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 Adam LongWalker wrote:
Now just think. Without paying Mark Wells his monthly income GW has already made a monthly profit.

I am sure, the Chair will propose a salary increase for the new CEO

 BryllCream wrote:
Prices weighted by what people actually buy didn't go up anything like 7.7%.

Actually, you can look up the official inflation rate of your country.
If you were correct, GW would have an inflation-adjusted revenue increase of 0%

Well, there must be some kind of turnover point where the price increases and decreasing sales meet. Then GW will eventually change its business plan. But until then, we will see no changes.

I think, with 40€ Codices, DA prices and the Hobbit fiasco, we are just experiencing this tipping point.

From a lot of accounts, the Hobbit is not selling too well. Once we have some better understanding of this, I am curious to see the impact, if there is any, on GW.

I think the big question with the Hobbit is not so much is it selling as well as LotR during the boom years

(it's clearly not)

but whether it's selling well enough to pay for the licence and bring GW a tidy profit. If it's failing to do that they probably will change things up (I doubt if the CAN drop it, my bet is the contract ties them if for all 3 films). If it is they'll leave it as it is.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I think the big question with the Hobbit is not so much is it selling as well as LotR during the boom years

(it's clearly not)

but whether it's selling well enough to pay for the licence and bring GW a tidy profit. If it's failing to do that they probably will change things up (I doubt if the CAN drop it, my bet is the contract ties them if for all 3 films). If it is they'll leave it as it is.

Can't they just call it a "specialist game" and put minimal effort into it if sales are truly as bad as they seem?

 BryllCream wrote:

Actually, their revenue has been rather flat for the past several years.

More than that - this interim report doesn't even show growing profits.

Actually the evidence for that is steadily falling sales

d'aww you guys.

http://www.scotsman.com/business/retail/games-workshop-chief-steps-down-after-unveiling-16-8-jump-in-profits-1-2745271

Revenues up 7.7%. Profits up 16.8%.

What is it about hating GW that warps the logic part of peoples' brains?

And as someone before pointed out, Xmas shopping started earlier this year. Also, a change from the previous 6 months, rather than a full fiscal year. And what happened in the last 6 months? A required $60-$100 investment from everyone who wanted to play 40k with drastic changes to core functions encouraging additional spending to fix armies. That's not going to happen every 6 months much less every year. So if you would like to continue to insult people, I'd suggest you come up with a better argument.

 Happygrunt wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I think the big question with the Hobbit is not so much is it selling as well as LotR during the boom years

(it's clearly not)

but whether it's selling well enough to pay for the licence and bring GW a tidy profit. If it's failing to do that they probably will change things up (I doubt if the CAN drop it, my bet is the contract ties them if for all 3 films). If it is they'll leave it as it is.

Can't they just call it a "specialist game" and put minimal effort into it if sales are truly as bad as they seem?

No, I think not as the Licence cost them a LOT so they need to make the money back.

At least, IMHO I now know why there is a GW recruiter in Dakka of late.

Dakka and other big sites to me, would suit the bill for trolling the masses in job recruitment. Full article is here
http://www.theretailbulletin.com/news/mark_wells_to_step_down_as_ceo_of_games_workshop_18-01-13/

Here is a little snippet from the Retail Bulletin

The company added that a further risk was not having enough managers who understood its niche business model and who were aligned with its values and behaviours. However, it said that the risk was being mitigated by the recruitment of people who fitted in with the "Games Workshop culture".

In blunt wording in what I believe this means:
You current managers who do not tote the line. You will be terminated and some other person will get your job. We need people who are aligned with our core values and behaviors to run our one man stores.

Another snippet.

"The hobby is healthy and the challenge is to stay focused on what needs to be done to grow it efficiently and cost effectively. The principal risks and uncertainties for the rest of the financial year are sales related and our businesses are focused on achieving growth whilst the product and supply chain will continue to implement plans to maintain gross margin."

In blunt wording in what I believe this means:
We will continue our revenue streaming process that was implemented back in 2010. We will slowly take control of all manners of the product supply away from the LFGS by having restrictions on what they can and can not sell and/or delay certain products that our GW stores will get first. We do not truly care about the LFGS as we are going to continue to implement and fund our one man stores to insure that total product control is ours and ours only.


Here is something from Screwed Up Dice look at the two GW statements.
http://screwedupdice.blogspot.com/2013/01/mark-wells-ceo-of-games-workshop-steps.html

And of course The Times
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/retailing/article3662092.ece

There can be variances from site to site and if there is, you can and gather data from it and come to your own conclusion. In my case I'm contented to know why the recruiter came in to this site now than a few years ago.

All part of Kirby's plan

Enjoy.

I feel as though several of the lyrics from Turisas' song "End of an Empire" are appropriate.

You look back in time
No-one heard the bells chime
You wonder how
How could they this allow?

Exactly the same
Are the questions aimed your way
When looking back on today

...

We've enslaved the world
We have slaughtered, we've burned
All, while knowing what is best

Might take a year or ten,
Generations of men,
We've passed the point of no return

...

Tough are times ahead
With care you tread
Before you know
Out we need to bow

Enjoy it while it lasts
Soon forgotten in the past
Our time here ended so fast

Open your eyes
Yourself apprise
All empires find their demise
The taller they are, the harder they fall
The snowball
Is on the roll

Open your eyes
Yourself apprise
New powers are on the rise
So strong is our faith, (in that) the world stays as is
Until it hits, like shattering glass to bits

How did this happen? How could this happen?
How could the empire fall?

o.t. They are a great band for gaming music, go google and check them out.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:
In blunt wording in what I believe this means:
We will continue our revenue streaming process that was implemented back in 2010. We will slowly take control of all manners of the product supply away from the LFGS by having restrictions on what they can and can not sell and/or delay certain products that our GW stores will get first. We do not truly care about the LFGS as we are going to continue to implement and fund our one man stores to insure that total product control is ours and ours only.

It is still a close kept secret, but GW ordered 1000 clone salesmen from Kamino with implanted high loyalty to GW, to man their one-man-stores and management (all except Tom Kirby). Normal humans are still too prone to rationality ("100€ for the Hobbit starter set and no advertising, that will never work!") and empathy for the customers, so have to be replaced at least once a year.

The problem is and always will be, caring only for the shareholders. Majority of the companies now days seem to forget that it takes normal people WITH jobs that can afford to buy their stuff, which in turn, allows them to buy their $1M yachts, get their $1.5M year end bonuses and support their mistresses off the side. So when they just keep raising the prices more and more to the point that most of their customer base wont/can't buy it and their sales plummet, they fire or ask for the CEO's resignation. They then get a new one in, prices fall as part of their "overhaul", once people are back on board and their sales are back up, their prices go back up aaaaaaand can you guys see where this if going?

I have no problem with them getting absurd salaries, but not when it is from the "what-gets-my-shareholders-lots-of-money-so-I-don't-get-fired" mindset.

Cheers

Get back on topic guys and enough with the jokes. Next one posting spammy and/or banal ridiculousness get's dinged.

 WarOne wrote:

Spawn of Satan a.k.a. Head of GW wrote:
“North America is going very well,” said Mr Kirby. “We’re looking at 700-800 stores in the US in the extreme long term and we’ve got 80 at the moment with plans to open 1-20 stores per year.”

Sooo...a GW at every corner?

Trying to recreate the British model in the US... Open a new GW store near every LGS who is selling a good amount of GW stuff and then cut off or otherwise hinder the sales of GW stuff at the LGS. Any marginal and semi-marginal LGSs will fold, leaving GW as the only games store in the area.

 Happygrunt wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I think the big question with the Hobbit is not so much is it selling as well as LotR during the boom years

(it's clearly not)

but whether it's selling well enough to pay for the licence and bring GW a tidy profit. If it's failing to do that they probably will change things up (I doubt if the CAN drop it, my bet is the contract ties them if for all 3 films). If it is they'll leave it as it is.

Can't they just call it a "specialist game" and put minimal effort into it if sales are truly as bad as they seem?

There is probably a minimum royalty amount that the HAVE to pay every year, so not supporting the game could hurt them badly moneywise.

Trying to recreate the British model in the US... Open a new GW store near every LGS who is selling a good amount of GW stuff and then cut off or otherwise hinder the sales of GW stuff at the LGS. Any marginal and semi-marginal LGSs will fold, leaving GW as the only games store in the area.

Well, I don't know how many game stores make their living solely on GW product; IIRC Magic accounts for a very significant portion of many game stores' income. Heck, my FLGS is also a comic book shop so a decent chunk of their income comes from that, and its Warmahordes community is probably bigger than its GW community, and its M:TG community is probably bigger than either.

GW's goal is probably GW stores being the only place you can get GW products, certainly, but all that would mean is that the indie stores (that survive, as I'm sure there are some who would be in deep trouble without 40K) just focusing more on Magic, other miniature games, RPGs, and board games.

As an aside, if they have 80 stores now, and let's say best case scenario for them (20 stores opening per year) they'll have reached their long term goal in 31 to 36 years.

I simply don't see it ever, ever happening.

timd wrote:
Trying to recreate the British model in the US... Open a new GW store near every LGS who is selling a good amount of GW stuff and then cut off or otherwise hinder the sales of GW stuff at the LGS. Any marginal and semi-marginal LGSs will fold, leaving GW as the only games store in the area.

Good thing this doesn't work anymore. Not only is it easy enough to find a third party distributor, GW is definitely not the only game in town anymore, the prime reason it worked in the 90's. While there were other games, none has staying power. Now? There's at least half a dozen successful tabletop games a FLGS can carry and promote effectively.

Not to mention, GW is moving to one man stores with no gaming space if recent rumours are true. No more bunkers to game at. Which means people will inevitably move to those FLGS's anyway, and be exposed to more games.

700-800 stores?! Supposedly the prices keep going up now to help support those few failing retail stores that we already have, what's going to happen when they have literally hundreds more?

 Surtur wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

Actually, their revenue has been rather flat for the past several years.

More than that - this interim report doesn't even show growing profits.

Actually the evidence for that is steadily falling sales

d'aww you guys.

http://www.scotsman.com/business/retail/games-workshop-chief-steps-down-after-unveiling-16-8-jump-in-profits-1-2745271

Revenues up 7.7%. Profits up 16.8%.

What is it about hating GW that warps the logic part of peoples' brains?

And as someone before pointed out, Xmas shopping started earlier this year. Also, a change from the previous 6 months, rather than a full fiscal year. And what happened in the last 6 months? A required $60-$100 investment from everyone who wanted to play 40k with drastic changes to core functions encouraging additional spending to fix armies. That's not going to happen every 6 months much less every year. So if you would like to continue to insult people, I'd suggest you come up with a better argument.

Life is a string of one-off events, bro.

That same six month period included preparing for the launch of the Hobbit, including the sculpts, the molds, production, shipping and marketing, also royalty payments. And the Dark Vengence box set almost definitely does not make a profit, so the only source of revenue from 6E is people who'll buy the hardback rulebook. Sure there were a few of these, but not enough to cover a 7.7% increase in revenue.

 Sidstyler wrote:
700-800 stores?! Supposedly the prices keep going up now to help support those few failing retail stores that we already have, what's going to happen when they have literally hundreds more?

Well he's probably counting on 100,000s of new customers flocking to those stores. Hey, he can dream!

It sounds more like investor-speak. The 20 stores next year is far more realistic.

My question is, what is their intention for the regions they don't care about?

Ignoring the fact that brick and mortar retail space is, by and large, not very successful nowadays, especially if they have zero gaming space, but there's plenty of countries and regions GW has absolute minimal investment.

Considering here in Canada; most GW stores have closed, leaving usually one store per province; so, one store per 5-7 million people, and a geographic are larger than the entire UK.

So, if GW wants to keep making life difficult for independent retailers (they already are, with absolute minimal product availability; those xmas army packs, they had enough for 10% of the independent retailers to get one, and actually ordering product is difficult; GW doesn't provide product codes to retailers, they can only order by product name, which makes it slow, clunky, and often the wrong item gets shipped, among other things), they're only going to eliminate their own hobby, as every "marginal" region has higher prices direct from GW, higher thresholds for free shipping on their website, and extremely few actual stores; they're just making it difficult for people to buy their product.

It's nonsensical, and their effort on owning and operating their own stores might look good on paper, as their profit per sale is astronomically higher, their extremely limited capacity, horrible pricing structure, and unfriendly nature of the stores towards any actual gaming isn't going to do them any favors.

 BryllCream wrote:

Life is a string of one-off events, bro.

That same six month period included preparing for the launch of the Hobbit, including the sculpts, the molds, production, shipping and marketing, also royalty payments. And the Dark Vengence box set almost definitely does not make a profit, so the only source of revenue from 6E is people who'll buy the hardback rulebook. Sure there were a few of these, but not enough to cover a 7.7% increase in revenue.

Royalty payments would likely not be included in this report - well, not for the hobbit at least. For simplified accounting, those are generally dealt with monthly or quarterly. Any sales from the Hobbit would not see a royalty payment back to the movie studio till at least the end of December...though likely later than that.

Tooling is all done in house - those guys get paid if they are cutting molds for the Hobbit, Dark Vengeance or just doing normal operations. The metal costs are negligible, the tool time is amortized over the life of the tools. Dark Vengence is almost pure profit...as is everything else. Unlike a company like the Perry's or Mantic who use a contract company and have to pay extra to get work done - everything is already part of day to day operations for GW. Unless they took on extra shifts to ramp up production, it isn't an additional cost. However, consider that the change in "Product and Supply" was minor from 2011 to 2012 - I would guess that they didn't take on any additional shifts, though no doubt it does account for things like printing the new rule books and getting out the various new product lines like Dark Vengeance and the Hobbit related products which would not have been part of the normal cycle.

Then of course you have the digital sales - again, pure profit.

The 7.7% profit though could actually be handled just in the added week of sales. If you compare other retail sales figures which are available, one week of Christmas sales would be worth roughly 5% of the sales for the year...assuming the sales are spread out somewhat evenly over the course of the whole Christmas shopping season. However, there tend to be significantly more sales in that first week of the season than during the rest - so...yep, 7.7% without a problem. They acknowledge that it has an impact in Note 12 of their report (though they don't actually detail what that means to the underlying numbers).

You also have the capital commitments - £2,356,000 which were not paid and £729,000 for the previous year - so there are a lot of debts for the year which haven't been paid off yet...more than 3 times the previous years period. Likely that is where you will find some of the things like royalties as well as various other expenses like material orders and property leases.

While there are a lot of one off events - there is also a need to compare comparable things. Just because of the change on the calender from this year to last year - you should see a significant jump. Other things, like Codex releases or new rule versions, will produce a regular wave effect. Because they always happen to one degree or another - they are comparable year over year. The Hobbit though - that isn't really comparable...though it might help out for a few years, eventually it will likely pop just like the LotR did, so it can not be discounted as sales from it are not sustainable.

 BryllCream wrote:

 Surtur wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

Actually, their revenue has been rather flat for the past several years.

More than that - this interim report doesn't even show growing profits.

Actually the evidence for that is steadily falling sales

d'aww you guys.

http://www.scotsman.com/business/retail/games-workshop-chief-steps-down-after-unveiling-16-8-jump-in-profits-1-2745271

Revenues up 7.7%. Profits up 16.8%.

What is it about hating GW that warps the logic part of peoples' brains?

And as someone before pointed out, Xmas shopping started earlier this year. Also, a change from the previous 6 months, rather than a full fiscal year. And what happened in the last 6 months? A required $60-$100 investment from everyone who wanted to play 40k with drastic changes to core functions encouraging additional spending to fix armies. That's not going to happen every 6 months much less every year. So if you would like to continue to insult people, I'd suggest you come up with a better argument.

Life is a string of one-off events, bro.

That same six month period included preparing for the launch of the Hobbit, including the sculpts, the molds, production, shipping and marketing, also royalty payments. And the Dark Vengence box set almost definitely does not make a profit, so the only source of revenue from 6E is people who'll buy the hardback rulebook. Sure there were a few of these, but not enough to cover a 7.7% increase in revenue.

Really? Dark Vengeance costs them all of maybe $10 to make. It's plastic, paper and cardboard, not gold, frankincense and myrrh. New molds, production and shipping (marketing? LOL) is pretty much a set cost for them at this point. It's not like they go through barren periods of not doing anything with their sculptors or design teams. But this is irrelevant as it would not affect revenue as revenue is total income. Dark Vengeance is madly popular among people who want a rulebook as they sell the armies or models they don't want to recoup losses. Add in all their limited edition items that they love doing so much now to create scarcity. Then add in full rulebooks. 6th ed was huge and alone could account for this rather large bump. If the Hobbit even piqued anyone's interest, it would have been a bump in revenue as LotR is pretty dead in most areas. If you prefer to write these off, then there's no point in arguing with you as you're just ignoring facts. They had big important releases that appealed to their ENTIRE fan base, not the one or two armies they would have released which are a percentage, they released a few "special edition" items to drive demand and they enjoyed a prolong Christmas shopping season. You are claiming they had increased revenue just because.

PS, don't bro me.

Really? Dark Vengeance costs them all of maybe $10 to make. It's plastic, paper and cardboard, not gold, frankincense and myrrh. New molds, production and shipping (marketing? LOL) is pretty much a set cost for them at this point. It's not like they go through barren periods of not doing anything with their sculptors or design teams. But this is irrelevant as it would not affect revenue as revenue is total income. Dark Vengeance is madly popular among people who want a rulebook as they sell the armies or models they don't want to recoup losses. Add in all their limited edition items that they love doing so much now to create scarcity. Then add in full rulebooks. 6th ed was huge and alone could account for this rather large bump. If the Hobbit even piqued anyone's interest, it would have been a bump in revenue as LotR is pretty dead in most areas. If you prefer to write these off, then there's no point in arguing with you as you're just ignoring facts. They had big important releases that appealed to their ENTIRE fan base, not the one or two armies they would have released which are a percentage, they released a few "special edition" items to drive demand and they enjoyed a prolong Christmas shopping season. You are claiming they had increased revenue just because.

Yea I agree with this as this is a pattern I have been seeing in my region.

However, during the same time period there was also a 1.4 mil pound savings due to cost cutting measures. Apply that to the profit base and the size of the profit coming from sales/royalities is not so high after all.

Again. I have no ill will Against Mark Wells. He did his job according to the Edicts coming from the Board the Directors, hence Kirby. He should be get his negotiated payment package and I hope he gets a lot for his work there.

 TheContortionist wrote:
i'm not sure what this mean, as i am only a year into the hobby. Hopefully we get someone that is interested in writing clearer rules though, i guess, I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with CEO though.

These blathering topics are a joke. I have gamed gw since 1989 and for years you see these in depth market research omg ceo blah blah blah threads....

It is a game. Get some minis, paint em, play....end o story.

Dont drink the koolaid or go down the rabbit hole....

Imagine people freakin out about their airline tickets when they hear stock for the airline took a dip..... it boggles da mind some gamers hobbyists get this friggin derp into the menutia of a game (company) when they are not eve9n on the board or an employee....

I laugh at these thread(er)s....

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Get back on topic guys and enough with the jokes. Next one posting spammy and/or banal ridiculousness get's dinged.

Not sure if that was aimed at me at all so I'll go explain why I posted the Turisas lyrics. My point was: Often, when you have the fall of a dominant power, what sets that power on the path to decline may often be not really noted while it happens, and it is only seen as such in retropect. It may be a while, but I think that GW has it that point this last year. There was a report that said wargaming as a whole was up ~%20 (couldn't find it via Google, if anyone here remembers the discussion about it, either here or on TMP, please share the link) while GW certainly hasn't experienced that growth in sales volume, which means they are losing market share, and I believe they will continue to do so for the forseeable future. Now I don't think they will disappear entirely, or even stop being a major player. However, I don't feel they will remain the undisputed leader, and without changing the way they operate, may even fall out of the top 5.

I should have posted it with the lyrics but was at the airport so didn't have the time.

I just wanted to hop in and share some anecdotal evidence about veterans and being locked in. I have 4 large 40k armies, and haven't bought a new GW kit since Blood Angels came out. I got tired of the prices, and first switched to using counts as models (a 3000 point WHFB chaos list with about 19 GW models in it) and then just started playing Hordes. Over the past 5 years I have seen GW go from being the absolutely dominating game company in the 3 stores I played at to having a minority of players, with lots of those switching being long time GW gamers.

All that to say I think the concept of lock in is over stated now. When you don't want to spend a few hundred bucks to buy the new codex and hot power models, you start just playing the same army over and over out of your current collection, all the while eyeing up all the new, shiny games others are playing. I think the lock in effect that GW used to rely on to keep people going is starting to look less like a cell and more like a freestanding door.

 Wehrkind wrote:
I just wanted to hop in and share some anecdotal evidence about veterans and being locked in. I have 4 large 40k armies, and haven't bought a new GW kit since Blood Angels came out. I got tired of the prices, and first switched to using counts as models (a 3000 point WHFB chaos list with about 19 GW models in it) and then just started playing Hordes. Over the past 5 years I have seen GW go from being the absolutely dominating game company in the 3 stores I played at to having a minority of players, with lots of those switching being long time GW gamers.

All that to say I think the concept of lock in is over stated now. When you don't want to spend a few hundred bucks to buy the new codex and hot power models, you start just playing the same army over and over out of your current collection, all the while eyeing up all the new, shiny games others are playing. I think the lock in effect that GW used to rely on to keep people going is starting to look less like a cell and more like a freestanding door.

I don't believe lock in is a permanent effect, but it increases the tolerance to the prices.

 Wehrkind wrote:
I just wanted to hop in and share some anecdotal evidence about veterans and being locked in. I have 4 large 40k armies, and haven't bought a new GW kit since Blood Angels came out. I got tired of the prices, and first switched to using counts as models (a 3000 point WHFB chaos list with about 19 GW models in it) and then just started playing Hordes. Over the past 5 years I have seen GW go from being the absolutely dominating game company in the 3 stores I played at to having a minority of players, with lots of those switching being long time GW gamers.

All that to say I think the concept of lock in is over stated now. When you don't want to spend a few hundred bucks to buy the new codex and hot power models, you start just playing the same army over and over out of your current collection, all the while eyeing up all the new, shiny games others are playing. I think the lock in effect that GW used to rely on to keep people going is starting to look less like a cell and more like a freestanding door.

I find the concept of 'lock in' due to being 'heavuly invested' kind of odd personally. If you've got a 4000pt GW army sitting there, what you don't need is more models from GW, or at least that army. It's not costing you money having them sit there.

Going and dropping $100 on a complete Malifaux or Infinity or Mercs 'army' and the rulebook isn't hurting your GW collection in the slightest (well, maybe you'll buy one less squad you don't even need because you have 4000pts sitting there). And if you decide to grab a game of Malifaux/Infinity/Mercs one day at the shop or with friends, then again, it doesn't cost you anything leaving your GW army at home.

'Lock in' due to being heavily invested simply feels like a made up excuse to not try new things.

Keep in mind what models GW is usually releasing (apart from a few updates of existing units, that are long overdue):

Fantasy: New units with über-rules that every competitive player should have (according to GW) plus big expensive monsters.
40k: New units with über-rules that every competitive player should have (according to GW) plus big expensive flyers.

Doesn't help to have 50 standard Space Marines plus 10 tanks, when you need 5 flyers to win tournaments.
Of course, as units are rarely tested by competitive players, GW often errs what competitive must-have units are, except for many flyers and ridiculously underpriced units.

Well having read all the posts it is clear that this strategy of cost efficiency doggedly stuck to by Kirby seems to be really what is killing GW. It has stagnated GW in market growth and has alienated a large swathe of it's userbase and this is pushing people to the competition.

The only way revenues are staying high is by price increases, this has lead to the spiral effect we are now seeing with year on year price increases. This has been said before a million times on here but a GW change of attitude is most clearly needed.

So what needs to change? The company needs to put money back into their, selected for loyalty staff. A policy i'm not happy to here GW has. It needs to make sure that it's customers are put first and that it needs to realise until this is done chances are there will be no market growth and continued market loses.

If it is happy to see it's customer go to the competition then continue as you are.