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 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Unless they make a sudden loss from something, say like a radical huge re-release of a core product which completely flops

Completely random, hypothetical example, I'm sure

Oh let me guess!

Spoiler:

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings SBG?

(Joking aside, that actually would make my day).

Or the rumored changes to WHFB.

What people often forget is the GW core model business is actually worse than portrayed just looking at the overall numbers across the last 5yrs.

BL and FW have continued to grow - BL is selling more titles than I ever recall in the 20+ yrs I have been playing with GW stuff. FW must be growing to be big enough to release its own rule sets.

Also, we must strip out the impact Space Hulk and the new 40k edition for this comparison - now we dont have those figures but GW surely does. I bet on a like for like basis the drop in sales for the core model business is down significantly more than 7%.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
With regard to the commentors and the 'sky is falling' - this continuing drop since the introduction to the one man store and a move away from the high traffic mall stores was relative easy to predict.

Reduce traffic, less gaming, less hobby interaction, less hours open will reduce the number of new people coming into the hobby. That is just common sense. To maintain growth in revenue (as opposed to maintain cuts to the cost base) you need more customers over the longer term rather than raising prices on existing ones that drop off and aren't replaced because of your retail strategy.

It is really basic retail, basic analysis and common sense. I fail to understand why GW is in this position.

 fullheadofhair wrote:


BL and FW have continued to grow - BL is selling more titles than I ever recall in the 20+ yrs I have been playing with GW stuff.

Launching? Yes. Selling? Much harder to say.

FW must be growing to be big enough to release its own rule sets.

I don't really call 30K a separate ruleset. One could say they're a bit more involved than your typical Imperial Armour book, but not massively - they've featured new lists with unique units and rules for a long time, and that's all the HH books really do.

Also, we must strip out the impact Space Hulk and the new 40k edition for this comparison - now we dont have those figures but GW surely does. I bet on a like for like basis the drop in sales for the core model business is down significantly more than 7%.

The new 40K launched the weekend before the last financial year closed, so all the launch weekend sales have already been excluded, so I'd doubt that 7th has made much of an impact on this report than any other currently available ruleset has on any other (certainly not to distort it sufficiently to adjust for it.) Space Hulk? Maybe, but you'd need to compare SH's numbers with something deemed a "typical" months releases and then account for the difference, something we don't have the information to do with any accuracy. Besides, a one-box release is a semi regular fixture of GW's release schedule, so it isn't such an anomaly to need to be extensively corrected for, unless it sold stupidly, indecently well, which it fairly obviously didn't.

 warboss wrote:
Can one of the mods reading this (or the OP) change the thread title to show that the NEW report for 1/2015 is on page 21? It looks like the separate thread for the new report was locked so it might be a good idea for those wishing to see the new info to know where to look in the somewhat lengthy thread.

Aye, good point.. done.

Could something be done to tidy up the fact that there's another thread in discussions running concurrently too?

 Azreal13 wrote:

 fullheadofhair wrote:


BL and FW have continued to grow - BL is selling more titles than I ever recall in the 20+ yrs I have been playing with GW stuff.

Launching? Yes. Selling? Much harder to say.

FW must be growing to be big enough to release its own rule sets.

I don't really call 30K a separate ruleset. One could say they're a bit more involved than your typical Imperial Armour book, but not massively - they've featured new lists with unique units and rules for a long time, and that's all the HH books really do.

Also, we must strip out the impact Space Hulk and the new 40k edition for this comparison - now we dont have those figures but GW surely does. I bet on a like for like basis the drop in sales for the core model business is down significantly more than 7%.

The new 40K launched the weekend before the last financial year closed, so all the launch weekend sales have already been excluded, so I'd doubt that 7th has made much of an impact on this report than any other currently available ruleset has on any other (certainly not to distort it sufficiently to adjust for it.) Space Hulk? Maybe, but you'd need to compare SH's numbers with something deemed a "typical" months releases and then account for the difference, something we don't have the information to do with any accuracy. Besides, a one-box release is a semi regular fixture of GW's release schedule, so it isn't such an anomaly to need to be extensively corrected for, unless it sold stupidly, indecently well, which it fairly obviously didn't.

The 40k release would have bled significantly into these results - thats rule books and new armies or new units to deal with new meta. With regard to SH, if if just 100k sales at $120 is $1.2M - in the comaprison period there wasn't a box sale with the prior one being that ship game in 2012 i think.

I know we don't have any of these numbers but the point I am making is if you compare the top level numbers between this report and its equiv in 2013 the results for the core plastic model business are probably worse that the 7%, all things being equal. I don't think that is a controversial or difficult leap to make.

alphaecho wrote:
A question for those who follow markets and trading:

What do major investors tend to do when it looks like a company is tottering at the top of a slippery slope?

Is it:
1. Use their stake to try and persuade management to take a better course of action

or

2. Get out before it gets any worse?

Neither.

#1 is a waste of time, especially for a "small" public company that nobody outside the wargaming world cares about one way or the other. 100% of my non-wargaming friends have never even heard of GW (and 98% haven't heard of Warhammer, and 95% can't believe any adult in their right mind paints miniatures and plays war games).

#2 is just going with the trend, meaning at the very best you minimize your losses because you're doing the same thin as other people.

In order to make money in equities, you need to do two things: be right, and be different from the crowd. It isn't good enough to buy or sell when everyone else is doing that because all you're doing is buying or selling with the good or bad news built into the price. The way to make real money on the stock market is to buy when everyone else is selling, AND correctly forecast that the share price will rise; or, sell when other people are buying, correctly forecasting that the hare prices will fall when others think it will rise.

As a good example, one could be very wealthy today, had they invested in Netflix a few years ago, when everyone thought it would disappear into irrelevance, and sell the equity when it exceeded HBO in membership.

GWC is probably such a tiny part of any sophisticated investor's portfolio that it's barely a rounding error. The investor will simply have to decide whether it's better to hold (as this is not a god time to sell) or if there is other risky stuff they want to toss some money at. In the long run, is this a Netflix, or Redbox?

Who knows, but GW is not going anywhere as long as thy remain profitable and has cash. Will they change, desiring greater relevancy and market share? Again, who knows. It seems they are content to do less work and make less money.

Which is where I am in my own life -- I want more time for family and hobby rather than more income

Edits - terrible, phone autocorrect, lol.

 Fango wrote:

This. I couldn't have said it better myself

I love the IP, I love the stories and the models...the games, not quite as much...and the rest of it really bums me out. The current state of the company actually makes me a little sad.

Yup. As a mashup of Tolkien and Moorcock* among others, it's not a bad sandpit to play in. Just gimme some sort of sane army-building price to use with the rules of my choice.

*I'll bet Mike loves that. "I'll give you the Chaos star if you never mention us on the same page! No wait - same book!"

 fullheadofhair wrote:

Spoiler:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 fullheadofhair wrote:


BL and FW have continued to grow - BL is selling more titles than I ever recall in the 20+ yrs I have been playing with GW stuff.

Launching? Yes. Selling? Much harder to say.

FW must be growing to be big enough to release its own rule sets.

I don't really call 30K a separate ruleset. One could say they're a bit more involved than your typical Imperial Armour book, but not massively - they've featured new lists with unique units and rules for a long time, and that's all the HH books really do.

Also, we must strip out the impact Space Hulk and the new 40k edition for this comparison - now we dont have those figures but GW surely does. I bet on a like for like basis the drop in sales for the core model business is down significantly more than 7%.

The new 40K launched the weekend before the last financial year closed, so all the launch weekend sales have already been excluded, so I'd doubt that 7th has made much of an impact on this report than any other currently available ruleset has on any other (certainly not to distort it sufficiently to adjust for it.) Space Hulk? Maybe, but you'd need to compare SH's numbers with something deemed a "typical" months releases and then account for the difference, something we don't have the information to do with any accuracy. Besides, a one-box release is a semi regular fixture of GW's release schedule, so it isn't such an anomaly to need to be extensively corrected for, unless it sold stupidly, indecently well, which it fairly obviously didn't.

The 40k release would have bled significantly into these results - thats rule books and new armies or new units to deal with new meta. With regard to SH, if if just 100k sales at $120 is $1.2M - in the comaprison period there wasn't a box sale with the prior one being that ship game in 2012 i think.

I know we don't have any of these numbers but the point I am making is if you compare the top level numbers between this report and its equiv in 2013 the results for the core plastic model business are probably worse that the 7%, all things being equal. I don't think that is a controversial or difficult leap to make.

No, I think it's a perfectly reasonable leap, but it's still a leap. You can't legislate for the things that weren't sold. Did that hypothetical $1.2m for Space Hulk boost sales by $1.2m? Almost certainly not, because some people will have purchased it on top of whatever they would have purchased already, but many others may well have purchased it instead of, meaning the revenue GW gained from those people was essentially flat.

You make a good point about possible run on sales from the new edition bleeding over, I'd not really considered this because it isn't really how I play/collect my armies, but if this is usually a reliable way of GW refreshing their revenue, it hasn't worked, I'd still be more inclined to think it is just one of the reasons that motivate people to buy new stuff on a day to day basis alongside a bunch of other micro and macro factors, and would essentially get lost in the shuffle.

For those who are looking to see into the future on the year end report, there is also this little bit at the tail end of the report:

Capital expenditure contracted for at the balance sheet date but not yet incurred is £3,302,000 (2013: £606,000). The committed spend includes the renovation of our visitor centre in Nottingham, tooling and machinery spend and web store improvements.

Even if they managed to pull off an astounding second half of the year, they have a £3.3 million hole to climb out of.

There retail store sales fell almost 10%. Trade sales fell over 5%. The webstore, all fancy and new with more direct only items than ever before (barring when they actually had bits) was flat (or a bit down if you prefer to look at real numbers as opposed to constant currency comparisons...).

New management...same as the old management. Actually, sounds a bit like an echo. Must be from how far up Kirby's butt he must be.

 Blacksails wrote:
What are we looking at release wise for GW so far?

The leftover sales of 7th that didn't make the cut for the annual report, one of those campaign books/sets, the Space Wolf book, Ork book, GK book, DE book and BA book? On the fantasy side, I guess a bunch of End Times stuff, though I keep up less on that side so someone else can fill in.

That's a not an insignificant amount of new releases, and from some decently popular factions (three marine books).

I'm no businessologist, but that's not a good thing if revenue is still down despite a ramping up of releases.

That's the way I see it as well.

Sales are actually down only a bit, allowing for currency fluctuation, but GW have had to work very hard indeed to keep it that way.

WayneTheGame wrote:

What sticks out to me is that currency is driving about a 4% bogey (only down slightly less than 2% in local currency terms). The US$ is monstrously stronger so that shift is understandable, but it really speaks to the geography of GW's sales if they're that reliant on the NA market.

Retail
This channel showed growth in the UK offset by declines in North America and Continental Europe...

Trade
This channel showed growth in North America, Australia and the UK, offset by larger declines in non - strategic accounts and magazine sales. The net effect was a decline of 5.1%...

So, sales at their stores in NA are down even though they are selling stuff in stronger dollars and receiving stronger dollars. If the dollar were weaker and sales quantities were the same they would have received less money and sales would have been down even more, correct? Pound was stronger against the dollar in the first half of the year, but has been dropping by considerable amounts since July ($1.71 to $1.55 on Jan 1).

Trade (other stores) sales in are up in NA, Aus and UK, but declines in magazine sales and non-strategic accounts drove sales to a net 5.1% loss? Seems like there must not have been much profit in trade if declines in these two items knocked sales well into negative territory. Anyone have any idea what "non-strategic accounts" are? Can't imagine that magazine sales make up a significant percentage of trade sales, so what are these "non-strategic accounts" that appear to be so significant?

T

With the currency, you have the one hand (GW's) where if they sell an item for $50 in the US, they only get £30.86 as opposed to £31.25 in return.

Would not be surprised to see the return of the annual price increase this spring as well. The preceding years that they skipped it on, it was stealth - hidden in the exchange rates. The exchange rates have turned the other direction...GW corporate types are likely to see the solution to be increased prices.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
With the currency, you have the one hand (GW's) where if they sell an item for $50 in the US, they only get £30.86 as opposed to £31.25 in return.

Would not be surprised to see the return of the annual price increase this spring as well. The preceding years that they skipped it on, it was stealth - hidden in the exchange rates. The exchange rates have turned the other direction...GW corporate types are likely to see the solution to be increased prices.

And my solution to their solution will be MOAR EBAY.

Seriously, are they really not worried about passing their price elasticity? Or whatever the breaking point is called...

You cant ask for quality Store operators for what they pay and the requirements that change every 6 months. The tourette like guides lines they receive. Years and years ago training was months long and candidates were put up in hotels and had class room instruction. The they shifted to another and another tactic. Then it was a two week course then one week, hell last I heard it inst even a week long currently.

Attitude or not how the hell is any one expected to turn the current model of business into anything like the shops used to make when they are hand cuffed and hamstrung at every corner? Shorter hours less tables, no staff to give any one customer an sort of real attention, let us not forget the axing of any thing remotely resembling prize support or even the occasional discount or perk. You used to get free figs with a WD subscriptions. Then you were "allowed" to buy a WD fig with a sub now you can just buy it. Smaller shops that can house less inventory so the customer is FORCED to order on line that then encourages them to just order from home anyway. Piratically every thing that used to be "good" about going to the GW shop is gone. Yes there are still Great people running some of those shop to be sure but few and far in between when taking the shops as a whole. Why not make the shop a giant red box/ vending machine style and get it over with? But I am digressing way too much.

If the money was not slight of handed enough, or the blame placed on the retail chain enough. Guess what? All the US shop are about to have surveillance cameras placed inside the shops! I wonder where they will be pointed. The front door? The stock wall or the register and the One employee!? I wonder what all that will cost and how that will be cleverly disguised or other wise omitted in the next report. The hits just keep on coming.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
With the currency, you have the one hand (GW's) where if they sell an item for $50 in the US, they only get £30.86 as opposed to £31.25 in return.

Would not be surprised to see the return of the annual price increase this spring as well. The preceding years that they skipped it on, it was stealth - hidden in the exchange rates. The exchange rates have turned the other direction...GW corporate types are likely to see the solution to be increased prices.

And my solution to their solution will be MOAR EBAY.

Seriously, are they really not worried about passing their price elasticity? Or whatever the breaking point is called...

GW doesn't believe they have one...they are luxury goods...like Rolex and Ferrari...people will pay whatever they charge...and they are immune to recessions and what not...

Hah. A Ferrari would be a safer investment.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:


GW doesn't believe they have one...they are luxury goods...like Rolex and Ferrari...people will pay whatever they charge...and they are immune to recessions and what not...

I think someone already mentioned it in some discussion but GW management think they are selling a Veblen good when in reality they are only selling expensive toys.

For comparison, how is PP doing financially right now? Do we have info on that?

it amazes me that a game and universe so prevalent in the UK is handled so badly by the company that owns it, 40k is EVERYWHERE, you cant go anywhere in nearly any walk of life without meeting someone who does warhammer or used to do it, it almost like this underground cult.

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
For comparison, how is PP doing financially right now? Do we have info on that?

Given they're a privately held company, nothing concrete. They pretty uniformly state that business is booming every time they're asked though.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
For comparison, how is PP doing financially right now? Do we have info on that?

Given they're a privately held company, nothing concrete. They pretty uniformly state that business is booming every time they're asked though.

Corvus belli have spent the past 5 years growing between 25 and 75% each year. That is about all the numbers I am aware of from GWs competition but we can clearly see many of them experiencing growth. ICV2 has stated that the wider hobby (TCG and boardgames including) has more than doubled since 08 and is still going strong. Within Australia I can say we are seeing FLGS thrive while GW sales have fallen to as little as 12-15% of the largest.

We don't have the numbers for their competition but everything we do have points to this being a golden age of gaming where everyone is growing except GW.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
For comparison, how is PP doing financially right now? Do we have info on that?

Given they're a privately held company, nothing concrete. They pretty uniformly state that business is booming every time they're asked though.

Corvus belli have spent the past 5 years growing between 25 and 75% each year. That is about all the numbers I am aware of from GWs competition but we can clearly see many of them experiencing growth. ICV2 has stated that the wider hobby (TCG and boardgames including) has more than doubled since 08 and is still going strong. Within Australia I can say we are seeing FLGS thrive while GW sales have fallen to as little as 12-15% of the largest.

We don't have the numbers for their competition but everything we do have points to this being a golden age of gaming where everyone is growing except GW.

"Fantasy Flight Games has enjoyed tremendous growth over the last 10 years,” said Christian T. Petersen, CEO and founder of Fantasy Flight Games. " according to the CEO in the recent merger press release.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5212

And they directly contribute to GW's coffers.

Laughing Man wrote:

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
For comparison, how is PP doing financially right now? Do we have info on that?

Given they're a privately held company, nothing concrete. They pretty uniformly state that business is booming every time they're asked though.

Well, of course what company is ever going to say anything else? The best way to gauge their performance is to go and ask FLGS owners. Another way to tell is to look at product placement. The best-selling products will be placed in the areas of highest visibility, and as you enter the store. The worst selling products are tucked away in the back. In my area, a lot of people play PP games, but the PP sales are not spectacular. It's a company everyone loves to love, but they're more in love with the idea of a GW alternative than actually anything PP does or makes -- or at least, if they do love PP, they sure don't throw much money at it.

Formosa wrote:it amazes me that a game and universe so prevalent in the UK is handled so badly by the company that owns it, 40k is EVERYWHERE, you cant go anywhere in nearly any walk of life without meeting someone who does warhammer or used to do it, it almost like this underground cult.

Remarkable. In my area, people who aren't into video games, wargaming, or hobby (and haven't been for at least part of their lives), have never even heard of 40k or WHFB (or WMH, Malifaux, Infinity, etc.). However, *everyone* has heard of Warcraft

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:Hah. A Ferrari would be a safer investment.

Well, you can't really compare a Ferrarri with GW stock, but you could compare a Ferrari with GW models. BNIB GW models actually retain their values better than low-mileage Ferraris Which is really just to say that Ferrarris are a horrible investment hahaha.

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
With the currency, you have the one hand (GW's) where if they sell an item for $50 in the US, they only get £30.86 as opposed to £31.25 in return.

Would not be surprised to see the return of the annual price increase this spring as well. The preceding years that they skipped it on, it was stealth - hidden in the exchange rates. The exchange rates have turned the other direction...GW corporate types are likely to see the solution to be increased prices.

And my solution to their solution will be MOAR EBAY.

Seriously, are they really not worried about passing their price elasticity? Or whatever the breaking point is called...

Close, but not quite PED (price elatisticty of demand) is a measure of how responsive demand is to the price of goods (you can make Coca-Cola cheaper, but at a certain point, people will only buy so much pop). The coefficient typically varies from one part of the demand curve to the other.

The term you're looking for is the equilibrium price -- if you draw a supply curve and a demand curve (one shows how price impacts supply, the other how price impacts demand), this is the point at which the two curves intersect, and it's the most profitable point to sell your product.

In reality, a company always knows what its own supply curve looks like, but it's impossible to know exactly what the demand curve for a product like 40k is, because you can't go back in time and try a different price under identical conditions. So, they need to do a guessing game to optimize their profit.

In my opinion, if GW could increase net profits by lowering prices, they would do so. However, also in my opinion, if they could maintain profits **or even lose a little** by reducing both price and quantity, they would do this. The thinking is that, if $50 is the best we can do, let's not do any more work than we have to, to make that $50. If we can do 25% less work and make $48 of profit, well, let's do that instead.

I think gamers are offended that GW treats their pocketbooks in the same way that OPEC does. I'm not sure why this offends people, as most other businesses do the same thing -- whether it's Apple, Microsoft, KFC, your cable provider, cell phone provider, the post office, or taxi company. I mean, these companies don't want to be your friend... they want to maximize the amount of money they can get from you


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
For comparison, how is PP doing financially right now? Do we have info on that?

Given they're a privately held company, nothing concrete. They pretty uniformly state that business is booming every time they're asked though.

Corvus belli have spent the past 5 years growing between 25 and 75% each year. That is about all the numbers I am aware of from GWs competition but we can clearly see many of them experiencing growth. ICV2 has stated that the wider hobby (TCG and boardgames including) has more than doubled since 08 and is still going strong. Within Australia I can say we are seeing FLGS thrive while GW sales have fallen to as little as 12-15% of the largest.

We don't have the numbers for their competition but everything we do have points to this being a golden age of gaming where everyone is growing except GW.

I own 3 versions of Infinity rules now, and painted a good deal of models, but I've never played a single game because nobody seems to play it here or have much interest >.<

In my neck of the woods, we have several FLGS and non-gaming hobby stores that have closed in the last couple of decades, with a smaller number that have opened up in their place. Many of the gaming stores make a huge chunk of their money on TCGs (specifically, MtG) and some of them have branched out to other types of collectibles. Comics have declined a lot in recent years (I say this based on store prominence, and the fact that there are fewer stores that stock comics at all now). I can say with certainty that if 40k and MtG were to both disappear, all the FLGS in our area would go out of business; if one of them were to disappear, it would make life a lot harder for them.

Let them burn and fail.

Talys wrote:

Laughing Man wrote:

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
For comparison, how is PP doing financially right now? Do we have info on that?

Given they're a privately held company, nothing concrete. They pretty uniformly state that business is booming every time they're asked though.

Well, of course what company is ever going to say anything else? The best way to gauge their performance is to go and ask FLGS owners. Another way to tell is to look at product placement. The best-selling products will be placed in the areas of highest visibility, and as you enter the store. The worst selling products are tucked away in the back. In my area, a lot of people play PP games, but the PP sales are not spectacular. It's a company everyone loves to love, but they're more in love with the idea of a GW alternative than actually anything PP does or makes -- or at least, if they do love PP, they sure don't throw much money at it.

I too can only speak from personal experience: When I first started 40k back in late 2010.early 2011, only I and one other friend knew about PP and treated them as a big joke, basically 40k wannabes with with we saw as bad models (we mostly saw the Hordes line). When the LA battlebunker was still open there was a group of ten guys we used to play with who likewise, held a similar opinion of PP (it was the first time I heard someone mention "page 5")

Now flash forward to now and those of my friends that still play tabletop games have switched to Warmachine, were they sing its praises compared to 40k. A couple years ago around a few months after he LA battlebunker had become a one man store I walked into a FLGS and found the same ground of ten guys from earlier. Every single one of them had switched to Warmachine (or Hordes) and had nothing but good things to saw about it compared to 40k...

70% chance of the company becoming distressed within the next two years ...
http://www.macroaxis.com/invest/ratio/GAW.L--Probability_Of_Bankruptcy

Talys wrote:


In reality, a company always knows what its own supply curve looks like, but it's impossible to know exactly what the demand curve for a product like 40k is, because you can't go back in time and try a different price under identical conditions. So, they need to do a guessing game to optimize their profit.

In my opinion, if GW could increase net profits by lowering prices, they would do so. However, also in my opinion, if they could maintain profits **or even lose a little** by reducing both price and quantity, they would do this. The thinking is that, if $50 is the best we can do, let's not do any more work than we have to, to make that $50. If we can do 25% less work and make $48 of profit, well, let's do that instead.

That is a theory that is often floated - but doesn't actually have much evidence to back it up (in terms of that actually being GW's master plan).

If you go back and look at the expenses over time - they haven't changed much in recent years. Since expenses are the only real measure of "work" being done - they are doing the same amount of work, just getting less out of it. Since 2006, they have had bills to pay to the amount of £110 million +/- £3 million each year.

They also demonstrate an almost irrational desire to do more work (cutting off independent stockists from many items, opening retail stores only to have to shut them down a year or two later, relocating manufacturing and distribution centers...several times, multiple incarnations of a failing magazine, several website redesigns, lawsuits, lack of market research...).

No, GW tilts at windmills. Quite often, their customers are the giants.

 warboss wrote:
Clearly, the lather/rinse/repeat 7th edition 40k early cash grab didn't do the trick so they have to do something new (besides... you know... addressing the actual problems).

What problems?

Don't'cha know warboss that when it comes to GW:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Nah couldn't be, GW is fine just it's the economy or just a group of haters. After all there's no competition since no other game is a large scale 28mm sci fi grimdark wargame with an Imperium, Space Marines, Tyranids and Eldar, so nothing can compare to 40k.

Exactly! If you don't like it, don't buy it!

Talys wrote:

I think gamers are offended that GW treats their pocketbooks in the same way that OPEC does. I'm not sure why this offends people, as most other businesses do the same thing -- whether it's Apple, Microsoft, KFC, your cable provider, cell phone provider, the post office, or taxi company. I mean, these companies don't want to be your friend... they want to maximize the amount of money they can get from you

You know how most companies respond to growth in their competition? Leveraging their market position to maintain dominance...

OPEC is a perfect example of it. High oil prices makes oil sands and shale economically viable. How does OPEC respond? By slashing the price of oil to the point where it isn't nearly as viable for the competition. Considering the real production costs GW has compared to the retail price they sell at - it would be quite feasible for them to make their competition no longer viable, strictly from an economic stand point.