Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Dr Ransom, please stop taking things from my mind and putting them on the internet. Seriously I'm going to have to start wearing a tin-foil hat.

Backfire wrote:

Litcheur wrote:

Despite some easy frags on our wallets : Imperial Knights, 7th edition...

The next financial report will be dreadful.

The "GW had <insert huge release here> yet the numbers are bad" argument comes out every year. I don't really buy it. Sure, it may have some effect but generally every year there is something "big" coming up which will cause splash and get people buy (or so GW hopes).

Please give me a chance of fixing my own post.

GW has released seven codex supplements (incl. Iyanden, Legion of the Damned and Farsight), 2 Imperial Guard codexes (Imperialum Guardia, Tempestus), 3 vintage codexes (Sisters, Inquisition, Knights), Eldars, Tyranids... and Space Marines, AND 7th ed.

I'm not even mentionning the new prices. And the results are still awful.

Orks have been released, Space Wolves too. What's can GW do now? Release Taus again?
I don't know about you, but even if they're supposed to be "older codexes" (according to the flying rodent gak insane release schedule) I don't find Necrons and Grey Knights to be that old.

I wouldn't say that 40k doesn't sell anymore, but GW have clearly put all their eggs in the same basket for 2013-2014. If 9th ed WHFB isn't a success, GW's going to be in serious trouble...

Litcheur wrote:

Orks have been released, Space Wolves too. What's can GW do now? Release Taus again?
I don't know about you, but even if they're supposed to be "older codexes" (according to the flying rodent gak insane release schedule) I don't find Necrons and Grey Knights to be that old.

I wouldn't say that 40k doesn't sell anymore, but GW have clearly put all their eggs in the same basket for 2013-2014.

If you search older threads, you will see that this line has been paraded around forever:
-GW was going to sink in 2012, but got bunch of artificial revenue boost from paint range renewal. Next year, they're gone
-Ok they didn't sink yet but that's because they released 6th edition 40k and Starter set, their biggest sellers. They've got nothing for the next period.
-if it wasn't for their fluke goal with Tau release and Riptide, they would have surely gone under
etc.

GW is not going to run out of things to release anytime soon. What they can potentially cash in for this period or the future?
-Space wolves and Blood angels
-Sisters of Battle
-Fantasy 9th edition and Starter kit
-more campaign boxes like Storm claw
-another Knight is likely on the works, "army" with just 1 model is kinda daft
-release a new Army. Kislev for WHFB, or Mechanicus for 40k or something like that.
-Smaug. Few people care about the game, but a good looking Dragon is a sure-fire seller.
-more supplements. Mordians for AM, Salamanders for Space Marines, Thousand Sons for CSM, Exodites for Eldar etc.
-if everything else fails, they know they can always cash in quickly with new edition of Space Hulk.

So on, the idea that they have ran out of potential "Messias titles" is preposterous. Of course, it's true they could always just screw things up (next edition Fantasy a messy flop, outrageous prices, silly cartoony models) but the potential is still there.

Backfire wrote:
If you search older threads, you will see that this line has been paraded around forever:

Bollocks imo. Even if you accept people said that (I don't remember it being widely said), there's a huge difference between Tau getting released compared to 7th edition being released + top seller (SMs) being released + second top seller (IG) being released + something unique and expensive being released (IK) all within half a year.

 Yonan wrote:
I don't like completely discounting peoples opinions and viewpoints, but sometimes there's no choice when they completely ignore easily digestible facts with obvious causes and ramifications like this. These results are even worse than a lot of us expected, we thought that 7th ed + SMs + IG would have been enough to keep GW going fairly strong - they weren't. If these, GWs top 3 products (right?) couldn't do great things, along with the huge amount of DLC which GW has been trying to push which is basically printing money for anyone (foolish imo) purchasing them then there's no sugar coating it - GW is in trouble.

It makes you wonder what things would have been like without the Knights and 7th Edition.

I have to say I assumed 7th Edition would sell 100,000 copies straight off the bat, bringing in £5 Million to make the end of year figures look a lot better. Maybe it did that well but sales elsewhere drooped badly?

Maybe the Knight Titan, for all its enthusiastic reception, actually appeals only to a relatively small number of players.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Murdius Maximus wrote:
I honestly think that in order for GW to save themselves, they need to do the following:

1) Lower prices. You cannot tell me that molds are expensive, because they made that back 100 times within a few months of the product being on the shelves. $82 for a Stormraven, $74 for a Land Raider, $78 (might be a bit off on this one) for three frakkin Centurians is criminal, and it kills interest for people to get into the game because of the expense. It is NOT expensive to produce these models, so a price drop would sell more models and help with profitability.

2) Interact more with the community, and keep open lines of communication. How hard is it to answer simple rules questions or discrepancies? I am all about the roll off, but honestly some rules just need clarification. Drop the cone of silence. Have an active FB page and Twitter feed to answer rules questions or promote new things.

They could also do well with listening to the community for things that the game is trending about and make adjustments as necessary. I could go on with this topic forever, but will close it with, listen to your customers, we know what's up.

3) Make editions last longer. Stop nerfing units, instead add new units to counter 'broken' or 'op' units. I personally believe you should either buff existing units, leave them the same, or do nothing to them at all. This will ensure that the people who spend money on a particular unit now, won't feel like they wasted their money because in the next edition it sucks.

While not really a true fix, as I don't know what their bottom line is, I know that these things are tried and true methods to keep a player base going and bring in new players. GW won't go under, but it is extremely disconcerting to see Kirby announce that he is stepping down, just ahead of dropping what I can see as awful sales figures for the year.

Given a competent CEO stepping into place, this could be done successfully and really turn GW's image and sales around. I would love to see this happen, as I love the 40k universe and the products. Doubtful it will happen, or at least at such a magnificent extent, but I would love to see this happen.

The only way I see GW turning things around is by firing every executive in the company & hiring people that actually care. Customers have been unhappy with Games Workshop for years. The prices are completely 100% unsustainable. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, 40K use to be in every FLGS in my area. It was insane. It made magic tournaments looks like nothing. Now? Barely a handful of FLGS carry GW products & 70% of the stores I use to frequent are out of business. As a customer I am seriously at the point where I want to see Games Workshop go under so that another company can purchase the IP & return it to its former glory.

There is a massive difference between a single release just to top up revenue, to match or slightly beat last years turn over.
(Alongside cost cutting of course.)

To releasing a new edition of the best selling game and the the most popular codex book and a host of expencieve kits within 6 months and STILL loose turn over and drop profits by about 50%!

Not to mention how jaded are players going to get when GW plc hit such a high rate of release to try to drive sales up, it completely devalues everything they buy?

The predictions of GW failing have been accurate.Its just no one realized how price insensitive some GW customers actually are.

Lanrak wrote:
There is a massive difference between a single release just to top up revenue, to match or slightly beat last years turn over.
(Alongside cost cutting of course.)

To releasing a new edition of the best selling game and the the most popular codex book and a host of expencieve kits within 6 months and STILL loose turn over and drop profits by about 50%!

Codex: Space Marines was released in September 2013, nine months before 7th edition, and it's initial sales boost (if any) was included in horribad first half-year report.
Space Marines are of course biggest seller, however the release did not feature any obvious "omg gotta have that" seller unit. Well other than the Codex itself maybe. Tactical marines, everyone got those already. Stern guard & Vanguard were good kits and probably sold ok, but then Centurions were widely derided. Contrast this to huge buying orgasm of the Tau release where even mundane items like Fire Warriors were sold out (but the new flyers were not - LOL). Now, maybe GW just stocked Space Marines more, I dunno, but clearly there didn't seem to be such a huge demand.

As for 7th edition, I really doubt the book sold anywhere close to 100 000 units, at least during the 2 weeks it was for sale. Reception was lukewarm, and many people were and are holding off for the cheaper, more convenient mini-rulebooks. Nobody I know has even bought the rulebook yet, and most of my gaming group are hardcore GW players. Also, an edition change can also temporarily slow down sales, as people wait & see what the new edition brings out, before going on with planned purchases.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yonan wrote:

Backfire wrote:
If you search older threads, you will see that this line has been paraded around forever:

Bollocks imo. Even if you accept people said that (I don't remember it being widely said), there's a huge difference between Tau getting released compared to 7th edition being released + top seller (SMs) being released + second top seller (IG) being released + something unique and expensive being released (IK) all within half a year.

Yes there is a huge difference - Tau was much more popular than any of those

I do remember. Quick googling turned up many comments for example about paint range. Like this:
"...we should see a corresponding 10-15% increase in revenues. Instead, you are seeing a touch under a 6% increase in revenues (revenues, less royalties as the royalties are unaffected by the price increase in calculating volume sales).

A good portion of that came in the last quarter as well with the paint sales which were recognized in the report (2 million pots sold with an MSRP of £2.30...figure no more than half were sold at wholesale discount of 40% = £3.7 million pounds revenue on the new paints since their release). That ends up being a one time shot in the arm so you could reasonably remove that from the sales - or at the very least the £2.75 which were sold in April alone.

All of those things point to GW shrinking its market. Eventually, the market becomes too small to maintain the overhead."

As it was, GW revenue increased in next financial year...

If Space Marines are no longer a money-spinner, then GW really are in trouble.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If Space Marines are no longer a money-spinner, then GW really are in trouble.

They still are a money-spinner in the sense that they make up the single biggest portion of GW's revenue. What they weren't this time is a big splash when a new Codex is launched.

Either too many of the players have marine armies or the price of buying a new marine army is too expensive.

Marines sell themselves, in the same way GW should be diversifying it's overall offering, it should be diversifying it's 40k offering by giving non-Marines a lot of attention.

Backfire wrote:
I do remember. Quick googling turned up many comments for example about paint range. Like this:

Widely said I said, as in by many people as it's said now. Sure a couple may have said it then - a couple people say the earth is hollow.

If you seriously think Tau is bigger than a new edition, space marines or IG individually, let alone all together...

Backfire wrote:

GW is not going to run out of things to release anytime soon. What they can potentially cash in for this period or the future?
-Space wolves and Blood angels

Two minor chapters. I mean, we're comparing with the Space Marines here.

Backfire wrote:
-Sisters of Battle

Yeah, I've heard that rumor. For the last 10 years. Would be the third SoB codex in what... 4 years?

Backfire wrote:
-Fantasy 9th edition and Starter kit

Fantasy is much smaller than 40k. Anyway, I don't think 9th ed is going anywhere. Because people are just pissed by the huge amount of minis, their cost and 90's rules.

We're not playing 8th ed WHFB, but 4.6.12-beta version. The only "major differences" between 4th ed and 8th ed are the random charges, magic with dices and army structure. In my book, changing 6s by dashes in a S/T chart is not a major change, and premesuring isn't either, these are merely house rules that could have been written by my 7 years old nephew. We're still playing a 4.x version, and the 4.0 was released more than 20 years ago.
But, a major overhaul of the WHFB system will probably alienate many older players.

GW could reduce the amount of minis to make WHFB less expensive for beginners, but it will alienate many older players who have large collections.

GW could reduce the prices of all WHFB minis, but it will alienate 40k players and generate less cash.

How can you make quick cash if you lower the minis counts and prices on all Fantasy ranges?

They either continue on the current trend and cut themselves from new customers, or radically change their only other core game and risk losing veteran players. Who are pretty much the only way of recruiting new players, since the advent of the one man stores. GW just can't win on this one.
The launch could be a success, but I would be really surprised if it were a major commercial success that would instantly give the sales a huge boost.

Backfire wrote:
-more campaign boxes like Storm claw

Yeah, sure, going to be major sellers compared to Space Marines, Imperial Guards or Tyranids releases...

Backfire wrote:
-another Knight is likely on the works, "army" with just 1 model is kinda daft

Even if it were the case, I don't expect people to buy a lot of them.

Backfire wrote:
-release a new Army. Kislev for WHFB, or Mechanicus for 40k or something like that.

Given the previous releases, I really, really doubt about that. Kislev or Mechanicus would need far more than 3 boxes.

Backfire wrote:
-Smaug. Few people care about the game, but a good looking Dragon is a sure-fire seller.

Smaug has already been done once, but has been canned because it didn't look like the Smaug of the movie.

Backfire wrote:
-more supplements. Mordians for AM, Salamanders for Space Marines, Thousand Sons for CSM, Exodites for Eldar etc.

We're currently talking about a situation were "SM + IG + Tyranids + Eldars + new edition" just isn't enough.
Are people seriously expecting Mordians to do the trick?

Well gee, fourth best year in their history in terms of stock price and dividends fat past four years... Yeah, these guys are doomed. Robust release schedule. Still pumping out
quality figs. Yeah, they cost more, and if you want everything, it'll cost you. Yeah, they've leaned up to get results. Maybe players are leaving the game, but it is still a pretty cool hobby
for those who want to stay, and there are players still playing all over the world. It'll be a long way off before this outfit folds.

 ciaotym wrote:
Well gee, fourth best year in their history in terms of stock price and dividends fat past four years... Yeah, these guys are doomed. Robust release schedule. Still pumping out
quality figs. Yeah, they cost more, and if you want everything, it'll cost you. Yeah, they've leaned up to get results. Maybe players are leaving the game, but it is still a pretty cool hobby
for those who want to stay, and there are players still playing all over the world. It'll be a long way off before this outfit folds.

Maybe you should read what other people more experienced in the business world are saying about GW.

Head over to the annual report thread and read what posters like Wayshuba have to say on the matter.

Pumping out an accelerated release schedule isn't a sign of health, its a sign of desperation. GW won't close this year, but two years from now wouldn't be surprising if they continue exactly as they currently are.

xraytango wrote:
Dr Ransom, please stop taking things from my mind and putting them on the internet. Seriously I'm going to have to start wearing a tin-foil hat.

Ahaha - its funny because somebody up-thread had the same idea I had.

On the subject of boxes: GW should be selling Forgeworld Add-One to as many of its core units as possible. Here, want to buy a Rhino? Maybe upgrade to a heavy armor command variant with this kit!

Cut the price of the Rhino so people get enticed, then deceptively price the upgrades so they seem like a deal, yet deliver high margins.

If GW wanted to get really aggressive, allow 3rd parties to see add-one to different kits. The 3rd party becomes responsible for managing low volume production and development, GW gets the kit sale and a cut from the 3rd party. GW also binds the bitz business to its own website, starving the rest of the market.

Heck, global campaigns can become a part too: new campaign in a Hive World, oh look, each race has a new add-on kit for urban combat. Gotta go out and buy that for your army.

That's how companies that sell model kits in Japan do it. Here's a great giant robot for $20 now after all the armor and weapons mods that'll be $60.

 agnosto wrote:
That's how companies that sell model kits in Japan do it. Here's a great giant robot for $20 now after all the armor and weapons mods that'll be $60.

I hate that. Forge World does that.

It's a very bad tactic. Want to keep selling piece meal, that is just like selling DLC. Should have been in the game to beginning with. Now people want to do this with miniatures?

 ciaotym wrote:
Well gee, fourth best year in their history in terms of stock price and dividends fat past four years... Yeah, these guys are doomed. Robust release schedule. Still pumping out
quality figs. Yeah, they cost more, and if you want everything, it'll cost you. Yeah, they've leaned up to get results. Maybe players are leaving the game, but it is still a pretty cool hobby
for those who want to stay, and there are players still playing all over the world. It'll be a long way off before this outfit folds.

Worst sales drop in 10 years.

Everything depends on robust sales.

Share price and dividends have no effect at all on sales.

And oddly enough, shares jumped 28p this morning...up 33p including after market trades.

Investor confidence certainly remains high after that less than stellar earnings report. Which begs the question, who the heck are the people running these institutions that are backing a dying horse? I mean, I play around with stocks but I've never owned more than a few thousand shares of GW stock at any one time when they were stable; now that they're on the decline in earnings, I certainly won't be buying any more.

A company's shares can go up if people suspect or hope for a takeover bid.

Takeovers are often launched when a company seems to be doing badly and has lots of cash in the bank.

The purchasing company things they can do better than current management and sees the cash as a good asset.

Investors see the target company's shares are likely to go up when a takeover bid is launched.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
A company's shares can go up if people suspect or hope for a takeover bid.

Takeovers are often launched when a company seems to be doing badly and has lots of cash in the bank.

The purchasing company things they can do better than current management and sees the cash as a good asset.

Investors see the target company's shares are likely to go up when a takeover bid is launched.

That would make sense but for the fact that the amount of shares moving is miniscule; there were a few 1000+ share trades but most of them were less than 200 per trade. Volume was around the 23k mark. My assumption is the 1000 share trades were mostly institutional-related but the smaller bites had to have been single investors.

There is always the "bigger fool" principle.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is always the "bigger fool" principle.

Very true. I just found it odd since we saw the precipitous drop in share price in January based upon a negative mid-year yet a negative full-year seems to have the opposite effect.

 agnosto wrote:
And oddly enough, shares jumped 28p this morning...up 33p including after market trades.

Investor confidence certainly remains high after that less than stellar earnings report. Which begs the question, who the heck are the people running these institutions that are backing a dying horse? I mean, I play around with stocks but I've never owned more than a few thousand shares of GW stock at any one time when they were stable; now that they're on the decline in earnings, I certainly won't be buying any more.

Id guess the price went up because the second half saw improvement for gw. They recovered some, though admittedly not much, of what they lost in the first half. The disastrous first half took its toll on the share price back in January when the half year report came out, iirc.

I have not been around long enough to have any real bearing on this discussion as i only started in April. That being said i can give my opinion on why some of their sales are down.

The imperial guard release did not have anything that made people want to play imperial guard who already hadn't and their new models really were boring except maybe one or two of them.

I have not seen one taurox yet. no one wants it because it is just hideous.

The Scions are hit and miss for some people. Some like the renaissance aesthetic, while others think they look too different for standard imperial guardsmen and do not fit with their army. I feel like if they made kasyrkins into plastic more people might have bought them, but that is simply because i like kasyrkin more than scions and i have no statistics at all.

The ogryn are again hit and miss with some people. Some people simply do not like their faces at all, i actually find them ok. Their rules are simply terrible.

Bullgryns are another hit or miss kit. Their gear is cobbled together yet it looks like it is somehow reasonably fashioned, again another dichotomy of ideas. Their rules are interesting, they are not very mobile,and they lack good offensive firepower so you are stuck with what is essentially an aegis defense line, but in unit form.

The wyvern has great rules, and looks fine for an artillery piece, but i am simply not even interested in artillery pieces on the board. It makes no sense that an artillery piece that can shoot kilometers away is 200 yards next to the enemy.

 agnosto wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is always the "bigger fool" principle.

Very true. I just found it odd since we saw the precipitous drop in share price in January based upon a negative mid-year yet a negative full-year seems to have the opposite effect.

With everything that has come to pass since the 2008 market crash, I'm increasingly convinced that any relation that the stock market has with how the real world works is purely coincidental (this opinion was also supported by the comments of a mutual acquaintance of ours ).

I strongly believe that the January crash of GW's stock was due to them announcing that there would be no payment of dividends more than the actual financial report and since they paid dividends this time, the stock price didn't crash... Tah dah! I'm a financial analyst!

 agnosto wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is always the "bigger fool" principle.

Very true. I just found it odd since we saw the precipitous drop in share price in January based upon a negative mid-year yet a negative full-year seems to have the opposite effect.

Backfire I think it was said very sensibly that most shareholders figured months ago the end of year report would be bad and that expectation had been priced into the shares before now.

 agnosto wrote:

Investor confidence certainly remains high after that less than stellar earnings report. Which begs the question, who the heck are the people running these institutions that are backing a dying horse?

As the saying goes: Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent

KommissarKarl wrote:
Id guess the price went up because the second half saw improvement for gw. They recovered some, though admittedly not much, of what they lost in the first half. The disastrous first half took its toll on the share price back in January when the half year report came out, iirc.

That'd make sense for someone emotionally invested in the stock but two, consecutive negative reports is "danger Will Robinson" territory for someone with any clinical distance and actually wanting to make money. Today Radio Shack reported their 9th consecutive quarter slide and they are in danger of being delisted because the share price is under $1. GW is half-way there yet continues to increase in share price; that's...odd, is the only way I can put it.

Looking through their report, GW also invested more money into their factory last year than some of their biggest competatiors made in total revenue.


Wargaming is fickle, GW rode the lightning for a long time. There are still areas where its kicking, the key is the community. Its been so easy for so long to hate GW because of their bad prectices and gakky community relations everyone forgets, all those "other games" you play, a lot of the people playing them got their start with Warhammer. GW propped up wargaming when it stagnated in the late 90's. I played a number of products back across the 80s and 90s. Car Wars, Battletech, Robotech, Squad Leader, Ogre....I can go on and on...the point is that to this day, from the time I picked up my first GW mini in 1991/92, its the only game that no matter where I move, no matter what I do I can find people to play and I can continue my love affair with painting plastic dudes.(Who used to be metal and seemed awful expenisve back then too now that I think about it) At the end of the day, people can bitch and moan and say I told you so, but the death of GW will be a hammer blow to the industry. The guys who make army carriers, terrain, painting services, and all the other niche market stuff (Chapterhouse?) there are guys who have been doing this for 20+ years now and its their life. I know wargaming will go on, and in the end, I don't think GW is near death. I've seen worse companies without the robust fan base GW has struggle on for longer. And maybe it will die and come back as a new better company that makes gak in China so that wallets can be pleased and we can make boring "tight" rule sets with no wiggle room.

However, all that leads me to this point. Where I live, GW is doing all right. Not because they are so mega awesome, but because as a community we came together and we showed new guys how to find deals on Ebay, we showed guys how to get some rough and ready paint jobs they could be proud of and where to learn techniques to get better. We play games at the 200/500 pt level all the time, because $50 gets guys into the game (My wife needed two boxes of Eldar to get into Kill Team, I think she was like $60-70). If a rule is bad, and we all agree it is bad, we throw it out or change it. We've even managed to get a small Battletech campaign going and a couple weeks ago, we played Car Wars for 8 straight hours.


All I see here is a bunch of complaining about things you can't change, and no one focusing on what you can. I know GW and 40K generate a lot of emotional responses, but here in the 40K general discussion area, isn't it about time those of you who hate GW and "will never go back" to them just give it up. Go find something you like and enjoy it. Truth is, we can't change GW. Clearly, for 8 straight years we've been voting with our wallets and it hasn't changed them. But do I think thye are going under? Probably not, and but I sure hope I finish this Ork army before they do.