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 Crimson wrote:
I'm a bit surprised that the share price hasn't taken a bigger hit, or is -2.15% a lot?

Expectations were already loaded to negative by January report. This report was more or less what markets expected based on the past information, thus no pressure for big shares drop.

Backfire wrote:
And one-man stores are too small to maintain active playing community by themselves (after all, you need tables to play on).

Which is why the one-man stores are massively stupid idea. The big benefit of having their own chain of stores is providing gaming space and building the player community focused exclusively on GW's games. And of course people walking in the store and seeing the games actually being played is great advertisement. But if you cannot do that, then there's little reason to have this expensive retail empire.

 Crimson wrote:

Backfire wrote:
And one-man stores are too small to maintain active playing community by themselves (after all, you need tables to play on).

Which is why the one-man stores are massively stupid idea. The big benefit of having their own chain of stores is providing gaming space and building the player community focused exclusively on GW's games. And of course people walking in the store and seeing the games actually being played is great advertisement. But if you cannot do that, then there's little reason to have this expensive retail empire.

This is EXACTLY how I got hooked on 40k. Though it wasn't in a GW store.

 Crimson wrote:

Backfire wrote:
And one-man stores are too small to maintain active playing community by themselves (after all, you need tables to play on).

Which is why the one-man stores are massively stupid idea. The big benefit of having their own chain of stores is providing gaming space and building the player community focused exclusively on GW's games. And of course people walking in the store and seeing the games actually being played is great advertisement. But if you cannot do that, then there's little reason to have this expensive retail empire.

That's what makes it so funny. Their retail stores existed to provide a place to buy GW products, play games and interact with the community, but going to one-man stores essentially killed that, thereby killing the reason for the GW store to exist in the first place beyond legacy reasons.

Maybe they could franchise them? So you basically have a GW-only FLGS but without that one man shop nonsense?

WayneTheGame wrote:


Maybe they could franchise them? So you basically have a GW-only FLGS but without that one man shop nonsense?

When I suggested that, some time back. I got flamed. But yes it's a great idea.

Yeah, but what kind of an idiot would purchase a GW franchise?? I wouldn't.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The sky isn't falling, but there are some ominous creaking noises from the vaults of heaven.

GW currently have £17.55 million cash in the bank to spend against actual losses, so they could survive for several years.

Off by £6.3 million or so unless I am missing something on their balance sheet. The 20 pence dividend was paid out following the close of FY2014. The cash was still on hand at the close so it still is counted...granted as soon as the accounts were run, they had to cut the checks for the shareholders.

That would mean:

2010 - £17.1
2011 - £17.57
2012 - £17.36
2013 - £13.93
2014 - £11.25

Might just be me...but that does seem to be going in the wrong direction. Granted, I haven't had a chance to actually look over the report...so they might have declared it as dividends owed to investors further up the balance sheet, but I would suspect that in order to keep things looking rosy...they didn't.

Otherwise, that would be an interesting trick to have a drop in profits but an increase in cash reserves (with the noted one time restructuring expenses and website launch...and a dividend which, while lower is not that much lower than the previous year...).

Franchising could be an option although chances are they'd need some change around at the head of the company to actually get it to work. It's certainly a viable option and cuts out a lot of costs for GW whilst at the same time plays very well with their market dominance.

The problem for them though would be that many stores would actually want to drop the franchise after a while - the market has grown; but its still a niche. Franchise stores would have to do VERY well on their own otherwise owners would be feeling the pinch not being able to sell MTG - Board games and other miniature lines to add to their income.

I think pre-recession franchising would have worked better for GW; the market was a bit smaller and the retail sector was more healthy. Would have worked well at least for pushing into new market areas.

VanHallan wrote:
Yeah, but what kind of an idiot would purchase a GW franchise?? I wouldn't.

People who have previously run a successful GW shop, before the rot set in.

Yep, GW-only has to go the way of the dodo. They've lost substantial market share in the last few years and that's only going to increase given the burnt bridges. GW could reinvent themselves as the hobby portal if they start selling everyone elses stuff - they'd keep their margin and drive traffic to their stores but it would be a complete reversal of their current policy of cutting down store costs rather than increasing. That would be the only way to save their retail arm imo. Lacking that, drop it completely and rebuild bridges with distributors and FLGS or go direct only and share the margin with the customers would be other options.

Franchising would only serve them well if they gave franchise owners free reign to figure out how to make the stores profitable, and then built a franchise model on that. The problem is, people who buy franchises buy them so that they can use a tried and proven cookie cutter approach to a profitable location, which GW does not have.

You'd be 10x as well off opening your own independent store and carrying GW product than you would buying a GW franchise.

I'm not saying this to offend anybody, but only a complete sucker would buy a franchise from GW.

Backfire wrote:
GW catalogue is just way too thin. They don't have a gateway game, they don't have any other types of games than tactical scale ground war game, they don't have board games. Compare to FFG, which has a huge catalogue. Sure, many of the titles are not that popular (some not necessarily all that great either). But there is almost certainly something for everyone. GW needs to broaden their appeal, instead of cutting the "useless" branches.

Which is interesting, because their catalog is simultaneously extremely bloated. GW has been shoehorning more and more models into the game with each new release. Look at the new Space Wolves release: a new flyer kit added, when they could have easily given them the stormtalon or stormraven. Flyers in general have been forced into 40k when the scale of the game is much too small for aircraft. Top it all off with a slew of unnecessary, sloppy rules, and you have a game that may need rewritten from the ground up to be fixed.

re. gateway game - it was mentioned they're bringing back a couple of these recently. Also yeah, Mantic is right on the ball with the importance of gateway games. I've used Dreadball to spark interest in tabletop games in non-tt players, who I plan to rope into Deadzone who might then get interested in Warpath. Shared universe, 3 different games at 3 levels of play, a great system. They just need an FFG RPG and some PC games now!

The franchisee option will never work, until Hasbro gets involved.

A franchisee would want to eventually sell MtG. Its a well known product for the same target audience with 1/10th of the cost in shelf space. Only GW would never allow it. It would be like McDonald's and Taco Bell under the same roof.

But is Hasbro buys GW, then its just Yum! Foods.

Then you can have your TacoBell/PizzaHut/KFC all under one roof and everyone gets what they want. Hasbro would be able to do MtG/GW and franchise it out, possibly even cut out the middle distributors and in essence go direct market.

More likely, they'd simply keep using their existing distribution and retail and just offer GW through that along with a program to support independent stores like magic's massive organized play support and not do what GW does and try to compete with their own trade partners and lock them out with draconian trade terms.

It would be terrible for stores if they only way they could get magic would be if they also had to carry GW stuff.

Shotgun - yeah I think 10 years or so ago being a GW only store would have worked- in todays market independants need every income source they can get so they are going to branch out into other supporting product lines.


As for market bloat I very much agree - I can't understand why GW hasn't made a skirmish game using Warhammer and/or Warhammer 40K models and theme. It's cleraly the market segment they are losing and its the segment that is allowing games to grow - Warmachine grew into that market - Infinity - Mantic and others are also expanding.

Heck look at all the Blitz Ball games doing well - GW could have shut down a significant number of its competition if they'd just focused on lines that they've already done and just polished htem up for release. Heck a stand alone Bloodbowl game - no expansions or such would have done well

Shotgun wrote:
Then you can have your TacoBell/PizzaHut/KFC all under one roof and everyone gets what they want.

Ah yes, the combined creature that my friends and I dubbed "KenTaco Hut." Still bizarre to see them around.

Hasbro would never do a GW "franchise" that carries 40K, WHFB, MTG, and their other products. They already had the chance to have their own store chain, and decisively nixed the idea. When they bought Wizards of the Coast, there was a chain of WotC stores already in existence. One of Hasbro's first moves as new owner was to shutter them all.

FWIW I don't really think a franchise would work, but GW seems adamant about the concept of the GW store instead of fostering independents. So it was an idea

I really don't see anything changing though. They aren't smart enough to realize the problem. It's much more than just decreased sales, but I get the impression that all they are going to take away is that they need to sell more aggressively.

It would be nice if they'd just release awesome stuff I want to buy at the price they are selling it for.

Unfortunately, few releases from GW make me enthusiastic any more.

I think it's a real shame they're dropping LOTR/the Hobbit from the sounds of things too. I hope they give some warning, because I definitely want to pick up some of the plastic kits before it's too late- the plastic Nazgul has been on my list for a long while.

Let's hope they can turn it around eh? I've not much hope but they probably have a few years to do it in.

WayneTheGame wrote:
I do not understand why they act from a position of arrogance instead of one of aggressiveness. They should be undercutting all of their competitors, offering deals and bundles (REAL bundles) and discounts, to make 40k ubiquitous AND affordable and corner the market again. Right now, they price stuff ridiculously high seemingly because "We can get away with it" and open the gates to competitors taking their market share.

Because they don't see themselves as having any competition. In their eyes they are the miniature wargaming hobby, and not simply part of it.

 Yonan wrote:
Yep, GW-only has to go the way of the dodo. They've lost substantial market share in the last few years and that's only going to increase given the burnt bridges. GW could reinvent themselves as the hobby portal if they start selling everyone elses stuff - they'd keep their margin and drive traffic to their stores but it would be a complete reversal of their current policy of cutting down store costs rather than increasing. That would be the only way to save their retail arm imo. Lacking that, drop it completely and rebuild bridges with distributors and FLGS or go direct only and share the margin with the customers would be other options.

I had this exact idea about the stores a few pages back.

Where GW stores are dominant, GW stores should be made into local hobby stores with a fuller range of products, GW and non-GW, and aimed towards maximum profit.

Where GW stores are not-dominant, they should be sold off entirely and replaced with regional 'hobby centers' aka Battle Bunkers. These would be responsible for selling and maintaining an active WH40k network in that region.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
I do not understand why they act from a position of arrogance instead of one of aggressiveness. They should be undercutting all of their competitors, offering deals and bundles (REAL bundles) and discounts, to make 40k ubiquitous AND affordable and corner the market again. Right now, they price stuff ridiculously high seemingly because "We can get away with it" and open the gates to competitors taking their market share.

Because they don't see themselves as having any competition. In their eyes they are the miniature wargaming hobby, and not simply part of it.

And this is probably the saddest part; that the past two reports should have been the wakeup call.

Yep. If the store is good enough it doesn't need to be in a high throughput area, you'd get better results by having a larger store with more shelf space, hobby space and gaming space that makes it worth a little detour to get there which will still probably be less rent than a high traffic area.

edit: Thought: GW vending machines, seriously. Virtually no costs involved, just the ability to buy common or new release kits in high traffic locations.

I do find this thread strangely relevant now.
"Why you left GW and where did you go."
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/603134.page

 Da Boss wrote:
It would be nice if they'd just release awesome stuff I want to buy at the price they are selling it for.

Unfortunately, few releases from GW make me enthusiastic any more.

I think it's a real shame they're dropping LOTR/the Hobbit from the sounds of things too. I hope they give some warning, because I definitely want to pick up some of the plastic kits before it's too late- the plastic Nazgul has been on my list for a long while.

Let's hope they can turn it around eh? I've not much hope but they probably have a few years to do it in.

GW does not give warning, period.

GW does not communicate with its customers, period.

GW does not care what its customers want, period.

 Yonan wrote:
Yep. If the store is good enough it doesn't need to be in a high throughput area, you'd get better results by having a larger store with more shelf space, hobby space and gaming space that makes it worth a little detour to get there which will still probably be less rent than a high traffic area.

edit: Thought: GW vending machines, seriously. Virtually no costs involved, just the ability to buy common or new release kits in high traffic locations.

What is clear is that the ownership has no concept of GW's network / incumbency effect, even as they benefit from it. If they did understand that effect, they would be attempting to defend it.

If this management continues, there's no reason to expect GW to survive. They are acting in the most bone-headed manner possible.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I do find this thread strangely relevant now.
"Why you left GW and where did you go."
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/603134.page

You and I found it relevant before these numbers and the hilarious letter though tbh ; p Hopefully the last few digging their heels in thinking everything was fine will come to their senses now though.

DrRansom wrote:
What is clear is that the ownership has no concept of GW's network / incumbency effect, even as they benefit from it. If they did understand that effect, they would be attempting to defend it.

No concept of much at all sadly.

I haven't seen him post here yet, but over on Warseer Wayshuba (who seems to know what he's talking about, being a CEO himself although no idea of his company size) posted his predictions based on the report, and it's not good:

Wayshuba (posted on Warseer) wrote:
Next year's (2H14-1H15) gross revenue coming in at about £92m-£104m and GW experiencing their first net profit loss in quite a while.
The following year (2H15-1H16), you will see the aggressive cost cutting measures to try and fix things, but we are already into the bone. You will outright see the foundation of the company plummet in this second year with GW being close to out of business or sold. I do not, at this point, really think GW has legs enough to make it past the end of 2016, early 2017 at most.

I wouldn't be surprised. They tried their big guns (Space Marine Codex, 7th edition, Imperial Knight) and it couldn't stem the profit loss; what do they have left? Fantasy is considered even by GW to be inferior to 40k, so 9th edition Fantasy isn't likely to do much, if anything. The remaining codexes are fringe armies, and the remaining WHFB army books are even more so, so what's left? Bring out a Warlord Titan for $800? 8th edition 40k with a totally different style of play to invalidate everything? They have nothing left.

Wayshuba does seem pretty knowledgeable on the matter, though with those predictions, I'd be interested in seeing a more in depth analysis and reasoning to the conclusion.

What really worries me about all this is that the company cannot see where they have gone wrong even though the evidence is already there. Australias' loss of revenue should point to the fact that they have gone above the acceptable price for GW miniatures but GW thinks that an acceptable policy is to bring the rest of the world in line with these prices. If they don't do market research surely they should look at their own financial figures.

Mohammed Kirby derpa derpa!!