No more printed Codices and Armybooks?

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**hotsauceman1**

I am extremely apprehensive about this. I think even GW isnt stupid enough to do this.

**f2k**

azreal13 wrote:
jonolikespie wrote:
azreal13 wrote:
There is no indication GW are under any immediate financial threat, while their numbers haven't been stellar over the last few years, their share price has been respectable and they have been making a decent profit.

That's debatable.

They have been cutting expenses left right and center for a while now, which is why they love the limited editions and digital releases, same/no production costs with double the regular price tag/just shy of the regular price tag. The next logical step if they were to continue cutting costs is to remove the format that nets them the least profit, which is the regular books.
I'm not saying it will happen but with the amount of cost cutting GW is doing it's possible.

No, at this moment in time those are indisputable facts.

There is no way for an outsider to distinguish between cost cutting in order to keep afloat and efficiencies that any sensibly run business will undertake if it spots the opportunity, at least not until the more drastic measures such as redundancies, store closures and profit warnings start to happen.

As consumers we do not have all of the facts, and as such cannot have a fully informed opinions. Now, personally, I think in some cases GW would benefit from better communication, both to help us understand where it's coming from on the more superficially bizarre actions, and also to get guidance from its customer base and respond, a la PP or similar, rather than telling us what we want.

But, for now, the latest official figures give no hint of imminent financial problems. If they continue as they are, with flat revenue in a growing market sustained by increasing prices, overpriced LEs and the digital micro transactions etc, then perhaps things will look different in 2020, but unless they utterly feth things up in the next year or two, they're fine.

I think the LE stuff is very poorly implemented, and while I don't begrudge anybody making a profit, I at least would like them to be clever about it, and at least pretend to try and justify the price, especially on a book that will be near worthless once the next edition drops. It isn't the price that offends me so much, it's the laziness of the offering! But then that's why I don't buy them.

Your right, we're missing a lot of number. But I would argue that what, from what we can see of the puzzle, things are looking grim.

Despite raising prices, nearly gutting their retail chain, and enforcing some truly draconian trade agreements they're still only keeping afloat. And with their unit-sales declining year by year, indications are that they're steadily losing customers. And with this being a social hobby, they can only lose so many before the local community implodes entirely. And going by the anecdote from forum like this and WarSeer, alongside what I've been seeing in my local community, this is exactly what's happening.

They're not in an immediate danger, no. But unless they turn this around, the end will come. And when it does, it will most likely happen very quickly.

But then again, I could be wrong. In fact, I once thought that they would have been out of business by now. But it seems that there are enough customers, with deep enough wallets, to keep Games Workshop going for a while yet. Why on earth anyone would pay such ludicrous prices for a limited edition codex is way beyond my understanding. But clearly, someone must see a value in them.

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

f2k wrote:

As consumers we do not have all of the facts, and as such cannot have a fully informed opinions...

But then again, I could be wrong. In fact, I once thought that they would have been out of business by now. But it seems that there are enough customers, with deep enough wallets, to keep Games Workshop going for a while yet. Why on earth anyone would pay such ludicrous prices for a limited edition codex is way beyond my understanding. But clearly, someone must see a value in them.

**ChaosxVoid**

If they do this i'll probably just leave the hobby, I've never owned an iOs device or tablet and honestly I don't intend to, and this hobby won't get me to buy one just to play. I hope its not true so ill take it with salt.

**Kroothawk**

Well:
Specialist Games are gone.
Collector's Miniatures practically gone
Hobbit is practically gone.
Foreign BL novels severely reduced in range.
Metal practically gone and Finecast supposedly following shortly, reducing product diversity by another 40%.
Foreign markets no longer supported with box/blister labelling.
Foreign markets cut off the complete digital product range.
More and more English only print publications.
More and more products mail order only, even plastics.
Most stores reduced to one-man-stores.
Revenue practically flat inspite crazy rising prices.

So basically they are selling infrastructure and power shrink their business, just to stay afloat and pay Tom Kirby his 1 Mio £.
Doing something stupid to rulebook releases would fit the pattern.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
GW have heavily invested in new machinery, as revealed in a dakka-ite's recent chat with one of the designers.

Source?

**jonolikespie**

Kroothawk wrote:
Well:
Specialist Games are gone.
Collector's Miniatures practically gone
Hobbit is practically gone.
Foreign BL novels severely reduced in range.
Metal practically gone and Finecast supposedly following shortly, reducing product diversity by another 40%.
Foreign markets no longer supported with box/blister labelling.
Foreign markets cut off the complete digital product range.
More and more English only print publications.
More and more products mail order only, even plastics.
Most stores reduced to one-man-stores.
Revenue practically flat inspite crazy rising prices.

So basically they are selling infrastructure and power shrink their business, just to stay afloat and pay Tom Kirby his 1 Mio £.
Doing something stupid to rulebook releases would fit the pattern.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
GW have heavily invested in new machinery, as revealed in a dakka-ite's recent chat with one of the designers.

Source?

I'll second that call for a source on that but I also want to point out that you left scrapping almost all the Games Days and neutering the rest off that list.

**Kroothawk**

Difficult to list them all

**agnosto**

I own stock and they keep paying me dividends... *shrug* I'm also hardly a GW white knight; in fact I haven't purchased anything GW in some time.

I'm not a business expert either but I hardly think a company dropping unprofitable product lines is cause to shout to the rooftops "They're going bankrupt!". As for the foreign language support; yeah, we can agree that GW management are a bunch of asshats and it is truly a wonder the company is still profitable (because it is). They're not losing money; sure their market-share is falling and they make the dumbest business decisions that I've ever seen a company make in my time watching businesses as an amateur stock-market dabbler but the fact is, they're still profitable. If/When they report a quarterly loss, then I'll join the chicken-little crowd; until then, meh.

**Zweischneid**

The German and French output of Black Library novels has .. dunno .. quadrupled in past year or so, not to mention that (for Germany at least) they moved away from Heyne to doing translations in-house, which has (slightly) improved quality.

Digital Codexes are English only, true, but so were regular Codexes when they started doing them in the late 80s/early 90s. If enough sell, they may well decide to translate (by hiring additional translaters). And even if they don't, they certainly aren't translating less into foreign languages, since no Digital Codexes/Supplements were ever translated before either, and they still translate regular Codexes and Army Books (which they publish at unprecedented speed, I might add).

**pretre**

Zweischneid wrote:
The German and French output of Black Library novels has .. dunno .. quadrupled in past year or so, not to mention that (for Germany at least) they moved away from Heyne to doing translations in-house, which has (slightly) improved quality.

Digital Codexes are English only, true, but so were regular Codexes when they started doing them in the late 80s/early 90s. If enough sell, they may well decide to translate (by hiring additional translaters). And even if they don't, they certainly aren't translating less into foreign languages, since no Digital Codexes/Supplements were ever translated before either, and they still translate regular Codexes and Army Books (which they publish at unprecedented speed, I might add).

Interesting and good to know, Zweischneid. Especially since a certain someone has been crying doom and saying the opposite recently.

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

agnosto wrote:
I own stock and they keep paying me dividends... *shrug* I'm also hardly a GW white knight; in fact I haven't purchased anything GW in some time.

I'm not a business expert either but I hardly think a company dropping unprofitable product lines is cause to shout to the rooftops "They're going bankrupt!". As for the foreign language support; yeah, we can agree that GW management are a bunch of asshats and it is truly a wonder the company is still profitable (because it is). They're not losing money; sure their market-share is falling and they make the dumbest business decisions that I've ever seen a company make in my time watching businesses as an amateur stock-market dabbler but the fact is, they're still profitable. If/When they report a quarterly loss, then I'll join the chicken-little crowd; until then, meh.

Beyond that, GW are simply producing more models. Of course, people will suggest that's a bad thing.

I've linked this thread so many times that it's ridiculous. Funny how it doesn't stick in people's minds. It's a dakka user chatting with the designers, who mention they have new bigger machinery, hence some of the Riptide models atc, and the fact there are new design staff. THey also mention how they would like more plastic, and suggest Finecast will be phased out. It's very interesting and worth a read.

**Zweischneid**

pretre wrote:

Interesting and good to know, Zweischneid. Especially since a certain someone has been crying doom and saying the opposite recently.

Well, in addition, I might add, I find Black Library quite interesting to watch.

It's probably a small percentage of GW, admittedly, but Book Publishing is evidently a dying breed. In the UK alone, nearly 100 book publishers went bust last year alone! And the big publishers are increasingly hitting on ever smaller-ranges of best-sellers, leaving the low-to-mid-tier-volume stuff to self-published stuff through Amazon, etc..

Black Library, I would believe, seems to be thriving in a dying market, as well as doing reasonably well in not hitching their entire livelihood to the fickle will of Amazon. Serial Books (Scars), eBooks, e-Super-Shorts, limited Editions, Script Books, etc.. .

I am not gonna claim that I like everything BL did recently (e.g. milking the Heresy to the point of absurdity, 50 quid limited edition novellas, etc..) but they certainly are trying all kinds of new formats and interesting things to continue making money with books and fiction (something an entire industry seems to struggle with).

**Allod**

Zweischneid wrote:
The German and French output of Black Library novels has .. dunno .. quadrupled in past year or so, not to mention that (for Germany at least) they moved away from Heyne to doing translations in-house, which has (slightly) improved quality.

Agreed. This seems to be an "honest" switch from outsourced to in-house translations, with all the disruptions such a switch entails, but that's more or less unavoidable. I don't think anyone will miss the atrocious Heyne translations.

Zweischneid wrote:
Digital Codexes are English only, true, but so were regular Codexes when they started doing them in the late 80s/early 90s. If enough sell, they may well decide to translate (by hiring additional translaters). And even if they don't, they certainly aren't translating less into foreign languages, since no Digital Codexes/Supplements were ever translated before either, and they still translate regular Codexes and Army Books (which they publish at unprecedented speed, I might add).

This part is untrue.

Ever since there were Codices (40k 2nd edition) and Armybooks (WHFB 4th? edition, the one with the Lizardmen vs Brettonnians starter box) as we know them today, those were released in German at the same date as the English versions, with the exception of the starter boxes themselves, which had a slight delay, but certainly not enough to see what sales figures were like before ordering translations.

Also, fifteen years ago, they were translating stuff left, right and center - Codices, Armybooks, Hobby Compendia, White Dwarf, non-core games, website material, even little flyers like the one they put into the limited edition Praetorian Guard box. Today, it's the Codex/Armybook of the month, White Dwarf and their "blog". No matter how you spin it, that's a loss of support.

**Kroothawk**

Zweischneid wrote:
The German and French output of Black Library novels has .. dunno .. quadrupled in past year or so, not to mention that (for Germany at least) they moved away from Heyne to doing translations in-house, which has (slightly) improved quality.

BL had NO (!) German novels before January this year. So yeah, that's infinite times more than in 2012.
BUT: Heyne (for 40k) and Blanvalet (for Fantasy) have been selling many many more books up to December 2012, including ALL HH novels, ALL Gaunts Ghost novels, ALL Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels, ALL Gotrek&Felix novels, ALL Space Wolf and Soul Drinker novels etc. All of these except the newest ones are now OPP, so noone can begin the essential novel series anymore here in Germany.

Please do a bit of research before posting such ... statements.

BTW the German translation team has been disbanded and replaced by something in Nottingham HQ.

**hotsauceman1**

Isnt Feait known for not having good rumors?

**Alienoid**

N'Ferno wrote:
I can see them play the "Digital rules are easier to correct, and your codex is instantly up to date! No more digging through FAQS!" side as well (which isn't wrong per se).

As a non playing 40k fan digital only doesn't interest me. I like the big books.

I agree they shouldn't unless they want to chop off everything but the head with digital books only. When i look in the FAQ i take a pen and change what it says in my codex so the codex is up to date with the FAQ .

**Zweischneid**

Kroothawk wrote:
Zweischneid wrote:
The German and French output of Black Library novels has .. dunno .. quadrupled in past year or so, not to mention that (for Germany at least) they moved away from Heyne to doing translations in-house, which has (slightly) improved quality.

BL had NO (!) German novels before January this year. So yeah, that's infinite times more than in 2012.

They had no German "Black Library" novels because (!) they were published in Germany by Heyne. As far back as 1996 - http://www.amazon.de/Inquisitor-Warhammer-000-Ian-Watson/dp/3453109112/

The entirety of what Heyne Published amounts to about 80 Books between 1996 and 2011, so about 5.3 books a year.

For December 2013 alone, Black Library Germany is publishing 3 books. In all of 2013, they released 29 German Black Library novels. So when I said "quadrupled", I was understating it. They publish nearly 6-times as much a year as Heyne did.

**Allod**

Kroothawk wrote:
BTW the German translation team has been disbanded and replaced by something in Nottingham HQ.

Going by how obnoxious GW's own translations have become, that something is probably the translator Heyne laid off.

**pretre**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Isnt Feait known for not having good rumors?

Yep