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Ultimately, the fate of games workshop is to fall, and to fall quite hard.

The failures of specialist games such as inquisitor, epic, necromunda etc means that GW will increasingly turn to *throw-away* games like Dreadfleet and the LE space hulk to make a quick few bucks.

Steady competition with mantic, PP etc will also prove wearing on the GW reputation and will either force down prices dramatically as GW seeks to undercut their rivals in the future, forcing GW to reduce quality even more.

Reputation also has a part to play, overhyped releases and all that will end GWs domination in the mini trade, and reduce it to that of a major part player.

I just want to add to the discussion, that the Fact GW over hypes their releases is nothing particularly new or unusual. If you look at Magic the Gathering, for example, Take one of their preconstructed decks. If you read THEIR description of the deck, it would seem like it could come top at every tournament, yet if you've actually played with one, you would notice they are very sub-par. Hell, even the Rares in it are severely weak and aren't tournament quality.

so honestly, i don't expect anything more from games workshop than every release being called the best thing since anything ever. To me it comes with just being a member of a hobby.

Sc077y wrote:now, lets look at DINC. a DINC household is normally a younger couple. they are typically college students, or are paying off a heap of college debt. married, they learn quickly that two people cannot live as cheaply as one, and expenses pile up really quickly. Every DINC household i have studied, or observed, or even read about follow normally pretty close to this same guidelines, and Lexis Nexus financial reporter also tells the same story. As couples grow into marriage or long term commitment, a DINK household normally transforms into a DEWK (double employed with kids) and their income normally starts to elevate around the same time.

a couple of quick hits reveal the average DINK income as being 48,000 per year, approximately at 24,000 per working member, referring personal finance and some internal JP Morgan sites i still have access too. the average DEWK income is about 40,000 for the male or head of house hold and 26,000 for the secondary income.

.

I will have to disagree with your reasoning here, correlation does not equal causation. The fact that older couples have a tendency to make more money than younger ones is irrelevant to them having children. It is simply because the couple is older and is more established in their career track. Simply having children does not increase your income. I'm interested if you have any data for older DINC couples and their income as they would have a far greater ratio of disposable income to DEWK Also, what house holds are being polled? What percentage of the population? What areas? How old/recent are those numbers?

Statistics can sadly be turned in almost anyway possible, there are simply to many factors. ( I am not stating that you did this merely pointing it out)

Lets assume your statistics for a moment are 100% and that an older couple does in fact make more money than a younger ( fairly common) however, what are the older couples expenses? They typically have larger houses nicer cars and yes children, while they may make more they have far greater expenses as well. Thus limiting the amount of income they can give to their children.

LumenPraebeo wrote:

Phobos wrote:I cant say where he got the data from, but think about it. Kids have no expenses - the electric, mortgage, food, retirement, etc is their parents problem. If the kid makes $100 a week (a very low estimate that nearly any kid could do with little effort) that is $400 a month in disposable income, because by default, ALL their income is disposable. If the kid bothers to apply themselves, clearing $600 - $1,000 a month is a very achievable goal.

WHAT?!?! Where the hell did you work as a kid? That or where the hell does your kid work? If I was making $100 a week, i would be working full time and worry about college 5 years later down the road. Are you delusional?

Are you lazy / addicted to drugs / otherwise unemployable?

Minimum wage is $7.25. Work just 15 hours a week and you clear $100. And most places start higher. Hell, last Christmas season, my 16 year old son made $8.50 / hour working at Toys R Us. If you can't earn as much as a high school kid, well I don't know what to say to that.

I made around $60 a week delivering newspapers as a kid back in 1988. Granted I had two routes, but still.

Back to the topic at hand.

Scotty is spot on with is analysis.

And most people would be shocked to find out that the median household income in the US is only $44,300. That means that fully HALF of the households earn LESS.

Now, how do we spin this into GW and its future? Two schools of thought come to the front:

1. Keep on keeping on. GW is the market leader, kids have money to spend, adults will buy your product without real thought for their kids. Keep the core stuff reasonable, shoot for the moon for special units.

2. At some point GW will go too far and price everyone out of the market. Kids will say forget this, and go back to the xboxes and ps3s, and adults will balk at the cost.

I personally feel GW is on the path to #2 for reasons that I have already stated.

Doctadeth wrote:Steady competition with mantic, PP etc will also prove wearing on the GW reputation and will either force down prices dramatically as GW seeks to undercut their rivals in the future, forcing GW to reduce quality even more.

Mantic is not competition for GW. Mantic doesn't do 1/10th of 1% of GW's sales. Mantics goal is to survive on their own, and to some day BECOME competition for GW. But for now, they aren't affecting GW at all. I know the guys at Mantic, and like their stuff, but I'm also realistic about where they are now as a company.

Warmachine and Hordes are drawing off some GW customer base, true. But PP has the same problem that GW does with the price of their models. I've already got customers dropping out of PP and going to Malifaux because they don't want to keep paying the dollars that it takes to keep up with privateer. It's an interesting cycle. PP is moving to resin as fast as they can, for the same reason GW is.

Privateer makes some quality models, but at GW prices. Mantic has less quality models at better prices.

GW's main competition is videogames, not PP or Mantic.

mikhaila wrote:

GW's main competition is videogames, not PP or Mantic.

Absolutely!

This, coupled with GW's strange and seemingly non-sensical business 'strategies' (especially in regards to The Internet and how to treat their core/loyal fanbase) often lead to Very Bad Things in terms of decisions that get made...

Doctadeth wrote:

The failures of specialist games such as inquisitor, epic, necromunda etc means that GW will increasingly turn to *throw-away* games like Dreadfleet and the LE space hulk to make a quick few bucks.

A number of the specialist games are still very popular and would be highly successful if GW would get off its arse and rerelease/update them.

Necromunda would still be selling well today if they put it on the shelves. And IF they actually did regular suupport in the form of expansions, new models, Hive terrain, etc. They would make boat loads of cash.

I would wager that Battlefleet gothic and Gorka Morka would both sell very well if relaunched even as is. IF they revamped them and included updated models/terrain they would be home runs.

But then that is the problem: GW is determined to give us what they think we want (a sailing board game...), not want we tell them repeatedly that we actually want.

jacetms87 wrote:I will have to disagree with your reasoning here, correlation does not equal causation. The fact that older couples have a tendency to make more money than younger ones is irrelevant to them having children. It is simply because the couple is older and is more established in their career track. Simply having children does not increase your income. I'm interested if you have any data for older DINC couples and their income as they would have a far greater ratio of disposable income to DEWK Also, what house holds are being polled? What percentage of the population? What areas? How old/recent are those numbers?

Statistics can sadly be turned in almost anyway possible, there are simply to many factors. ( I am not stating that you did this merely pointing it out)

Lets assume your statistics for a moment are 100% and that an older couple does in fact make more money than a younger ( fairly common) however, what are the older couples expenses? They typically have larger houses nicer cars and yes children, while they may make more they have far greater expenses as well. Thus limiting the amount of income they can give to their children.

well, unfortunately, beyond lexis nexus (www.accurint.com) and fastdata financials (www.fastdata.com) i cannot prove direct cause/effect. such is the nature of financials. i am trying to find the workup i used when working with my old boss to come to that determination (its in the filing cabinet next to the rest of the tax stuff my wife keeps, you know how that is). i do not however see after research any correlation between debt on household vs DINC or DEWKS. Put simply i cannot find anything that says that DEWKS owe more on their cars or houses than DINKS. as far as i can tell, the debt from household to household is almost the same across the board. I cant see for certain if there is more money in debt for wither household. in short, correlation doesn't prove causality, and i am afraid that in this case, it seems to be double true.

Sadly, i can only see the households that were pulled, i do not have a specific breakdown, but lexis and fd both use the census, as well as banking records and public property ownership records for their reporting purposes, i do not know how to identify their specific sources, but if i find the mock up i did it does site the sources.

Dracheous wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:

The_Stormrider wrote:It would be interesting to see how much expense GW was paying to keep their hobby centers open. If things get desperate they can always close most of them and likely be extremely profitable.

That's the problem, they are, probably rightfully, afraid they will lose their market prominence by shutting shops and becoming just like any other hobby company as more people buy their stuff on the internet or through independent shops.

If GW stopped treating retailers like gak, this would not be an issue. Instead they play the game to "drive customers TO their stores" instead we just turn away to help failing local stores. GW could cut costs, lower prices and experience higher volume sales if they stopped trampling local retailers who would in turn WANT to sell their product. As it is now, there are a number of places that stock it only because they will sell with out any attention or second thought. Generally those places get UPSET when you ask em about GW product... :S

QFT

GW will eventually fail because they opened their own stores. They should never have undercut the independent retailers who historically supported their products. They got greedy. In the long run GW stores will not make it on their own, if they could the independents would have done it a long time ago. GW stores are being subsidized by licensing revenues from computer products and the mail order business that more and more people are turning to since the independent retailers are withering on the vine. If GW continues down this path, the table top game will eventually be an anomaly since with fewer stores carrying their product, you have less people in future generations being exposed to it. GW is raking in the profits now, but they are undercutting the vast network that was responsible for their success. My guess is once sales begin to truly decline...they will wise up, close most, if not all of their stores and reestablish the partnerships that caused them to thrive to begin with.

Sc077y wrote:

jacetms87 wrote:I will have to disagree with your reasoning here, correlation does not equal causation. The fact that older couples have a tendency to make more money than younger ones is irrelevant to them having children. It is simply because the couple is older and is more established in their career track. Simply having children does not increase your income. I'm interested if you have any data for older DINC couples and their income as they would have a far greater ratio of disposable income to DEWK Also, what house holds are being polled? What percentage of the population? What areas? How old/recent are those numbers?

Statistics can sadly be turned in almost anyway possible, there are simply to many factors. ( I am not stating that you did this merely pointing it out)

Lets assume your statistics for a moment are 100% and that an older couple does in fact make more money than a younger ( fairly common) however, what are the older couples expenses? They typically have larger houses nicer cars and yes children, while they may make more they have far greater expenses as well. Thus limiting the amount of income they can give to their children.

well, unfortunately, beyond lexis nexus (www.accurint.com) and fastdata financials (www.fastdata.com) i cannot prove direct cause/effect. such is the nature of financials. i am trying to find the workup i used when working with my old boss to come to that determination (its in the filing cabinet next to the rest of the tax stuff my wife keeps, you know how that is). i do not however see after research any correlation between debt on household vs DINC or DEWKS. Put simply i cannot find anything that says that DEWKS owe more on their cars or houses than DINKS. as far as i can tell, the debt from household to household is almost the same across the board. I cant see for certain if there is more money in debt for wither household. in short, correlation doesn't prove causality, and i am afraid that in this case, it seems to be double true.

Sadly, i can only see the households that were pulled, i do not have a specific breakdown, but lexis and fd both use the census, as well as banking records and public property ownership records for their reporting purposes, i do not know how to identify their specific sources, but if i find the mock up i did it does site the sources.

Fair enough, if the debt is almost the same across the board then that is the way it is, it just doesnt seem logical but many things in life are not, I will concede the point. gg

evilerac wrote:

Dracheous wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:

The_Stormrider wrote:It would be interesting to see how much expense GW was paying to keep their hobby centers open. If things get desperate they can always close most of them and likely be extremely profitable.

That's the problem, they are, probably rightfully, afraid they will lose their market prominence by shutting shops and becoming just like any other hobby company as more people buy their stuff on the internet or through independent shops.

If GW stopped treating retailers like gak, this would not be an issue. Instead they play the game to "drive customers TO their stores" instead we just turn away to help failing local stores. GW could cut costs, lower prices and experience higher volume sales if they stopped trampling local retailers who would in turn WANT to sell their product. As it is now, there are a number of places that stock it only because they will sell with out any attention or second thought. Generally those places get UPSET when you ask em about GW product... :S

QFT

GW will eventually fail because they opened their own stores. They should never have undercut the independent retailers who historically supported their products. They got greedy. In the long run GW stores will not make it on their own, if they could the independents would have done it a long time ago. GW stores are being subsidized by licensing revenues from computer products and the mail order business that more and more people are turning to since the independent retailers are withering on the vine. If GW continues down this path, the table top game will eventually be an anomaly since with fewer stores carrying their product, you have less people in future generations being exposed to it. GW is raking in the profits now, but they are undercutting the vast network that was responsible for their success. My guess is once sales begin to truly decline...they will wise up, close most, if not all of their stores and reestablish the partnerships that caused them to thrive to begin with.

NOT QFT, Actually.

Actually, one of the reasons GW opened so many stores in England because of a vast lack of interest in their products. In the UK it was opening stores that made GW a success.

The US has more independent stores, and less GW stores. The model is different and has caused some problems, but overall GW gives one hell of a lot more support to retailers than any other company, with the possible exception of WOTC.

Hobby/Game/Comic stores are withering on the vine. This Isn't due to GW. Traditionally these stores have always had a high turnover rate. They aren't run by business people, are often underfinanced, and have no clue as to how they should be marketing products. Add in the effects of a horrible economy, interenet discounters, and a generation addicted to video games, and it's amazing any of us are surviving.

If a LGS put in the amount of work selling GW that a GW store does, they can achieve the sales a GW store does. Most don't want to put in the time, money, and effort to do so.

Whether GW's stores are a boon or a problem for them right now, they absolutely are what catapulted them into the position they are today. And without GW, you wouldn't have PP, Flames of War, or a host of other games doing so well.

None of the people saying GW is fine and will be fine are addressing the fact that the price increases are masking a decrease in units sold and regardless of accounting tricks this means their market, and thus their viability as a company is going down.
You can only sustain that method of treading water for so long. Until they focus on that they are doomed though how long they flounder is open to debate. Also as I've seen in the Tech field saying someone isn't your competitor and not paying attention to them because they're smaller makes it easier for them to destroy you. The small company is hungry, they want it and will do what they can to get it. You're on top and once you get comfortable there you die.
GW could turn it around but it'll be by attracting new blood and growing thier unit sales that accomplishes this or they will be the next Borders.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or they could change their markets and move the company into something more viable like video games

evilerac wrote:
QFT

GW will eventually fail because they opened their own stores. They should never have undercut the independent retailers who historically supported their products. They got greedy. In the long run GW stores will not make it on their own, if they could the independents would have done it a long time ago. GW stores are being subsidized by licensing revenues from computer products and the mail order business that more and more people are turning to since the independent retailers are withering on the vine. If GW continues down this path, the table top game will eventually be an anomaly since with fewer stores carrying their product, you have less people in future generations being exposed to it. GW is raking in the profits now, but they are undercutting the vast network that was responsible for their success. My guess is once sales begin to truly decline...they will wise up, close most, if not all of their stores and reestablish the partnerships that caused them to thrive to begin with.

People shouldn't forget that when they first started opening shops they were like other LGS, they stocked things from other manufacturers. Their success didn't begin with them only selling their own models. It was only later on that they stocked only their own stuff and made White Dwarf a pure brand. By that point though that had displaced a lot of the independent stores.

Also as I've seen in the Tech field saying someone isn't your competitor and not paying attention to them because they're smaller makes it easier for them to destroy you. The small company is hungry, they want it and will do what they can to get it. You're on top and once you get comfortable there you die.

Too bad this isn't the tech industry.)

Privateer isn't hungry enough. Matt and the creative crew do a good job. They do good outreach to players and have a tight rules system. On the other hand, Shari pinches pennies on the business side and strangles her own production. They aren't building the infrastructure to take on GW, and can't kep up with their own production schedule. They hemorage personel every year. They have little or no contact with the stores supporting them. They have the same problems GW does with cost of metal. But GW is far, far ahead of them in plastic molding, which ultimately is where the savings are. Privateer is the closest thing to competition GW has, but to really go after GW, they need to fix all their own problems first.

Battlefront is producing Historical games. Good ones, with good models. But they aren't pulling players from the demographics GW is. And in the end, anyone else can make models for their games, and no one has a copyright on WWII.

Mantic isn't even on the radar. Limited line that just mimics GW, and no penetration into the market. Their quality isn't pushing GW in any way. Same quality and lower price would affect GW. Lower price and Lower quality won't.

The tech field has some nice examples but it doesn't apply to only the tech field it applies everywhere, complacency is poison in business and resting on your laurels gets you dead.
Again none of this matters as still, the problem is moving less units year over year. Considering the game requires more units each revision it's the only problem they need. You cannot sustain a business by simply increasing prices to keep your profits level while your unit sales drop it's not sustainable. You eventually reach a point where your customers revolt and/or competition, real competition, enters the market.

The tech field also moves and evolves at a much faster pace than the Toy Soldier business. Sitting on your laurels for 6 months in Tech could be worse than kicking back for 5 years making models.)

But no one's shown that GW is complacent. They are putting out new products, new models, and innovating new technology/techniques.
I'm putting together a Stonehorn tonite, a kit I'd never have dreamed was possible in plastic even 5 years ago. And they have royalties now that from Video Games, Board Games, and Books that keep adding to their profitability. I'm not seeing the complacency. Just because they aren't doing something you want/expect them to do, doesn't mean they aren't doing anything.

I agree that less units is less units, I struggle with that in my own business. Unfortunately knowing the problem and changing a screwed up economy is a bit beyond me. Sure, GW has a problem. Doesn't mean it's unfixable, or being ignored. (Or the opposite, as none of us really know what the hell goes on at the upper levels.) I don't see it as some inevitable doom like other people do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Howard A Treesong wrote:

evilerac wrote:
QFT

GW will eventually fail because they opened their own stores. They should never have undercut the independent retailers who historically supported their products. They got greedy. In the long run GW stores will not make it on their own, if they could the independents would have done it a long time ago. GW stores are being subsidized by licensing revenues from computer products and the mail order business that more and more people are turning to since the independent retailers are withering on the vine. If GW continues down this path, the table top game will eventually be an anomaly since with fewer stores carrying their product, you have less people in future generations being exposed to it. GW is raking in the profits now, but they are undercutting the vast network that was responsible for their success. My guess is once sales begin to truly decline...they will wise up, close most, if not all of their stores and reestablish the partnerships that caused them to thrive to begin with.

People shouldn't forget that when they first started opening shops they were like other LGS, they stocked things from other manufacturers. Their success didn't begin with them only selling their own models. It was only later on that they stocked only their own stuff and made White Dwarf a pure brand. By that point though that had displaced a lot of the independent stores.

I often wonder about this. Stocking non GW products such as the FFG line seems very 'no-brainer' to me in many ways. Glad they don't though, makes them far less competition to my shops.)

I'm not saying they're doomed, far from it right now. I don't have my doom sense from them right now but I have my struggling sense and it doesn't seem like they're paying attention to the real issue they are having.
Like I said in my earlier post though, maybe they're migrating their business to software and licensing in which case they doing it REALLY well. It would be the perfect thing to do keep the minis sales number flat keep up the interest in the game and since they believe their core demo is younger kids putting them to video games can either be the perfect move or the perfect gateway.
I was really talking only about the minis portion of the business and if it keeps on the way it is it can't be a core line.. If that's not where they're going then everything I've said is garbage but I've seen a ton of businesses grab onto a non working business model like a safety raft while it's an achor dragging them down. Blockbusters did it, Borders did too and these were top of field companies a few years ago but died because they couldn't adapt. These series of events from GW smacks of the same disregard of their place in the market and it's flow forward.

GW will be fine. Haters will hate, gamers will game.

Obsidian Raven wrote:I just want to add to the discussion, that the Fact GW over hypes their releases is nothing particularly new or unusual. If you look at Magic the Gathering, for example, Take one of their preconstructed decks. If you read THEIR description of the deck, it would seem like it could come top at every tournament, yet if you've actually played with one, you would notice they are very sub-par. Hell, even the Rares in it are severely weak and aren't tournament quality.

so honestly, i don't expect anything more from games workshop than every release being called the best thing since anything ever. To me it comes with just being a member of a hobby.

There are preconstructed "event decks" which include tournament quality cards. In fact, one event deck was released right before the standard T2 banning of one of its rares... Oops. The majority of them are playable only at a small-time FNM, but they're still fun. These aren't marketed towards younger players like the casual precon decks, so they tend to have less hype on the company side of things.

The other preconstructed decks are meant as a start for extremely new players in a casual environment. Learning to build a Magic deck can be difficult, so they provide a nice jumpoff point (Although the best way to learn is by drafting) for casual like the event decks do for small-time tournaments.

Anyway, Wizards of the Coast is much more aware of their MtG tournament scene and its nuances than GW is of its own. Part of that reason is the DCI system, and the other part is that Magic's popularity is primarily based on the gameplay instead of the fluff/display factors, whereas 40k's main draws are those.

nkelsch wrote:

Oh noes, they must be doomed?

I love games workshop. Warhammer 40k is my creative outlet, for one thing. There's so much i love about the game. The world, the setting, the models, everything. no other minis game has sucked me in like this.

And there it is. GW is hardly failing or on its last legs even... They Are grossly successful even in one of the worst economic times we have seen in decades. Welcome to the club, you are addicted to the crack like everyone else and will continue to buy regardless of how secret, how much it costs or how badly they embargo to keep it from you.

Really grossly successful is a drop in profits worldwide? And that was before the finecast BS.

The only area that showed growth was japan and they closed the majority of their stores there!


They getting more and more good competition.

Their sales keep dropping and dropping.

The prices keep rising and rising.

Fantasy is slowly dying (partly due to the failure that 8th was in the eyes of so many people).

LOTR is DEAD. (Can they really be making profit from this?)

And if 6th ed 40k is a bad ruleset then they are well and truly done.

LOTR has a hobbit movie coming along to prop it up.
WFB is actually still going in many places and making a comeback as people adjust.
40k would be very hard to kill, it's been through worse, and I expect 6th will be a bag of money for them.

Really Grossly Successful = 30+ years in business defining the industry they started, still being at the top, still driving how other companies will be making models over the next decade, and still PROFITABLE.

A drop in profits is still making money. Right now, many companies are settling for survival, vs. profits.

mikhaila wrote:But no one's shown that GW is complacent.

evilerac wrote:
QFT

GW will eventually fail because they opened their own stores. They should never have undercut the independent retailers who historically supported their products. They got greedy. In the long run GW stores will not make it on their own, if they could the independents would have done it a long time ago. GW stores are being subsidized by licensing revenues from computer products and the mail order business that more and more people are turning to since the independent retailers are withering on the vine. If GW continues down this path, the table top game will eventually be an anomaly since with fewer stores carrying their product, you have less people in future generations being exposed to it. GW is raking in the profits now, but they are undercutting the vast network that was responsible for their success. My guess is once sales begin to truly decline...they will wise up, close most, if not all of their stores and reestablish the partnerships that caused them to thrive to begin with.

Killcrazy showed in another topic that making reasonable assumptions for movements in prices etc over the last 8 years GW has been losing significant sales volumes.

It's pretty simple, if GW wants to run a retail chain with the size and reach it has, it needs to be moving volume. Premium pricing is strategically incompatible with the retail model. Their actions and the continuous shell games with their annual reporting are purely to manipulate the metrics that are important for shareholders and investors, and they are sacrificing their long term future to do so.

In addition, the general buzz around other companies is that demand and growth are in a good place. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests GW are under-performing the market. When you're the cost leader and have the largest effective sales and marketing network (if one includes stores themselves as a form of marketing as well then that's an even bigger advantage), then you shouldn't even be close to being in that position.

Someone mentioned Borders further up.... GW is now competing in one of those markets where the need for a lot of customers to physically visit locations regularly to feed their purchases has passed. They need to get over it. Undoubtedly the retail chain was one of the cornerstones of their early success, now it's the brick that's dragging them down.

mikhaila wrote:LOTR has a hobbit movie coming along to prop it up.
WFB is actually still going in many places and making a comeback as people adjust.
40k would be very hard to kill, it's been through worse, and I expect 6th will be a bag of money for them.

Really Grossly Successful = 30+ years in business defining the industry they started, still being at the top, still driving how other companies will be making models over the next decade, and still PROFITABLE.

A drop in profits is still making money. Right now, many companies are settling for survival, vs. profits.

LOTR was only really popular the first time though because the movies were really good and they had this awesome magazine that came out with it at the time,giving away free models each time. In fact that's how I got into this hobby. Both those factors are unknown for The Hobbits release.

I'm not saying that the Hobbit won't boost LOTRs decline, but if I were GW I wouldn't rely on getting the same success they had with LOTR the first time. There is no guarantee that it will be the same phenomenon that the previous movies were and that they need it to be to justify the LOTR range anymore.

Do people still even play LOTRs? I thought GW would have killed it off by now.

Timmah wrote:Do people still even play LOTRs? I thought GW would have killed it off by now.

I think they would have if it were not for the promise of Hobbit films.

ChocolateGork wrote:
Fantasy is slowly dying (partly due to the failure that 8th was in the eyes of so many people).

LOTR is DEAD. (Can they really be making profit from this?)

This couldn't be further from the truth. There are more WHFB games going on now in Central Florida than ever before. Its mainly due to the fact they are releasing beautiful models and the fact that everybody is beginning to understand how the game works. In Orlando alone there is a WHFB Gaming group with approx 40-50 players that meet up once a month (or every other month time and place permitting) for some open gaming, two stores with WHFB escalation leagues with about 10-15 people in each. WHFB in FL is far from dead.

As far as LOTR goes, there was just a big tournament for it recently - Shadows in the East that had a huge turn out. There is also Bilbo's Birthday coming up and several other big LOTR GT's. Neither game are on their last legs.

I would challenge you to play these other games, they are a blast. I've slowly stopped playing 40K over the years because I prefer WHFB hands down to 40K because I have a better time playing it.

boyd wrote:
I would challenge you to play these other games, they are a blast. I've slowly stopped playing 40K over the years because I prefer WHFB hands down to 40K because I have a better time playing it.

I have. Want to buy a huge dwarf army on the cheap?

Everyone dumps on LOTR, but the simple fact is that as long as GW are making a profit off the line, it would be a bad business move to get rid of it.

mikhaila wrote:Everyone dumps on LOTR, but the simple fact is that as long as GW are making a profit off the line, it would be a bad business move to get rid of it.

I think it's the best ruleset of their core games personally and would be sad to see it die.

Anyway, that statement is not true. Use of resources has an attaached opportunity cost so as long as they can't make more money doing something else with the resources it would be a bad move to get rid of it

Baragash wrote:

mikhaila wrote:Everyone dumps on LOTR, but the simple fact is that as long as GW are making a profit off the line, it would be a bad business move to get rid of it.

I think it's the best ruleset of their core games personally and would be sad to see it die.

Anyway, that statement is not true. Use of resources has an attaached opportunity cost so as long as they can't make more money doing something else with the resources it would be a bad move to get rid of it

Everyone can make more money doing something else. You yourself have a promising job paying you a lot more money....somewhere.)

LOTR takes nearly no effort for them at this point. Molds are done and paid for. They can keep producing those kits for years at a profit, with the major factor being the cost of the liscense.

The 'opportunity cost' arguement pops up all the time. Most people actually mean "I don't like LOTR - Go get to work on the Codex I want to see". The team doing the sculpting on the LOTR range is not the group doing 40k and WFB. If they dump LOTR, they don't gain a lot, as the Perry Brothers just go back to doing more historicals.)

I understand 'opportunity cost'. I also understand the cost and risks of dumping a currently profitable activity to pursue another activity that MIGHT make more money. I had two people yesterday telling me to dump Warhammer from my shop, and do more MTG and Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments. (Strangely, they are MTG and Yugioh players, coincidence, im sure.)

Might be true, who knows? But they don't understand the cost of changing the focus of my store, training staff, and building up a totally new community of gamers. And the cost of lost sales when my current community gets a bit disgruntled and walks out of the store. It's a gamble switching to the shiny new thing, and hoping it pays off. A gamble that the people advising me don't have to suffer if they are wrong. I'll stick to what I'm doing, and build up MTG with the resources and time I have left over from keeping up with the activities that currently pay my bills.

Similarly, it would be easy for GW to dump LOTR, but I'm not sure they gain anything from it, and certainly lose sales and profits.