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 Jancoran wrote:

...but they didnt. What aCTUALLY happened is 6th Edition cost them ALMOST half the value of their stock vlaue and stockholders went berserk and demanded the rules get fixed so just one year into 6th, 7th Edition development started.

As said above, 7th Edition must've already been at the printers, when the stocks dropped.

It should also be noted, that a fair part of the drop in stock was due to the fact that GW decided to not pay out dividend with said report, which in turn caused many large fonds and automated portfolios to auto-sell, because they always sell stocks without dividends. Of course, that decision by GW was in turn based on falling sales/large new investments, but it wasn't a hugely surprising or unexpected thing.

Finally, some 24% drop in stocks isn't, in stockmarket-terms, a massively huge thing. Especially for a, all things considered, small company like GW that is overall still writing black numbers.

If you can't ride out bumps like that with smaller companies, you shouldn't be investing. Overall, with a company like GW, institutional shareholders aren't going to bother to fly to Nottingham to bang on the table. They tell the intern to sell those shares, or they don't. Or they might be sold / bought along with a gazillion other shares, if they fail to meet / meet certain criteria.

And in that light, GW stocks did double over the past 5 years after accounting for the more recent dip, and it used to pay regular dividends. So it isn't a bad (though not spectacular either) little share there, if they go back to solid dividends.

@Wonderwolf.
The reason GW rushed 7th edition out, was due to the poor sales figures that 6th edition had.
GW has suffered declining sales volumes for the last decade, and only recently has the fall in sales volumes has accelerated to the point it has caused reduced profits.

When the games market has been growing for the last 3 years, and all companies seem to be expanding APART from GW.
GW plc position looks less favorable.

The attitude of the GW games developers is fine for a completely narrative game WITHOUT P.V and F.O.C. or inferred suitability for random pick up games.
Preferably given as low cost/free PDFs to their minature collectors.

But selling 40k/WHFB like GW plc do is very counter productive.

Lanrak wrote:
@Wonderwolf.
The reason GW rushed 7th edition out, was due to the poor sales figures that 6th edition had.
GW has suffered declining sales volumes for the last decade, and only recently has the fall in sales volumes has accelerated to the point it has caused reduced profits.

When the games market has been growing for the last 3 years, and all companies seem to be expanding APART from GW.
GW plc position looks less favorable.

Well, the (non-digital) "game market" has grown almost exclusively due to the massive steam engine that is MTG and a renaissance of board games. Miniature games probably haven't seen any of that growth. PP and Wyrd Games have probably bled sales as much as GW did.

To adapt to this trend, GW (PP, etc..) wouldn't need to fix their "mass battle games"; they'd need to do a CMON (and to a lesser extend Mantic) and go for "board-game"-hybrid style games over mass battle games in general, or at the very least incorporate CCG-elements into the miniatures game, as FFG did with X-Wing.

Either way, I am not saying GW isn't in trouble. Just that even if GW loses further sales, stocks drop, etc.. you still won't see activist shareholders flipping through rulebooks to turn it around. Talking about the guys who invested in GW, rather than those running it, it just doesn't work like that.

I doubt PP saw the same decrease in sales volume as GW just based on the anecdotal evidence that the people leaving GW are mostly going to PP. I haven't seen a mass exodus of players from PP like I have seen from GW. It's not like people are just stopping their war gaming hobbies. They're just stopping their GW hobby and moving to another company. I would say 90% of the WMH players I've talked to are either former GW customers or were recruited by a former GW customer. PP is most likely increasing in revenue and profit just based on all the GW converts they get.

Toofast wrote:
I doubt PP saw the same decrease in sales volume as GW just based on the anecdotal evidence that the people leaving GW are mostly going to PP. I haven't seen a mass exodus of players from PP like I have seen from GW. It's not like people are just stopping their war gaming hobbies. They're just stopping their GW hobby and moving to another company. I would say 90% of the WMH players I've talked to are either former GW customers or were recruited by a former GW customer. PP is most likely increasing in revenue and profit just based on all the GW converts they get.

We have no numbers for PP one way or the other but, as you said, the anecdotal all seems no or a postoperative shift.
The numbers we do have coming from other companies like Mantic, Corvus Bellie and Spartan Games are not the most solid of numbers but they are more than anecdotal and they all paint the picture of a golden age in gaming which GW seems to be entirely unaware of.

It's hard to say much from anecdotal evidence. Some areas around here wargaming has dropped off but MtG has taken off, other areas GW stuff has dropped off but other wargames have grown, but I don't think they've grown as much as GW lost.

Dakka represents such a small cross section of the community it's hard to say much there either. The Dakka community I think is largely made up of people who are real enthusiasts to the point where they actually go on forums and stuff, I think they're more inclined to quit GW and go to another game. Most my mates quit GW and just quit wargaming completely, but most of them weren't the types who'd go on forums and what not either.

Lanrak wrote:
@Wonderwolf.
The reason GW rushed 7th edition out, was due to the poor sales figures that 6th edition had..

I'm not convinced that's the case.

For one thing, trying to turn around poor sales of 6th edition by releasing a nearly identical new edition with a psychic phase added seems like a strange thing to do.

For another, the gap doesn't really seem like enough time to register the flagging sales, write a new rulebook, get it printed, and then get it shipped around the world.

I very much believe that 7th edition was already written when 6th was released. And while it's possible that it was rushed out early to counter falling sales, I think it's more likely that GW just wanted to see whether they could get away with shortening the edition lifespan to sell more books (presumably to counter falling codex sales from all the people turning their noses up at the ridiculously priced hardcovers).

Looking at ICV2 however, I really don't think you can doubt that the Hobby is growing. A decent amount of that could be trading card games, but double digit growth for about 5 years strait and an estimated doubling of the wider hobby since 08 is MASSIVE.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28119.html

GW are shrinking in this market. That's atrocious.

Bringing this back onto the topic, GW are losing money and instead of seeing what their competitors are doing to be gaining 75% growth two years in a row and need to double their print run at the last minute to meet demand they are turning a blind eye and doing things like pushing out new rules for the sake of new rules to force people to buy them and acting like they still operate in an economic bubble.

It's not working for them, and it'[s hurting the game regardless of the 'spirit' of the game.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's hard to say much from anecdotal evidence. Some areas around here wargaming has dropped off but MtG has taken off, other areas GW stuff has dropped off but other wargames have grown, but I don't think they've grown as much as GW lost.

This is what I've observed, in both players and sales. MtG is definitely a massive moneymaker for FLGS, but I see that 40k/WHFB has dropped in numbers, with other wargames picking up some, but not all, of the decline.

Also, the games I frequently see people play now are very low model count, often essentially (or actually) board games with paper foldout playing surfaces; they're never going to be money makers for the gaming stores like 40k or even WMH.

The number of pickup games with lots of models and terrain seem to be fewer now than in decades past. But all that is just my observation, and not based on any numbers.

I hate MtG because I don't find it remotely interesting but at my FLGS there's more tables dedicated to card games (primarily MtG) than actual wargames :( Granted they do set up the tables for wargames on specific wargaming nights, but if it's not a wargaming night, they are just there for cards.

Card games take up less room, and take less time to play. Having a dedicated wargaming space means a lot of room with fewer players.
They also require a far smaller initial investment (until you get into top level tournament play, but that's a different kettle of fish).

Oh I know why they're there, I just have no interest in them so would rather they weren't, can't you play a card game, like, ya know, anywhere? A store doesn't really need to dedicate tables to it when 95% of people would have enough space in their home for card games except for tournaments (in which case set up the tables for wargames most the time and go card tables for tournament nights instead of vice versa).

Anyway, I'm going wildly off topic, my original point was that, yes, in some areas I think wargaming (and GW) have decreased while CCG's have increased (and I don't consider them the same thing so IMO it's an overall loss for wargames).

I always thought the spirit of 40K was methylated

 Wulfmar wrote:
I always thought the spirit of 40K was methylated

So something that is normally fine and enjoyable to drink that's been poisoned so you go blind or die instead? Sounds a bit like 40k... though metho is usually cheap so it doesn't quite fit the bill.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Looking at ICV2 however, I really don't think you can doubt that the Hobby is growing. A decent amount of that could be trading card games, but double digit growth for about 5 years strait and an estimated doubling of the wider hobby since 08 is MASSIVE.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28119.html

From this very article...

Collectible games and board games were driving the growth through the holiday season, with sales on market leader Magic: The Gathering continuing to rise, and a hot new entrant, the My Little Pony CCG debuting at #4 in the hobby.

With #4 in the Hobby overall, the My Little Pony CCG is probably bigger than 40K atm (which in turn is still #1 in miniatures). Either way, with games like that in the mix, I doubt the ICV2 article allows you to deduce much about, say, Warmachine or Infinity. They might suffer as much or more as 40K.



Also, over a period of 5 years, GW did not shrink. Over the 5 year period referenced by ICV2, GW grew by around 100% even after accounting for the most recent dip. So even after the most recent dip, GW is still outperforming the market.

I was more thinking about stripping the models of paint rather than drinking the stuff! XD

Wonderwolf wrote:
Over the 5 year period referenced by ICV2, in which the hobby grew by 20%, GW grew by around 100% even after accounting for the most recent dip. So even after the most recent dip, GW is still outperforming the market.

Say wha? GW grew by 100%? Where is that number from? Their revenue has been mostly flat over the past few years with a recent dip.

Unless you mean their share price... but their share price growing doesn't mean they themselves are going, it just means people are willing to pay more money for their shares.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Unless you mean their share price... but their share price growing doesn't mean they themselves are going, it just means people are willing to pay more money for their shares.

Fair enough. My fault. Shares rose by 100%. Full year revenues rose from 110 Millions GBP in 2008 to 135 Millions GBP in 2013 in constant currency. So 22% growth. (with both financial years ending in May the year after.. no numbers for the full year or 2014 yet).

Still not shrinking though. And, more importantly, a minor fish in the huge pool of "Hobby" as measured by ICV2, whose numbers aren't very informative for the minor sub-niche of miniature games. That ICV2 growth, if driven by things like MTG or My Little Pony CCG just doesn't tell us much about the relative growth of, say, Malifaux vs. 40K. Sorry.

Also note that ICV2 measures are based on surveys/estimates among their partners and associates, which do not include the GW retail chain.

ICV2 would measure a drop in sales of GW-products, if GW shifted their emphasis from independent retailers and retail chains (e.g. Forbidden Planet) towards their website and their stores, even if total GW sales through all their channels remained constant or possibly even went up (disproportionally through their own channels).

Dakka is full of budding economists and business investment advisors.


GW should read these forums

Wonderwolf wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Unless you mean their share price... but their share price growing doesn't mean they themselves are going, it just means people are willing to pay more money for their shares.

Fair enough. My fault. Shares rose by 100%. Full year revenues rose from 110 Millions GBP in 2008 to 135 Millions GBP in 2013 in constant currency. So 22% growth. (with both financial years ending in May the year after.. no numbers for the full year or 2014 yet).

Yeah my mistake, it was flat when normalised with inflation, not at constant currency.

Also it was 123.5m ending 2014, so your figure drops to 12% if you actually take this year in to account, which is less than inflation of the GBP (from the calculator I used).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Dakka is full of budding economists and business investment advisors.


GW should read these forums

I'm not pretending to be an economist. I think most predictive economics is stupid actually I was just pointing out that 100% share price growth is not the same as 100% company growth, one is what share holders think you're worth (typically in the longer term) and the other is how much money the company is pulling in now compared to what it was pulling in before (in rough terms of course).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Unless you mean their share price... but their share price growing doesn't mean they themselves are going, it just means people are willing to pay more money for their shares.

Fair enough. My fault. Shares rose by 100%. Full year revenues rose from 110 Millions GBP in 2008 to 135 Millions GBP in 2013 in constant currency. So 22% growth. (with both financial years ending in May the year after.. no numbers for the full year or 2014 yet).

Yeah my mistake, it was flat when normalised with inflation, not at constant currency.

Also it was 123.5m ending 2014, so your figure drops to 12% if you actually take this year in to account, which is less than inflation of the GBP (from the calculator I used).

ICV2 numbers arent normalised with inflation either.

And again, with ICV2 numbers being heavy on things like MTG, etc.., there is no way to conclude that, say, Wyrd Games or PP are doing better than GW. The thing to take away from ICV2 is that CCG and Board Games are hot. Look at the most recent CMON Kickstarter. That's the kind of games that miniature game companies will probably need to embrace to catch that broader trend described by ICV2.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


I'm not pretending to be an economist. I think most predictive economics is stupid actually I was just pointing out that 100% share price growth is not the same as 100% company growth, one is what share holders think you're worth (typically in the longer term) and the other is how much money the company is pulling in now compared to what it was pulling in before (in rough terms of course)

Well, I apologized for my mistake for the share price.

But you are still insisting on the fallacious comparison with ICV2 surveys. It's like comparing 2 energy drink t companies. One is shrinking, the other doesn't disclose numbers, and then go out claiming that energy drink company 2 must be outperforming energy drink company 1 massively, because the market for all beverages is growing.

That's a false conclusion. It's entirely possible for all energy drinks to be down, even in the broader context of all beverages being up, especially if the examples highlighted to illustrate the best success stories in the "all-beverages"-market are consistently the total opposite of energy drinks.

As far as I'm aware (and I haven't read the numbers closely) but you can't actually conclude much at all from ICV2 because at no point do they actually separate CCG from wargaming. They simply say "CCG was driving the growth" with no actual reference to an amount. All we can say is GW is behind the average of 15% a year for "gaming" by a long ways, they are only 12% over 6 years.

15% a year over the 5 years they state is around 100% growth. GW took 6 years to only achieve 12%, despite increasing their release rate and prices.

The other thing ignored there is that GW in the year of their decline have released a lot of things that people reckon should boost sales.

Wonderwolf wrote:
But you are still insisting on the fallacious comparison of ICV2 markets.

Lets be clear here, I never brought up the ICV2 numbers... I'm simply trying to straighten out the comparison.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Lets be clear here, I never brought up the ICV2 numbers... I'm simply trying to straighten out the comparison.

Fair enough.


Than lets be clear.

- GW was not shrinking over the 5 year period.

- The ICV2 report offers no clue, as to whether GWs (undisputed) problems are GW-specific or symptomatic for all miniatures and mass battle games, the runaway success of CCGs and board games notwithstanding.

I remember reading in some other threads that Corvus Belli (Infinity) has grown significantly these past years consistently. I can't remember the thread, nor do I have the number, but I'm sure someone more interested in Infinity might know that stat.

Fantasy Flight has also stated big growth, though I imagine that's split between their board games, card games, and RPGs. However, I wouldn't discount the success of X-Wing, which in a few years has skyrocketed to one of the top selling miniature games.

Wonderwolf wrote:
What you keep ignoring is that PP, etc.., might well be doing worse than GW.

I'm not ignoring it so much as I don't see the value in discussing things we know nothing about I don't even like PP games so I am indifferent as to whether PP specifically is shrinking or growing.

CCG, etc., were driving the growth. If we had a word from ICV2 that miniature games were driving growth, and contrast that with GW's current and undisputed problems, you'd have a point.

Yes but that statement in itself "CCG were driving growth" is again not meaningful unless they separate the numbers for us. You're ignoring that the first sentence of my previous post was precisely...

"As far as I'm aware (and I haven't read the numbers closely) but you can't actually conclude much at all from ICV2"

The question you continue to ignore is whether GW's problems are GW-specific or symptomatic for all miniature games and massed battle games in particular, the success of board games and CCGs notwithstanding?

I'm not sure if you're referring to me specifically or people in general... I'm not ignoring and certainly not continuing to ignore it at all... just at the top of this page I stated:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's hard to say much from anecdotal evidence. Some areas around here wargaming has dropped off but MtG has taken off, other areas GW stuff has dropped off but other wargames have grown, but I don't think they've grown as much as GW lost.

Dakka represents such a small cross section of the community it's hard to say much there either. The Dakka community I think is largely made up of people who are real enthusiasts to the point where they actually go on forums and stuff, I think they're more inclined to quit GW and go to another game. Most my mates quit GW and just quit wargaming completely, but most of them weren't the types who'd go on forums and what not either.

Which is directly addressing the fact that we don't know.

I'm not really arguing any of the points you think I'm arguing... all I came here to do was to correct your statement that GW is outperforming the market (we have more reason to believe they are not than their are) and to point out your stated 22% growth is actually 12% over 6 years when you consider this year where they have dipped which is well below the "market growth" (which has an unknown proportion of CCG in it) of an average 15% per year for 5 years (around 100% over those 5 years).

 Blacksails wrote:


Fantasy Flight has also stated big growth, though I imagine that's split between their board games, card games, and RPGs. However, I wouldn't discount the success of X-Wing, which in a few years has skyrocketed to one of the top selling miniature games.

Yes, but if ICV2 is to be believed, we have examples of games like My Little Pony CCG, which beat 40K in half as many years as X-Wing is around, which is still behind 40K.

And X-Wing, arguably, is a game designed to capture that "board game and CCG"-trend that is driving the hobby, as it does have a CCG-component.

The challenge for companies like GW thus likely isn't "balancing" their behemoth of a mass battle game. That one is probably dying, whether the rules are good or not.

The challenge is to diversify into smart, small "hybrid"-games like X-Wing, perhaps Deadzone, etc., which appeal to the growing board/card-game crowd, while allowing GW to shift some miniatures.

Wonderwolf wrote:
- GW was not shrinking over the 5 year period.

When people say GW is shrinking they mean they are selling less product at higher prices (probably) to less customers and (probably) well behind the overall wargaming market and (definitely) less than the overall "gaming" market and (definitely) less per release when you consider their increased release cycle.

Sure, I'm not saying ICV2 is some sort of end-all-be-all, but its at least a good indication that the general hobby market is doing well, and that GW needs to do some re-evaluating.

I'd argue that GW should balance/improve their flagship game, and also capitalize on their existing fan base by releasing other specialist games they once sold. There's plenty of room for 40k to exist and remain a leading game, but they're missing out on so much potential with other games like BFG, Necromunda, and Mordheim.

A Star Trek Attack Wing for BFG/40k would be neat.

I don't think its a good idea for them to ignore 40k and let its quality degrad, however. Saving 40k would be important for customer goodwill, something I'm sure they're short on currently.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
- GW was not shrinking over the 5 year period.

When people say GW is shrinking they mean they are selling less product at higher prices (probably) to less customers and (probably) well behind the overall wargaming market and (definitely) less than the overall "gaming" market.

Well, but than the comparisons with ICV2 or similar numbers(e.g. alleged Corvus Belli growth) are again flawed. If they report "growth", they report revenue, which could equally well include price increases, etc..

Infinity miniatures for example aren't cheap, and also easily cost 2x or even 3x what they did cost 3 or 4 years ago. And FFG's X-Wing game is earning them alot more per customer than the kind of board/card-game they made (a bigger part of) their living with a few years ago.

Did Infinity's prices double or triple in the last few years?