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 Vulcan wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Sort of a little secret...someone always has to make the first step.

If you play at a local store, buy yourself a starter or two from a game that interests you (and by starter - I mean the fairly balanced X vs Y deals most companies offer). Paint up the army, learn the rules, then head on over to the store on open game nights. Most people are open to try a new game - especially when you have two painted armies for them to choose from to play with. Repeat for a few weeks. Gamers with their own armies for any given system will sprout like weeds. In a few months time - you will be able to pick up a random game or quite likely see the store move to support your efforts by scheduling Infinity nights to help encourage the sales.

It isn't really a significant investment for most systems, and I have yet to see that simple technique fail. You can normally even get with the manufacturer/publisher to get discounts or other perks for your efforts. Back when GW cared about growing their system - that is what they did.

Well, there's one other little problem. I'm not big on skirmish games. I prefer to work with big blocks of troops, not lots of individuals. D&D is my goto for individual combat. I prefer mass combat games to be REALLY mass combat.

Yeah, there's Kings of War. Not bad, if a bit stripped down. Still prefer WFB... and it would be a shame for it do disappear.

I find that I prefer KoW - but, yeah, a maneuvers based miniatures game is a very different bird than a skirmish level game with individual models.

Kings of War has replaced Warhammer for my group - but that is mostly because of a strong and growing local dislike for the most recent edition of Warhammer.

Most folks are playing KoW with their Warhammer armies.

The Auld Grump

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 slowthar wrote:
So this morning I had a bit of an epiphany that I actually am starting to root for GW's current approach.

That wasn't an epiphany slowthar, it's a concussion. Go see a doctor.

Have an exalt.

 slowthar wrote:
So this morning I had a bit of an epiphany that I actually am starting to root for GW's current approach. Here's why.

I've been on these forums a lot lately, arguing for things like balance and better price/value ratio from 40k. What I've found is that there's just a contingent of people who, no matter what, will appear to defend anything GW does tooth and nail, and go to tremendous length to logically justify their position.

That used to annoy me, but what I realized this morning is that I don't really have a horse in the race anymore; all my 40k stuff has either already been eBayed or will be shortly, and I'm not really planning on getting back into it now that I've tried some other games. Therefore, while I've concluded that I would never run a business like GW in the same manner as they seem to run themselves, I'm actually starting to cheer for them to keep doing it, for these reasons:

1. I want to see how far they can take this business model.

I want to see if they can put out a new edition every year or every other year, charge $150 a pop for the regular release, and get somewhere around $600-$1000 for a limited edition, and actually still have people buy it and rabidly defend it. Codices: $100. Space marines: $20 apiece. Tanks: $125. I want to see how long they can actually stay in business by doing that, and I think that once they do finally fail, the postmortem analysis will be fantastic and insightful.

2. I think it's actually good for a lot of FLGSs.

I was in a well-established FLGS the other day, talking to one of the staffers there, and we noted that the new raptors box that just came in was $3 more than the one sitting on the shelf. The only difference between these two kits is new box art. I said, "Wow, really?" and he replied, "Yup, it's Games Workshop. If they can do it, God bless 'em," and just sort of sighed and smiled at the same time. What I realized at that moment is that 40% (or whatever his cut is) of that $3 goes into his pocket. So while he feels some remorse that his customers aren't getting as much value as he'd like, he also realizes that the price hikes help his bottom line out a bit as well.

3. I think it's good for the industry as a whole.

To me, I see a 40k as a game that's basically hemorrhaging players while not bringing in many new ones due to the high cost of entry. I think this creates a space for new games to grow to fill that void, but it can happen slowly instead of GW suddenly failing and creating a vacuum. That allows other companies to slowly grow, compete, and gradually improve their player base and product, rather than have to rush to grow too quickly. I think this could lead to a new "golden age of gaming" where, instead of one company being almost the entire hobby, we see a huge variety of great games from great companies at a great price. I think we are on the verge of that now, these smaller companies just need to get a little stronger foothold in markets across the world.



So, that's my stance. Posting this is somewhat cathartic, and beyond that this is to appeal to others that have been having similar, red-hot arguments all over this board and just say: let them go. Walk away from GW and its fanbase and let's focus on positivity and growing other games in the hobby. For me, I already know what game I'm going to be focused on in the near future, but if I see you at a gaming store, feel free to introduce me to something new.

Keep the hope alive, bro!! don't let them take it away!

I for one don't agree, but I won't get in your way for being positive.


By the way, are those cars free? Where can I go and pick one of those abandon cars up at?

I have a few extra quid this month, and I was looking at the new rule book for 40k.

But then I remembered that in the less-than-three years since I started back in the hobby I have had 2 space marine codecies (3, actually, but I haven't bought the new one) and two Lizardman army books. That's some outlay. Granted I had an outdated SM codex to start, but still!

So this extra cash is going on two infinity starter sets.

I'll still play 40k when I get chance, and have yet to still play my eldar(!) so am I still invested in that regard.

Regardless of what you play, enjoy it, have fun, avoid TFGs or mock them mercilessly for being cretins!

May you roll high, unless you need to roll low.

 Ehsteve wrote:
GW isn't going anywhere anytime soon. There is no debt issue, their asset base is solid and there has been no capital reduction.

The issue is that there it is getting tougher to squeeze dividends out of the company due to thinning margins. Their shares have been recently corrected by the market so we could well see people buying in expecting them to become overpriced again in the future, but that said this is a mature company so we're only seeing funds looking for a stable income investing in large portions.

It will be years (I'd say at least 5+) before anything will eventuate.

Not for anything but people said the same about this company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSR_(company)) and this company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation) and this company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_computers).

Fact is, debt has little to do with a sign of a company that can or cannot get in trouble - everything is revenues. If your revenues as a company drop fast enough, you WILL be in trouble. Cost cutting only can happen so fast. If revenue thresholds cross that lead to rapid erosion of the customer base and revenues, you can be out of business, very, very fast. Having no debt and also little revenue, is a company in trouble. They still have a certain amount of direct costs that must be covered (buildings, leases, utilities, etc.). If the revenues drop fast enough to not cover them, you WILL be out of business.

Common signs of companies that have crossed that threshold (not just GW): Revenue declines in growing markets (double digit declines in a double digit growth market is an especially bad sign). Revenue declines despite a rapid product release schedule. Pricing increases of 50%+ to try and stem the tide of the revenue loss (a knee jerk reaction that always has the opposite effect than intended). Acceleration of burning cash on hand (meaning investments are no longer paying off). Retreating from channels to "centralize" management of product lines. Directly competing against channels because they are not "selling enough of your product" thereby turning your channel into competitors. For global companies, circling the wagons around your central HQ so they can directly manage the business (which is impossible to micro-manage on a global scale). Cutting company off from outside channels of communication and feedback so the company internally can pat themselves on the back of what a great job they are doing while their market share is goobled up by competition. Not understanding and delivering products that customers want, thereby further losing market share. Refusing to recognize competition from other sources (because they are not the exact same as our product) further losing market share (ask Kodak how defending film was from digital cameras because digital cameras were not the same as film based cameras worked out for them - even considering they invented the digital camera).

It just so happens, those are the signs of companies that were gone very shortly after a lot of them appeared. Interestingly enough, GW is showing ALL of them. Given this, their next period financials, with the massive increase in product releases will be the telling sign. I, for one, am curious just how much cash on hand they burned through to accelerate these releases and if it stopped the overall revenue decline. If they did gain some growth (or stay flat), it still doesn't mean it is good - the change in cash on hand will determine that. If they spent a lot of that CoH, just to stay flat or squeak a little growth - that is something that is also unsustainable - but could prolong their death.

Edit: Here is an interesting trend to see this. For 6th edition they did 5,000 LEs which sold in a matter of hours. For 7th edition, they did 40% of the run (2,000) and, as of this writing, a week after being able to order them they still have 40% of the copies left. So for 6th, they sold LEs at a rate of 1,250 copies an hour - for 7th, to date, that ratio has dropped to 10 per hour. That is a MASSIVE drop in rate of sales.

GW in my opinion is far too specialised, being now essentially a producer and retailer of WH40K with some Fantasy on the side.

The game is dependent on the network effect. People play it because it is widely played. If players drop away, the network effect might go into reverse and sink the game rather quickly.

That is what I would be worried about if I was GW's management. However, I don't think they are worried about it, because they would not be doing so many things to annoy and turn away veterans if they thought the network effect was important.

GW presumably calculate they can continue to sell to newbies and the portion of the veterans who will stay faithful no matter what.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW presumably calculate they can continue to sell to newbies and the portion of the veterans who will stay faithful no matter what.

I agree, which is why they have been doing the insane pricing hops they have - for those veterans that will lap up anything GW, they will continue to try and fleece as much from their wallets as possible.

Arguably, while the quality continues to drop (which even from veterans you have been hearing a lot more of about the books since the end f last year - very little crunch and A LOT of filler). However, in so doing, GW doesn't seem to realize that they effectively are pricing themselves out of capturing new players- who pretty much choke when they see the prices on GW stuff. Starting with their rule book being $85 when every single other game on the market with full-color rule books are in the $30-$40 range.

The quality of models is all right.

GW must know how many units they sell because they have EPOS information. They ought to be able to data mine for connections between say a new codex like the Knight Titan book and sales numbers if Knight Titan kits.

If they have good historical information they could even tell how fast sales are likely to ramp up and down for new editions and so on.

 Wayshuba wrote:

Edit: Here is an interesting trend to see this. For 6th edition they did 5,000 LEs which sold in a matter of hours. For 7th edition, they did 40% of the run (2,000) and, as of this writing, a week after being able to order them they still have 40% of the copies left. So for 6th, they sold LEs at a rate of 1,250 copies an hour - for 7th, to date, that ratio has dropped to 10 per hour. That is a MASSIVE drop in rate of sales.

That says it all..................

How accurate are those figures?

 Palindrome wrote:

 Wayshuba wrote:

Edit: Here is an interesting trend to see this. For 6th edition they did 5,000 LEs which sold in a matter of hours. For 7th edition, they did 40% of the run (2,000) and, as of this writing, a week after being able to order them they still have 40% of the copies left. So for 6th, they sold LEs at a rate of 1,250 copies an hour - for 7th, to date, that ratio has dropped to 10 per hour. That is a MASSIVE drop in rate of sales.

That says it all..................

How accurate are those figures?

I'm not saying it says it all - just saying it is another trend in otherwise a series of downward trends. Of course, it could also just be the $340 price tag. Thus why the $100 AM LE Codex sold out but the $250 SM Ultimate Edition is still available months after being produced. You figured GW would have learned with that but no, they will continue to stretch the boundaries of pricing until eventually there are no customers left who will pay what they are asking.

As for the figures, most know what 6th was at launch and 7th can be viewed now (2,000 copies with 318 left) and we know when pre-orders went live.

$340 is just too much money, surely. GW have simply priced it too high.

If sales of the core rulebooks fell off like that it obviously would be much more damaging.

I know it's anecdotal, but at my FLGS sales of 6th edition were MUCH stronger than 7th.

Brother Gyoken wrote:
I know it's anecdotal, but at my FLGS sales of 6th edition were MUCH stronger than 7th.

posted elsewhere.

 reds8n wrote:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28707.html

The seventh edition of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000, which launched last Friday, is outselling Sixth Edition, which launched two years ago (see “Warhammer 40k Sixth Edition Rulebook’”). “We’re already beating the sales numbers we did on the last edition,” Games Workshop Director of North American Sales Trade Recruitment Matt Lewandowski told ICv2. “It’s selling better because it’s a better product, and long term what will happen is that our customers will vote with their wallets and you’ll see great things from this edition.”

Lewandowski explained the differences in play between the two editions. “The 7th Edition of 40k is going to change the way that people build their armies,” he explained. “It’s going to revolutionize how we build our armies and play the game. Previously there was a very structured way that you would organize and build your armies. You’d use what’s called a Force Organization Chart. You have to have so many troops and so many heroes, etc.

“You can still build your army that way in the new edition, but in addition to that, you can build your army using something called Unbound, which quite literally means there are no restrictions. You take any model you like, regardless of point value, size, anything, and you can put it together and build an army. So literally there are no limits. You can do anything you want whether it’s a background story and replicating that, whether it’s just I like these ten models and they look great, or I want to have these five characters and they’re really cool together, and do it.”

The core product is a slipcased set of three hardcovers: A Galaxy of War is 144 pages explaining the art of collecting and painting armies; Dark Millennium is 128 pages describing the setting of the 41st Millennium; and The Rules is a 208-page rulebook for Warhammer 40,000. The set retails for $85.

 loki old fart wrote:

Brother Gyoken wrote:
I know it's anecdotal, but at my FLGS sales of 6th edition were MUCH stronger than 7th.

posted elsewhere.

 reds8n wrote:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28707.html

The seventh edition of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000, which launched last Friday, is outselling Sixth Edition, which launched two years ago (see “Warhammer 40k Sixth Edition Rulebook’”). “We’re already beating the sales numbers we did on the last edition,” Games Workshop Director of North American Sales Trade Recruitment Matt Lewandowski told ICv2. “It’s selling better because it’s a better product, and long term what will happen is that our customers will vote with their wallets and you’ll see great things from this edition.”

Lewandowski explained the differences in play between the two editions. “The 7th Edition of 40k is going to change the way that people build their armies,” he explained. “It’s going to revolutionize how we build our armies and play the game. Previously there was a very structured way that you would organize and build your armies. You’d use what’s called a Force Organization Chart. You have to have so many troops and so many heroes, etc.

“You can still build your army that way in the new edition, but in addition to that, you can build your army using something called Unbound, which quite literally means there are no restrictions. You take any model you like, regardless of point value, size, anything, and you can put it together and build an army. So literally there are no limits. You can do anything you want whether it’s a background story and replicating that, whether it’s just I like these ten models and they look great, or I want to have these five characters and they’re really cool together, and do it.”

The core product is a slipcased set of three hardcovers: A Galaxy of War is 144 pages explaining the art of collecting and painting armies; Dark Millennium is 128 pages describing the setting of the 41st Millennium; and The Rules is a 208-page rulebook for Warhammer 40,000. The set retails for $85.

Yup. Because a sales director from GW said so. Of course he said the numbers, which at $10 more a pop for the rules means the revenue could be better, but the volume down. Also, for a company who NEVER talks with the general press, seems funny they want to mention it this time. Call me skeptical, but it sounds more like propaganda.

I'll wait for the GW financials to see what really has happened.

 Wayshuba wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:

Brother Gyoken wrote:
I know it's anecdotal, but at my FLGS sales of 6th edition were MUCH stronger than 7th.

posted elsewhere.

 reds8n wrote:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28707.html

The seventh edition of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000, which launched last Friday, is outselling Sixth Edition, which launched two years ago (see “Warhammer 40k Sixth Edition Rulebook’”). “We’re already beating the sales numbers we did on the last edition,” Games Workshop Director of North American Sales Trade Recruitment Matt Lewandowski told ICv2. “It’s selling better because it’s a better product, and long term what will happen is that our customers will vote with their wallets and you’ll see great things from this edition.”

Lewandowski explained the differences in play between the two editions. “The 7th Edition of 40k is going to change the way that people build their armies,” he explained. “It’s going to revolutionize how we build our armies and play the game. Previously there was a very structured way that you would organize and build your armies. You’d use what’s called a Force Organization Chart. You have to have so many troops and so many heroes, etc.

“You can still build your army that way in the new edition, but in addition to that, you can build your army using something called Unbound, which quite literally means there are no restrictions. You take any model you like, regardless of point value, size, anything, and you can put it together and build an army. So literally there are no limits. You can do anything you want whether it’s a background story and replicating that, whether it’s just I like these ten models and they look great, or I want to have these five characters and they’re really cool together, and do it.”

The core product is a slipcased set of three hardcovers: A Galaxy of War is 144 pages explaining the art of collecting and painting armies; Dark Millennium is 128 pages describing the setting of the 41st Millennium; and The Rules is a 208-page rulebook for Warhammer 40,000. The set retails for $85.

Yup. Because a sales director from GW said so. Of course he said the numbers, which at $10 more a pop for the rules means the revenue could be better, but the volume down. Also, for a company who NEVER talks with the general press, seems funny they want to mention it this time. Call me skeptical, but it sounds more like propaganda.

I'll wait for the GW financials to see what really has happened.

Won't we all ?

I am willing to believe that the initial orders are strong - that is based on how many are sold to the stores. It is the actual sales by those stores that will matter.

4e D&D got clobbered by that - initial sales were very strong, but then the books just stayed on the store shelves... or worse, in unopened cases.

Then again, I know a lot of folks that skipped 6ed, so it is not outside of the realm of possibility that these sales will be reflected by retail sales... if they fixed the problems.

The Auld Grump

With all the releases of digital codex's / rule books etc. Piracy could be a big problem aswell.

At this stage in my gaming career, I find GW's antics as a company far more entertaining than either playing their games or building their models!

And talking of interest, one of my favourite commentators on matters GW has just posted a good post on Warseer:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?394884-Games-Workshop-Stock-Prices-The-Future-and-Cats-Without-Sufficient-Coffee

Reinholt wrote:
Games Workshop, Stock Prices, The Future, and Cats Without Sufficient Coffee

I made a terrible mistake this morning, and I read this article on BoLS.

After shaking my head sadly, turning my attention back to work for a while, downing an entire large coffee, and diving deep into the morass of negotiating legal terms around trades, I came back to it. I shook my head again.

So, I wanted to post this on Warseer (my favorite grounds for this kind of thing, truth be told), and see if I can start a discussion that would actually clear up some of the misconceptions around GW and what is actually going on with them as a business, from a financial perspective.

As a little background, I work on Wall Street. Not literally; the only actual bank left on the physical street is DB and virtually none of the buy side firms are there. Most of the banks are now scattered throughout midtown ranging down into flatiron, and a few are downtown. The asset managers are shotgunned across NYC, Jersey, and the rest of the northeast (and are spreading into the west), and hedge funds... well, look, three dudes, one computer, and a broom closet can qualify as a hedge fund, so what the hell can I really say? Point is, I have an MBA from a top-tier school, I run a trading desk, and I've been doing this for a while. I would caveat that all of this is my personal opinion, I am in no way representing any firm, and that none of this is intended as investment advice (I own no GW stock). In fact, you probably shouldn't read it. Your eyes will likely start bleeding, you will wail and gnash your teeth, and then you will smash your forehead through your monitor / ipad / tinfoil hat. Consider yourselves warned. After that, I will take questions.

Why shareholders are not the problem, or at least not in the way people think they are

Public companies are beholden, first and foremost (though not always only) to their shareholders. Those are the people who, you know, literally own the thing. GW has them. There are those who claim that GW is run by some shadow conspiracy, or in the palm of Tom Kirby as a maniacal dictator, or that a small group of nefarious insiders are deliberately destroying the company. All of these things are untrue. Several of them are also illegal.

If you want to know who owns GW, all you need to do is have a Bloomberg terminal, grab the GAW ticker, and run the OWN and HDS reports, which helpfully gives you the owners of the firm. Roughly speaking, GW has a pretty atomized ownership structure. ~14.5% percent appears to be owned by insiders (Kirby, other directors, former c-level executives, etc.), ~81% of the owners are from the UK, ~80% are owned through investment advisors (retirement funds, asset managers, and the like), and the largest individual holding is around 7% (Kirby).

In a technical sense, to have a controlling interest in a public firm, you need > 50% of the voting shares of a company. Nobody is close to that with GW. What you should realize, however, is that 80% ownership of investment advisors in a very small company means that it is unlikely anyone is paying much attention to GW at all, as they care about the returns of their portfolios, and GW is a tiny piece of your portfolio. GW is a tiny, tiny fish in the global stock market. To put this in concrete terms: Apple is worth 2,758.92 times as much as GW at the time of this writing. Worrying about GW for most portfolio managers would be like worrying exactly how much change is in your couch while your ferrari is on fire in the driveway. It's literally not worth their time.

In a literal sense, firms like this often tend to be inefficient. This is why activist shareholders and hedge fund managers can make money (think of them as adults who show up and rudely force the children to behave), why managers can do things that are destructive to the long-term interets of the shareholders for long periods of time before anyone notices, and why companies often take forever to die even if they are terrible (because nobody is paying enough attention to take their ball away). If GW's behavior looks mildly insane, as though no adult supervision is going on, or as though nobody who really knows how to run a business is paying attention, that's probably because all of those things are likely to be true.

With that said, there are generally two things that can make you a successful public company in the long run:

1 - You consistently grow your customer base while preserving your margins (eventually). Growth is the key driver of most (though not all) stock prices. Grow, grow, grow, grow, and figure the rest out later is a recipe several firms have used successfully. These firms tend not to pay dividends (they are re-investing the money to grow the firm), have increasing sales and customer bases, and are largely valued on the basis of future earnings.

2 - You have a stable customer base, a strong edge/moat, and return tons of capital to your shareholders while earning an above-market return on your capital. This is less common, because most companies are unable to accept they are out of growth. Even more so, most companies are bad at returning capital for all kinds of issues I won't get into here. However, when you find the companies that do this, they are often undervalued and hugely valuable.

I would suggest that GW is neither of those, which leads me to a core point: GW's problem is not being a public company. There are plenty of successful public companies. The shareholders are not demanding that GW sacrifice their future and destroy all of the capital they have been given to get some pissant 2% dividend today. The shareholders are not demanding that GW shrink their customer base, release books ridden with typos and unclear language, and open and close their stores at erratic hours with unsuitably low staffing levels. The shareholders want a stable, average to above-average long-term return on their capital.

The problem with GW is their management, and the fact that nobody is paying attention from an ownership perspective (and probably won't be until GW is in much worse shape than they are now).

Stock prices are an excellent indicator of how bad humans are at stock pricing

You shouldn't read too much into GW's short term price movements. My favorite example of this sort of issue was Lehman Brothers. In early 2008, it was trading for roughly $20 per share (adjusted for splits, etc, as best I can from the historical data I have handy). At the end of 2008, it was trading for $0 because it was dead. What will GW's stock price be a year from now? Will it even have a stock price a year from now?

Note: I am not predicting anything here. I am merely pointing out that we love to imply meaning into things that may not have any discernable meaning when it comes to patterns, and stock prices bring out the worst in the human mind about this.

In aggregate, in the long run, I do believe stock prices tend to be correct-ish. However, correct on average does not mean correct at any given moment, and especially does not mean correct about what the future price will be. Just remember: all firms will eventually go bankrupt, shut down, or be acquired. Nothing lives forever.

Whenever anyone writes an article primarily focused on the changes in stock price without a clear explanation of why that price is changing (as the price, over the long run, should reflect the actual fundamental performance of the firm), you should ignore it, because they aren't communicating any information and probably have no clue what they are talking about (or have a clue but can't communicate it, which isn't any more helpful to you as a reader). If they can communicate it, you should still think long and hard about if you believe they are correct. There is far more bull---- about finance out there, due to a combination of lack of knowledge and people trying to take your money, than there is useful information. You should be reading even what I am writing here with a skeptical eye (though at least I'm not trying to sell you anything). I can assure you I am not always right.

WTF is actually going on with GW then, you stupid looking orange cat?

If I were to boil GW's problems down to a few key points, it would be the following:

1 - Uneven product quality
2 - Mismatch between production & design, pricing model, and customer/segment expectations
3 - Lack of business capability at all levels of the firm

These problems, to be clear, are not unusual. I've seen them in many, many situations over time. Most small to medium size firms are terribly managed, and GW is remarkably average in that regard. To that end, all of their problems can be traced back to poor management (and I'd be glad to expound of any of these points as I have in the past, if anyone is even more of a masochist than most people who have read this far).

This is the key: poor management is leading to products that don't match what the customers want, to pricing that is actively adversarial to the goal of selling to customers and retaining them, to confrontational/absent relationships with a customer base that wants to be engaged or independent sellers, and to opening up market spaces for competitors to consistently chew away at GW.

In terms of observables, there has been a single trend that has concerned me about GW for 5+ years now: losing customers. Even if you raise prices enough to cover the lost revenue, this cannot continue forever. Eventually your customers will go to zero (more realistically, the price increases stop working at some point, which is about where GW put themselves today, and now they aren't smart enough to figure out how to get back out of it).

Mr. Orange Cat, GW is profitable now and you are just some idiot blowhard on the internet. How dare you question them?

Hyperboli aside, this is another line of thought I often see (GW is still in business, so they are fine), to which I offer the long-running counter-example of companies like GM, Lehman, or any of the thousands of small and meidum sized companies that have gone bankrupt. Perhaps Sears is a good example of a downtrend right now. Companies are fine until they are not. Problems are usually observable before profits go completely to hell. This is why some companies in the red are not considered problems (they are in the red because they are either growing rapidly and funding that expansion, or because of temporary/fixable issues), and some companies in the black are considered problems.

Or, to put another way, would you argue that the train is still on the rails, so it's not a problem, even if it was about to ram straight into another train in 10 seconds?

Past performance is not an indicator of future performance. All firms that went bankrupt were operational at some point prior to that. I am not predicting the imminent demise of GW, either. I am predicting that they will either be gone (through bankruptcy or being eaten by someone bigger), or much smaller in the next decade-ish if they don't change their ways.

So what could change things and what is a "turn around"?

This one is simple: GW will have turned around when they being growing at the same rate as the segment again, retaining their current customers, and adding new customers.

Until this happens, the rest is all just hot air. If you want to argue things at GW have changed, you need to argue they are adding people instead of losing them. That is the bottom line. Anything else is just noise.

Okay, that's the majority of what I have to say for now, but if anyone was foolish enough to read all of that, I'm glad to discuss/debate/expound of any of it. Enjoy.

Thanks for the post, Osbad. It was very interesting to read, certainly thought-provoking. It should definitely be read in conjunction with the stuff in "The Future of Games-Workshop" thread as far as a business-perspective on what's going on.

As an RT veteran I'm sad to see GW descend into what it's becoming. But as it is now, it's not a company I'm willing to support with my money. I used to defend GW but now I wish it would fall. It took over twenty years for me to reach this point. But now I'm looking at other games out there that actually make me excited and communicate with their fan base. That'll be a big change.

I've pass the point of caring for GW. I'm not impartial to their sucess or dimise. Nowdays I just buy what I think is nice and of value from GW from my own judgement.

That being said. I picked up the 7th BRB and 'Visions of Hersey' and found great value in both books (at 25% discount from FLGS).

2/3rds of the way through the rules book of the "trilogy".

The degree of copy/paste from 6th is painful.

Yes, there are changes, small tweaks but many core mechanics still there.

I am TRYING to imagine a new potential player looking at this thing:
"Are those the rules?"
Yes but mainly in the third book...
"How many pages?"
Little over 200.
"How much?"
$100 dollars.
"Is that everything I need to play?"
No, dice, templates, codex, starter army...
"Is that an X-wing starter pack?"
Yes...
"Are the rules inside that small box?"
Yes...
"I get everything I need in it to play?"
Yes...
"How much?"
$35...
"I think I will play X-wing."

Until they can find some flash (another fancy starter box anyone??) it is going to be ugly for a few months.

Erethor wrote:

dereksatkinson wrote:
If you want an example of a company that is "in trouble" you look at something like General Motors where they are having to resort of channel stuffing and thousands of unsold new cars go rot in the middle of nowhere...



Point is.. when you start seeing inventory actually start backing up, take note.. Until then, there really isn't a problem here considering how crappy the economy is doing as a whole.

Those are actually cars from Avonmouth Docks, England. From 6 years ago, when car sales in the UK hit an all time low. Not General Motors.

Sorry for the off-topic. It's just that I see this falsehood get passed around so often.

Not only wrong about the company and location, but wrong about why there are lots like that all over the world (link is spoilered for NSFW language):



New cars are commonly parked like that, especially near ports for loading or after offloading, and before being sent to dealerships. Auto makers like to keep a backlog of 60 or so days worth of cars (in terms of how fast they expect to sell them) so they don't have shortages. Sometimes they overshoot (as the article states, during a bad winter or a major economic collapse) but they cut their production to compensate and focus on moving unsold stock. Even during the recession, in 2009, over ten million new cars were sold in the US alone.

The idea that a major manufacturer isn't doing their level best to match production to demand is ludicrous. And it's not like car makers never idle their plants or close them permanently when they aren't profitable. The enormous expense of manufacturing millions of cars and not selling them would put them out of business pretty quickly.

(sorry for the off-topic reply but I have a short fuse when it comes to garbage conspiracy theories getting passed around)

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

New cars are commonly parked like that, especially near ports for loading or after offloading, and before being sent to dealerships. Auto makers like to keep a backlog of 60 or so days worth of cars (in terms of how fast they expect to sell them) so they don't have shortages. Sometimes they overshoot (as the article states, during a bad winter or a major economic collapse) but they cut their production to compensate and focus on moving unsold stock. Even during the recession, in 2009, over ten million new cars were sold in the US alone.

The idea that a major manufacturer isn't doing their level best to match production to demand is ludicrous. And it's not like car makers never idle their plants or close them permanently when they aren't profitable. The enormous expense of manufacturing millions of cars and not selling them would put them out of business pretty quickly.

(sorry for the off-topic reply but I have a short fuse when it comes to garbage conspiracy theories getting passed around)

I'd also throw out there, if they get images of these sorts of lots anywhere near hollywood, those cars get recycled quite a bit as well, since most studios will use a crapload of cars for their movies... For instance, in F/F the movie makers probably had 4-5 copies of each "showcase" car (ie, 4-5 Eclipses, 4-5 RX-7s, etc), but in this case, each one of the same model car has a different purpose (usually, one is for photo shoots, one is fixed up for most driving shots, one is a "rubber band car" as it can easily explode for multiple takes, one will have the rigs for interior shots mounted on it, etc)

 loki old fart wrote:
With all the releases of digital codex's / rule books etc. Piracy could be a big problem aswell.

Oh, I reckon it's a HUGE problem at this stage - and only going to grow - especially given all of the online-only e-dataslates and such, combined with incredibly high prices for the books (and worse for Aussies and Kiwis, etc) When the choices to buy a book or download a dodgy torrent of the rules become more and more stark, even honest people like myself who always bought all of the books (yes, really - I like owning physical books) can start to take pause...

 Maddermax wrote:

 slowthar wrote:

I want to see if they can put out a new edition every year or every other year, charge $150 a pop for the regular release, and get somewhere around $600-$1000 for a limited edition, and actually still have people buy it and rabidly defend it. Codices: $100. Space marines: $20 apiece. Tanks: $125. I want to see how long they can actually stay in business by doing that, and I think that once they do finally fail, the postmortem analysis will be fantastic and insightful.

Step 1: Go to GW site.
Step 2: Set your location to Australia.
Step 3: Congratulations, you have now seen those prices, or at least close to.

Just buy from Alpha hobbies. It's approaching reasonable and he offers a flat 25% discount on most things.

I actually don't think the 7ed BRB is priced too horribly - three hardcover books for around $100 from GW? I'm surprised they didn't want 100 each considering the way the pricing has gone. Maybe that's one of their hidden strategies - make everything else so expensive that a slightly less-expensive product comes off as a deal.

Well let's just consider for a minute that two years ago on this date you would have bought the 5th edition book for £30 and if that was too much money you could have bought the 5th edition starter box for £50 that had the soft-back rules and a butt-load of great models in it. A codex cost £12 to £18 depending on thickness.

Basically GW have managed to double the price of all the books in two years just by putting on hard covers and splitting the core ruleset into fluff/art/rules books.

I like the fluff/art/rules split but not if I have to buy all three that I don't want for a higher price.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well let's just consider for a minute that two years ago on this date you would have bought the 5th edition book for £30 and if that was too much money you could have bought the 5th edition starter box for £50 that had the soft-back rules and a butt-load of great models in it. A codex cost £12 to £18 depending on thickness.

Basically GW have managed to double the price of all the books in two years just by putting on hard covers and splitting the core ruleset into fluff/art/rules books.

I like the fluff/art/rules split but not if I have to buy all three that I don't want for a higher price.

Do you mean to say 6ED? Wasn't that the newest edition two years ago? It makes sense that you could buy an out-dated BRB for less if not. Anyway, one of the best deals in a very long time to come out as far as 6ED was the Dark Vengeance box set - that is one thing that GW did very fairly and will hopefully continue with.