hear about.

Dulu wrote:
Some more anecdotal evidence I'd like to toss into the mix...

Miniwargaming's Youtube channel and website are more popular than ever, and the demand for more 40k content (particularly the Battle Reports) is leading the charge.

Now, this may just be due to the quality of the channel, but if you read the Youtube comments, it seems like there are a lot of new people getting into 40k.

But I agree, the GW price gouging is getting a bit ridiculous..

5 Space Marines for $39 or whatever is a joke.

And honestly, I don't understand WHY a new player would get into 40k, because there's no reason when there are other games. It goes back to the old issue that if 40k is the dominant game, then people will play it because it's the dominant game. One of the stores in my area is like that - it still has almost all 40k, to where they don't stock other games anymore because they weren't selling (seriously, they don't sell Malifaux or Warmachine stuff anymore in the store, they've never stocked Infinity because nobody wanted it). So someone new sees people playing 40k, and wants to start; it's almost like it's 1998 all over again, because they aren't exposed to the other options since all a new player coming there sees being played is 40k.

As far as a game goes, 40k is almost complete garbage and nearly unplayable outside of house rules and negotiations. if GW fixed that and priced better, then they could absolutely crush anyone else. It's like what they do with their paints. If Citadel paints were in 17mL dropper bottles like Vallejo or Army Painter, they would rule the roost by being high quality, at a decent price for a decent amount (even if, all things considered, they charged a bit more e.g. $4 for 17ml compared to 3 and change for Vallejo), and ubiquitous. Instead what do they do? They charge the most and give the least amount of paint out of all the others, instead of obliterating their competition with a high quality product at a reasonable price. I would buy nothing but Citadel if they were $4 for 17ml, based on quality and ease of finding it (every game store has a Citadel rack), but at $4 for 12ml I don't buy any because it's not good value. Story of GW's life, basically.

That's the underlying issue. They have competition because they act from arrogance, instead of from practicality. They should be undercutting everybody else, offering promotions and deals and the whole hog to get people to play 40k instead of other games, and what they lose in profit per miniature sold they make up in volume because 40k is ubiquitous again AND affordable, so they would push their competitors out of business. Instead, everything is priced so high that they've allowed the competition to start eating up market share at the cost of their own, and are too blind to see it.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Dulu wrote:
Some more anecdotal evidence I'd like to toss into the mix...

Miniwargaming's Youtube channel and website are more popular than ever, and the demand for more 40k content (particularly the Battle Reports) is leading the charge.

Now, this may just be due to the quality of the channel, but if you read the Youtube comments, it seems like there are a lot of new people getting into 40k.

But I agree, the GW price gouging is getting a bit ridiculous..

5 Space Marines for $39 or whatever is a joke.

And honestly, I don't understand WHY a new player would get into 40k, because there's no reason when there are other games. It goes back to the old issue that if 40k is the dominant game, then people will play it because it's the dominant game. One of the stores in my area is like that - it still has almost all 40k, to where they don't stock other games anymore because they weren't selling (seriously, they don't sell Malifaux or Warmachine stuff anymore in the store, they've never stocked Infinity because nobody wanted it). So someone new sees people playing 40k, and wants to start; it's almost like it's 1998 all over again, because they aren't exposed to the other options since all a new player coming there sees being played is 40k.

As far as a game goes, 40k is almost complete garbage and nearly unplayable outside of house rules and negotiations. if GW fixed that and priced better, then they could absolutely crush anyone else. It's like what they do with their paints. If Citadel paints were in 17mL dropper bottles like Vallejo or Army Painter, they would rule the roost by being high quality, at a decent price for a decent amount (even if, all things considered, they charged a bit more e.g. $4 for 17ml compared to 3 and change for Vallejo), and ubiquitous. Instead what do they do? They charge the most and give the least amount of paint out of all the others, instead of obliterating their competition with a high quality product at a reasonable price. I would buy nothing but Citadel if they were $4 for 17ml, based on quality and ease of finding it (every game store has a Citadel rack), but at $4 for 12ml I don't buy any because it's not good value. Story of GW's life, basically.

That's the underlying issue. They have competition because they act from arrogance, instead of from practicality. They should be undercutting everybody else, offering promotions and deals and the whole hog to get people to play 40k instead of other games, and what they lose in profit per miniature sold they make up in volume because 40k is ubiquitous again AND affordable, so they would push their competitors out of business. Instead, everything is priced so high that they've allowed the competition to start eating up market share at the cost of their own, and are too blind to see it.

I think part of it may be that Warhammer, and Games Workshop by Proxy, has a name that people recognize more than ever.

Video games like Age of Reckoning, Dawn of War, Space Marine, Fire Warrior, Eternal Crusade, etc.. Have built a lot of hype around the Warhammer universe. Even if it's an inferior product, people want to play as the Space Marine, the Tau, etc from their other games.

If increasing numbers of people recognise and want t play Warhammer, why have GW's sales dropped so much?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If increasing numbers of people recognise and want t play Warhammer, why have GW's sales dropped so much?

Because they run away screaming once they see the price tag