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 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? 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

Most (all?) of GW's competition is privately owned and therefore doesn't release the same kind of financial reports GW is required to publish, but anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that the miniatures industry as a whole is doing pretty well and GW's losses are the result of losing market share rather than industry-wide problems.

 Azreal13 wrote:
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.

IMO it's exactly the right kind of target for a Hasbro-type purchase, if the price drops low enough. The IP has a lot of long-term value, the model kits are good, and the only problems are almost entirely the result of bad management rather than a weak product. The ideal owner for GW's IP would be a company with enough experience in the game industry to know how to fix the management issues and the resources to absorb GW and start making major changes immediately. I think the theoretical non-gaming investor would only make GW's problems even worse by continuing their trend of not understanding how the gaming hobby works and making bad decisions as a result.

I agree it isn't beyond the realms of all possibility, just that there are more companies and individuals out there who specialise in acquiring lame ducks and fixing them up than there are likely purchasers with the funds and existing portfolio to complement GW, it isn't impossible Hasbro or Bandai or similar could show an interest, just that the balance of probability isn't necessarily tilting in that direction.

As for public vs private ownership, incorporated (or limited liability, I don't think there's a difference, just a UK vs US thing) companies who have their operations based in the UK ARE obliged to disclose their accounts, the depth of detail of which is regulated by thresholds in turnover (larger companies are obliged to share more information.)

Unfortunately, of all the bigger players I've thought to check, Mantic are the only one's who are UK based (PP and FFG are US, CB are Spanish) and their last filed accounts had their turnover pegged at £13m IIRC (it's late and its a few weeks since I looked, so I'm possibly incorrect.) I didn't go back and do any comparisons for growth, but enough info is out there for some educated guesswork.

loki old fart wrote:

Davor wrote:

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. ?

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

I don't know if Games Workshop is tarnished but some GW shops are being rebranded to Warhammer.

This may be an experiment by GW to change their public image.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
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.

I'm actually surprised that with all the rushed releases this hasn't been done. Hell I haven't bought a GW product in years but I'd actually buy that. Plus you'd think of all the 'new' projects it would be trivially simple to do.

Heroquest and Space Crusade had an involvement from Milton Bradley.

How far that involvement ran, and how much of an implication it would have on a re-release I can't attest to.

Advanced Heroquest and Space Crusade, however, may be a different matter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But then if you're taking Advanced Heroquest, one may as well re-do Warhammer Quest and then coast for another decade on the gratitude and good will that would generate!

Heroquest and space crusade were available to buy in department stores for a reasonable price. No point creating an entrypoint game if it's only available in gw stores and costs 3x the price of a board game.

You might have fond memories of those games but I remember getting all those games when they were $30AUD bargain bins in Toys R Us. I can't imagine they sold well at their $100 original price tag.

That may be so.

The fact remains, however, that GW did not grow from zero to a £150 million company by doing what they are doing now.

I won't argue that. I believe a lot of what grew gw came on the back of the previous management.

Kilkrazy wrote:

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

I don't know if Games Workshop is tarnished but some GW shops are being rebranded to Warhammer.

This may be an experiment by GW to change their public image.

Also, these days the name itself isn't really applicable, and is something of an ironic reminder of the company's past.

The name conjures up a picture of something like the Pixar offices, of creative types getting around a table and throwing in ideas, and the business with the financial capital to put these great games into peoples hands. It applied during the 90's, arguably these days the only company that fits that moniker is Mantic (unsurprisingly, as the company is made up of ex-GW rule writers and staff)

Thachng wrote:You might have fond memories of those games but I remember getting all those games when they were $30AUD bargain bins in Toys R Us. I can't imagine they sold well at their $100 original price tag.

There was a survey a while ago asking how wargamers got into games. IIRC it was 20% or so that came from those MB games initially, a not inconsiderable amount. The point is that like the lack of DeAgostini magazine tie-ins, lack of WD in newsagents*, lack of online presence, they all represent less opportunity for the prospective customers to get in to GW games, or even find out about them in the first place.

* My first exposure to GW was a copy of WD in a shop. If I were a child of 11 in 2014, it wouldn't happen - yes Visions exists, but at 7GBP a pop and in a sealed bag I probably wouldn't buy it. Even if someone had opened the sealed bag (as often happens) the contents are those of a collection of photos/a catalogue, not a journalistic magazine - I think a lot of 11/12 years are sharper than that, and need more.

Thachng wrote:
You might have fond memories of those games but I remember getting all those games when they were $30AUD bargain bins in Toys R Us. I can't imagine they sold well at their $100 original price tag.

Space Crusade, not so much. Heroquest did quite well, though.

Although I don't recall it ever being $100. Fairly sure I paid about $65 for it in 1991.

It wouldn't really take much for another company to turn things around if they did a little research. Make a tighter ruleset, re balance the codexes, set up a Facebook page and engage with the community, put their existing market research team on finding out what will keep the veterans around and happy so they bring in new blood, basically just look at what GW was doing 10-15 years ago and do that again. I would love to see this happen as many people I know stopped buying/playing because of GW, not because they don't want to be in the hobby any more. Balanced rules and the feeling that the company actually cares about your experience would go a long way toward getting the customers back that have recently gone to other games.

Gamers already complain about the operating costs of stores, I only imagine they'd complain even more about multi million dollar advertising campaigns.

Generally, a successful advertising campaign will make more than it costs, and we're not even talking about mulit-million dollar advertising campaigns, they could be much more effective for a few thousand. There's at least 4 (Ravage, Wargames Illustrated, Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy, and Miniature Wargames) 3rd party wargames magazines, counless other scale model and video gaming magazines. A full/half page ad in a few of them would work wonders, especially if it's was about a new release, like an ad about 7th Edition 40K or the End Times stuff, in a scattering of magazines. They'd never do that because of leaks though; you can only really advertise if you're willing to tell people what's going on.

Realistically, despite the big strides many appear to have taken, none of the other bigger names (PP, Wyrd, CB etc..) have the finances to support a decent advertising campaign.

Wyrd, and CB do a lot of advertising though; I see Wyrd banners on a few sites, CB has adverts up and sponsors Beasts Of War. Many other smaller companies have a lot of ads in the wargaming magazines (From memory, the following are usually in WI: Gripping Beast, North Star, Warlord, Battlefront, Fire Forge, Sanguin Skirmish, the Perry Brothers)

 Kilkrazy wrote:

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

I don't know if Games Workshop is tarnished but some GW shops are being rebranded to Warhammer.

This may be an experiment by GW to change their public image.

If the GW name is tarnished, it's tarnished among people who are enthusiasts enough to know that Warhammer is still made by GW and thus the Warhammer name is also tarnished unless it's genuinely picked up by a new company.

But among most people I don't really think the GW name is tarnished enough for that to be a game changer in their success.

There's no chance of that happening. The culture of management is such that problems can't be the fault of the manager. As such mistakes cannot be rectified as to do so would mean admitting them.

 Peregrine wrote:
Most (all?) of GW's competition is privately owned and therefore doesn't release the same kind of financial reports GW is required to publish, but anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that the miniatures industry as a whole is doing pretty well and GW's losses are the result of losing market share rather than industry-wide problems.

I don't know if it works differently in the US but in the UK a 'private' company would probably be still be a limited corporation. Their accounts are a matter of public record. For example here are the accounts for Wayland games.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If the GW name is tarnished, it's tarnished among people who are enthusiasts enough to know that Warhammer is still made by GW and thus the Warhammer name is also tarnished unless it's genuinely picked up by a new company.

But among most people I don't really think the GW name is tarnished enough for that to be a game changer in their success.

I don't think the name is tarnished on the storefront level. If anything, a "Warhammer"-rebrand is to keep out people walking in to buy an X-Box game or a new copy of Monopoly for Christmas.

And while Games Workshop may not be tarnished, it has no sex appeal as a brand either. "Warhammer" is the brand they live on, be it their own games and miniatures and books, be it licensing it out to others. Not sure if that truly is the reason, but if they'd be smart, long-term thinking, and all that, they'd try to really hit home on their IP on different levels, and that IP is "Warhammer", not "Games Workshop".

Wonderwolf wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If the GW name is tarnished, it's tarnished among people who are enthusiasts enough to know that Warhammer is still made by GW and thus the Warhammer name is also tarnished unless it's genuinely picked up by a new company.

But among most people I don't really think the GW name is tarnished enough for that to be a game changer in their success.

I don't think the name is tarnished on the storefront level. If anything, a "Warhammer"-rebrand is to keep out people walking in to buy an X-Box game or a new copy of Monopoly for Christmas.

And while Games Workshop may not be tarnished, it has no sex appeal as a brand either. "Warhammer" is the brand they live on, be it their own games and miniatures and books, be it licensing it out to others. Not sure if that truly is the reason, but if they'd be smart, long-term thinking, and all that, they'd try to really hit home on their IP on different levels, and that IP is "Warhammer", not "Games Workshop".

I personally think the draw of non-gaming folk into the stores is actually quite a good thing. Sure, the managers have to shift through a lot of "y you no hav CoD?" but you pull in people who might not have otherwise known they had any interest in wargaming.

Plus, I feel that stores called Warhammer come off as a bit...well, dorky tbh. It might as well add a "+3" to the name.

 Peregrine wrote:


IMO it's exactly the right kind of target for a Hasbro-type purchase, if the price drops low enough. The IP has a lot of long-term value, the model kits are good, and the only problems are almost entirely the result of bad management rather than a weak product. The ideal owner for GW's IP would be a company with enough experience in the game industry to know how to fix the management issues and the resources to absorb GW and start making major changes immediately. I think the theoretical non-gaming investor would only make GW's problems even worse by continuing their trend of not understanding how the gaming hobby works and making bad decisions as a result.

I agree. Strong IP with obvious management errors should make it quite interesting for larger companies.

A couple of errors I see with current management are, first, poor entry offerings for new customers, and second, lack of expansion when the market is good.

The mantra of 'focusing on key games' was smart in the 90's when the business was slowing down, but they have failed to recover the ground when the market has gotten better. There has been great opportunity for expansion with the Specialist Games range, but they've practically given it away to competition. There's no strategy how to build their empire bigger, really - even if you had a good influx of new players (which they don't) the core games can only expand so far. I'd say it's the lack of market research and opportunity seeking, really. They'd need a new, hungry CEO for that.

For recruiting new players, they'd need a good bang for buck entry option. Being the biggest miniature company, they should also be able to draw in crowds with well discounted entry sets. It's a bit silly that smaller companies can actually be a lot cheaper, too - usually it's the other way around. The current GW price point is just silly, really - dropping several hundred euros just to get a full 1500 pts army isn't very tempting, especially from a newbie point of view.

The Warhammer name is sorely tarnished with the people they needed to keep, the gaming veterans who enjoyed the franchise for better or for worse. There are still hold outs, but the actual game side of the business is busted terribly. GW needs to pull in fresh blood to the overall wargaming scene, but you're going to have store owners and in-store gamers being a new line of defense against "that game" coming back up. Trying to get my local crowd to play GW would be a lost cause as the store owner doesn't want to support it and the crowd has all been burnt on it.

As those networks grow, you're going to see it harder and harder to get newbies and retain the vets. When you have big names like Miniature Market dumping their entire stock, you know something is going wrong. It's not a secret that GW treats their trade account/store owner partnerships terribly. Stack that with an insane push to everything centrally purchased with increasing price tags and you double down on killing interest of newcomers and bringing vets back.

Every other game company I've been a patron towards is worth admiration overall despite a few flaws. With GW, you have to have a near masochistic relationship to enjoy swallowing price hikes for less content routinely now.

It's too bad that in a time when technology is allowing for the most incredible product in it's history, GW is seemingly alienating people.
Is this a fact, however, or is this slump reflective of the gaming industry overall?

The hobby overall seems to be growing, there's a wealth of games and growing ranges, it's a great time unless you're GW.

Relapse wrote:
It's too bad that in a time when technology is allowing for the most incredible product in it's history, GW is seemingly alienating people.
Is this a fact, however, or is this slump reflective of the gaming industry overall?

GW has been alienating people for a long time now, it's just starting to catch up with them. They used to target independent retailers who were doing good business and setup a gw shop in the area to kill them off. They have 'interesting' trade terms with retailers such as in america indies aren't allowed to show pictures of the product they're selling. They've gone after fan sites with their legal team and shut them down. They've even gone after unrelated people (such as spots the space marine). Basically, they've gone after everyone who was a supporter of them, and it has generated a lot of negative will. Thats part of the problem they're facing, what on earth can you do to bring back the customers and infrastructure (indies) that they've intentionally burned?

I think part of the problem is kirby bought a business that 'runs itself', and that got them pretty far but has run out of momentum. The 'new' competition that has sprung up is a symptom of the failings of gw, not the cause. Here we stand 25 years later and 7th edition is a watered-down version of 2nd edition. Outside the bigger kits (i won't go into the finecrap debacle), there hasn't been any true innovation inside the company. The closest i've seen is the day1 dlc policy, which is a faulty copy (microtransactions is supposed to mean tiny costs) of the online gaming industry and its problems. There comes a point where 'raise the prices' won't fix the problems, and we're beginning to see that point.

Yep, Finecast was a terrible idea that should have been more thoroughly tested. Glad to see that fading in the rear view mirror. After I bought a couple of kits, it killed a lot of purchases
I otherwise would have made, and I didn't buy any GW for almost a year.

For me personally the worst thing is thinking of what could be. GW could be the top dog that others aspire to if they did things right. They could have various games that let you explore all facets of the worlds, not just two. There could be support for competitive and casual play, and balanced rules.

It's almost tragic to think of an alternate universe where GW does all of these things and corresponds with the community via their own forums, third party forums, Twitter, etc. - imagine being able to talk to the designers via Twitter?

Imagine if GW didn't try to cheat you in their paint ranges by offering a measly 12mL for higher than everyone else. They would corner the market basically as Citadel paints tends to be available in most game stores and then it would have a good price, great range and coverage and give you a good amount. Instead they give you a tiny bit, charge more and try to sell you overpriced tools and brushes just because they can.

What's the date of the next financial report?

 Accolade wrote:
I personally think the draw of non-gaming folk into the stores is actually quite a good thing.

I agree. Keep a few copies of Space Marine for each platform and a few copies of Space Hulk in the store, and you've got a good way to test the waters with anyone looking for video games or board games. If they aren't interested, point them towards the nearest video game store.

Now in the GW boardroom-

CEO- Well, looks like our profits are dropping. We are getting far fewer customers than before-
*dodges sniper rifle bullet fired from 40k vets in the building next door*
,and our current policies do not seem to be working. Any suggestion, gentlemen?

Person 1- Start advertising. We can do TV advertisements or maybe carry White Dwarf and Visions in stores.

CEO- That costs money, dammit Biggles! We need a minimum-cost solution!

Person 1- Sir, a good advertising program would generate more revenue than-
*Escorted out by security*
AHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

CEO- Now, I think we should implement a new strategy. Raise all prices by 100%, and cut the number of miniatures per box in half. I need a new edition and full round of codexes every month.

Other People-Yes!

CEO-Anyone want some new Citadel Tea?

Other People-Yes!

CEO-That'll be £20 per ounce.

Other People-Yes!

I'm sure that jokes been done already, several times.