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A post in another thread got me thinking, is GW shutting down its specialist/collectable ranges because many of them are too generic, or based in the real world. With all the legal wrangling, do GW want to make sure that they properly own all their models and rules from now on?

Based in the real world?

Not sure Epic, Mordheim, Battlefleet Gothic, or Necromunda fit in with what you are talking about. Perhaps you can explain yourself a little better with some examples?

I think the consolidation may be because they're phasing out all metals from the company altogether and don't wish to support older lines in Finecast and the QC (or lack thereof) that comes with it.

Or they are trying to get all non-profitable lines off the books so they can look better for the stock price.

 darefsky wrote:
Or they are trying to get all non-profitable lines off the books so they can look better for the stock price.

Which brings up the fact that GW's stock has been on a bit of a tear starting in May... Any ideas why? All the speculation that Kirby might be positioning GW for a buyout makes the possibility of a pre-offer bump, if any of the institutional buyers had an inkling it might happen, make some sense.

'Course I have no idea what's driving the recent climb. Any UK-savvy investors have any insights?

Valete,

JohnS

 cygnnus wrote:

 darefsky wrote:
Or they are trying to get all non-profitable lines off the books so they can look better for the stock price.

Which brings up the fact that GW's stock has been on a bit of a tear starting in May... Any ideas why? All the speculation that Kirby might be positioning GW for a buyout makes the possibility of a pre-offer bump, if any of the institutional buyers had an inkling it might happen, make some sense.

'Course I have no idea what's driving the recent climb. Any UK-savvy investors have any insights?

Valete,

JohnS

No idea, my "gut" says that the current ownership is buying back the stock to artificially inflate the value, or another company is buying up all available stock in an attempt to do a hostile take over.

Don't "current ownership" (or at least management) have to disclose if they're buying or selling stock? And I guess that gets at my question. *Why* did GW's stock start climbing in May? Is it someone trying to build a buyout position? Is it investors sniffing a possible buyout on the horizon and trying to get in prior to the offer price (normally at a premium)? Or something else? UK-specific fiscal issues (like the triple witching hour here)? Reaction to some financial news? Or just the normal churn?

Valete,

JohnS

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Based in the real world?

I am pretty sure they sold terribly so what's the point in keeping them up? Pretty sure the only reason is saving money.

BryllCream wrote:A post in another thread got me thinking, is GW shutting down its specialist/collectable ranges because many of them are too generic, or based in the real world. With all the legal wrangling, do GW want to make sure that they properly own all their models and rules from now on?

This is good strategic thinking. In fact, GW has a business practice it calls the "Fortress Wall".

They describe it as a "defendable intellectual property" that creates a "barrier to entry for potential competitors".

I can see Necromunda or Mordheim being "too generic". You can substitute them with Reaper/Warmachine minis.

(In fact, those options are better than the comparatively bad official minis for those lines, tbh.)

HOWEVER...for the Specialist Games line, IMHO it is MAINLY just a cost savings measure.

Absolutionis wrote:I think the consolidation may be because they're phasing out all metals from the company altogether and don't wish to support older lines in Finecast and the QC (or lack thereof) that comes with it.

darefsky wrote:Or they are trying to get all non-profitable lines off the books so they can look better for the stock price.

Sigvatr wrote:I am pretty sure they sold terribly so what's the point in keeping them up? Pretty sure the only reason is saving money.

Good points. And they're not mutually exclusive. They don't contradict each other.

I have a friend, a fellow RPer, who teaches technical design and gave me insight on metal vs. resin.

Miniatures were with metal because metal molds could capture sculpting details.

Resin was always cheaper though, which is why you see a lot of bigger statues using resin.

However, a few years back, resin technology has advanced to be as good as metal.

(There are probably one-off fixed costs for switching to resin, but after that, it's all savings.)

Now, those are ongoing innovations, but it seems GW wants to focus on resin to increase that cost effectiveness.

There's a good reason for that. Molds for metal minis actually get worn out and GW has to produce new ones.

So metal minis represent a maintenance cost to GW with this legacy technology to begin with.

Combined with the fact these metal Specialist minis aren't very popular, it doubly makes sense to phase it out.

This isn't some evil corporation tactic in itself. If you could do something just as well but cheaper, you'd do it.

(You can totally argue GW has other evil corporation tactics, I'd agree, but this one is just common sense savings).

cygnnus wrote:Which brings up the fact that GW's stock has been on a bit of a tear starting in May... Any ideas why? All the speculation that Kirby might be positioning GW for a buyout makes the possibility of a pre-offer bump, if any of the institutional buyers had an inkling it might happen, make some sense.

'Course I have no idea what's driving the recent climb. Any UK-savvy investors have any insights?

cygnnus wrote:Don't "current ownership" (or at least management) have to disclose if they're buying or selling stock? And I guess that gets at my question. *Why* did GW's stock start climbing in May? Is it someone trying to build a buyout position? Is it investors sniffing a possible buyout on the horizon and trying to get in prior to the offer price (normally at a premium)? Or something else? UK-specific fiscal issues (like the triple witching hour here)? Reaction to some financial news? Or just the normal churn?

Yeah, 10% in a month isn't bad. Hard to say, and they did disclose all proper-like.

Their Chief Operating Officer and Head of Sales bought stock in what's call a DRIP in mid-April.

DRIPs are like...a cheap way for long-term investment (rather than buying stock just to trade them).

It suggests GW's honest confidence in its growth and future stability, good signs.

But it's not a massive thing. By itself, it's not a signal for prepping a merger or acquisition.

So it's really hard to say why a spike for relatively mundane matters, but there's other explanations.

A simple alternative explanation is not what GW is doing well, but what other companies are doing badly.

A hypothetical, just a hypothetical, ok? The video gaming industry isn't doing that great this year.

Everyone's waiting for the PS4 and next Xbox, which won't come out until late this year.

Meanwhile, the Wii U's launch failed expectations by 30% (Nintendo's shares dropped 10%).

Perhaps with no good video games out for the summer, game investors put their money into GW.

Who knows? But I agree, that spike is surprising.

---

Back to the original question, why I don't think what's happening with Specialists Games is IP strategy.

The reason is, IMHO, if it was a strategy, GW would just cut it off ASAP, set definite dates for its end.

They're not doing that. They're just phasing it out, letting them sell out naturally.

That's a classic housecleaning measure, just getting rid of less popular items.

Again, IMHO, not some big strategic move, it's just a common sense move IMHO.

Hey guys---

A buddy of mine has his own terrain website...
It was popular ( about 500 hits a day ) ...
Then he put up on his front page that his site was under construction and would be back on line soon...
His site spiked to over 2000 hits a day...
He put it back on line and the spike suddenly wasnt a spike anymore....
Sound familiar?

Didn't gw have a line of historicals or something similiar under the specialty games?

they aren't listed on their website anymore, but... I coulda sworn they used to have a really rather limited line of historical minis for a game.

I do not think the specialist games are any more generic than everything else GW does. If anything, they are more unique. If Mordheim is somehow generic and not protectable intellectual property, than so is the whole of Warhammer Fantasy. The same goes for Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, Blood Bowl, Gorkamorka, and the rest.

Those properties come out of the same fictional universes as GW's primary products. If GW cannot protect those, then it has a huge problem. And if GW thinks it cannot protect those because they are too old, and were not properly protected, then the bottom also drops out of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K, as those works are pretty much entirely derived from the same underlying works.

No, dropping Specialist Games is cutting fat at the expense of fans and customers. It is a short term measure to increase the appearance of profitability by liquidating existing stock and a means to promote an image that GW is a trim company with little excess fat producing a tightly focused line of products with low overhead that reaches a broad base of customers.

skyfi wrote:
Didn't gw have a line of historicals or something similiar under the specialty games?

they aren't listed on their website anymore, but... I coulda sworn they used to have a really rather limited line of historical minis for a game.

Warhammer Historical. But that was ages ago

Personally I think they're trying to streamline everything before a buyout, same with the rapid fire codex releases trying to up the share price to get a bigger check for the higherups.

 Ma55ter_fett wrote:
Personally I think they're trying to streamline everything before a buyout, same with the rapid fire codex releases trying to up the share price to get a bigger check for the higherups.

Its possible. In addition to the well made point about the materials they may also be discontinuing the older specialist ranges for a possible re-launch if (when?) there is a change in management. Or I'm just desperately hoping for some re-releases (Warhammer Quest & Necromunda)

skyfi wrote:
Didn't gw have a line of historicals or something similiar under the specialty games?

they aren't listed on their website anymore, but... I coulda sworn they used to have a really rather limited line of historical minis for a game.

They had the Warhammer Historical books, but miniature wise, IIRC it was just a few character models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kommissar Waaaghrick wrote:
Resin was always cheaper though, which is why you see a lot of bigger statues using resin.

This is a bit of a generalisation. The cost of the actual resin varies depending on the specific compound being used. And the cost of actually casting it tends to be higher than for metal, because it's more labour intensive. Up until GW starting feeding the stuff into a spincaster (and look at how well that's worked for them...) resin was generally cast by hand.

There's a good reason for that. Molds for metal minis actually get worn out and GW has to produce new ones.

Uh, the silicon moulds used for resin casting also wear out. Particularly when your miniatures are being demoulded with bits of the mould still stuck to them...

Maintenance isn't the cost saver with Finecast, since I would strongly suspect that the cost of replacing their silicon moulds wouldn't be significantly different to the cost of replacing the old vulcanised moulds. GW have said that the resin they chose is cheaper (and the price more stable) than tin (which is why 'Fine'cast models are more expensive than the metal models they replaced), and they get around the production cost issue by spincasting. And by not wasting time on quality control.

A lot of posts in this thread and others speculating that some action or rumour about GW getting ready to "sell itself" do not seem to be founded on the fact that GW is already a publicly traded company and a substantial amount of stock has changed hands already this year.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BryllCream wrote:
A post in another thread got me thinking, is GW shutting down its specialist/collectable ranges because many of them are too generic, or based in the real world. With all the legal wrangling, do GW want to make sure that they properly own all their models and rules from now on?

This does not really make much sense because of the unique nature of the specialist games. Maybe you are not familar with the content of these games because they certainly are not based on anything in the real world.

JWhex wrote:
A lot of posts in this thread and others speculating that some action or rumour about GW getting ready to "sell itself" do not seem to be founded on the fact that GW is already a publicly traded company and a substantial amount of stock has changed hands already this year.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BryllCream wrote:
A post in another thread got me thinking, is GW shutting down its specialist/collectable ranges because many of them are too generic, or based in the real world. With all the legal wrangling, do GW want to make sure that they properly own all their models and rules from now on?

This does not really make much sense because of the unique nature of the specialist games. Maybe you are not familar with the content of these games because they certainly are not based on anything in the real world.

Dude, I got my Retribution Class Battleship in orbit and a scrapbook from that time I went to the Carnival of Nurgle. You tell me that it's not real?

JWhex wrote:

This does not really make much sense because of the unique nature of the specialist games. Maybe you are not familar with the content of these games because they certainly are not based on anything in the real world.

More or less all the Imperial Guard are based on irl armies.
Blood bowl has already been imitated.
Nothing in Mordheim is unique to GW at all.
Necromunda is generic steampunk.

The specialist ranges have nothing unique about GW to them at all.

 BryllCream wrote:
Necromunda is generic steampunk.

The specialist ranges have nothing unique about GW to them at all.

Necromunda, steampunk?
How is

Necromunda is a hive world in Segmentum Solar, and a major producer of munitions for the Imperial Guard. Necromunda's forges produce lasguns, autoguns, shotguns and boltguns, among other weapons. The planet also levies huge numbers of troops for the Imperial Guard (most notably the "Necromundan Spiders"), as well as other supplies. Necromunda is typical of most hive worlds, its hive cites rife with powerful gangs. . .
Necromunda was founded 15,000 years ago as a mining and manufacturing colony. It was liberated from an Ork presence by the Imperial Fists during the Great Crusade, establishing the close ties between Necromunda and the Chapter.[3] The ensuing millennia have not changed its basic purpose very much; Necromunda is still a world of mines, factories, refineries and processing plants. The planet is a vast powerhouse of industry, making thousands and thousands of different items for use throughout nearby planetary systems.[Needs Citation]
Nothing which can contribute to the planet's output has been left untouched. From the tops of the highest mountains to the depths of the oceans, the wealth of Necromunda has been ripped out. Mountains have been reduced to rubble for the ore they contain; oceans have been turned into little more than chemical sludge ponds. The once fertile plains have disappeared under huge urban developments of great housing and factory blocks, forming new ranges of man-made mountains every bit as tall as the long since flattened natural land features. These huge towering urban complexes are known as city hives, or simply as hives, and their individual peaks or towers are called city spires or spires. A close group of hives is known as a hive cluster. Between the hives deserts of industrial ash cover the surface of the planet with a mobile, corrosive skin. Over this desert lies a cloud layer of airborne pollution, so that the great spires of the city hives rise from a drifting mist of tainted vapour like islands out of the sea.[Needs Citation]
Despite being reduced to such a hellish state, Necromunda is still a valuable world to the Imperium. Although little of Necromunda's original resources remain, the waste-heaps of previous generations have become a new source of riches. Necromunda lives on the accumulated wastes of its past: its people have learned to scavenge, reclaim and recycle everything in order to squeeze a living from their exhausted world

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Necromunda_(planet)#.UYpHALXFXu0

Like this?

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery,[1] especially in a setting inspired by industrialized Western civilization during the 19th century. Therefore, steampunk works are often set in an alternate history of the 19th century's British Victorian era or American "Wild West", in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has regained mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk


Style and background wise they look very dis-similar

To be fair they stopped producing the specialist mini's like 5 years ago....it's just taken this long for them to finally start running out.

Yeah... no Orktavius. They didn't just "start running out".



Necromunda isn't even close to Steam Punk. LOL!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Necromunda isn't even close to Steam Punk. LOL!

Are you sure? I thought 19th Century Victorian England/Wild West America was perfectly comparable to a 41st Millennium Hive City

It's an easy mistake to make.

And by "easy" I mean "not easy".

I heard a rumour that they might be releasing another version of Blood Bowl.. maybe even just a limited edition box for it.

Maybe they want to make room for another side distraction? Add another "specialist game" or even remake them again.

I for one would love remakes. cos every single one of those games was great fun (except inquisitor).

chuxfm wrote:
I heard a rumour that they might be releasing another version of Blood Bowl.. maybe even just a limited edition box for it..

Is it a steampunk version?

Limited edition top hats and cogs version yes

Requested lock due to certain members' words. Message received though, won't be starting any more threads in future.