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dereksatkinson wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
1.) Okay, difficult to track a company, that disappears from the investor chart and then reappears under a different name (even if it is just an error by GW). This leads to one less investor buying into GW and one more investor almost halfing its investment (9% in 2011 and years before, 5.3% now)
2.) I am not talking about a single company taking over GW. But obviously most investors are not happy with Wells leaving and Tom Kirby controlling Tom Kirby (as chair and CEO). Esp. as the numbers and outlook look terrible
3.) Thinking that Tom Kirby is just one unimportand pawn in the game of some investors is missing the real situation. Tom Kirby led GW for years, made it a public company, bought lots of shares himself, was able to take Wells job inspite the obvious negative response of almost all shareholders, fired or drove away more brains (Priestley, Calvatore, Thorpe, Chambers, Juan Diaz) and replaced them with yes-men not hired for skills. Its like Putin: He was in charge even when nominally Medvedev was presdent.

Give up dude, some other dude says he is right and you're wrong, and he personally knows Dobson. Freakin Michael Dobson man! Hilarious.

No.. the problem is he is constantly making stuff up and portraying it as fact. Not understanding the the investment company and the plc are the same thing is a clear sign of ignorance. So was the automatic trades issue. He has not once admitted to have made a mistake.

Kroot, for your own good, take some time off discussing this topic. You aren't well versed enough to speak about it without having to resort to lying..

He didn't pull the Dobson card. Edited by a moderator.

Joyboozer wrote:

dereksatkinson wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
1.) Okay, difficult to track a company, that disappears from the investor chart and then reappears under a different name (even if it is just an error by GW). This leads to one less investor buying into GW and one more investor almost halfing its investment (9% in 2011 and years before, 5.3% now)
2.) I am not talking about a single company taking over GW. But obviously most investors are not happy with Wells leaving and Tom Kirby controlling Tom Kirby (as chair and CEO). Esp. as the numbers and outlook look terrible
3.) Thinking that Tom Kirby is just one unimportand pawn in the game of some investors is missing the real situation. Tom Kirby led GW for years, made it a public company, bought lots of shares himself, was able to take Wells job inspite the obvious negative response of almost all shareholders, fired or drove away more brains (Priestley, Calvatore, Thorpe, Chambers, Juan Diaz) and replaced them with yes-men not hired for skills. Its like Putin: He was in charge even when nominally Medvedev was presdent.

Give up dude, some other dude says he is right and you're wrong, and he personally knows Dobson. Freakin Michael Dobson man! Hilarious.

No.. the problem is he is constantly making stuff up and portraying it as fact. Not understanding the the investment company and the plc are the same thing is a clear sign of ignorance. So was the automatic trades issue. He has not once admitted to have made a mistake.

Kroot, for your own good, take some time off discussing this topic. You aren't well versed enough to speak about it without having to resort to lying..

He didn't pull the Dobson card. Edited by a moderator.

You know, it's not improbable for one person in the finance/investment industry to know another person in the finance/investment industry.

For example, you probably wouldn't believe that I was acquainted with the last head of Washington Mutual before it went under; Kerry Killinger. I used to work for the company and met him on several occassions during annual meetings. Later, when Citi bought our division of WaMu, I met Charles Prince who was CEO of that company while I worked there when I had to give a presentation at the home office. They're just regular human beings that happen to have really high paying jobs.

He probably does know him, it just didn't help his credibility to post it in that manner.

Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
the failure of TSR on a failure to communicate, and, more importantly, to listen to the market.

Well isn't that interesting...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
the failure of TSR on a failure to communicate, and, more importantly, to listen to the market.

Well isn't that interesting...

It seemed apropos....

And TSR, at the time, was also the market leader in their industry.... (And had earned the backronym They Sue Regularly.)

The Auld Grump, and TSR lost (or settled out of court) many more cases than they won....

dereksatkinson wrote:
All this before he stated that Schroders PLC and Schroders Investments were different entities.

Funny how you make things up:
I claimed that "Shroeder Investment Management Limited" and "Schroders plc" are different entities because the names don't share a single common word. Makes sense until you assume and/or find out that GW screwed up their official records big time.

BTW as anyone familiar with economics can tell both have a different legal status, one being a Public Limited Company (PLC) and the other being a Private Limited Company by shares (Ltd.). No expert in economics would claim both are the same.

Edit: Digging a bit deeper it seems that Schroders plc has alway been the holding behind Schroder Investment Management Limited and
Schroder Investment North America Management Limited ( http://www.investegate.co.uk/games-workshop-group--gaw-/rns/holding-s--in-company/200401121710171376U/ ). Records sometime mention one, sometimes the other, sometimes both, e.g. here:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/TR-1-fidelity-Jan-14.pdf

 tjnorwoo wrote:
Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money

In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.

 Kroothawk wrote:

dereksatkinson wrote:
All this before he stated that Schroders PLC and Schroders Investments were different entities.

Funny how you make things up:
I claimed that "Shroeder Investment Management Limited" and "Schroders plc" are different entities because the names don't share a single common word. Makes sense until you assume and/or find out that GW screwed up their official records big time.

BTW as anyone familiar with economics can tell both have a different legal status, one being a Public Limited Company (PLC) and the other being a Private Limited Company by shares (Ltd.). No expert in economics would claim both are the same.

Edit: Digging a bit deeper it seems that Schroders plc has alway been the holding behind Schroder Investment Management Limited and
Schroder Investment North America Management Limited ( http://www.investegate.co.uk/games-workshop-group--gaw-/rns/holding-s--in-company/200401121710171376U/ ). Records sometime mention one, sometimes the other, sometimes both, e.g. here:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/TR-1-fidelity-Jan-14.pdf

The implication you were making is that Schoders investment management had blown out it's shares and some other company had come in that wasn't affiliated with them. There was absolutely no need to say that.

GW issues the press release but the forms for disclosure of ownership (like a form 4 would be in the USA) are actually the responsibility of the entity that holds it. How Schoders wants to disclose ownership is entirely up to them. The same structures exist here in the USA with LLCs being the management company and LPs being the partnership. You can't read anything into whether they do the disclosure as an LLC, LP, PLC, or Ltd. It's just how they choose to account for it.

This isn't an issue of "economics". It's the legal disclosures that owners with controlling interest in a company must make. If they fail to disclose ownership, there could be severe consequences including losing their voting rights. That is why I have major doubts about the cloak and dagger narrative you've been touting.

Herzlos wrote:

 tjnorwoo wrote:
Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money

In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.

I don't understand the reason for it. Could you explain it to me?

 tjnorwoo wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 tjnorwoo wrote:
Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money

In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.

I don't understand the reason for it. Could you explain it to me?

Because FW let you pay in your currency, rather than GW, that has pricing by region.

 tjnorwoo wrote:
Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money

As GW does not publish exact figures, I can only give you wild and exciting conjecture (seems appropriate in this thread).

In their latest half-year report "All other sales businesses" (defined as: Forge World, Black Library, Digital Sales and Warhammer World) took in £7.3 million. From the previous year in the report, it looks like the second half-year is slightly smaller, so we'll call it an even £14 million for the year (was just below 13 million in 2012/13). Or about 10-12ish percent of total revenue.

How much each of these make up of that number would only be speculation, but I think it's relatively fair to say Warhammer World is minimal, while BL is probably the biggest. So, I don't know... FW revenue at about 5 or 6 million pounds per year? 7 maybe? Something like that.

Thud wrote:

 tjnorwoo wrote:
Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money

As GW does not publish exact figures, I can only give you wild and exciting conjecture (seems appropriate in this thread).

In their latest half-year report "All other sales businesses" (defined as: Forge World, Black Library, Digital Sales and Warhammer World) took in £7.3 million. From the previous year in the report, it looks like the second half-year is slightly smaller, so we'll call it an even £14 million for the year (was just below 13 million in 2012/13). Or about 10-12ish percent of total revenue.

How much each of these make up of that number would only be speculation, but I think it's relatively fair to say Warhammer World is minimal, while BL is probably the biggest. So, I don't know... FW revenue at about 5 or 6 million pounds per year? 7 maybe? Something like that.

Alright, so it is clearly a profitable segment of their business. Thanks for the response!

Im guessing digital sales will account for a larger percentage of sales in years to come. Especially if they can work out some of the kinks in the digital codex, like the system that is comparable to army builder at the end of the books. I for one would be more willing to buy digital content if it provided apps like army builder does or that is updated on a regular basis. I think that is one thing that I love about privateer press. They really have the digital rulebooks and list creators worked out nicely.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Herzlos wrote:

 tjnorwoo wrote:
Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money

In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.

Using mathHAMMER I just did some price comparisons accounting for the difference in currency between Australia and the United States. In Australia the valkarie cost 110AUD, and converting to AUD in the United states the Valkarie would only cost roughly 73AUD. That is around 150% mark up! However, there were some products such as the baneblade with much smaller mark ups. The baneblade in Australia costs 165 AUD and converting that to AUD in the United States would be 155AUD, which is only about a 6% mark up. I'm not exactly sure what the logic is there, but I can see now how my armies would come solely from forgeworld if I lived in Australia.

I plan on going to London for a week in spring. I guess I was niave to think buying products at warhammer world would be much cheaper.

 tjnorwoo wrote:
Using mathHAMMER I just did some price comparisons accounting for the difference in currency between Australia and the United States. In Australia the valkarie cost 110AUD, and converting to AUD in the United states the Valkarie would only cost roughly 73AUD. That is around 150% mark up! However, there were some products such as the baneblade with much smaller mark ups. The baneblade in Australia costs 165 AUD and converting that to AUD in the United States would be 155AUD, which is only about a 6% mark up. I'm not exactly sure what the logic is there, but I can see now how my armies would come solely from forgeworld if I lived in Australia.

I plan on going to London for a week in spring. I guess I was niave to think buying products at warhammer world would be much cheaper.

The reason the baneblade is such a small mark up is because it didn't go up down here with the Apoc release when it was repackaged to include all the variants. Since like.. the start of 2013 GW have been bringing worldwide pricing more in line with each other, the problem is it's in line with the Oz pricing. I think the Warriors of chaos general from the Feb '13 release cost the same in both regions. Over here our reaction to it was 'meh, more of the same pricing' over there the world was falling.

 tjnorwoo wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 tjnorwoo wrote:
Does anyone know what percentage of GWs sales come from forgeworld? I for one don't understand how people can afford a whole forgeworld army. I think I am a relatively well off American homeowner, but wow the prices seem steep to me. I also understand the time and energy to design, sculpt, and create the rules deserves a good price. I guess forgeworld is like the nordstroms of the gaming world and I'm not that rich. You really have to pick wisely these days with where you will spend your gaming money

In some parts of the world it's cheaper to buy Forgeworld than GW (Australia & Japan, at least, and increasingly in Europe as well). Hell, even in the UK there are some examples where the FW option is cheaper than the GW option, and the price difference is shrinking.

I don't understand the reason for it. Could you explain it to me?

Essentially for foreigners FW let you pay in GBP converted by your bank at a modern exchange rate, whereas GW's local currency rates are usually wildly out of sync (Australian stuff is about double - it's cheaper to buy from GW UK in GBP and ship it across the world than it is to buy in a store there. At least it was before GW banned that practice).

For the UK stuff it's because GW's prices have shot up dramatically whilst FW's have stayed pretty static.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tjnorwoo wrote:
I guess I was niave to think buying products at warhammer world would be much cheaper.

Warhammer world is full retail, and the stock is pretty much identical to every other GW in the world with the exception of a minimal selection of FW stuff. If you hang around long enough you can get other FW stuff send over without paying shipping.

But if you're in London I'd go to Darksphere and get the stuff you want for 25% off GW RRP.

Herzlos wrote:


Warhammer world is full retail, and the stock is pretty much identical to every other GW in the world with the exception of a minimal selection of FW stuff. If you hang around long enough you can get other FW stuff send over without paying shipping.

But if you're in London I'd go to Darksphere and get the stuff you want for 25% off GW RRP.

While I endorse your advice re Dark Sphere, I don't think that's true re Warhammer World and Forgeworld stuff. THey have a fair amount of product in racks behind the counter but you can get just about everything in the range; if you order by 2pm or so, it arrives at 5pm.

Altho there are a couple of company bores, most of the Warhammer World staff are great, and it is a wonderful location (altho if you don\t like burgers, you might not enjoy Bugman's bar)

 TheAuldGrump wrote:


The TSR takeover by WotC was an unusual occurrence - and had more to do with the fact that TSR was going bankrupt, and could be bought for pennies on the dollar and the fact that the upper management of WotC at the time were all gamers and game designers. (Even so, Dancey's description of the end of TSR is pretty sad reading. A warehouse full of unsellable product, that was still listed on the inventory sheets as though they held full value. Orders for production that far exceeded the projected sales of that product. *Cough* Dragon Dice. *cough, cough*)

Dancey blamed the failure of TSR on a failure to communicate, and, more importantly, to listen to the market.

The question may be - is Kirby any better than Lorraine Williams?

Actually, TSR was lucky that Peter Adkinson (then CEO of WotC) loved D&D and the D&D brand, and bought it for the sole purpose of saving it. Ryan Dancey noted in that same article, how even at pennies on the dollar, it was not a good buy from a strictly financial sense.

Is Kirby better than Lorraine Williams, no. He is actually worse. All the troubles GW are experiencing are 100% self-inflicted.

As for some of the speculations on stock. I wouldn't touch this stock with a thirty foot pole right now. The company is already in very deep trouble and they have run out of avenues to cover it up. This is a good reason so many large shareholders are dumping the stock. Three obvious warning signs:

1.) Double-digit sales decline was pretty universal globally. Looking at the actual market itself shows an average 8% CAGR since 2008 (most attributed to board games, but direct GW competition is showing growth while they fail).
2.) The fast reduction in CoH (cash on hand), resulting from an increased product release schedule - yet we still saw a double-digit decline in sales. On a side note, quite a long time ago, an investor much smarter than myself taught me to look at these two signs for signs of a company in trouble. This advice has been so accurate over my 25 years of investing it isn't even funny.
3.) The decision to move R&D from an expense item (where every company in the world reports it) to a cost of sales item (where the only company I have ever seen do this is GW). While I won't elaborate on why I think they did it, I will say that doing things like this usually is a result of trying to cover some really bad forthcoming information.

As an aside, strictly looking at the information available as a business man and not a hobbyist, GWs last financials CLEARLY show a management team who doesn't know what they are doing. Being that they mentioned their 1-man retail store operations, then blamed the drop in sales on the rapid transition to this. One doesn't need more than a middle-school education to understand this is a STUPID business strategy. Yes, it is stupid and it shows a complete lack of understanding for the retail environment yet claiming this is your main channel for getting people into the hobby. Retail is about hours of operation - it is a golden rule of retail. GW is going directly counter to that law and thus why they are failing miserably.

GW is showing all the signs of a company in very serious trouble and they are running out of avenues to cover it. They are acting more like Gil Amelio did at Apple just before Steve Jobs came back - throwing half-baked stuff out the door and hoping something sticks. Hope is not a strategy. When Steve came back, and the reason he saved Apple, was he focused the company around a strategy then delivered killer products along this strategy. GWs current strategy is simply MORE SALES. Great to say, except for one thing - they don't know HOW to get those sales anymore except by throwing things out the door and hoping something sticks.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Herzlos wrote:


Warhammer world is full retail, and the stock is pretty much identical to every other GW in the world with the exception of a minimal selection of FW stuff. If you hang around long enough you can get other FW stuff send over without paying shipping.

But if you're in London I'd go to Darksphere and get the stuff you want for 25% off GW RRP.

While I endorse your advice re Dark Sphere, I don't think that's true re Warhammer World and Forgeworld stuff. THey have a fair amount of product in racks behind the counter but you can get just about everything in the range; if you order by 2pm or so, it arrives at 5pm.

Altho there are a couple of company bores, most of the Warhammer World staff are great, and it is a wonderful location (altho if you don\t like burgers, you might not enjoy Bugman's bar)

They only really stock popular bits in the store; you might get lucky but it's a small range. Agreed if you order early enough and hang about you can get stuff cast to order (I think before 11am gets it to you for about 2pm too, but it may vary). They'll also do free shipping if you order it in the store, but I've no idea if that applies to overseas customers.

Thanks, Wayshuba, for your contribution to this thread. Makes all sense and is compatibel with how I see the situation.
BTW do you know Michael Dobson

Also, ICv2 published an interesting report yesterday:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28119.html

Hobby Games Up 20% in 2013
Fifth Consecutive Growth Year

The hobby game market grew 20% in 2013, according to a new report in ICv2’s Internal Correspondence #84, an increase over the 15% growth rate in 2012. Games have now been growing for a half decade; 2013 was the fifth consecutive growth year, with the average growth rate over that period nearly 15% per year.

The hobby game market has nearly doubled since 2008, according to the report.

The increase in sales has provided profits that are being plowed back into the industry at the retail level, with growth in retail square footage, expansion of play space, and investment in better play experiences.

Here is their top5 list in the "Non-Collectible Miniature Lines" (hobby channel) category:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/markets/28125.html

Here some discussion on this report:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/584632.page

 Wayshuba wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:


The TSR takeover by WotC was an unusual occurrence - and had more to do with the fact that TSR was going bankrupt, and could be bought for pennies on the dollar and the fact that the upper management of WotC at the time were all gamers and game designers. (Even so, Dancey's description of the end of TSR is pretty sad reading. A warehouse full of unsellable product, that was still listed on the inventory sheets as though they held full value. Orders for production that far exceeded the projected sales of that product. *Cough* Dragon Dice. *cough, cough*)

Dancey blamed the failure of TSR on a failure to communicate, and, more importantly, to listen to the market.

The question may be - is Kirby any better than Lorraine Williams?

Actually, TSR was lucky that Peter Adkinson (then CEO of WotC) loved D&D and the D&D brand, and bought it for the sole purpose of saving it. Ryan Dancey noted in that same article, how even at pennies on the dollar, it was not a good buy from a strictly financial sense.

And thus my comment on 'the upper management of WotC being gamers and game designers' - so no correction was needed there - it was already included in the portion that you quoted.

Is Kirby better than Lorraine Williams, no. He is actually worse. All the troubles GW are experiencing are 100% self-inflicted.

Debatable - TSRs problems were also self inflicted - and at least GW does not have products that cost more to produce than the product wholesales for.

Push comes to shove... both are pretty horrible CEOs - and both are self deluding micromanagers.

As for some of the speculations on stock. I wouldn't touch this stock with a thirty foot pole right now. The company is already in very deep trouble and they have run out of avenues to cover it up. This is a good reason so many large shareholders are dumping the stock. Three obvious warning signs:

1.) Double-digit sales decline was pretty universal globally. Looking at the actual market itself shows an average 8% CAGR since 2008 (most attributed to board games, but direct GW competition is showing growth while they fail).
2.) The fast reduction in CoH (cash on hand), resulting from an increased product release schedule - yet we still saw a double-digit decline in sales. On a side note, quite a long time ago, an investor much smarter than myself taught me to look at these two signs for signs of a company in trouble. This advice has been so accurate over my 25 years of investing it isn't even funny.
3.) The decision to move R&D from an expense item (where every company in the world reports it) to a cost of sales item (where the only company I have ever seen do this is GW). While I won't elaborate on why I think they did it, I will say that doing things like this usually is a result of trying to cover some really bad forthcoming information.

No disagreement there, at all. They have been hiding decreasing sales by decreasing costs - and they have pretty much run out of costs that they can safely cut.

As an aside, strictly looking at the information available as a business man and not a hobbyist, GWs last financials CLEARLY show a management team who doesn't know what they are doing. Being that they mentioned their 1-man retail store operations, then blamed the drop in sales on the rapid transition to this. One doesn't need more than a middle-school education to understand this is a STUPID business strategy. Yes, it is stupid and it shows a complete lack of understanding for the retail environment yet claiming this is your main channel for getting people into the hobby. Retail is about hours of operation - it is a golden rule of retail. GW is going directly counter to that law and thus why they are failing miserably.

GW is showing all the signs of a company in very serious trouble and they are running out of avenues to cover it. They are acting more like Gil Amelio did at Apple just before Steve Jobs came back - throwing half-baked stuff out the door and hoping something sticks. Hope is not a strategy. When Steve came back, and the reason he saved Apple, was he focused the company around a strategy then delivered killer products along this strategy. GWs current strategy is simply MORE SALES. Great to say, except for one thing - they don't know HOW to get those sales anymore except by throwing things out the door and hoping something sticks.

Like TSR - GW has fallen out of communication with their audience - but show no signs of trying to reopen communications.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

And thus my comment on 'the upper management of WotC being gamers and game designers' - so no correction was needed there - it was already included in the portion that you quoted.

Sorry, didn't mean for it to come off as a correction so much as an addition to your comment.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Debatable - TSRs problems were also self inflicted - and at least GW does not have products that cost more to produce than the product wholesales for.

Push comes to shove... both are pretty horrible CEOs - and both are self deluding micromanagers.

I agree they were both bad. However, Lorraine Wiliiams did come into a company that was in rough shape from the Blume brothers and fixed things. Ten years later, however, after things were all going her way, she ran it into the ground another way.

Kirby, on the other hand, has been lucky to have been involved with GW during their high-growth years. At least TSR can say they didn't have the internet. GW seems to be completely ignoring that the internet exists as a channel to such communication. They seem to intentionally be ignoring the outside world, and making sure they only hire people who live in the current GW bubble (i.e., that anything doesn't exist).

GW of today, reminds me more of Kodak. Few people know that Kodak could own every single camera used in the world today since they actually invented the original digital camera. But management saw the numbers from camera film and let it go since "digital was not going to be the future". Kodak was over $60 billion in sales then. Today, they are forecasting just over $2 billion after emerging from bankruptcy and they are no longer in the photography business at all.

GW is making some of the exact same mistakes as Kodak and TSR did.

Since this is a topic I find of complete relevance to today's GW, I have started a separate thread about this striking comparison here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/584858.page#6634067

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Herzlos wrote:


Warhammer world is full retail, and the stock is pretty much identical to every other GW in the world with the exception of a minimal selection of FW stuff. If you hang around long enough you can get other FW stuff send over without paying shipping.

But if you're in London I'd go to Darksphere and get the stuff you want for 25% off GW RRP.

While I endorse your advice re Dark Sphere, I don't think that's true re Warhammer World and Forgeworld stuff. THey have a fair amount of product in racks behind the counter but you can get just about everything in the range; if you order by 2pm or so, it arrives at 5pm.

Altho there are a couple of company bores, most of the Warhammer World staff are great, and it is a wonderful location (altho if you don\t like burgers, you might not enjoy Bugman's bar)

Thanks for the tip!

 Wayshuba wrote:
...Kirby, on the other hand, has been lucky to have been involved with GW during their high-growth years. ...

Ton Kirby was General Manager when GW were expanding in the 90's, led the management buyout, then took the company public later on and has run the company profitably since then.

Unpopular with customers, out of touch, mercilessly driven to squeeze every penny from hobbyists maybe and Tom Kirby may be allot of other things (successful?) but lucky doesn't seem to be one of them.

Saying he has been lucky is to dismiss the obvious success that GW has been, whether he is the right man to take the company forward at this point is open to debate what isn't debateable is that he's done a good job in the past (commercially speaking). I say he took the risk and therefore got the reward he deserved, but then I also say that GW should be making Epic 30k so what do I know......?

I don't know what you know, but Epic 30K?

I nominate you for CEO of GW!

Free titans, free Beetleback titans for everyone, Huzzah!!

Started at 505p share price today, then a buy for 258k GBP (50k shares).

 Kroothawk wrote:

Here is their top5 list in the "Non-Collectible Miniature Lines" (hobby channel) category:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/markets/28125.html

Now this is interesting. Not to pull this thread massively off topic, but IIRC, Warhammer Fantasy was third on the list ~12 months ago, while 40K was at #1. Interesting...

 liquidjoshi wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

Here is their top5 list in the "Non-Collectible Miniature Lines" (hobby channel) category:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/markets/28125.html

Now this is interesting. Not to pull this thread massively off topic, but IIRC, Warhammer Fantasy was third on the list ~12 months ago, while 40K was at #1. Interesting...

Yep, now they're not even on the table. No wonder the rumors about Fantasy getting a new update and ditching Wood Elves and Brets are circulating.

But, 40k is still on top, even after the massive success of X-Wing.

I wouldn't be surprised if all this movement is in part due to the big drop a little while ago. An investor wanting to invest in something else that's up and coming.

All in all, unless there's another massive drop, I'm not too concerned personally. There are all sorts of things that happen to stocks for reasons far more arbitrary than any listed in this topic.

Anyone know the date of the next financial statement?

Before we get all excited over those positions and numbers let's all remember that there are some inherent flaws to that data and it is an incomplete data source. Now, I am not saving there arent issues and that WFB isnt suffering but those numbers are not giving a complete picture.

As regards dates for Financial Statements, GW year end is I believe May. The release of the 10K to the public domain can be somewhere between 1 and 3 months.