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Fliers in GW games would have two problems which mean they are next to pointless;

1 - What games would these be as nearly all current GW games are digital only ? The last boxed retail one I remember was Space Marine ?

2 - Fliers are really really not effective when used in a passive way such as in box - most people no longer even look at instructions for a game let alone other stuff,

Personally I still think GW's problem is price as a barrier to entry in the hobby and the real/perceived complexity of some kits now.

I honeslty would not want to ever assemble the latest tactial marine box as they have managed to make a high part number kit even higher!.

Not to mention that GW in the UK have seemingly launched another round of attacking indie stockists for the most minor of things. My local was "caught" using GW stock images on his website to sell their product so has now decided to ditch them and replace GW with another miniature makers product.

GW just don't like working with other people. They could really use an arrangement like they had with De Agostini again, but they don't seem to want to let anyone else play with their ball so shut that down after LotR stopped. It's pretty clear they don't really like the Hobbit licence and would rather focus only on their own in house products, despite the fact that LotR was huge for them. They won't produce a product they can sell in more public stores like a general release of Space Hulk, or work with companies like Milton Bradley to make something like Heroquest or Space Crusade. A lot of people my age had Heroquest as their first fantasy game, I started with that and Space Hulk. There have been rumours for years that GW had the opportunity to get their products into superstores but where just too demanding so nothing came of it. They don't even like their own independent stockists, people you should build relations with.

It surprises me that they've managed to have an arrangement with Fantasy Flight Games for so long, but even there they won't let them make miniatures in case it competes, rather than complements and supports, their own products.

GW seem to think that total control is the best way, preventing anyone working with or complementing them, officially or not. I'm sure that by expanding opportunities to the players they'll pull in more customers. Instead they shut down every avenue in their hobby that doesn't lead directly to their online store in the misguided belief that they can force sales out of the customer on their terms. What happens is that customers get fed up of lack of choice, freedom, variety and the inconvenience of it all. So they stop buying.

<sigh>
- No market research. (So how do they know they are right or wrong)
- Depends on word of mouth. (From who???)
- Largely hate relationship with FLGS. (Not getting much shelf space in my area, consistent complaints about dealing with GW as a supplier)
- Rabid IP protection preventing resellers from using any of their images for selling product or otherwise. (Hard to get that brand awareness when you cannot show it to potential customers).
- Steady increase of model / support document costs. (The standard gripe, becoming an irrelevant argument now: if it is a "hot" brand any cost could be justified...)
- Decline in IP use in other mediums. (The latest video game offerings have not been great)
- GW web site exclusively for selling product, little in hobby guides / support. (The old site before the forum take-downs and "upgrade" was awesome.)
- Veteran players remembering "the good old days" so more willing to bad-mouth the present GW sales model. (The contrast is just... brutal.)

I really just do not know how GW plans to maintain what they have or even expand.
It just seems negligent of management to maintain "stay the course" when overall gross income is on the decline.

Funny how we talk of GW "hate" when it is more like watching something you liked choosing to roll over and die (a long, agonizing one however...).

It is really strange both with my friends and the local FLGS the 40k scene has dried-up and we are all playing other things.
Maybe GW can look around a bit and figure out something to pull it out of the fire.
I hope they can forgive us for not waiting around until they do.

Basically, as I see it, GW is apparently unaware of their rising competitors for wargaming money sources, and until they collectively pull their own heads from their sphincters, they are essentially tossing away their future just for the sake of quick profits from over priced models.

Honestly, My IG can be corporate troops in Warpath, or other games out there.

Tau can be used as generic aliens for other games

Orks are well seeded though out the gamer psyche, and also be maruders for warpath, or simple junk wizard aliens in other games, all of these ideas for folks who have large collections, also many veteran gamers simply decided what edition of 40k to play with as they may still have their old books (like me).

But there is a disconnect between GW and their customer base. They decided word of mouth and "churn" which can work for some skeevy companies as far as hiring/firing workers for places, but eventually catches up customer wise to bite one's bum.

reduced costs of models and minis would mean a likely increase in overall revenue for them from mass selling of miniatures collecting dust in warehouses unsold due to the super inflated prices they push now. I buy larger paint supplies for less money as I am sorry, but the paint pots of 0.4fl oz at 4bucks a pot compared to a decent half ounce squeeze bottle of same quality paint for just over 3bucks works out to be more feasible for me. same with cheaper brushes and hobby tools. they really do go crazy trying to squeeze money from ideas that have decent alternatives to their products.

 Talizvar wrote:
<sigh>

Funny how we talk of GW "hate" when it is more like watching something you liked choosing to roll over and die (a long, agonizing one however...).

It is really strange both with my friends and the local FLGS the 40k scene has dried-up and we are all playing other things.
Maybe GW can look around a bit and figure out something to pull it out of the fire.
I hope they can forgive us for not waiting around until they do.

This!
I dont hate them, And I really doubt most of us here actually hate them, I do strongly dislike many of their choices, Its mildly upsetting to see something that you've loved for 20 years be on the slow downhill, its kind of like when your grandparents start to get a bit senile, and loose the marbles. Really quite sad and upsetting to see them loose touch with the person you grew up to know and love.

Even those spewing the most hate filled bile towards them... are still thinkin about GW all the godamned day to come up with such excellent beefs with how they do things. Theyre probably those who loved it the most in their younger days, feeling the most heart broken and betrayed by the changes over the years.

And the people who can run off a list of years worth of things GW did badly... why were they still sticking around to know all this stuff after the first few times? (cus they love it really - yes ... I'm accusing you all of loving it really you are after all spending your precious lives posting on a discussion forum that is predominantly 40k related )

HairySticks wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
<sigh>

Funny how we talk of GW "hate" when it is more like watching something you liked choosing to roll over and die (a long, agonizing one however...).

It is really strange both with my friends and the local FLGS the 40k scene has dried-up and we are all playing other things.
Maybe GW can look around a bit and figure out something to pull it out of the fire.
I hope they can forgive us for not waiting around until they do.

This!
I dont hate them, And I really doubt most of us here actually hate them, I do strongly dislike many of their choices, Its mildly upsetting to see something that you've loved for 20 years be on the slow downhill, its kind of like when your grandparents start to get a bit senile, and loose the marbles. Really quite sad and upsetting to see them loose touch with the person you grew up to know and love.

Even those spewing the most hate filled bile towards them... are still thinkin about GW all the godamned day to come up with such excellent beefs with how they do things. Theyre probably those who loved it the most in their younger days, feeling the most heart broken and betrayed by the changes over the years.

And the people who can run off a list of years worth of things GW did badly... why were they still sticking around to know all this stuff after the first few times? (cus they love it really - yes ... I'm accusing you all of loving it really you are after all spending your precious lives posting on a discussion forum that is predominantly 40k related )

Well, I hate (in a wholly justified, yet emotionally damaging manner) some of the people running the company, but that has naught to do with the fictiuonal universes. I play the crap out of the FFG 40K RPGs! What has always amazed me about GW is that ex-customers still read all of the GW news, keep up with product releases, and talk about the company. That's crazy when you think about it. It means that getting those customers back is a whole lot easier than it would otherwise be. Yet GW continually fails to do so.

 Achaylus72 wrote:
But when you treat your Investors higher than the folks that actually spend money on product, then you deserve everything you get.

Unless I'm mistaken, corporations are actually required by law to put the interest of shareholders above anyone else, including their customers.

Yeah, you're mistaken.....

 TedNugent wrote:

 Achaylus72 wrote:
But when you treat your Investors higher than the folks that actually spend money on product, then you deserve everything you get.

Unless I'm mistaken, corporations are actually required by law to put the interest of shareholders above anyone else, including their customers.

As a public company GW has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders that obligates GW to make sound financial decisions for the company that protects the shareholders' investment. That doesn't mean GW has carte Blanche to do whatever they want so long as they can pay a dividend.

I find it interesting that GW continues to promote from within and double down on all the strategies that got them in this position in the first place. It's like the captain of a ship seeing an iceberg and instead of making a course correction, he orders full steam ahead and rams right into it. Word of mouth marketing worked in the 90s when people liked GW as a company. Unfortunately for GW, word of mouth marketing now typically consists of "don't play GW games. Get WMH, infinity, etc." Considering they're pretty much solely relying on existing customers to gain new ones, you would think keeping their existing customers happy would be a priority. Instead they try to bleed us dry until even the most avid fan boy who has stuck with GW for 15-20 years is steering their friends to other games. A Co worker of mine saw me building models and asked more about the hobby. I told him about 40k and he looked at armies. He priced a tau army he wanted...and ended up buying the WMH starter when I showed him how much a khador army would cost. Another friend of mine has 30k of eldar and 10k of blood angels, and 10k of various other armies. He's been playing since the launch of rogue trader. He just told me he's going to start selling off his collection because of what the game has become and the decisions of the company. When you can't get new customers due to price no matter how excited they are about the hobby, and your longest running, highest spending, most loyal customers are leaving, who exactly is going to buy your products?

 Toofast wrote:
I find it interesting that GW continues to promote from within and double down on all the strategies that got them in this position in the first place. It's like the captain of a ship seeing an iceberg and instead of making a course correction, he orders full steam ahead and rams right into it.

I'd say more like the captain of a ship who's been showboating and ran aground, confident that he can get to the lifeboats before anyone realizes there's a problem. Kirby has been planning to retire for some time now, and right before the ship starts listing would be a good time. Surely it couldn't end in court. Does anyone have dry socks?

Backfire wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
No, not yet.

But bound to happen at some time?

Doesn't seem likely. The company's cash position is too strong for any quick development in this regard. Also given the nature of their product, it would be quite unlikely there would be sudden mass exodus of customers.

However it is a bad sign if they can't improve from supposedly anomalously poor first half of last Financial Year. If the sales continue to decline, at some point they start making a loss, and someone larger will eventually take over (atm their stock is still too high for convenient takeover), possibly closes the Nottingham and moves production to China.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Better than you if you think anyone was predicting the imminent demise of the company.

EDIT
anyone was plausibly predicting the imminent demise of the company.

Well, the plausibility was not in the criteria, was it...?

That already happened, they have next to doubled their prices over a few years with flat and now declining revenue.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 TedNugent wrote:

 Achaylus72 wrote:
But when you treat your Investors higher than the folks that actually spend money on product, then you deserve everything you get.

Unless I'm mistaken, corporations are actually required by law to put the interest of shareholders above anyone else, including their customers.

As a public company GW has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders that obligates GW to make sound financial decisions for the company that protects the shareholders' investment. That doesn't mean GW has carte Blanche to do whatever they want so long as they can pay a dividend.

It's virtually impossible for a shareholder to sue a corporation, its officers, or directors successfully over poor performance or perceived poor management decisions (for example, Nokia). Breach of fiduciary duty is normally reserved for instances where officers or directors, or majority shareholders enrich themselves at the expense of other shareholders. Even so, one must prove that the intentionally meant to do harm.

Incidentally, directors and officers of private corporations have exactly the same obligations.

In this case, GW has enriched the shareholders with dividends, even when they have to take out a loan to do it. The shareholders should be thrilled, GW is mortgaging the long term health of the company to pay dividends right now. The shareholders should have time to get their parachutes on and get out before the plane hits the ground.

 frozenwastes wrote:

agnosto wrote:1. Entry Level: A fantasy and a sci-fi board game made with board game plastic, not real miniatures.

This isn't the way to go. GW has already paid for their design equipment, their tooling equipment and their injection moulding machines. There's no reason at all for them to switch to a different material or process.

The board game market generally don't want to have to assemble and paint before play. So for an entry level board game you really want single piece coloufed plastics.

Herzlos wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

agnosto wrote:1. Entry Level: A fantasy and a sci-fi board game made with board game plastic, not real miniatures.

This isn't the way to go. GW has already paid for their design equipment, their tooling equipment and their injection moulding machines. There's no reason at all for them to switch to a different material or process.

The board game market generally don't want to have to assemble and paint before play. So for an entry level board game you really want single piece coloufed plastics.

That really has nothing to do with switching the material to board game plastic or using a different process. See the lord of the rings miniatures for examples of single piece toy soldiers in GW's plastic and things like Space Hulk for their plastic in different colours.

GW has absolutely no reason to switch to a PVC based board game plastic given that they already have invested in a plastic injection process that works and has a very low marginal cost per sprue.

They can do really good single piece or snap fit hard plastic models anyhow, so they could easily do a "board game style" starter without needing to go the PVC route.

 agnosto wrote:
Anyone remember the D&D Saturday morning cartoon? Man, I'm old but that's an example of marketing.

Well we did have Battletech cartoons as well. I don't think that helped them much. If anything it shows you how America touches something it can ruin it and not be taken seriously.

Now I say you want to make 40K popular? Get James Cameron to make the movie. Yes there will be a love story to it, but you got to admit, James Cameron knows how to make something popular and people take notice and make a few billion at the same time.

Davor wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Anyone remember the D&D Saturday morning cartoon? Man, I'm old but that's an example of marketing.

Well we did have Battletech cartoons as well. I don't think that helped them much. If anything it shows you how America touches something it can ruin it and not be taken seriously.

Now I say you want to make 40K popular? Get James Cameron to make the movie. Yes there will be a love story to it, but you got to admit, James Cameron knows how to make something popular and people take notice and make a few billion at the same time.

I can remember my son asking for battle tech toys that year, so the cartoons worked.

 loki old fart wrote:

Davor wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Anyone remember the D&D Saturday morning cartoon? Man, I'm old but that's an example of marketing.

Well we did have Battletech cartoons as well. I don't think that helped them much. If anything it shows you how America touches something it can ruin it and not be taken seriously.

Now I say you want to make 40K popular? Get James Cameron to make the movie. Yes there will be a love story to it, but you got to admit, James Cameron knows how to make something popular and people take notice and make a few billion at the same time.

I can remember my son asking for battle tech toys that year, so the cartoons worked.

Battletech toys. Did he ask for the boxed game? Did he ask for Battletech books and or supplements? Did he ask for Battletech minis and rules? Did he ask for Citytech, areotech? Anything releated to the game and not toys made by another company?

I used to watch the battletech cartoon, really enjoyed it as a kid. However had no idea it was a mini game until some years later... So I would say as advertising for the mini game it failed, amazingly... I wouldve loved that at the time. But blissfully unaware.

Davor wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:

Davor wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Anyone remember the D&D Saturday morning cartoon? Man, I'm old but that's an example of marketing.

Well we did have Battletech cartoons as well. I don't think that helped them much. If anything it shows you how America touches something it can ruin it and not be taken seriously.

Now I say you want to make 40K popular? Get James Cameron to make the movie. Yes there will be a love story to it, but you got to admit, James Cameron knows how to make something popular and people take notice and make a few billion at the same time.

I can remember my son asking for battle tech toys that year, so the cartoons worked.

Battletech toys. Did he ask for the boxed game? Did he ask for Battletech books and or supplements? Did he ask for Battletech minis and rules? Did he ask for Citytech, areotech? Anything releated to the game and not toys made by another company?

Who paid for the cartoons? the creators of the toys or the game. ?

 Azreal13 wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
People keep saying if the share price drops enough, hasbro or another company may step in and buy GW.
Why would they? Since the chapterhouse fiasco, whats left to buy?

A lot of machinery, a lot of moulds, a lot of stuff they do own, at least within the scope of wargaming, and a level of customer awareness beyond anything else within the sector.

Plus a large customer base and a substantial number of customers champing at the bit to re-engage should things improve.

As stated before the brand is considered Toxic. No major player at this moment wants to buy this hotmess of a corporation.

The Space crusade board-game was a great entry game and had some interesting mini's for it's time, they should do a revised edition of that.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
People keep saying if the share price drops enough, hasbro or another company may step in and buy GW.
Why would they? Since the chapterhouse fiasco, whats left to buy?

A lot of machinery, a lot of moulds, a lot of stuff they do own, at least within the scope of wargaming, and a level of customer awareness beyond anything else within the sector.

Plus a large customer base and a substantial number of customers champing at the bit to re-engage should things improve.

As stated before the brand is considered Toxic. No major player at this moment wants to buy this hotmess of a corporation.

I'm afraid that's just unsubstantiated hearsay.

Firstly, the GW name could be considered tarnished, but hardly toxic, they're not Enron.

Secondly, they are, despite the last few reports, still a profit making company who own a popular IP and aren't reliant on any real outside agency for their success.

Their issue is that they are underperforming spectacularly and companies in GW's position are exactly the sort that would attract the attention of specialists who look for this sort of company profile.

Not the sort of thing that may attract another wargaming firm, or the oft cited Hasbro, but certainly something which has appeal for a certain sort of investor.

GW itself is a tarnished name.

Warhammer 40k and warhammer itself are easily recognized and well beloved brands (or at least as much as you can in the niche market of wargaming.)

If anyone buys GW the first thing to go will be the GeeDubs name. (please note this the opinion of someone with little economic knowledge so feel free to object or point out any errors in my statement.)

I don't really think the GW name is all that tarnished.

Davor wrote:
Now I say you want to make 40K popular? Get James Cameron to make the movie. Yes there will be a love story to it, but you got to admit, James Cameron knows how to make something popular and people take notice and make a few billion at the same time.

The love story/film studio meddling aspect is trivially easy to solve: throw Ciaphas Cain at them. If they want to shove a square peg in a round hole, give them a round peg instead, and let them make their movie about a self-depreciating badass who loves the ladies.

Are other companies that compete with GW private or corporations? If they are corporations as well how are their numbers in their own busniness? Up or down/even? I ask this because it seems a lot of people say how GW numbers are at the moment, but i have not seen anyone (may have missed it lol) say how the other business that make Warmachine, Infinity, etc are doing. I know Warlord Games is owned by an individual (or at least that is my understanding) and thus we probably would not know how well they are doing in reality aside from perception.

Dont get me wrong I do think GW is causing its issues, just wanted to see if there is a bigger picture etc

 Spacewolfoddballz wrote:
Are other companies that compete with GW private or corporations? If they are corporations as well how are their numbers in their own busniness?

All other companies in the field are private and there is no data beyond what is released to the public (like CB's announcement of 75% growth several years in a row, Warlord's continuing acquisitions of smaller historical figure ranges, or when a major retailer like Wayland announce figures on a particular product like Operation Icestorm). There's no legal requirement for them to release such data (nor even tell the truth I guess).

On another note, it's amusing to see just how much the appeal of the 40k background is overstated sometimes.