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 BryllCream wrote:
Timing of the LOTR fits in perfectly with that graph.

Timing also fits DeAgostini making standard marketing for GW products (2002-2006), graph also fits GW ending the partnership in 2006 and returning to no advertising.

I started playing again in 2004, so make of that what you will.

The release period of the LotR films was 2001 to 2003. The peak effect might have come in 2004 thanks to three years of publicity and the DVDs.

In 2005 began the fall. It bottomed out in 2008 and GW have been largely marking time since then.

So one could interpret the data as, since 2008, increasing prices have largely papered over the cracks of falling volume, but in the last 12 months (which, anecdotally, would fit with my perception of a real ground shift in attitude towards GW, from complaints to actual refusal to buy some/any product) the prices have driven off sufficient sales that closedown of production was warranted/needed.

As the decision makers will be in possession of more detailed and current information than us, this could explain Wells departure and also these actions.

Or, it could just be one final drive to cut costs and maintain profits to give Kirby a big pay out before he jumps ship.

I hate to divert the topic slightly but would someone be willing to expand on this shipping container business? I've never heard of this occurring, sounds hilarious.

 Eiríkr wrote:
I hate to divert the topic slightly but would someone be willing to expand on this shipping container business? I've never heard of this occurring, sounds hilarious.

There's not much to it really. A shipping container with GW product fell off a ship during a storm. That's about it. Containers falling off ships happens quite frequently.

If you can find it and salvage it though you'll get a lot of plastic box sets, most of which was the Eldar Falcon I was told by several other GW staff in Baltimore there were also 2 of the old metal Thunderhawk gunships that came in the wood cases on there as well.

Good luck finding it!

I believe one of the plans revolved around dropping a depth charge on the container - if a whole was made in it, the air trapped inside the shrink-wrapped box would make it float up the surface for an easy recovery (although that might not work for those metal thunderhawks! )

 Kroothawk wrote:

Timing also fits DeAgostini making standard marketing for GW products (2002-2006), graph also fits GW ending the partnership in 2006 and returning to no advertising.

Not quite, GW started declining before they ended the DeAgostini contract. By your logic, then there shouldn't have been a drop in 2005. The drop coincides more closely with the end of the Outrider program (early 2005).

Big flashy magazine articles don't compare to good old "boots on the ground" type advocates.

Is the 2009 sales bump due to 40K 5th edition releases?

It could be, however these graphics are an aggregate of a lot of different factors so it probably isn't the only one.

silent25 wrote:

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Again, Why the UK? From a business standpoint this make no sense to me.

Just not quite sure what it is at this moment of time.

Friend of a friend bit of information; the new plastic models (Dark Eldar and later) are cast on machines with very high tolerances. They have to bring in a specialist to perform maintenance on them. These are newer machines and it sounds like the ones in the US were older.

GW would have to purchase new machines and retrain the existing US workers to use them if they wanted to replace them. Otherwise certain kits can't be produced in the US. GW may have decided it was cheaper to add an additional line in the UK facility than retrofit the US one. This part is speculation, but one possible reason.

Thank you for the information. Years ago (seems like eons ago to me) I've done spin casting work myself. I can see where this line of thought can lead to a logical result.

As far as Stranger83's comment I'll mull that one over as well.

But it sounds to me that they are consolidating their resources. They are not expanding though. That is also understandable as well.

Next question is if we go through this line of thought. Are they hiring additional manpower? A lot, a little, none at all, to make up the difference in loss of man power with the closure of the Memphis plant?

Hiring additional staff to compensate what was let go will partly denote the overall health of the corporation. That would be a telling statement if indeed the corporation is doing an orderly consolidation or a consolidation due to duress.

So in a positive approach, has anyone heard anything about hiring working in the manufacturing arm of GW?

If gw does fall, where does that leave the game i love?
Will the company just die with the license? will i have hope that someone picks it up from the dust and i can still get army updates and stuff?

silent25 wrote:
Friend of a friend bit of information; the new plastic models (Dark Eldar and later) are cast on machines with very high tolerances. They have to bring in a specialist to perform maintenance on them. These are newer machines and it sounds like the ones in the US were older.

This is not entirely accurate. The 2 old machines, the Van Dorns, would not be able to handle the newer molds since they don't have the "functions" newer machines do but the Demag machines that were bought in 2005 (IIRC) can.

They don't need a "specialist" to maintain them, just someone who has training with injection molding machines. The guy who maintained the machines when I worked for GW was Dale Whetton and he did a damn good job of it.

silent25 wrote:
GW would have to purchase new machines and retrain the existing US workers to use them if they wanted to replace them. Otherwise certain kits can't be produced in the US. GW may have decided it was cheaper to add an additional line in the UK facility than retrofit the US one. This part is speculation, but one possible reason.

They would not have to get rid of the older Van Dorn machines, they would just use those for bases and other older kits that have not been re-tooled

In terms of training, there would be no new training for the staff. The machines are computer controlled. All you have to do is type in the serial number of the tool being used and the machines will set the parameters itself.

Before the tool is milled the layout is tested virtually in a program, then the finished tool is tested to those parameters and adjusted somewhat since the real world is still different than a simulation. After that the parameters are put into a database that the computer of each machine has access to.

All the staff have to do when the new tool is installed and run is to check the sprues periodically (about every 30 min) to make sure there are no miscasts or other issues like parts sticking in the cavities.

One person in Memphis, one of the girls from box packing, was running 6 machines, as of when I left in 2007.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Thank you for the information. Years ago (seems like eons ago to me) I've done spin casting work myself. I can see where this line of thought can lead to a logical result.

As far as Stranger83's comment I'll mull that one over as well.

But it sounds to me that they are consolidating their resources. They are not expanding though. That is also understandable as well.

Next question is if we go through this line of thought. Are they hiring additional manpower? A lot, a little, none at all, to make up the difference in loss of man power with the closure of the Memphis plant?

Hiring additional staff to compensate what was let go will partly denote the overall health of the corporation. That would be a telling statement if indeed the corporation is doing an orderly consolidation or a consolidation due to duress.

So in a positive approach, has anyone heard anything about hiring working in the manufacturing arm of GW?

Don't forget that wonderful thing called "Increased Productivity". The new machines may have a higher output rate than the older US machines. So one guy and one machine could have the same output as six machines operated by six people. Just because they have less people doesn't mean their production has decreased. As technology marches on, less people are need to do the same work. Great for business, horrible for those that use to do such work.

Another item might be there were changes in the UK or US tax code that made it more desirable to move the manufacturing over to the UK. Possibly GW could write off and claim depreciation on the new machines faster in the UK than in the US.

As for hiring, the position is no longer listed and it went up the same time the new US/Canada distribution rules came out. Sounds like it was filled.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

mechanicalhorizon wrote:
[
New information.

Thanks for the clarification. Though the story I heard was in 2011. Did Dale Whetton work also for BMW by chance?

hotsauceman1 wrote:If gw does fall, where does that leave the game i love?
Will the company just die with the license? will i have hope that someone picks it up from the dust and i can still get army updates and stuff?

Nah, someone would buy up that IP. They won't let BattleTech die; there's no way Fantasy and 40k get ignored. Although I suppose there's a chance for petty spite coming in and changing that.

mechanicalhorizon wrote:

They would not have to get rid of the older Van Dorn machines, they would just use those for bases and other older kits that have not been re-tooled

In terms of training, there would be no new training for the staff. The machines are computer controlled. All you have to do is type in the serial number of the tool being used and the machines will set the parameters itself.

Before the tool is milled the layout is tested virtually in a program, then the finished tool is tested to those parameters and adjusted somewhat since the real world is still different than a simulation. After that the parameters are put into a database that the computer of each machine has access to.

All the staff have to do when the new tool is installed and run is to check the sprues periodically (about every 30 min) to make sure there are no miscasts or other issues like parts sticking in the cavities.

One person in Memphis, one of the girls from box packing, was running 6 machines, as of when I left in 2007.

Pfft, there's no way that's true. I want this guy added to the accuracy tracker, then I'll decide if I can believe his claim that there was a GIRL in GW.

 Lansirill wrote:

mechanicalhorizon wrote:

They would not have to get rid of the older Van Dorn machines, they would just use those for bases and other older kits that have not been re-tooled

In terms of training, there would be no new training for the staff. The machines are computer controlled. All you have to do is type in the serial number of the tool being used and the machines will set the parameters itself.

Before the tool is milled the layout is tested virtually in a program, then the finished tool is tested to those parameters and adjusted somewhat since the real world is still different than a simulation. After that the parameters are put into a database that the computer of each machine has access to.

All the staff have to do when the new tool is installed and run is to check the sprues periodically (about every 30 min) to make sure there are no miscasts or other issues like parts sticking in the cavities.

One person in Memphis, one of the girls from box packing, was running 6 machines, as of when I left in 2007.

Pfft, there's no way that's true. I want this guy added to the accuracy tracker, then I'll decide if I can believe his claim that there was a GIRL in GW.

No.. he did say that she was working in Memphis... and now we know why they closed the plant.

The Auld Grump

Thank you for the information mechanicalhorizon. With the information you provided it concludes to my satisfaction about the "why's" they closed the Memphis plant. At least in my case on the why's.

Again. Thanks for your input. - Adam

 Lansirill wrote:

Pfft, there's no way that's true. I want this guy added to the accuracy tracker, then I'll decide if I can believe his claim that there was a GIRL in GW.

Well in one of the tour reports I read, the guide did say, the people working the shop floor have zero interest in the game to help minimize leaks. That is one way to do it.

GW is officially confirming problems with the supply chain:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/518768.page

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:This week ACD Distribution of Madison, Wisconsin held their Games Day for store owners.
(...)
I'm all fired up to hear what GW's North American director of sales has to say.
(...)
He has little to offer, but simply saying that GW has a supply chain problem that may take 3-6 months to resolve.

I don't post on here much, I'm not a FLGS or a GW fanboy but I think it's interesting to watch people discuss things like this. I don't know what GW's business ideas/profit/monetary situation is and I appreciate there appear to be FLGS being taken for a bit of a ride.

What I do know is about 4 weeks ago one of the factories GW got it's plastic pellets from in the UK, the plastic it uses to make its kits got rolled and has shutdown. I know this because a family member works there. I also know that the amount of plastic it cost to make the accessorie sprue in the 40k boxset about 3-4 years ago was around £1.50. This has increased massively. (And no, I'm not saying this justifies prices, like 1.50 didn't justify the 40quid price in the first place but the mould tools costs thousands and thousands to make and maintain)

I don't know how much of their plastic they sourced from there is relevant to other countries and I don't know if they'd already moved orders and sources last year before it was all announced but I know that when GW did source from there it was one of the biggest that factory rolled out. I don't know if that's anything to do with any delays and I'm not going to pretend to know that.

As for my opinion and not that it really matters, most big companies are scaling back, all over the world huge companies are going under. GW has a niche market, it's big in the miniature world but Average Dave doesn't impulse buy a painting starter kit and a box of spaze meens, It's been scaling back 'community' for years and years. GW and BL websites used to have their own forums!.

silent25 wrote:
Well in one of the tour reports I read, the guide did say, the people working the shop floor have zero interest in the game to help minimize leaks. That is one way to do it.

It's more a side-effect of hiring staff from Memphis, there just weren't many "gamers" down there when I lived there. The only game store that was in Memphis closed down about a year after I moved there.

It's not really a policy that GW has to hire staff not interested in gaming.

 dodgex1 wrote:
What I do know is about 4 weeks ago one of the factories GW got it's plastic pellets from in the UK, the plastic it uses to make its kits got rolled and has shutdown

That wouldn't do a thing to GW's manufacturing ability, we ordered raw materials (metal ingots and plastic pellets) from several different manufacturers just in case something like that happened. If one did not have the materials we had an order ready with another vendor that could be shipped to us in a day. That situation happened a couple of times in Memphis with our raw metal suppliers. We never had any issues, in the US or UK with plastic being supplied to us.

mechanicalhorizon wrote:

That wouldn't do a thing to GW's manufacturing ability, we ordered raw materials (metal ingots and plastic pellets) from several different manufacturers just in case something like that happened. If one did not have the materials we had an order ready with another vendor that could be shipped to us in a day. That situation happened a couple of times in Memphis with our raw metal suppliers. We never had any issues, in the US or UK with plastic being supplied to us.

Not necessarily, there have been time I have personally experienced ordering materials/chemicals where ALL the vendors in the region (western US) were out. And sometimes it was for very common items. You have it where another manufacturer gobbled up all available supplies.

Still this whole Tau debacle sounds more like a gross underestimating of demand than any specific production issue.

I think they underestimated massively how popular certain units would be.

I went to the Grimsby GW as a stop gap between playing a show and he had sold out his allocation of Riptides within an hour :/ They had plenty of the Codex, characters and even Pathfinders but no Riptides. The company I pre-ordered with also sold out and I have to wait but I am not fussed. It happens in business I am afraid.

Even GW didn't realise they would shift that many £50 models?!

FarseerAndyMan wrote:
Hey fellas,

Corporate sell-offs are a pretty hard thing.

My wife worked for a petroleum company that decided to sell its self. They fired half the management first.

It would actually be a good thing for our hobby community to see the proverbial goliath get knocke dout by the wave of Kickstarter projects that actually respond to their customers.

i would love nothing more right now than to drink ten gallons of gasoline, drop my pants, whip out a lighter and hose you with flaming urine.... The problem with kick-starters is that a lot of them don't actually make it, and, in the end, don't end up making it into the stores even when they do make it. Reaper? Nah. Special case, they are an established manufacturer using crowd-funding to make the switch to lower-cost plastic for products they already have, as well as to move production locally.... Dream forge games and Miniwargaming's success has still to be mitigated and followed up on, those can still tank, and MWG has gone out and said, it's made a few sets, and has absolutely no plans whatsoever at all to follow up on what it's produced any time in the near future. Dreamforge is still pretty vague, and even people i talk to that are in the gaming community don't know who dreamforge is or what they sell, or what their game is.... so who else is there? I've seen quite a number of KSs, but none of the others come to mind as anything that wil lever end up in the FLGS anytime soon.... Sure, there are SOME that might end up in your FLGS B&M store, but the 6-10 copies of a limited run isn't going to be worth much in the way of the support for the store... It's much more profitable to be the sole distributor, and most of these people are looking to grow their own wealth. The internet provides the means to do that without having to use B&M stores.

On that note, I understand this is what GW is probably trying to do with its recent policy changes. However, I feel that if GW really wants to be sole distributor, it should just balls it up and cut all contracts. There really isn't anything stopping them from doing this, other than the short-term hit as angry consumers boycott them for one or two quarters before inevitably returning as new products get released, and because starting a new game system really is much more expensive than continuing with the previous one. That all said, I honestly believe their best solution is to annihilate their retail chain as that would probably solve their overhead problems. Tout all you want about how much more money you make when you sell a $110 kit yourself and how you can lure the preteen and their parents into dropping $500 in one go, but the fact that you have to sell 3-5 of those in one day to cover the building fees and employee salaries for the day, with a lack of a strong diversified product line it's simply much easier to secure your profit by just selling it off to someone else to work the floor..... GW still has weight in both presence and image in the market and should have pulled this move years ago, GW would be in a stronger position. I mean, look at PP, they don't have their own stores, yet demand for their product is growing. GW stores are not really in a position to be profitable in the long term due to the lack of a diverse product line. They have what, three product lines? LOTR, WHFB and WH40k? Sure, let's count whatever else they have as part of their line, the trouble is an FLGS will have that same product line, plus MTG, along with PP, a host of other board games, historicals, infinity...... y'all get the point. GW sells only its own things, whereas an FLGS comes stocked with more than enough to appeal to a much larger customer base and just strikes me as much more profitable. Then again, I'm probably beating a dead horse as far as this thread is concerend........

as another comment, having looked at the graph kroothawk posted, I would love to see those numbers compared against other phenomena in the market. They show a convincing and strong growth, with a healthy measure of managing to hold on at steady, but seeing those numbers as compared with, say, per capita, might be a healthier assessment of growth or decline.

 poda_t wrote:
Dreamforge is still pretty vague, and even people i talk to that are in the gaming community don't know who dreamforge is or what they sell, or what their game is....

As usual with games, it's always going to depend locally how it does. Dreamforge? My FLGS has a lot of their stuff, and are pushing it. Their front display cases have piles of the infantry and Leviathan mechs.

 -Loki- wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
Dreamforge is still pretty vague, and even people i talk to that are in the gaming community don't know who dreamforge is or what they sell, or what their game is....

As usual with games, it's always going to depend locally how it does. Dreamforge? My FLGS has a lot of their stuff, and are pushing it. Their front display cases have piles of the infantry and Leviathan mechs.

no i see and recognize that, but there are two kinds of retailers, those that are willing to take risks, and those that stock what they know will sell. I wish Dreamforge the best, and would love to see them grow, but as I see it, they're still on the fringe of gaming. They have some sexy models, but it's only one faction so far. I bother pointing this out, because it's a large financial and temporal commitment to pick up a new game system. If I've already got, say, one or two 40k armies, a FB army that has mantics stuff mixed in, as well as a retribution of scyrah force and a skorne crew, with another malifaux gang on the shelf..... It's a bit of an uphill struggle to get a foot in the door of a niche market that may potentially already be full. But hey, GW's future may be uncertain, and that door might open quite a bit.

I guess the trick is that any new players entering the hobby will automatically be biased toward what their friends already have, since they'll probably want to play with them, and because those people have already spent on the game system they currently have, and won't want to pick up another one. This may be why even with the GW hatewagon rolling around every few months, and the tidal wall of oaths about how people will stop buying, inevitably, boycotters keep going back to buy one more last kit...... just this one last time.... and why GW is managing to stay even, despite what most of us might agree are bad practices.

Another edit: Trying to write at 2:00 AM really isn't my strong suit. Despite trying to edit out my run-on sentences, I still ended up with too many. May have to paraphrase in the morning...

 gr1m_dan wrote:
I think they underestimated massively how popular certain units would be.

I went to the Grimsby GW as a stop gap between playing a show and he had sold out his allocation of Riptides within an hour :/ They had plenty of the Codex, characters and even Pathfinders but no Riptides. The company I pre-ordered with also sold out and I have to wait but I am not fussed. It happens in business I am afraid.

Even GW didn't realise they would shift that many £50 models?!

Then why make it?

It is a crucial part of business to understand what your customers want, how many, how to price them, and how to deliver them on time. If you know that you can place production orders at optimum bulk discount pricing.

IMO this is an area in which the lack of advance PR hurts GW. Do you remember when the original PS3 "banana" controller design was revealed to worldwide derision and contempt. Sony acted on that feedback and changed the design.

If GW had put out sketches and handbuilt models of the Riptide, and the other stuff, six months ago they could have got feedback showing them the Riptide was going to be popular and the flier wasnt. I don't know how popular the flier is but about half of Dakka members think it's poor, whereas everyone loves the Riptide.

mechanicalhorizon wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
prompted by the container ship sinking all those years ago, and yes those Eldar Falcons are still there for anyone with the grit and determination to get them

There's also 2 of the old metal Thunderhawk Gunships in that container as well, or so I was told by several senior staff when I worked for GW in Baltimore.

*puts a knife in mouth*

Yar, where be the plunder lie?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

It is a crucial part of business to understand what your customers want, how many, how to price them, and how to deliver them on time. If you know that you can place production orders at optimum bulk discount pricing.

IMO this is an area in which the lack of advance PR hurts GW. Do you remember when the original PS3 "banana" controller design was revealed to worldwide derision and contempt. Sony acted on that feedback and changed the design.

If GW had put out sketches and handbuilt models of the Riptide, and the other stuff, six months ago they could have got feedback showing them the Riptide was going to be popular and the flier wasnt. I don't know how popular the flier is but about half of Dakka members think it's poor, whereas everyone loves the Riptide.

I wouldn't use Sony as an example. The Playstation division is hemorrhaging money. They loss $2.8 billion US last year.

As for "fan feedback" releasing that early concept art only allows for knock-off companies to take the pics and make their own ripoffs. And internet feedback doesn't guarantee realistic input. You only get the loudest voices and those people might not even buy the product. I agree they should release the pics earlier than they currently do, but design by internet committee is never a good idea.

One question I have in the whole Tau debacle, how many Riptide units did they actually make?

Only on Dakka, and only for GW, is "we sold too many models" a "debacle."

 Kingsley wrote:
Only on Dakka, and only for GW, is "we sold too many models" a "debacle."

"we sold too many models" isn't a debacle, "we didn't make enough models" kind of is.