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.

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
I guess this explains why Fantasy has been . . . neglected lately.

I play 40K, just as a disclaimer.

Fantasy is like the red headed step child. It was their first success, but has been put on the back shelf. Yes, they update it and create new rules and minis (some very nice actually) for it, but it never feels like they are really focusing on it. Its an "Also ran" at this point.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
I guess this explains why Fantasy has been . . . neglected lately.

I play 40K, just as a disclaimer.

Fantasy is like the red headed step child. It was their first success, but has been put on the back shelf. Yes, they update it and create new rules and minis (some very nice actually) for it, but it never feels like they are really focusing on it. Its an "Also ran" at this point.

Red headed step children get more love than Fantasy. Fantasy is the evil twin, mutated leper pod person of war games.

They've gone and fethed it up so much not even Matt Ward can resuscitate it will his over the top fluff.

The last non codex release for Fantasy was Triumph and Treachery, wasn't it? I think there was a single campaign book too (Battle in the Badlands or something?) - and that was just in the vein of Crusade of Fire.

In the meantime, 40k has had a something like 8 codex Supplements released, Stronghold Assault, Escalation, Sanctus Reach Part 1 and 2, 3 Apocalypse supplements and more dataslates than you could shake a USB stick at.

And that's just the things I could remember.

It's weird though, as Fantasy and Triumph and Treachery are IMMENSELY popular at my gaming club.

DrRansom wrote:
For example, wouldn't it have made sense for GW to try to cross market Dawn of War and a WH40K starter set? Each DoW game comes with a 10% coupon for the 40K starter set? (Enough of a discount that it is attractive, but still allows GW to sell the starter set at a solid margin.)

Cross-promotion and leveraging their IP appear to be two things that GW not only doesn't do but actively avoids. Yeah, the might've put a page into WD every now and again - and I remember one terrain building article where they scratch built some of the Marine buildings from DoW 1 (something that'd never happen in the era of Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™ Kits™) - but that's as far as it went.

I mean think of all the things they could have done:

1. Dawn of War: Release a campaign book to go along-side the game. Make some Ltd. Ed. metal minis (as this is when they had metal minis) to represent the main players from the campaign. Or a box containing one of each of the main characters (Gorgutz, Thule, the Necron Lord, Farseer Taldeer, Lukas Alexander, Eliphas the Inheritor, Shas'O Kais).
2. Ultramarines Movie: Release a limited edition direct only boxed set of the 10 Marines from the movie, and give them their own unique set of special rules included in the box (FFG managed to release free rules for a couple of the relics from Ultramarine - so someone licensing GW's IP leveraged more out of that IP than the IP holders did!!!).
3. Dawn of War 2: Again, more limited edition characters. That female Witch Hunter would have made an excellent miniature.

And so on and so on.

The closest they came was that Orc Warboss in the WAR limited edition.

 Compel wrote:


It's weird though, as Fantasy and Triumph and Treachery are IMMENSELY popular at my gaming club.

It's the craziest thing.

The one time GW does something good, they run away from it like the plague. See the new Space Wolves/Ork set they released? Great price kit, good starter for an army, already sold out with no mention of it being restocked.

GW's business model in a nutshell.

One cross promotion they did was put a Grumlok and Gazbag Ork metal mini in with the WAR collectors edition. I'm still glad I forked out for that, the artbook and visual novel are both great and one day I'll paint the mini, even if the game fizzled due to EA pushing it out too early as they don't understand MMOs. Some Blood Ravens ltd ed characters and SM mini discount coupons with Dawn of War would have been a good sales stimulus imo.

They definitely need more stuff like that. The lack of good 40k and WHFB PC and console games is bordering on criminal due to how much opportunity there is for good stuff there, how easy it is for GW to make money on licensing fees and how much free advertising it gives due to cross promotion.

edit: how did I miss that last line, you mentioned Grumlok -_-

There was also the mercenary captain with the special edition of "Shadow of the Horned Rat" PC game.

 WarOne wrote:

 Compel wrote:


It's weird though, as Fantasy and Triumph and Treachery are IMMENSELY popular at my gaming club.

It's the craziest thing.

The one time GW does something good, they run away from it like the plague. See the new Space Wolves/Ork set they released? Great price kit, good starter for an army, already sold out with no mention of it being restocked.

GW's business model in a nutshell.

But that's the whole point isn't it? They have no idea that people liked Triumph or Stormclaw, because as they so proudly declared, they don't know or care what their customers want...

 Yonan wrote:
One cross promotion they did was put a Grumlok and Gazbag Ork metal mini in with the WAR collectors edition. I'm still glad I forked out for that, the artbook and visual novel are both great and one day I'll paint the mini, even if the game fizzled due to EA pushing it out too early as they don't understand MMOs. Some Blood Ravens ltd ed characters and SM mini discount coupons with Dawn of War would have been a good sales stimulus imo.

They definitely need more stuff like that. The lack of good 40k and WHFB PC and console games is bordering on criminal due to how much opportunity there is for good stuff there, how easy it is for GW to make money on licensing fees and how much free advertising it gives due to cross promotion.

edit: how did I miss that last line, you mentioned Grumlok -_-

Still have that mini, still will paint it, after Ar-ulric, who i have sitting in his blister, pristine and untouched.

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

 WarOne wrote:

 Compel wrote:


It's weird though, as Fantasy and Triumph and Treachery are IMMENSELY popular at my gaming club.

It's the craziest thing.

The one time GW does something good, they run away from it like the plague. See the new Space Wolves/Ork set they released? Great price kit, good starter for an army, already sold out with no mention of it being restocked.

GW's business model in a nutshell.

But that's the whole point isn't it? They have no idea that people liked Triumph of Stormclaw, because as they so proudly declared, they don't know or care what their customers want...

Sometimes I like to think GW is no better than a precocious three year old.

Someone should tell GW that money grows on trees.

The next annual report will include a 15 million pound write off on a failed tree growing subsidiary they tried launching.

And we will all laugh sadly at their failure.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

DrRansom wrote:
For example, wouldn't it have made sense for GW to try to cross market Dawn of War and a WH40K starter set? Each DoW game comes with a 10% coupon for the 40K starter set? (Enough of a discount that it is attractive, but still allows GW to sell the starter set at a solid margin.)

Cross-promotion and leveraging their IP appear to be two things that GW not only doesn't do but actively avoids. Yeah, the might've put a page into WD every now and again - and I remember one terrain building article where they scratch built some of the Marine buildings from DoW 1 (something that'd never happen in the era of Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™ Kits™) - but that's as far as it went.

I mean think of all the things they could have done:

1. Dawn of War: Release a campaign book to go along-side the game. Make some Ltd. Ed. metal minis (as this is when they had metal minis) to represent the main players from the campaign. Or a box containing one of each of the main characters (Gorgutz, Thule, the Necron Lord, Farseer Taldeer, Lukas Alexander, Eliphas the Inheritor, Shas'O Kais).
2. Ultramarines Movie: Release a limited edition direct only boxed set of the 10 Marines from the movie, and give them their own unique set of special rules included in the box (FFG managed to release free rules for a couple of the relics from Ultramarine - so someone licensing GW's IP leveraged more out of that IP than the IP holders did!!!).
3. Dawn of War 2: Again, more limited edition characters. That female Witch Hunter would have made an excellent miniature.

And so on and so on.

The closest they came was that Orc Warboss in the WAR limited edition.

From GW's point of view, the video games should be an opportunity to get people into the miniature's game. Make a Blood Raven's starter kit, complete with paint, miniatures, painting guide, and some orks and sell that with a discount to owners of the video game.

Or: make a Battlefleet Gothic video game and re-release the miniature game.

Or (my personal favorite): release a Epic 40k game using the Wargame: Airland Battle/Red Dragon engine and re-release that miniature game.

The IP is almost designed to be mined and exploited to the fullest on all levels. GW should be seeking cases where it can have a video game with a tie into a miniatures game, especially a profitable starter set. Who cares if 90% of the video game players only buy the starter set and nothing else? At least you got their sales for that in addition to the license revenue.

I didn't know GW was at max production capability. Though I find that a bit surprising, without customer research, how do they know how much to produce?

I'm a great case for the effectivness. I'm a PC gamer - I picked up tabletop when I went on disability and so had the time for the hobby. I chose 40k because of Dawn of War which stimulated purchases of IG, Necrons and most recently, a feth ton of SMs to make into Blood Ravens. The more good video games they make, the more minis I'll buy and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. Without the PC games I would have started with Mantic Kings of War and Warpath because they were much better priced but I was already keen on the 40k setting.

DrRansom wrote:
From GW's point of view, the video games should be an opportunity to get people into the miniature's game.

That's it right there. The key word: Opportunity. Every licensed product is an opportunity to bring in new players. Right now it's mostly wasted opportunity, and GW's incredibly hands-off attitude when it comes to leveraging their IP (they want the licensing fee but beyond that see no reason to do any more work) means that they will continue to miss these opportunities even when they walk up and bite them in the face.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I also acknowledge that in pretty much all these cases GW was never the producer/publisher of the licensed works. GW wasn't the publisher on Dawn of War; THQ was. GW wasn't the publisher on Warhammer Online; EA was. So from the marketing/promotional aspect of those licensed products GW shouldn't need to nor should they be expected to promote those games. That's not their job or their responsibility as they were not the publishers. What I'm more talking about is cross-market stuff. It wasn't GW's job to publish Dawn of War, but it only hurts them when they fail to capitalise on the game and make companion products/gateway products/introductory bundles that go with the release of the game.

Remember that GW has squandered many, many opportunities to grow their business (Starcraft being a big, big one) and they only have themselves to blame with regard to letting other IPs get ahead of them in terms of popularity and stable cash flow.

I'm convinced GW as it is cannot properly manage their IP and must find someone who can.

 WarOne wrote:
I'm convinced GW as it is cannot properly manage their IP and must find someone who can.

I nominate FFG.
I am totally not biased.


Only one of the above statements is true.

Do any of the execs at GW even have a MBA (or whatever the equivalent is in the UK)? Cross promotions with video games and the SM movie sound like such a no brainier that even I wouldn't think twice about doing them, and I've never taken a business class or an Econ class since high school FFS.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

DrRansom wrote:
For example, wouldn't it have made sense for GW to try to cross market Dawn of War and a WH40K starter set? Each DoW game comes with a 10% coupon for the 40K starter set? (Enough of a discount that it is attractive, but still allows GW to sell the starter set at a solid margin.)

Cross-promotion and leveraging their IP appear to be two things that GW not only doesn't do but actively avoids. Yeah, the might've put a page into WD every now and again - and I remember one terrain building article where they scratch built some of the Marine buildings from DoW 1 (something that'd never happen in the era of Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™ Kits™) - but that's as far as it went.

I mean think of all the things they could have done:

1. Dawn of War: Release a campaign book to go along-side the game. Make some Ltd. Ed. metal minis (as this is when they had metal minis) to represent the main players from the campaign. Or a box containing one of each of the main characters (Gorgutz, Thule, the Necron Lord, Farseer Taldeer, Lukas Alexander, Eliphas the Inheritor, Shas'O Kais).
2. Ultramarines Movie: Release a limited edition direct only boxed set of the 10 Marines from the movie, and give them their own unique set of special rules included in the box (FFG managed to release free rules for a couple of the relics from Ultramarine - so someone licensing GW's IP leveraged more out of that IP than the IP holders did!!!).
3. Dawn of War 2: Again, more limited edition characters. That female Witch Hunter would have made an excellent miniature.

And so on and so on.

The closest they came was that Orc Warboss in the WAR limited edition.

I vaguely remember something related to Fire Warrior, something like a scenario with special rules for Kais. Of course, no models or anything for it.

When Fire Warrior came out they released the Rail Rifle Pathfinder model. Good catch. I hadn't thought of that.

DrRansom wrote:
I didn't know GW was at max production capability. Though I find that a bit surprising, without customer research, how do they know how much to produce?

Don't forget - they closed their production facilities in Tennessee, and, I believe, destroyed those molds.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

DrRansom wrote:
I didn't know GW was at max production capability. Though I find that a bit surprising, without customer research, how do they know how much to produce?

Don't forget - they closed their production facilities in Florida, and, I believe, destroyed those molds.

The Auld Grump

Memphis is in Florida?

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Dreadfleet 9: Dreadlock Paradise (we own that we never heard of 10cc)

All that talk about what GW should do is nice and all but they said themselves that they do no market research, so i wonder what "solution" they will come up with to fix it.

Even more releases?

They can very much pull out of this spiral. But the fact that they are proudly ignorant of their own customer base shows that they won't because they can't be bothered to find out how. They probably have no idea how sick the community is or how people perceive the company and their product. They're less like Microsoft and more like EA.

Actually, when you really analyze the numbers, and read the ridiculous preamble, I would bet dollars to donuts that they will not pull out of this spiral and, instead, we are going to see it accelerate very fast from here. Much faster than most realize. I've seen quite a few of these over the course of my career and they are rarely gradual - especially for companies as arrogant as GW has become in management.

Despite declining sales their fixed costs remain high. Most of these are probably tied directly to their capability to make revenue. As the revenue continues to decline, GW will be forced to cut costs to keep from going in the red, but those costs will then impede their ability to generate revenue and so the revenue will decline further (and costs will be cut further and revenue will fall further as a result). This is exactly why it is called a death spiral.

Just stop for a moment and think, "Where do they go from here?" They pulled all the stops out over the last year and still had a dismal year (at a time when their competitors are having a great year). Net effect is they turned the cusp this year. They have crested the hill, so to speak, and like any mass rolling downhill, it accelerates faster going down the further it travels.

My bet: 24-30 months tops before GW has gone critical. Kirby may be a lousy manager, but he is smart politically and he can see the writing on the wall as well. Time to put another CEO in charge to take the fall for him.

nobody wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

DrRansom wrote:
For example, wouldn't it have made sense for GW to try to cross market Dawn of War and a WH40K starter set? Each DoW game comes with a 10% coupon for the 40K starter set? (Enough of a discount that it is attractive, but still allows GW to sell the starter set at a solid margin.)

Cross-promotion and leveraging their IP appear to be two things that GW not only doesn't do but actively avoids. Yeah, the might've put a page into WD every now and again - and I remember one terrain building article where they scratch built some of the Marine buildings from DoW 1 (something that'd never happen in the era of Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™ Kits™) - but that's as far as it went.

I mean think of all the things they could have done:

1. Dawn of War: Release a campaign book to go along-side the game. Make some Ltd. Ed. metal minis (as this is when they had metal minis) to represent the main players from the campaign. Or a box containing one of each of the main characters (Gorgutz, Thule, the Necron Lord, Farseer Taldeer, Lukas Alexander, Eliphas the Inheritor, Shas'O Kais).
2. Ultramarines Movie: Release a limited edition direct only boxed set of the 10 Marines from the movie, and give them their own unique set of special rules included in the box (FFG managed to release free rules for a couple of the relics from Ultramarine - so someone licensing GW's IP leveraged more out of that IP than the IP holders did!!!).
3. Dawn of War 2: Again, more limited edition characters. That female Witch Hunter would have made an excellent miniature.

And so on and so on.

The closest they came was that Orc Warboss in the WAR limited edition.

I vaguely remember something related to Fire Warrior, something like a scenario with special rules for Kais. Of course, no models or anything for it.

I remember that clearly, because when they released my Tau playing friend went ballistic because he finally had some form of unit upgrade.

3rd edition was a fun time to play 40k. The base rules might have had issues, but GW were constantly experimenting, releasing revisions through white dwarf, and clearly having fun with the setting, releasing things like the vehicle design rules.

I miss those times. I miss GW enjoying writing their rules.

Sean_OBrien wrote:GW's supply chain is still FUBAR, and although they can talk it up to being great news to have everything centralized in England - it is the source of so very many of the issues they have been having in the past 6 months with keeping stock available overseas (and to some extent even in Europe). With the drop in...well everything...it should be quite clear now that the supply issues were not the result of things selling out so fast because of high demand rather as a result of a supply chain that is broken.

When the CHS lawsuit documents were made public and I got to see just how much stuff was being produced in their Memphis site, I was shocked at how low the numbers were. I was expecting things to be selling 10,000 of this and 20,000 of that but they weren't. It was like 2500 of this and 1200 of that. And that was on the good selling products like new releases and space marines.

They opened the Memphis centre to take advantage of exchange rates. To be able to manufacture at a lower cost and then take the cash back to the UK and benefit off the exchange rate. But then they went on a price hike binge and totally killed the volume savings side of the business and then closed down Memphis.

When I heard how fast the latest campaign box with the wolves and orks and rules was "selling out" I was thinking that GW's relaunch of the edition had worked. That people really were willing to buy the same game over again after only two years (or less because I'm guessing many of their existing customers only got in during the last couple years and just bought 6th edition a year or six months or less before the release of 7th). Now I think they just low balled production because they can't produce in high numbers. That they've cut their production staff to the point that every hour of production is allocated with such miserliness and such a fear of over producing and losing money on another dreadfleet like product that they're missing out on sales of a product that people actually want.

I got an email from an online store talking about how despite taking all sorts of pre orders for the box, they only got a fraction and will be refunding people. So stupid of GW to shun sales channels they can't control and set artificial limits for their so called trade partners.

 frozenwastes wrote:
That they've cut their production staff to the point that every hour of production is allocated with such miserliness and such a fear of over producing and losing money on another dreadfleet like product that they're missing out on sales of a product that people actually want.

I believe we have seen evidence of this for a number of releases this year. Can't remember all of them but definitely Knights were in short supply initially. I have a "collector's item" Knight in a generic white box. Possibly some Tau stuff and Orks as well?

I'm sure people thought TSR were to big to fall but they did, despite being huge. There's similar behaviour, the company being taken over by someone who didn't actually like gamers and set about during people. In the end a couple of product failures sunk them. Dragon Dice that just didn't take off and a pile of books that got returned unsold.

I'm sure GW are aware that a major product failure could sink them. So they are paralysed, unable to do anything brave. GW haven't done anything innovative in game design for years. They've lost so many older creative staff and replaced them with yes men. They also seem to restrict the creative team an awful lot instead of letting them try things, wasn't it Rick Priestly who commented that things were for the worse when sales got involved with the studio? GW can't create, only rehash. They've rereleased both core games recently and it's to limited success given many responses. But these aren't really new games, they don't do new games, they just rehash the rules to hit a new cycle of codecies.

They've barely made a new game in ten years. Space Hulk was a rerelease and Dreadfleet a mess. If they had a grip on game design and knew what their market was like, they could do it. But they don't know how and are rightfully scared of plunging into a new game in case it's a huge loss for them.

There's a lack of confidence in investing in game systems beyond fantasy and 40k, and Kirby wants to take no risk as he takes his yearly dividend as long as possible with the company in slow decline. It's ok for him, he leaves as a multimillionaire but the company will be broken.

 Yonan wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:
Mohammed Kirby derpa derpa!!

Another line that works perfectly with your avatar ; p

heh, what can I say, this avatar fits me well.

GW still has a few years window to turn all this around. They have the facilities, the lack of debt, the in-house production expertise, and the brand. The question, is whether or not they are able to do so. With Kirby relegated to being Chairman, he will doubtless be attempting to to control whoever is appointed to replace him as CEO. This is not an uncommon thing to occur in the world of business. The question will be whether or not his replacement will wrest control away from Kirby, and if that replacement will have different ideas on how to run the company.

Was one bad selling product (Dreadfleet) really enough to scare GW into never overproducing an item again to the point of under-producing everything? Did they really lose that much money with Dreadfleet?

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Space Hulk was a rerelease and Dreadfleet a mess.

But hey, why would you want to investigate why one was a massive runaway success and the other wasn't? After all market research is useless in a niche market. /sarcasm

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I'm sure GW are aware that a major product failure could sink them. So they are paralysed, unable to do anything brave. GW haven't done anything innovative in game design for years. They've lost so many older creative staff and replaced them with yes men. They also seem to restrict the creative team an awful lot instead of letting them try things, wasn't it Rick Priestly who commented that things were for the worse when sales got involved with the studio? GW can't create, only rehash. They've rereleased both core games recently and it's to limited success given many responses. But these aren't really new games, they don't do new games, they just rehash the rules to hit a new cycle of codecies.

And it totally failed for fantasy. I remember reading the reports about how 8th was going to revitalize fantasy as a product line. It didn't. And now what proportion of releases are for fantasy compared to 40k. Kirby also sounded relieved that the hobbit was going to be done soon.

In an effort to be safe with their resources, GW has bet everything on one product line continuing to sell at ever increasing prices through their single employee stores. But we've seen that the reduced hours and higher prices lead to reduced sales. We've seen the plan begin to fail. Do they have a backup? They've redone a new edition of 40k, they amped up releases. They've been vigilant about costs, they've restructured and got rid of tons of admin staff. They've simply exhausted their playbook at this point.

But they don't know how and are rightfully scared of plunging into a new game in case it's a huge loss for them.

And not only a loss, but allocating their limited tooling and production resources to a risky new game means they won't have that tooling and injection moulding time to allocate to another rehash at a higher price. So not only do they have the risk of another dreadfleet, they have the opportunity cost of another 40k army rehash being skipped or delayed.

In other threads I maintained that GW has enough true believer customers to keep going for a number of years, but this last report has shown that despite their cost cuttings, their cost of goods sold did not go down even though their volume and revenue both declined. And that's with the 4.5 million separated out as a separate item.

There are three ways forward from here:

1) Revenue shock. Something about their future products just doesn't appeal or is at too high a price and they just fail to sell enough and they can't cut costs any further and they make a big loss and borrow money to cover operating expenses.

2) Slow decline into irrelevancy. They keep jacking up prices and rehashing things and revenue keeps declining at a slow pace. They don't immediately plunge into losses, but they are ground down in terms of market share and sales volume as fewer and fewer customers are asked to pay more and more. Sort of like an compressed version of the last 10 years, but on a much faster scale.

3) Someone makes a plan for change. But that would take skills and recognition that things aren't right. And Kirby has spent the last decade culling anyone with independent thought. Someone would literally have to con their way past the CEO hiring process and then when they proposed an actual plan with vision, somehow, someway, convince the rest of the board to listen to them and not their chairman Kirby who's sitting there poo-pooing any departure from his approach.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jadenim wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Space Hulk was a rerelease and Dreadfleet a mess.

But hey, why would you want to investigate why one was a massive runaway success and the other wasn't? After all market research is useless in a niche market. /sarcasm

Yeah, the success of space hulk and failure of dreadfleet pretty much proves that the "no market share, no focus groups, no asking the market what it wants" approach that Kirby advocated is madness.

If it really didn't matter what the market wants, then why did spacehulk fly off the shelves and dreadfleet sit there until they eventually recalled it and shred it? Why didn't the customer base realize how dreadfleet was full of "jewel like objects of magic and wonder"?

---