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i didnt, so that makes more sense! i guess i was just dropping that as a 'good' use of GW ip!

FFG does lots of good with GW's IP. Shame GW can't do the same.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 darefsky wrote:
Larry Correia book for $8-10 on amazon and they are much better writers imho.

wow thanks for the tip. I Googled him and found his blog. Apparently he's really into warmachine..

http://monsterhunternation.com/

He's also written a few books for Privateer as well. I've only read the Makeda novella so far, but it was excellent.

Check out his "Hard Magic" series. They're excellent! I'm also the illustrator, so I may be biased. And yes,his Warmachine collection is enormous.

To tie that in with the topic. Larry wanted to get into miniatures so he looked around at his options. This was during the Spots the Space Marine thing and when he looked at GW he said "feth that company" and went to Warmachine. He was active on the forums and when PP saw that the New York Times best selling author played Warmachine, they asked him if he would maybe write something for them. Larry jumped at the chance because he's a huge fan.

So, some lessons: 1. Acting like incompetent bullies drives away potential customers and/or talent.
2. Taking an active part in an on-line community keeps you in touch with your players and you may find useful info and/or people.

TheAuldGrump: I'm not entirely sure if I'm being argued against, so I'll reiterate: I agree that it's all playing with toy soldiers. That's how I usually explain it to curious people. But I'd argue that the murderbloodskullwolf themes and reams of complicated and overpowered rules of GW's core two, might seem more mature - a more 'grown-up' type of toy and playing - to preteen boys who've only had relatively sanitised cartoon action figures, trading cards, and other such games and media at that point.

I'd guess it also contributed to Airfix's decline as a kid's introduction to wargaming. For a post-baby-boomer for whom even WWII doesn't register, raised on a visual diet of sci-fi from He-Man to TMNT to Ben 10, and a bit of fantasy, do you think they're more likely to be wowed by flashy minis of vicious, armoured space commandos, anarchic punk orks, gribbly space bugs etc, or some slightly chewed-looking napoleonics in the same taking-a-step pose? I knew which ones I preferred, even in my late teens, and that the 'dangerous'-looking covers of White Dwarf in the newsagents caught my eye long before I knew Games Workshop was a thing.

(Not to say earlier and some current GW minis don't look a bit chewed, but I think a great many historical minis still do, despite my interest in that side of gaming)

'Course there's the thing about kids getting all that from computer games these days, without having to build and paint minis and look up the rules, and how that factors into the decline of GW. That's a whole other matter that I'm even less qualified to comment on. Though if it is a significant distraction, it could ironically make tabletop wargaming even more of a 'grown up's' pursuit, and make GW's chasing little Timmy's parents via little Timmy even more daft and blinkered.

I think it's still possible to get kids interested in wargaming in this age of video games. I discovered the hobby long after I knew about/played video games. For me, tabletop games have the entertainment value of strategy games, with an added benefit of personal artistry and tangible results.

I would think that some of the appeal of "traditional" wargaming (i.e. historical) even to kids today would be for the history lesson. Yes it's cool to do all cool sci-fi fantasy stuff like in movies, but some kids would be interested in say Ancient Rome, or the Civil War or Napoleonics or WW2 and there's appeal in a wargame that lets you play that as well. Fun, creativity and learning all in one.

Something I've been wondering about today:
What can GW do for next year's annual report? They've already released a new 40K edition, and they're on a rapid release cycle for new codices and models for 40K. Once they've burned through all 40K has to offer them, what do they do next? They could give WFB the same treatment, but WFB is not as successful as 40K.

They appear to be trying the same "everybody gets a new spell deck for summoning models" trick in Fantasy with the return of Nagash.

 Vermis wrote:
TheAuldGrump: I'm not entirely sure if I'm being argued against, so I'll reiterate: I agree that it's all playing with toy soldiers. That's how I usually explain it to curious people. But I'd argue that the murderbloodskullwolf themes and reams of complicated and overpowered rules of GW's core two, might seem more mature - a more 'grown-up' type of toy and playing - to preteen boys who've only had relatively sanitised cartoon action figures, trading cards, and other such games and media at that point.

I'd guess it also contributed to Airfix's decline as a kid's introduction to wargaming. For a post-baby-boomer for whom even WWII doesn't register, raised on a visual diet of sci-fi from He-Man to TMNT to Ben 10, and a bit of fantasy, do you think they're more likely to be wowed by flashy minis of vicious, armoured space commandos, anarchic punk orks, gribbly space bugs etc, or some slightly chewed-looking napoleonics in the same taking-a-step pose? I knew which ones I preferred, even in my late teens, and that the 'dangerous'-looking covers of White Dwarf in the newsagents caught my eye long before I knew Games Workshop was a thing.

(Not to say earlier and some current GW minis don't look a bit chewed, but I think a great many historical minis still do, despite my interest in that side of gaming)

'Course there's the thing about kids getting all that from computer games these days, without having to build and paint minis and look up the rules, and how that factors into the decline of GW. That's a whole other matter that I'm even less qualified to comment on. Though if it is a significant distraction, it could ironically make tabletop wargaming even more of a 'grown up's' pursuit, and make GW's chasing little Timmy's parents via little Timmy even more daft and blinkered.

I think that I was taking your statement as about wargaming in general - and when I entered into wargaming I was assuming that I was entering into a hobby for an extended childhood. (I also knew a number of model railroaders, back then... there was no shame in continuing to play with toys in my associates.)

That said... I have a hard time swallowing the idea that GW's IP, in its current incarnation, can in any way be viewed as more mature.

Heck, Rogue Trader was aimed square at the market for 2000AD comics.

But then, I am old enough to remember when Rogue Trader was new and shiny, and the beaky marines were available in large numbers - in regular bookstores. (I bought mine in Booksmith.)

My own evolution was Napoleonics --> Avalon Hill boardgames --> D&D/Chainmail --> Warhammer -->Battlesystem -->WH40K --> Necromunda --> Mordheim --> Kings of War. But, much of that evolution is cumulative in nature. I still played Warhammer after getting Battlesystem, and I still play Necromunda, Mordheim, and D&D. My Warhammer playing began with 1st edition, skipped 2nd, and I still play 3rd now and again. Warhammer 1st edition was actually a pretty simple game.

I originally got Chainmail so I could play a 30 Years War game. (Not a great system for that, I'm afraid... but it was the only one that I knew of that had a write up for Gustavus Adolphus. (Gustav II Adolf was a hero to my early teen self. For a bit of irony, the person that introduced me to the historic Gustav II Adolf was a Catholic priest... with Lutheran sympathies. It came up because of the book Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, which was one of the books in a summer reading program.)

So, I was likely atypical, even at the time. (Lots of folks have stories about their religion being against RPGs - I was introduced to D&D by a Catholic priest, in the basement of the Unitarian church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. There were twelve players in that first game, and by the third game I was the DM.)

An illusion of maturity never entered into it.

The first minis that I ever painted were Minifig Prussians... sold in lots of thirty to a plastic bag hung from a peg.

The Auld Grump - when I first read the magazine that would become The Dragon it was titled The Strategic Review....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Guildsman wrote:
I think it's still possible to get kids interested in wargaming in this age of video games. I discovered the hobby long after I knew about/played video games. For me, tabletop games have the entertainment value of strategy games, with an added benefit of personal artistry and tangible results.

This is where Mordheim and Necromunda could really shine - I have lost track of how many people I have introduced to fantasy wargaming with Mordheim. (I used to run it at a summer program....)

At least a few still play.

The Auld Grump

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Something I've been wondering about today:
What can GW do for next year's annual report? They've already released a new 40K edition, and they're on a rapid release cycle for new codices and models for 40K. Once they've burned through all 40K has to offer them, what do they do next? They could give WFB the same treatment, but WFB is not as successful as 40K.

I honestly have no idea. WHFB won't bring in as much money as 40K, period. The popularity isn't there, for a variety of reasons (pricing being a major one). The upcoming Nagash supplement is interesting, but not even close to enough to help things along. After that, what? Update every WHFB army book? Start updating 40K codices again?

This is part of why I think the collapse will happen a lot faster than anyone expects. This year was bad, and GW managed to pull out several major releases. Now that they've emptied the chambers...

 Guildsman wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Something I've been wondering about today:
What can GW do for next year's annual report? They've already released a new 40K edition, and they're on a rapid release cycle for new codices and models for 40K. Once they've burned through all 40K has to offer them, what do they do next? They could give WFB the same treatment, but WFB is not as successful as 40K.

I honestly have no idea. WHFB won't bring in as much money as 40K, period. The popularity isn't there, for a variety of reasons (pricing being a major one). The upcoming Nagash supplement is interesting, but not even close to enough to help things along. After that, what? Update every WHFB army book? Start updating 40K codices again?

This is part of why I think the collapse will happen a lot faster than anyone expects. This year was bad, and GW managed to pull out several major releases. Now that they've emptied the chambers...

Not doing any market research, but maybe because the Horus Heresy is doing well they will be coming out with apocalypse 30K? ( i am sure they will come out with the other 6 wolves for Logan's sled
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet and Cupid )

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Something I've been wondering about today:
What can GW do for next year's annual report? They've already released a new 40K edition, and they're on a rapid release cycle for new codices and models for 40K. Once they've burned through all 40K has to offer them, what do they do next? They could give WFB the same treatment, but WFB is not as successful as 40K.

8th edition 40K.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Something I've been wondering about today:
What can GW do for next year's annual report? They've already released a new 40K edition, and they're on a rapid release cycle for new codices and models for 40K. Once they've burned through all 40K has to offer them, what do they do next? They could give WFB the same treatment, but WFB is not as successful as 40K.

8th edition 40K.

But what about when the half year reports still suck? 9th edition? 10th edition?

Ok that joke is getting pretty old but yes, there really isn't much left GW can pump out to make a quick buck now. 7th ed Apoc? 7th ed Space Marines? I doubt anyone wants them so soon.

Release Warhammer 50k

Here is an example of their smaller (non-competition) and how they are doing (from GenCon this year):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cervantes3773/14756481930/in/set-7215764604300860

Notice Corvus Belli's growth particularly in the last four years - when GW made the decision to become WHFB/WH40k only.

It is this which is going to kill them. Lots of smaller competitors each eating up a portion of their market share. GW struggles and declines while their competitors (which they do not recognize) grow like gangbusters.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Something I've been wondering about today:
What can GW do for next year's annual report? They've already released a new 40K edition, and they're on a rapid release cycle for new codices and models for 40K. Once they've burned through all 40K has to offer them, what do they do next? They could give WFB the same treatment, but WFB is not as successful as 40K.

8th edition 40K.

But what about when the half year reports still suck? 9th edition? 10th edition?

Ok that joke is getting pretty old but yes, there really isn't much left GW can pump out to make a quick buck now. 7th ed Apoc? 7th ed Space Marines? I doubt anyone wants them so soon.

Half year is for supplements and the like.

What supplements will be able to turn things round?

I really think at this stage they either need a new race or a new game, rather than just a re-hash.

Herzlos wrote:
What supplements will be able to turn things round?

I really think at this stage they either need a new race or a new game, rather than just a re-hash.

Squats?

Supplements will, if anything, reduce popularity as they increase the complexity of their product and the costs of starting up for any new players.

If they want to save they could easily re-release mordhiem and Inquisitor. They'd only need to do rules production and a boxed set, not even any new models barring maybe a handful for launch. That would net them the cut of the small scale skirmish pie that they've basically been losing and leaving wide open for other manufacturers to fill.

Heck Bloodbowl would be another insanely popular line to re-release .

GW has a lot of passed success and many new manufacturers are just re-releasing what GW used to do.

What they need to do is find out why so many people have stopped buying things, and change those factors. My guess is that price has a lot to do with it.

The rapid price increases in the past five or so years did not lead to a rapid increase of sales. This showed that people were scaling back their purchases, or just dropping out.

The leap of codexes from £15 to £30 and the rules from £30 to £45 then £50 stopped a lot of people from buying them. Those same people then had no reason to buy new models for their armies, and that meant they stopped playing against people who did buy new books and units.

Result: worst drop in sales for 10 years.

These no-longer GW players see that for the price of a single unit, like the Knight Titan and its rulebook, they could buy an entire new game from some other company.

Issuing more expensive kits and rulebooks is not going to bring back those lost customers. Nor will a new game if it costs too much.

I am somewhat more optimistic about GW's prospects than Wayshuba. GW are still profitable and have money in the bank. They need to reverse the trend of sales falling, and they have money to do it with. If their next interim report does not show an improvement, though, I will join the pessimist camp.

If anything GW might actually benefit from dropping out of the stock market. At present they are still a healthy, profit making company and are not on the rocks - but the stock market perspective blights them because they are not making the huge gains that people in stock want to see.

A part of their loss also isn't just them but the market expanding - in the past they were pretty much the only solid optoin; other games were very localised and fringe and didn't always last that long or build up a huge playerbase. Then Privateer Press came along and that was ok, it was only one big competition. Now we've got KS taking huge chunks of money from individuals - we've got multiple companies not only lasting but thriving in the market. The pie has been cut into more segments so GW is going to see a loss unless they can make the pie significantly bigger (Lord of the Rings did that for a while but it was a short term bubble that burst rather than one that turned into a bit of the core pie)

It would also mean that they could re-focus - its clear that the upper levels of GW are focused too much upon the shareholders and not enough upon their customer base. They are fixated upon appeasing those shareholders more so than their own customers and that trickles right down the through the company to the ground level and how they interact (or currently fail to interact) with their customer base.

The problem there is that they would need to buy back their stock, which costs money.

Remember - Kirby & the Kronies are not in this busines because they love games (or even know much at all about those games) but because they want to make money.

As a result, they really have no idea why sales are tanking...

Though I seem to recall that a stock buy back is on the schedule for this year. (But... if the folks like Kirby are the ones selling back their shares... it may be just for a quick profit.)

The Auld Grump

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
What supplements will be able to turn things round?

I really think at this stage they either need a new race or a new game, rather than just a re-hash.

Squats?

I was thinking Lizardmen or Slann, or even Saruthi.

 Overread wrote:
If anything GW might actually benefit from dropping out of the stock market. At present they are still a healthy, profit making company and are not on the rocks - but the stock market perspective blights them because they are not making the huge gains that people in stock want to see.

The problem isn't the fact it's publicly traded per se. The problem is that the upper management has no idea what it's doing; taking it away from the stock market won't change that. It just means that Kirby would stop getting ~£800k/year in dividends, which he'd no doubt make up for in profits.

Yes, GW's problem isn't that they're a publicly traded company, it's that they're managed by people who aren't qualified to manage a publicly traded company.

The key surprise about the report was that Kirby in his preamble tried so hard to gloss over the presence of a massive elephant in the room -- the awful sales performance -- and said absolutely nothing about how he was going to address it.

That does not look like a CEO who is responsive to the concerns of his shareholders.

Aye but he's stepping down as head isn't he - and considering his performance I'd be surprised if he gets voted to stay on (unless he's really managed to structure the upper levels so completely that they are all in his back pocket)

He is staying as Chairman if and when they find a replacement CEO; he will have great influence over that selection process of course.

The new CEO won't come on board until 2015. It then takes him or her some months to get up to speed with things and develop some plans for change, which the rest of the board need to support.

One of the complaints against the GW board is how long they have all been serving together. The danger of this is that it tends to lead to groupthink. We don't know how unhappy they are with things ATM.

Anyway, even if Kirby hires an independently minded person, they may not be able to do anything effective. If they can get something done, it may be too late. If GW have another year as bad as the last one they will be heading into actual loss-making territory.

Ultimately GW took the originally idea of a group of mates gaming around a table and turned it into a cash cow. From a brutal profit making POV it makes sense, but from a gaming POV it's just harsh & cold.

Herzlos wrote:
It just means that Kirby would stop getting ~£800k/year in dividends, which he'd no doubt make up for in profits.

Private companies pay owners in dividends too.

GW is so desperate for money I expect them to not hold back this up coming year. New space marine codex to milk more money from the cash cow.