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WayneTheGame wrote:

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
I recently read that Tom Kirby's wife is IT director for Games Workshop---is that correct?

Appears to be true, and likely explains the 4 million for the website. Ah, nepotism. I wonder what Mrs. Kirby's qualifications are in technology to warrant such a position.

Ah who am I kidding I'd bet money she's an accounting/finance type with zero background in IT/computers.

Wire transferring of funds most likely.

 Surtur wrote:
I couldn't find any inflation factored numbers in the report. Probably because it made them look worse.

For instance, the Real Revenue changes would looks like this:

2014: 121.2 GBP
2013: 134.6 BGP

It's about 2 mil worse than what the constant currency makes it out to be. It's very telling that this figure is gone now when it used to be in previous reports. A 13.4 mil drop looks a bit worse than a 11.1 mil. Kirby is trying to cook the books in his financial report.

Looking at the breakdown in revenue (pg 12), UK, Europe, USA and Australia are the 4 largest by far sectors for revenue, and they all went down by several million each. The profit however is a different story. It showed that the UK tanked by about half of it's profit as it ate all of it's losses (no where else to cut?). Meanwhile Europe had a significant loss of .5 mil in profit, no where near as much as it lost. AUS dropped 200 thousand more in profit about 10% of what it actually lost. US gained 400 thousand more in profit for a total of 3.7 mil, which is impressive as they lost 4 mil in revenue. That is some REALLY aggressive cost cutting to keep those numbers afloat.

I only have my single semester accounting class to rely on, but I think that all of the losses being reported in the UK region is due to GWs new centralized management model that they implemented after closing all of their regional offices.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 Yodhrin wrote:
So, the numbers are out, and I now feel totally comfortable activating Smug Mode. If next year's report continues the doom & gloom(sorry, the "great news"), all but the most glued-to-saddle Knights of the Holy Order of Kirby will have to dismount and acknowledge the reality; if GW don't change tack soon, they're headed for either a crash or a slow ignominious slide into irrelevance.

It may or may not be slow. It depends on how quickly they can pull their stores and on their lease agreements. If they keep cutting costs the way they do to keep revenue up, they'll have to kill the stores in a year to stay afloat.

Figure an average FY inflation rate of 2.45% based upon the last 11 months of inflation data from the U.K.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Surtur wrote:
I couldn't find any inflation factored numbers in the report. Probably because it made them look worse.

For instance, the Real Revenue changes would looks like this:

2014: 121.2 GBP
2013: 134.6 BGP

It's about 2 mil worse than what the constant currency makes it out to be. It's very telling that this figure is gone now when it used to be in previous reports. A 13.4 mil drop looks a bit worse than a 11.1 mil. Kirby is trying to cook the books in his financial report.

Looking at the breakdown in revenue (pg 12), UK, Europe, USA and Australia are the 4 largest by far sectors for revenue, and they all went down by several million each. The profit however is a different story. It showed that the UK tanked by about half of it's profit as it ate all of it's losses (no where else to cut?). Meanwhile Europe had a significant loss of .5 mil in profit, no where near as much as it lost. AUS dropped 200 thousand more in profit about 10% of what it actually lost. US gained 400 thousand more in profit for a total of 3.7 mil, which is impressive as they lost 4 mil in revenue. That is some REALLY aggressive cost cutting to keep those numbers afloat.

I only have my single semester accounting class to rely on, but I think that all of the losses being reported in the UK region is due to GWs new centralized management model that they implemented after closing all of their regional offices.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It's revenue loss for the UK. Management shifting doesn't affect revenue or shouldn't. The thing is, the UK took all the revenue losses into it's profit which may mean that there is nothing left to cut there or they aren't cutting there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 agnosto wrote:
Figure an average FY inflation rate of 2.45% based upon the last 11 months of inflation data from the U.K.

I grabbed 1.9% as my figure. 2.45% would be a bit worse (14.1 mil revenue loss instead of 13.4 mil).

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, what could they release this year to help them out? New edition of 40K? New edition of Fantasy? Resurrect one or more of the Specialist Games? Or release an all new game? And would it be enough?

Coming soon, Dreadfleet 2: Dread Harder.

It's just what all the fans wanted

 Idolator wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

Once you ramp to a certain extent you hit "economies of scale" and you plateau or in their case, the production will plateau and level off, while hopefully sales remain strong.

This sentence makes absolutely 0 sense...

It makes complete sense as long as you don't know a thing about business or manufacturing....at all....then it's completely an intelligent statement.

I don't know. I think it only makes sense if you don't know anything about the English language. It's obvious that writer has no idea of what economies of scale means. Perhaps he meant the law of diminishing returns. I have absolutely no idea what the rest of it was supposed to impart, but apparently in that dude's world having fewer sales and sales revenue is an indicator of remaining strong.

I don't know how so many people are so bad at reading intent when the phrasing is poor (then again, that's why YMDC exists).

The guy meant that GW invested money into increased manufacturing capacity and the costs of that ate into the resulting increased revenue, but this was a one-time expense, so next year they will have the full benefit of their increased revenue with none of the costs, so a net profit.

This is completely wrong, of course, but not really that hard to follow.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, what could they release this year to help them out? New edition of 40K? New edition of Fantasy? Resurrect one or more of the Specialist Games? Or release an all new game? And would it be enough?

Coming soon, Dreadfleet 2: Dread Harder.

It's just what all the fans wanted

We'll Dread them until they love us!

Much bigger, much more successful companies have suffered crippling loss of market share because they believed "we will tell them what they want". The american auto industry nearly collapsed because they blindly continued to make massive gas guzzling boats when the public wanted more modest, affordable, and efficient cars.

Wouldn't being in a niche market make market research more vital?

You have a small customer base, surely you want to know exactly how to get the most money you can from them and the easiest way to do that is to make something most of them want to buy?

It's a shame Kirby only told us how much they paid into their new website - £4m.

I'd much rather know how much they've spent so far on the CHS case other that it being an 'indecent' amount.

Come on GW, don't leave us hanging. After you said that we all want to know, I'm sure your investors would like to know. Don't be shy.

 kronk wrote:

 Wilson wrote:

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
I recently read that Tom Kirby's wife is IT director for Games Workshop---is that correct?

Why would a company need an Impassable Terrain Director?

Because Kirby is shoveling a metric ton of bull gak!

I think this annual report can be a good thing for the company.

You can spin this as much as you want to the public, but behind closed doors, there is no way to sugar coat this to the rest of the Board of Directors.

A nearly 10% drop in sales during the time you released 7th edition, space marines, and Imperial guard? These are your bread and butter releases. THE flagship products of your flagship range.

You can't spin this. You can't ignore it. It's dangling in your face, exposed for the world to see.

Now is the time for them to address the problems of recent years and DO SOMETHING.

They could make changes. Most importantly reaching out to the Independents who are helping their competition thrive after being treated like the enemy for far too long. (Not sure how they think maintaining their sad chain of one man shops is better money spent than having independents do it for you while spending a fraction of the costs in community support to win back those you've marginalized.)

Unfortunately those deck chairs aren't going to rearrange themselves.

 kronk wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, what could they release this year to help them out? New edition of 40K? New edition of Fantasy? Resurrect one or more of the Specialist Games? Or release an all new game? And would it be enough?

Coming soon, Dreadfleet 2: Dread Harder.

It's just what all the fans wanted

We'll Dread them until they love us!

Explains the Space Wolf releases!

I'm not an economist, but I am a thinker.

(glances at the 2014 and 2013 profits comparison)

And to me, those numbers don't look great, even with their explanation.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, what could they release this year to help them out? New edition of 40K? New edition of Fantasy? Resurrect one or more of the Specialist Games? Or release an all new game? And would it be enough?

I guess they don't have a clue:

They do no demographic research and they don't know what the customers think.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, what could they release this year to help them out? New edition of 40K? New edition of Fantasy? Resurrect one or more of the Specialist Games? Or release an all new game? And would it be enough?

I guess they don't have a clue:

They do no demographic research and they don't know what the customers think.

I think they think that the customers don't think at all.

Thoughts?

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, what could they release this year to help them out? New edition of 40K? New edition of Fantasy? Resurrect one or more of the Specialist Games? Or release an all new game? And would it be enough?

I guess they don't have a clue:

They do no demographic research and they don't know what the customers think.

If they'd done such research I doubt Dreadfleet would have happened for a start.

Meanwhile Natfka, the former fabricator of early news on GW, has nothing to say on the matter. That guy's really gotten too GW-friendly ever since getting struck down by GW and losing his spine.

This report seems impossible! After all, we were told numerous times in other threads discussing Games Workshop's business outlook that when a guy went to his local Gee-Dubs, it was always crowded, therefore the business must be doing well company-wide!

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, what could they release this year to help them out? New edition of 40K? New edition of Fantasy? Resurrect one or more of the Specialist Games? Or release an all new game? And would it be enough?

I guess they don't have a clue:

They do no demographic research and they don't know what the customers think.

I think they think that the customers don't think at all.

Thoughts?

I thought exactly the same thing.

 Ouze wrote:
This report seems impossible! After all, we were told numerous times in other threads discussing Games Workshop's business outlook that when a guy went to his local Gee-Dubs, it was always crowded, therefore the business must be doing well company-wide!

Don't forget that any loss in revenue was due to the economy in Cyprus

Oh my goodness. After reading this entire thread, and checking out all the new GW finicial reports, and that dreadful preamble, I am appauled by the disdain Kirby has for us, and his over confidence and arrogance in regards to the entire situation.

Where to begin? How did this guy ever become a CEO? What a joke! I sure Ms. Tongue cringed when she got that preamble and was told to post it. I bet at the same time she was posting her resume on Monster or Careerbuilder with a long drawn out sigh!

This company has shot off all its big guns and went backwards. Space marines, imperial knights (cool but that price point, hurtin' me!) 40k 7th ed... whats next in 2015? Are Dark Eldar going to right the profit ship? Will they finally push out Sisters? (Sadly, that ship left port when other companies kickstarted GW's rear while they whistled dixie) Can blood angels cure the black rage of the GW consumers? Let me rephrase all this, they released their updates for their MOST POPULAR LINE AND RANGE AND LOST OVERALL PROFIT.

The customers are rightly enjoying this death spiral. GW deserve it, as to treat your customers like they do, to remain stagnant with regards to the techonology and advancements of the day and age. GW need to apologize for their brazen dictatorial approach to the niche market that is miniature wargaming. They need to acknowledge other companies are taking pieces of the pie, that GW needs to regain their image they once had. GW should EMBRACE kickstarter and facebook, not run and hide. A GW kickstarter may do very well, but its skewed now because of the ill will many customers now have. It's disgusting how much they hold us in contempt while we have started to do so with them. This report clearly shows that they need us more than we need them.

Also, close the fething GW stores, EMBRACE the FLGS, let them pay for the space, let them build the community, and OMG LET THEM HAVE A SALE.

You sell pretty plastic soldiers, not coach purses... strike a deal with a major hobby store chain, or even walmart. Get feedback and improve. I didn't get a vibe from any of this about them changing any practices and its disgusting that it drags on still, year after year.

Just shocking.... attitude over experience.... clearly thats how we ended up with CEO's that write preambles like this... keep the man away from the chairman spot, that would be the start of the turn around in my eyes (if they'll have me..... LOL!)

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Don't forget that any loss in revenue was due to the economy in Cyprus

Those darn Cyprian nerf-herders are ruining our economy!

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Wouldn't being in a niche market make market research more vital?

You have a small customer base, surely you want to know exactly how to get the most money you can from them and the easiest way to do that is to make something most of them want to buy?

You're applying business savvy and logic to a company that clearly does not have any...

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants.

They didn't really say that...?

I think it's the perfect quote to post whenever people wishlist about the game. A nice reminder about how GW is there to tell yu what to want, not the other way around.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Did I read they're paying out 20p per dividend? What's Kirby's scoop from that?

Around £400K.

Although the more I think about it, I will argue market research actually would be kinda useless. Look at the user base. Its so insanely fractured and at odds with itself. We, as the consumer don't even know what we want. Some want lords of war. Some want a balanced tourney game. Others want the game to remain unbalanced. Everything is subjective, and no one out there that plays the game anymore can agree on anything about the game.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
I recently read that Tom Kirby's wife is IT director for Games Workshop---is that correct?

Appears to be true, and likely explains the 4 million for the website. Ah, nepotism. I wonder what Mrs. Kirby's qualifications are in technology to warrant such a position.

Ah who am I kidding I'd bet money she's an accounting/finance type with zero background in IT/computers.

Maybe, but I bet her attitude is fantastic.

That preamble struck me as pretty unprofessional. At best Kirby seemed to be arguing for the idea of "survival is winning in business."

If the release of a new edition of 40K and sundry popular codices couldn't turn their year around, they can't have many more tricks up their sleeves for the upcoming year.

Goresaw wrote:
Although the more I think about it, I will argue market research actually would be kinda useless. Look at the user base. Its so insanely fractured and at odds with itself. We, as the consumer don't even know what we want. Some want lords of war. Some want a balanced tourney game. Others want the game to remain unbalanced. Everything is subjective, and no one out there that plays the game anymore can agree on anything about the game.

Well, GW could take these issues into account like publishing a supplement for competitive play (as PP has it).
But they don't ask their customers what they want.

Goresaw wrote:
Although the more I think about it, I will argue market research actually would be kinda useless. Look at the user base. Its so insanely fractured and at odds with itself. We, as the consumer don't even know what we want. Some want lords of war. Some want a balanced tourney game. Others want the game to remain unbalanced. Everything is subjective, and no one out there that plays the game anymore can agree on anything about the game.

I'm sorry but everything you just typed was utter bollocks. Market research is not JUST about guessing "what the consumers want." Its about looking at what they ACTUALLY bought and looking for TRENDS and PATTERNS in buying habits. Its about looking at the demographics (age income, race) and seeing who bought what.