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 Baragash wrote:


Wait, you're still telling someone they're factually wrong about something you're factually wrong about?

All right. Than help me out...

1. Accounting: used to characterize income earned and expenses incurred during the normal course of a business that affect the profit (bottom line), but not the capital, of the company.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/above-the-line.html#ixzz34zLFfE7G

Question 1: Is it a factually correct statement that Games Workshop PLC - as an entire company - is currently "below the line" and in need - as H.B.M.C. states - of being taken "above the line" by a high-margin product such as, presumably, 40K 7th Edition? (assuming the above accounting definition of "below/above the line").

Question 2: Identical to question 1, but assuming "below/above the line" as used by H.B.M.C. was some sort of casual short-hand-reference for "bottom line", or a similar concept?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Baragash wrote:


Wait, you're still telling someone they're factually wrong about something you're factually wrong about?

All right. Than help me out...

1. Accounting: used to characterize income earned and expenses incurred during the normal course of a business that affect the profit (bottom line), but not the capital, of the company.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/above-the-line.html#ixzz34zLFfE7G

Question 1: Is it a factually correct statement that Games Workshop PLC - as an entire company - is currently "below the line" and in need - as H.B.M.C. states - of being taken "above the line" by a high-margin product such as, presumably, 40K 7th Edition? (assuming the above accounting definition of "below/above the line").

This isn't a question, the definition of above the line does not work and has no meaning in this context.

Now, instead of trying to use me in a proxy war with HBMC, admit that the definition you gave was also completely wrong, then I'll consider engaging with the rest of the tangent, and I'll explain the definition better as well.

Exactly, "the bottom line" is referring to a completely different "line" than above/below the line, which has already been adequately defined ITT.

So essentially, two pages have been wasted by a non-financial person trying to incorrectly correct another non-financial person who accidentally used an accounting term in a non accounting sense.

Can we move on now?

 Baragash wrote:


Now, instead of trying to use me in a proxy war with HBMC, admit that the definition you gave was also completely wrong, then I'll consider engaging with the rest of the tangent, and I'll explain the definition better as well.

Sure. My definition was wrong.

 Wayshuba wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:


When the core game rules change it forces people to upgrade or drop out.

Yes, it does. Unfortunately, by many indicators, it appears more players have opted for the latter than the former this time around. When more opt for dropping out, this becomes a lot less for "upgrading" at a later point. Couple this with the insanity of the price point now, which are keeping many new players from coming into the HHHobby, and you are not replacing the customer base attrition fast enough.

Not entirely true, most of us *coughs* oldies who started back in 90's at the age of 10+ or at least my little gathering of friends have lists we like to run dating back to first ed apocalypse in excess of 5k, our armies have outgrown the 3 4'x4' tables our stores have to offer, and the only way to get a large scale game in the form of teaming up with a 500-1k point limit per player limit. I wouldn't claim to have OCD but 5k of multi-coloured marines vs everything else just looks a bit sad and doesn't correlate to anything I've read.

However we're all questionably grown up now and have houses, with spare rooms, attics, garages and/or garden sheds so we occupy this space with our 6x8 Tables.

We only need 7th edition to enter tournaments or to play in store, stores open part time, we work full time.
At homes we can play any edition we please making 7th edition an optional extra. Without the addition of someone trying to push us other things because their job (sadly) depends on it. We can pick our copies up from the charity shop when some poor parent Invested the £250 for there child to start gaming to quit after 4 weeks because they couldn't win.

It doesn't drive us away from the hobby as we've invested allot of time (2/3s + of our lives) money and effort into the Game and Hobby, it just drives us away from entering stores and tournaments increasing that drop in store sales.

Our Young ones are of the "who would win in a fight" kind of mentality, mainly because they are young, so unless we explain it to them the alternative is give them 3 fairly substantial books and say go figure it out. As youngster today with smartphones, consoles and more than 4 channels of TV would that would instantly kill any thought taking up our tradition of hobbying. So it's not a question of replacing the customer base fast enough, it's now replacing it at all from that perspective.

What I find slightly amusing is the fact they've had 6 attempts (just at the 40k BRB) and 25+ years at essentially Inventing the game for them still manage to get it wrong, I must check up on my chess rules, hmm, no update necessary

 azreal13 wrote:
Exactly, "the bottom line" is referring to a completely different "line" than above/below the line, which has already been adequately defined ITT.

I thought it was perfectly obvious what I meant - this report will be a good one for GW - but it appears that one cannot be perfectly obvious to the perfectly obtuse.

I think the financial and business folks all telling the same story of a strong outcome for sadness this fiscal year holds more weight than the non-fiscal-folks saying "Nu-Uh! And it's still profits!"

You've got gents here, gents on warseer, and gents like Mr. Beeble singing the same song. So we can either shoot the moon and say it's a conspiracy and they don't know what they're talking about (or it's all one clever, clever troll) or go with Occam's Razor: We know the companies been hurting, have been erratic, and have been doing a lot of really stupid things. These aren't signs of a healthy organization. They reported a profit at their 6 month, but the stock still tanked greatly so something tells me that isn't the only important metric.

I think the report is going to be universally bad, but not as terrible as it'd have been without 7th Ed.

 TheKbob wrote:
I think the financial and business folks all telling the same story of a strong outcome for sadness this fiscal year holds more weight than the non-fiscal-folks saying "Nu-Uh! And it's still profits!"

You've got gents here, gents on warseer, and gents like Mr. Beeble singing the same song. So we can either shoot the moon and say it's a conspiracy and they don't know what they're talking about (or it's all one clever, clever troll) or go with Occam's Razor: We know the companies been hurting, have been erratic, and have been doing a lot of really stupid things. These aren't signs of a healthy organization. They reported a profit at their 6 month, but the stock still tanked greatly so something tells me that isn't the only important metric.

Again, the key is in the detail. The world isn't a simple black-and-white, good or bad, dichotomy.

Just because some people point out that the ultra-bleak predictions by some people aren't accurate, doesn't mean they don't acknowledge that there are problems.

Just because there are problems with GW's business model, doesn't mean that there are no other possible reasons for GW's troubles (including - as shocking as it may sound - those listed by Mr. Kirby in the financial report), which many doomsayers like to ignore for they spoil their simplistic causality of what they would like to see as (exclusively) causing GW's (serious, but not fatally so) problems.

Herzlos wrote:
I think the report is going to be universally bad, but not as terrible as it'd have been without 7th Ed.

This, in a nutshell.

I can't imagine the one man store model has helped either. I felt the urge to expand my paint collection, and had an appointment almost next door to my local GW, so decided to call in and pick up some restocks and a few new colours.

"This store is closed due to unforeseen circumstances open again Thursday"

This was Tuesday, the store is already closed Sun/Mon because the manager (who's a decent bloke and the only reason I even consider buying paint there) lives miles away and relies on a train to get there, and there are no trains in a Sunday. So we're talking about a store that is already closed for what must be one of the stronger trading days every week, closed for what must be 4 days straight.

I don't blame the staff, real life happens sometimes, and illness or other high priority commitments sometimes have to take precedence, but this can't be an isolated incident, and how much, over the whole company, is this costing them, in conjunction with all the other factors that must be eating into their bottom line?

So I went home and ordered £20 worth of Vallejo online, as if I've got to wait anyway, why not order a better value brand in a container I prefer using?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zweischneid wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:
I think the financial and business folks all telling the same story of a strong outcome for sadness this fiscal year holds more weight than the non-fiscal-folks saying "Nu-Uh! And it's still profits!"

You've got gents here, gents on warseer, and gents like Mr. Beeble singing the same song. So we can either shoot the moon and say it's a conspiracy and they don't know what they're talking about (or it's all one clever, clever troll) or go with Occam's Razor: We know the companies been hurting, have been erratic, and have been doing a lot of really stupid things. These aren't signs of a healthy organization. They reported a profit at their 6 month, but the stock still tanked greatly so something tells me that isn't the only important metric.

Again, the key is in the detail. The world isn't a simple black-and-white, good or bad, dichotomy.

Just because some people point out that the ultra-bleak predictions by some people aren't accurate, doesn't mean they don't acknowledge that there are problems.

Just because there are problems with GW's business model, doesn't mean that there are no other possible reasons for GW's troubles (including - as shocking as it may sound - those listed by Mr. Kirby in the financial report), which many doomsayers like to ignore for they spoil their simplistic causality of what they would like to see as (exclusively) causing GW's (serious, but not fatally so) problems.

Really Zwei?

Ok, you can bang your "balance is bad" drum, because, ultimately, that's a subjective discussion and you're entitled to think whatever you like, but this is a discussion based in hard fact, and on a topic you've very recently, and very clearly, demonstrated you don't have a sound grasp of, so posts like this really are fingers in the ears, la-la-la-ing.

The only reason Kirby listed in the last report for the downturn in the last report was the change to the one man model, and while that is a blatantly bad idea to anyone with a brain, they're still forging ahead with it, and given the smorgasbord of perfectly reasonable excuses he could have put forward to explain the downturn, many of which would have been both understandable and unprovable, that this was the only one offered speaks, to my mind, of a dramatic lack of insight.

I want to see if I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Last year they spent cutting everything they could and raising prices in order squeeze out as much profit as they could. They also began pumping out sourecbooks and dataslates as fast as possible that were low quality and high price.
Next year, they'll have nothing left to cut and no "new edition" to increase their sales. So even if they look good at this end of the year report, they'll be hurting far more next year.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I want to see if I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Last year they spent cutting everything they could and raising prices in order squeeze out as much profit as they could. They also began pumping out sourecbooks and dataslates as fast as possible that were low quality and high price.
Next year, they'll have nothing left to cut and no "new edition" to increase their sales. So even if they look good at this end of the year report, they'll be hurting far more next year.

Fantasy 9th is rumoured for September. 2015 though? That is a bleak looking year, but we wont see that till 2016. Which if GW keeps with what its doing is when 40K 8th is coming out.

Herzlos wrote:
I think the report is going to be universally bad, but not as terrible as it'd have been without 7th Ed.

Indeed, the question then becomes; what about next year? Unless GW plan to release 8th ed next year they have nothing to shore up their sales, WHFB 9th isn't going to do it as its a dying game by all accounts, LOtR and the Hobbit are essentially dead games and there are no other options left.

GW may even be forced to do something radically sensible and re-release some of its specialist (aka good) games or Warhammer Quest.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I want to see if I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Last year they spent cutting everything they could and raising prices in order squeeze out as much profit as they could. They also began pumping out sourecbooks and dataslates as fast as possible that were low quality and high price.
Next year, they'll have nothing left to cut and no "new edition" to increase their sales. So even if they look good at this end of the year report, they'll be hurting far more next year.

Dataslates only started appearing in greater numbers in December 2013 with the digital advent calendar. The last financial report we had only runs up until November 30th 2013.

Dataslates, among with 7th Edition, were clearly one of the attempts to revitalize their business. Whether that strategy worked or not is yet to be seen.

 Palindrome wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
I think the report is going to be universally bad, but not as terrible as it'd have been without 7th Ed.

Indeed, the question then becomes; what about next year? Unless GW plan to release 8th ed next year they have nothing to shore up their sales, WHFB 9th isn't going to do it as its a dying game by all accounts, LOtR and the Hobbit are essentially dead games and there are no other options left.

GW may even be forced to do something radically sensible and re-release some of its specialist (aka good) games or Warhammer Quest.

I'd suggest WHFB 9th could be enough to turn things around.

The trouble is, it would have to redefine the genre in terms of rules quality and playability in order to do so, and somehow solve the issue of a much wider variety of cheaper third party rank and file models than 40K, and I just don't think GW have it in their locker to do so, unfortunately.

 P4Painting wrote:

 Wayshuba wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:


When the core game rules change it forces people to upgrade or drop out.

Yes, it does. Unfortunately, by many indicators, it appears more players have opted for the latter than the former this time around. When more opt for dropping out, this becomes a lot less for "upgrading" at a later point. Couple this with the insanity of the price point now, which are keeping many new players from coming into the HHHobby, and you are not replacing the customer base attrition fast enough.

Not entirely true, most of us *coughs* oldies who started back in 90's at the age of 10+ or at least my little gathering of friends have lists we like to run dating back to first ed apocalypse in excess of 5k, our armies have outgrown the 3 4'x4' tables our stores have to offer, and the only way to get a large scale game in the form of teaming up with a 500-1k point limit per player limit. I wouldn't claim to have OCD but 5k of multi-coloured marines vs everything else just looks a bit sad and doesn't correlate to anything I've read.

However we're all questionably grown up now and have houses, with spare rooms, attics, garages and/or garden sheds so we occupy this space with our 6x8 Tables.

We only need 7th edition to enter tournaments or to play in store, stores open part time, we work full time.
At homes we can play any edition we please making 7th edition an optional extra. Without the addition of someone trying to push us other things because their job (sadly) depends on it. We can pick our copies up from the charity shop when some poor parent Invested the £250 for there child to start gaming to quit after 4 weeks because they couldn't win.

It doesn't drive us away from the hobby as we've invested allot of time (2/3s + of our lives) money and effort into the Game and Hobby, it just drives us away from entering stores and tournaments increasing that drop in store sales.

Our Young ones are of the "who would win in a fight" kind of mentality, mainly because they are young, so unless we explain it to them the alternative is give them 3 fairly substantial books and say go figure it out. As youngster today with smartphones, consoles and more than 4 channels of TV would that would instantly kill any thought taking up our tradition of hobbying. So it's not a question of replacing the customer base fast enough, it's now replacing it at all from that perspective.

What I find slightly amusing is the fact they've had 6 attempts (just at the 40k BRB) and 25+ years at essentially Inventing the game for them still manage to get it wrong, I must check up on my chess rules, hmm, no update necessary

I think this is definitely one where YMMV. In my neck of the woods, of the 24+ "old timers" (I will be 49 very soon!) we had playing in the area, all but three of us have divested out of GW completely, compliments of ebay. However, of the three remaining, one currently has his army on ebay, and I am down to two armies (Space Marine and Eldar), having sold a TON of 20+ years of GW stuff in the last two months and I am very close to putting the last two armies up for lack of anyone playing. The young ones in the area (those being in their late teens to early 30s) haven't even started on the GW bandwagon. Bolt Action and Infinity have taken off here in the last year very, very quickly (according to the store owner, Infinity just started barreling off his shelves in the last two months alone to the point he can't stock it fast enough) and have replaced all 40k play at my rather large FLGS. There is also quick a bit of Warmahordes and a smattering of Malifuax, Hell Dorado and X-Wing thrown in.

As I mentioned earlier, it used to be that GW releasing a new edition meant everyone got it. In my area (a rather sizable city in the northern mid-west of the US), not a single copy of 7th edition was wanted, or sold, and therefore the store owners decided not to even get a single copy. I've read similar stories at many other stores and recently even heard from a friend of mine who has run a GW store in the US for 10 years that his sales have dropped like a rock (down 70%) since the beginning of the year.

I think there are some pockets of the opposite happening. But at one time, there were no pockets. GW releasing a new edition used to be guaranteed high volume sales. Now, not so much.

 Wayshuba wrote:

I think this is definitely one where YMMV. In my neck of the woods, of the 24+ "old timers" (I will be 49 very soon!) we had playing in the area, all but three of us have divested out of GW completely, compliments of ebay. However, of the three remaining, one currently has his army on ebay, and I am down to two armies (Space Marine and Eldar), having sold a TON of 20+ years of GW stuff in the last two months and I am very close to putting the last two armies up for lack of anyone playing.

I first started collecting 40k seriously with the 2nd ed boxed set,1993 according to wikipedia, and during the course of 2nd edition I had armies for every single army and 3-4 different Marine armies, some of them pretty large. I stopped playing 40k during 3rd ed and since then I have been steadily reducing the 40k models I own. All I have left is a Deathguard army which will probably never see a table again, a metal Catachan army that I am slowly repainting but will again probably never see a table and a big box full of the remnants of a dozen armies destined for ebay. I have neither the space nor the inclination to keep effectively useless, and badly painted, armies around the house.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Just because there are problems with GW's business model, doesn't mean that there are no other possible reasons for GW's troubles (including - as shocking as it may sound - those listed by Mr. Kirby in the financial report), which many doomsayers like to ignore for they spoil their simplistic causality of what they would like to see as (exclusively) causing GW's (serious, but not fatally so) problems.

Then there are those of us who have been around the business block long enough to know when we are reading corporate double-speak, which is everything Kirby has been writing, to know when things are worse than they are becuase we have read it so, so many times before.

Here, let me give one example of why GW's current business model is very bad based on their last financials. As they have become absolutely addicted to maximizing their profit on each and every miniature sale, it means a small drop in revenues makes a LARGE drop in profits. Thus why last period, with an 11% decline in revenue you saw a 30% decline in profits.

Also, as pointed out in the very recent Part 14, if GW percentage of dividend to profit is still historically accurate, it would mean a much as a 60% decline in profits. If that is the case, it would mean a second period decline of about 20% in revenues. If that is the case, I will stick with my assertion that GW isn't declining - they are collapsing. And then, we will all see just how fast companies can go to bottom, even after 30 years in business. Just look at TSR as an example of how fast it can happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Palindrome wrote:
GW may even be forced to do something radically sensible and re-release some of its specialist (aka good) games or Warhammer Quest.

They may, but at this point, I think it is too late.

Release Epic - oh, their all still playing Dropzone Commander.
Release Mordheim - oh, their all still playing Malifaux, Hell Dorado or Godslayer
Release Necromunda - what the heck is this Infinity game I keep hearing about?
Release Space Hulk - dang that PP and their Level 7 game
Release Man O' War - how can anyone still want to play that game that outsold 40k by 7 to 1 in some areas
Release Warhammer Quest - nah, we'll all just stick with our Descent collection
Release Battlefleet Gothic - why would anyone want to play in the Star Wars universe when ours is so much bigger?

In other words, the opening they gave the market has been so filled with solid competition (not to mention GW would probably charge $250 for their new Specialist Games) that now have the leg up on GW.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Wayshuba wrote:

I think this is definitely one where YMMV. In my neck of the woods, of the 24+ "old timers" (I will be 49 very soon!) we had playing in the area, all but three of us have divested out of GW completely, compliments of ebay. However, of the three remaining, one currently has his army on ebay, and I am down to two armies (Space Marine and Eldar), having sold a TON of 20+ years of GW stuff in the last two months and I am very close to putting the last two armies up for lack of anyone playing.

I first started collecting 40k seriously with the 2nd ed boxed set,1993 according to wikipedia, and during the course of 2nd edition I had armies for every single army and 3-4 different Marine armies, some of them pretty large. I stopped playing 40k during 3rd ed and since then I have been steadily reducing the 40k models I own. All I have left is a Deathguard army which will probably never see a table again, a metal Catachan army that I am slowly repainting but will again probably never see a table and a big box full of the remnants of a dozen armies destined for ebay. I have neither the space nor the inclination to keep effectively useless, and badly painted, armies around the house.

Which is a shame, because, somewhere, in amongst all the customer-exploitation, poor executions of actually decent concepts, poor rules writing and totally inexcusable lack of rules maintenance and adjustment, there is still a game that can be a lot of fun, it is just conditional on a group of players with like minded attitudes being lucky enough to be in close proximity to one another.

My fervent hope is that GW can survive a good kicking, learn some humility and get back in track, my greatest concern is that it's already too late.

 Wayshuba wrote:


Then there are those of us who have been around the business block long enough to know when we are reading corporate double-speak, which is everything Kirby has been writing, to know when things are worse than they are becuase we have read it so, so many times before.

Then there are those of us who have been around the business block long enough to know that customers almost always give too much weight to their personal grievances as causal factors to the performance of a company.

Indeed, the tendency to favour your own personal bias in interpreting a correlation of two events is probably the most common error in both business and academia.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Wayshuba wrote:


Then there are those of us who have been around the business block long enough to know when we are reading corporate double-speak, which is everything Kirby has been writing, to know when things are worse than they are becuase we have read it so, so many times before.

Then there are those of us who have been around the business block long enough to know that customers almost always give too much weight to their personal grievances as causal factors to the performance of a company.

Indeed, the tendency to favour your own personal bias in interpreting a correlation of two events is probably the most common error in both business and academia.

Have you tried one of these?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Wayshuba wrote:


Then there are those of us who have been around the business block long enough to know when we are reading corporate double-speak, which is everything Kirby has been writing, to know when things are worse than they are becuase we have read it so, so many times before.

Then there are those of us who have been around the business block long enough to know that customers almost always give too much weight to their personal grievances as causal factors to the performance of a company.

Tell that to TSR. If customers don't like a product, they don't buy it. If customers don't buy a product, the company making that product collapses.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Wayshuba wrote:


Then there are those of us who have been around the business block long enough to know when we are reading corporate double-speak, which is everything Kirby has been writing, to know when things are worse than they are becuase we have read it so, so many times before.

Then there are those of us who have been around the business block long enough to know that customers almost always give too much weight to their personal grievances as causal factors to the performance of a company.

Indeed, the tendency to favour your own personal bias in interpreting a correlation of two events is probably the most common error in both business and academia.

Um, yeah. I reference financials and business performance. Which are identifiable facts. Personally, I could care less if GW lives or dies. I don't own stock in them so no skin off my back. The gaming community in my local area is still strong - just no longer with GW - so my gaming fix is still taken care of. There is no bias in sighting numbers - when looking at all of them. They exist, they are real, and a company just turning a profit does not mean they are still healthy.

However, declining double digits in revenue in a market growing by double digits, with competition that is all growing, is enough evidence that things are not looking bright in the near future.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Tell that to TSR. If customers don't like a product, they don't buy it. If customers don't buy a product, the company making that product collapses.

Lots of interesting lessions there....

1994 saw the release of the Planescape campaign setting.[9]

By 1995, TSR had fallen behind both Games Workshop and Wizards of the Coast in sales volume.[20] Seeing the profits being generated by Wizards of the Coast with their collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, TSR attempted to enter this market in 1995 in a novel way with Dragon Dice. Similar to collectible card games, each player started with a random assortment of basic dice, and could improve their assortment by purchasing booster packs of more powerful dice. In addition to this initiative, TSR also decided to publish twelve hardcover novels in 1996, despite a previous history of publishing only one or two hardcover novels each year.[20]

Sales of Dragon Dice through the games trade started strongly, so TSR quickly produced several expansion packs. In addition, TSR tried to aggressively market Dragon Dice in mass-market book stores through Random House. However, the game did not catch on through the book trade, and sales of the expansion sets through traditional games stores were poor. In addition, the twelve hardcover novels did not sell as well as expected.

Despite total sales of $40 million, TSR ended 1996 with few cash reserves. When Random House returned an unexpectedly high percentage the year's inventory of unsold novels and sets of Dragon Dice for a fee of several million dollars, TSR found itself in a cash crunch. With no cash, TSR was unable to pay their printing and shipping bills, and the logistics company that handled TSR's pre-press, printing, warehousing and shipping refused to do any more work.

- Planescape has a strong fan-following, even until today (~ Blood Bowl?), but never was a viable product.
- Attempts to "copy" other companies model, like Dragon Dice, proved to be a short-term success, but a long-term disaster (would the same happen if GW "copied" the success of Privateer? Corvus Belli?).
- Returned inventory through 3rd party distributors (book trade) proved problematic in anticipating cash needs (is GW decreasing the reliance on 3rd party FLGS and 3rd party book-trade in favour of BL-direct a good response to this?)

If you look at the numbers, GW were as profitable if not more so in 2012-2013 than at any time in the past 10 years.

It has been achieved by efficiency savings and increasing prices.

That is why the Dec 2013 report was a shock, because it may indicate that GW have cut too far or increased prices too much.

Here are three GW fans (Michael Bartels is a huge GW fan - but he also doesn't have blinders on) on Beeble Babble 9 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amVo18EJbUY#t=7818

Perhaps the most telling comment in the whole discussion is this one from Dizzy Angel Demon (at the 2:09:14 mark):

"I know a lot of people in the hobby and gaming and they have given up on GW already. They've moved on and found other avenues. Then you got your hardcore fans that are really trying their best to stick with them, but they're going to sink with the ship."

When you have a 3 hour discussion on the problems with GW, it is very apparent that things are blantantly obvious to almost everyone at this point that GW is in serious trouble.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you look at the numbers, GW were as profitable if not more so in 2012-2013 than at any time in the past 10 years.

It has been achieved by efficiency savings and increasing prices.

That is why the Dec 2013 report was a shock, because it may indicate that GW have cut too far or increased prices too much.

Yes, it may indicate that

However not: It must indicate that.

Crucial difference.

And the "market grows by double digit" stuff has been misquoted for ages. The "Tabletop games" market grew strongly, led by MtG, a strong demand for board games and surprise hits like the My Little Pony CCG.

Miniature games (as sub-market I suppose) have been shrinking (despite X-Wing even). Of course, GW's drop alone might account for much of that, but I don't think it is a coincidence that ... say ... Privateer is branching into Board Games (e.g. Level 7 stuff), etc....

The miniature games market might not be as hot as people think it is.

 Zweischneid wrote:

Miniature games (as sub-market I suppose) have been shrinking (despite X-Wing even). Of course, GW's drop alone might account for much of that, but I don't think it is a coincidence that ... say ... Privateer is branching into Board Games (e.g. Level 7 stuff), etc....

The miniature games market might not be as hot as people think it is.

Evidence?

All the indicators I see (anecdotal and otherwise) contradict that statement.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you look at the numbers, GW were as profitable if not more so in 2012-2013 than at any time in the past 10 years.

It has been achieved by efficiency savings and increasing prices.

That is why the Dec 2013 report was a shock, because it may indicate that GW have cut too far or increased prices too much.

Yes, it may indicate that

However not: It must indicate that.

Crucial difference.

And the "market grows by double digit" stuff has been misquoted for ages. The "Tabletop games" market grew strongly, led by MtG, a strong demand for board games and surprise hits like the My Little Pony CCG.

Miniature games (as sub-market I suppose) have been shrinking (despite X-Wing even). Of course, GW's drop alone might account for much of that, but I don't think it is a coincidence that ... say ... Privateer is branching into Board Games (e.g. Level 7 stuff), etc....

The miniature games market might not be as hot as people think it is.

Citation needed on other tabletop games shrinking.

 MWHistorian wrote:

Citation needed on other tabletop games shrinking.

They are not. Other Tabletop games are growing strong, as said, with CCG (first and foremost MtG) and board games being the main sources of growth.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/27015.html

The secular changes in gaming that are fueling tabletop game play were intact through 2013, with strong sales in both new products and classics driving the growth. Sales were up 15% in 2012 (see "Fourth Consecutive Growth Year"), with strong momentum through 2013 [...], with bellwether Magic: The Gathering leading the way (see "'Magic' Up 30% in Q3").

[...]

The growth rate for Magic compares favorably to Hasbro’s peer brands in a couple of ways: 30% greatly exceeded the 6% overall growth in Hasbro’s game category, and the 19% overall growth in what Hasbro calls its "franchise brands," key company-owned brands including Magic, My Little Pony, Nerf, Transformers, and Play-Doh.

That is the stuff that keeps referred to when people say "GW is in a growing market", though it's clearly not the direct GW-competition that seem to be driving the trend.