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 Talys wrote:


If GW were in some kind of financial trouble, the smart thing to do wouldn't be to lauch everyhthing in 6 months, then have nothing left to release in the next 12, right? And we know that, if nothing else, Sigmar is coming out, no doubt with shiny new models. It isn't even profit-optimizing, because there's little chance you'll get many people who buy *everything*, whereas if you dribbled it out over a longer period, your chances for that would be higher.

GW is actually operating like some kind of gerbil on crack, lol. Makes me want to be retired, so that I could spend all day painting stuff haha.

The way I'm seeing it, this is exactly what is happening right now.
A long time ago, people cried for Horus Heresy models, especially Primarchs. GW never did them, and one day one of the old guard (was it Andy Chambers? I could be misremembering) threw out that the reason for it was that they are pretty much GW's Ace In The Hole. Should GW ever be in trouble, they could release the Primarchs which are bound to be guaranteed smash hits.
They exist now. They are only half a step away from being released by GW proper.

Adeptus Mechanicus is another save bet. People have been wanting AdMech for years. Not like Sisters, which always had more of an contained community, AdMech appealed to a big chunk of the Marine and Guard players, making them another pretty much guaranteed sell.
Harlequin are more of a dark horse, but with both Eldar and Dark Eldar players having an interest in them, they aren't too risky either.

The Greater Demons have been in dire need of plastics since... pretty much forever. I remember people as early as beginning 4th edition talking about them. And Khorne is probably the most popular flavor of them. Practically every Chaos Marine, Demons, Warriors and Demons player has an interest in them.

And Nagash? Nagash has been hyped up as this mythical, legendary thing from times gone yore, with that horrible model. Woven into a release hyping it up even more (I seem to remember that at first everyone thought that The End Times were just about Nagash, him beeing the actual ultimate big bad of WHFB and all...) and the thing will move a few boxes too.

So, yeah, it very much seems to me that GW has started using up the big guns. Once we have the Emperor of Mankind im plastic, we know that they have run out of wiggle room.

 Korraz wrote:

So, yeah, it very much seems to me that GW has started using up the big guns. Once we have the Emperor of Mankind im plastic, we know that they have run out of wiggle room.

Hopefully they'll start moving the 40k timeline past 999.M41, at that time

Nevermind.

 Talys wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
I'm gonna remember all this come July 28th.

I don't think there's any super special surprises coming. They've already said what the numbers, roughly, are, right (in percentage terms, anyhow)?

There is one possible surprise - will GW have yet another dividend, in spite of decreasing revenue?

And people will be surprised, either way....

A BIG surprise would be GW taking out another loan to pay dividends. (Well, I would be surprised, at any rate. I expect GW to send out a smaller dividend this year, but that they will send one out.)

The Auld Grump

 Talys wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
BUT, you'd be naive to not realise that they have falling revenues in spite of an increased release rate (and we know that products sell best when they're first released) which is not a great sign AND it's quite clear they are shrinking while the rest of the market is growing, also not a great sign.

You see this said a lot, but without actual data on other companies, it's hard to assess whether the industry is growing, but no particular manufacturer is making fistfuls of money, or whether a small number in the industry is eating up most of the profits while many other companies are struggling, or whether every company is raking in the dough.

For example, if the industry as a whole grew 15%, but because there were 20% more entrants, that's a bad thing for all the companies that are there, even though the industry grew. Good for the consumer, of course.

Since Games Workshop, I think is the ONLY publicly traded company in the field, it's hard to answer those questions, unless you happen to work at PP or one of the other significant manufacturers.

So long as other companies aren't popping out releases like land raiders and stormravens and wraithknights, GW will always have some kind of niche, because there are people (like me!) who just love those kinds of things, in a cohesive, unified way (ie not 10 models produced by 7 different companies). There are some pretty big barriers to making those, I guess. We'll see where it all ends up in a decade or two

If only there was a publication that was put forth by one of the largest hobby distributors that regularly sells stock to most stores as well as polls them four times a year as to what they sell most (in addition to their own large sales database as a distributor)....

http://icv2.com/articles/news/view/30959/six-straight-growth-years-hobby-games

The hobby is 225% bigger now than it was the year 5th edition came out and had the 6th straight growth year. GW since jumping the shark has had the opposite.

@Enigwolf: I am sure your education is hard-won, I think many (including myself) get a bit excited when people base their argument on "appeal to authority", you got me trying to lay down my creds in reply... hehe... the economic theory and models are great to throw about but it all boils down to figuring out a hypothesis and what data is available to give it some legs.

I can only point to the financial reports, their actions and some of the statements from Kirby.
I figure since he is a large shareholder, being in charge and making dividends a priority is a fantastic way to pay yourself and gives every motivation to have spare cash (and be in charge). It has the added benefit of making other shareholders happy so little resistance to be seen by "his" primary stakeholders.

The part that gets all emotional is that many would like to see GW survive past Kirby's retirement and it appears he does not care in that regard.
So, frustration runs high when so many would like to see the old GW community come back and Kirby obstructing this because it is rather irrelevant to his plans.
It is rather easy to have a rather snobbish behavior with customers when they supply money on demand and they have little impact on his actual job (we cannot "oust" him).

Except you Menes to take the icv2 data with a pinch of salt - iirc it only deals with American traders and even then disclosure is voluntary. Don't get me wrong - it's useful, but it's useful in the same way that you use a wet finger to gauge the wind...

Was about to say similar, although equally there's zero information out there that I've seen that contradicts it.

I guess the only thing is the rumour that PP have remained largely flat the last few years too, but then I've seen that attributed to a bottleneck in production capacity, which makes a lot of sense.

 Enigwolf wrote:

(side note: I will be more than happy to have an academic discussion about Games Workshop as a business with anyone who's interested, because I think it's a fascinating industry and company to analyze).

For what it's worth, I would love to take you up on this offer. First rounds on me

Deadnight wrote:
Except you Menes to take the icv2 data with a pinch of salt - iirc it only deals with American traders and even then disclosure is voluntary. Don't get me wrong - it's useful, but it's useful in the same way that you use a wet finger to gauge the wind...

It's not perfect that's for sure. As you said, it is only for the US. It only deals with stores that deal with one particular distributor that publishes it (albeit one of the top two IIRC). It is also the ONLY source of information that we have for sales across the industry in a large (and very important) geographic region. They're likely adding in Kickstarter funds to the total as well since those are readily available (at least the initial funding but not the post campaign pledge manager portion). When they say that the hobby has grown, that doesn't mean that your individual store has doubled sales but rather speaks to online sales, FLGS sales, and direct from manufacturer like KS. The reality is that is likely the best we'll ever get since getting "better" will require competing businesses (stores, distributors, and manufacturers) to open up their accounting files to each other. It also is completely at odds with the trends that GW itself is seeing. I wouldn't trust an ICV2 percentage that told me GW sales were up 4% since what they sell has been SEVERELY curtailed by GW with hundreds of items going to direct only; GW sales could be up 40% and they wouldn't know. What we can take a look at is that GW total sales and profits are down when according to the only non-manufacturer specific industry wide source we have says that the hobby overall has more than doubled. Whereas GW has had year after year of decreasing sales and profits despite cutting themselves to the bone, the hobby has been growing year after year. GW is still profitable and (according to the quarterly sales rankings) still the seller of the #1 minis game (40k) but the massive lead that they built up in the 1980's and 1990's has been steadily eroding. That erosion has intensified over the last couple of years likely because of their drastic changes not despite them.

WOTC was experiencing something similar during 4th edition D&D. They dropped out of the top RPG sales spot and even publicly admitted (only AFTER they announced 5th edition was being worked on) that the hobby was growing but their sales were relatively stagnant. Their brand manager said in an interview that 4e wasn't selling worse than 3rd in sheer numbers but the rest of the industry was growing but their slice of that whole pie was shrinking. GW used to have that but now since they've instituted all those changes "for the fans" in 6th/7th ed their actual unit sales have gone down on top of the industry growth. It's because they used to be so successful that they can afford to screw up so long.

ICV2 of course has obvious flaws. Even so, it is very clear that the tabletop games scene as a whole is currently healthier than it has ever been.

RPGs abound.
Euro style boardgames are booming.
There is a resurgence in old-fashioned hex map style wargames, including republished and entirely new titles.
Small manufacturers of miniatures like Hasselfree and Statuesque are doing well.
Bigger concerns such as Perry and Warlord are putting out more and more historical plastic sets, that would have been unthinkable 1 years ago.
There is ample support from companies like Litko and various terrain makers providing laser cut tokens and models.

None of this puts any kind of a figure on things but it makes it clear that the overall industry is very healthy.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
ICV2 of course has obvious flaws. Even so, it is very clear that the tabletop games scene as a whole is currently healthier than it has ever been.

RPGs abound.
Euro style boardgames are booming.
There is a resurgence in old-fashioned hex map style wargames, including republished and entirely new titles.
Small manufacturers of miniatures like Hasselfree and Statuesque are doing well.
Bigger concerns such as Perry and Warlord are putting out more and more historical plastic sets, that would have been unthinkable 1 years ago.
There is ample support from companies like Litko and various terrain makers providing laser cut tokens and models.

None of this puts any kind of a figure on things but it makes it clear that the overall industry is very healthy.

You forgot to mention the attendance surge at big cons like Gen Con, Dragon Con, Origins, etc. as well as the GAMA Trade Show.

INDIANAPOLIS (August 19, 2014) Gen Con 2014, completed August 14-17 at the Indiana Convention Center, experienced another year of record attendance numbers and unprecedented growth. For the fourth consecutive year, Gen Con grew by more than 10%. This year, reaching more than 14% year-over-year growth with a weekend turnstile attendance of 184,699 and unique attendance of 56,614. This number surpasses 2013’s previous record of 49,530 unique attendees. Since 2009, Gen Con’s annual attendance has more than doubled.

At [Dragon Con's] 20th anniversary in 2006, there were 22,000 attendees, and the convention continued to grow, drawing 27,000 attendees in 2007, 40,000 in 2010, and 57,000 in 2013.

And 63,000 attendees in 2014.

Origins Numbers:

2009 10,030
2010 10,669
2011 11,502
2012 11,332
2013 11,573
2014 12,902
2015 15,938

weeble1000 wrote:


You forgot to mention the attendance surge at big cons like Gen Con, Dragon Con, Origins, etc. as well as the GAMA Trade Show.

INDIANAPOLIS (August 19, 2014) Gen Con 2014, completed August 14-17 at the Indiana Convention Center, experienced another year of record attendance numbers and unprecedented growth. For the fourth consecutive year, Gen Con grew by more than 10%. This year, reaching more than 14% year-over-year growth with a weekend turnstile attendance of 184,699 and unique attendance of 56,614. This number surpasses 2013’s previous record of 49,530 unique attendees. Since 2009, Gen Con’s annual attendance has more than doubled.

At [Dragon Con's] 20th anniversary in 2006, there were 22,000 attendees, and the convention continued to grow, drawing 27,000 attendees in 2007, 40,000 in 2010, and 57,000 in 2013.

Truth. It's getting harder and harder to get a block of fething rooms at GenCon. Don't the rest of you fethers have jobs? Stay home!

 kronk wrote:


Truth. It's getting harder and harder to get a block of fething rooms at GenCon. Don't the rest of you fethers have jobs? Stay home!

My in-laws live in Indianapolis. Muahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Weeble, you forgot to mention the astonishing growth in attendance at Games Day aka Warhammerfest.


Oh...



Right...

 warboss wrote:

 Talys wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
BUT, you'd be naive to not realise that they have falling revenues in spite of an increased release rate (and we know that products sell best when they're first released) which is not a great sign AND it's quite clear they are shrinking while the rest of the market is growing, also not a great sign.

You see this said a lot, but without actual data on other companies, it's hard to assess whether the industry is growing, but no particular manufacturer is making fistfuls of money, or whether a small number in the industry is eating up most of the profits while many other companies are struggling, or whether every company is raking in the dough.

For example, if the industry as a whole grew 15%, but because there were 20% more entrants, that's a bad thing for all the companies that are there, even though the industry grew. Good for the consumer, of course.

Since Games Workshop, I think is the ONLY publicly traded company in the field, it's hard to answer those questions, unless you happen to work at PP or one of the other significant manufacturers.

So long as other companies aren't popping out releases like land raiders and stormravens and wraithknights, GW will always have some kind of niche, because there are people (like me!) who just love those kinds of things, in a cohesive, unified way (ie not 10 models produced by 7 different companies). There are some pretty big barriers to making those, I guess. We'll see where it all ends up in a decade or two

If only there was a publication that was put forth by one of the largest hobby distributors that regularly sells stock to most stores as well as polls them four times a year as to what they sell most (in addition to their own large sales database as a distributor)....

http://icv2.com/articles/news/view/30959/six-straight-growth-years-hobby-games

The hobby is 225% bigger now than it was the year 5th edition came out and had the 6th straight growth year. GW since jumping the shark has had the opposite.

I've read a bunch of those. It's not really that helpful, though, because as I said, you know the pie is a bigger one now, but you're not sure how it's split up.

First of all, when they talk about hobby, they include Collectibles (like Magic), board games, card/dice games, RPGs, and non-collectible miniature games (like 40k). The hobby that I'm talking about are only those that compete with 40k -- so definitely anything that is a miniature skirmish/wargame, maybe miniature board games, but definitely not collectibles and RPGs.

Looking exclusively at the miniature-based hobbies, there are MANY producers of models now. But how many make money? How much money do they make? That's what I'm asking: for the health of companies like Mantic and Dreamforge, as well as the smaller ones like Anvil. I mean, does Anvil's sales equate to 5% of GWs? 1% 0.1%? Less? What kind of profit does that equate to? Inquiring minds would like to know.

What specifically is the market size increase of the noncollectible miniature games category? It says that even this category was up, but it doesn't say by how much, and it doesn't say how many new entrants there were, so for all we know, although the market expanded with more companies and more products, each existing company sold less. I'm not saying that's what happened; I'm saying we don't know.

In addition, something that people don't really talk whenever they bring this report up is the category noncollectible miniatures: The top 3, in order, are pretty consistently 40k, Xwing, Warmachines. On this one that you sent, #4 and 5 are D&D Attack Wing, and Star Trek Attack Wing.

Now, this is pretty surprising to me.

First of all, that XWing outsells Warmachines. I don't really think that's great news for Warmachines, because I don't think the dollar sales of XWing is really all that spectacular. I mean, the gap between 40k and XWing must be humongous.

Secondly, the #4 and #5 games are like, tiny. I don't even know anyone that owns them. I've never seen anyone buy them. To put that in context, think of games like Malifaux and Infinity -- it means, for all the talk of their hotness, they're not even a rounding error in terms of the spending. Which is actually pretty close to my own spending -- I probably don't even spend a buck for every $100 that I spend on 40k on Infinity, not because I don't want to, but because of the tiny amount of new stuff that comes out every year, and the fact that there's no point in buying multiple boxes of the same models (for gaming purposes).

 warboss wrote:
WOTC was experiencing something similar during 4th edition D&D. They dropped out of the top RPG sales spot and even publicly admitted (only AFTER they announced 5th edition was being worked on) that the hobby was growing but their sales were relatively stagnant. Their brand manager said in an interview that 4e wasn't selling worse than 3rd in sheer numbers but the rest of the industry was growing but their slice of that whole pie was shrinking.

Locally, at least, 4th was selling worse than 3rd had by the end of its first year - and even their first shipment of books had over 60% returned to the publisher.

In part because the stores's first shipment of 4th edition was huge - the total actually sold for the original release was pretty close to those for 3.5 - close either way. A bit above or a bit below, but in the same ballpark.

The home office for the bookstore had a massive overstock of 4th edition material. And that massive overstock was all returned.

Returns are a big problem for RPGs sold through the book trade - but so far neither Pathfinder nor 5th edition has seen anything like the returns faced by 4th edition. *EDIT* High returns were part of what killed TSR.

By the time Pathfinder had come out the sales for 4th edition had stalled - with much of the blame being the excellent online support that WotC provided their subscribers. (Why buy a book when the online character generator allows you to use the information anyway?)

In part Pathfinder did well because the home office understocked Pathfinder - having been burned by 4th edition.

Instead of getting cases of books, most of which had to be returned, the store got two or three, sold through, reordered, sold through, reordered, sold through, got a slightly larger order, sold through, rinse and repeat.

Selling through makes a bookstore owner feel warm and tingly inside.

Locally, Pathfinder is still outselling 5th - by a small amount. Nationally... it looks like 5th has the edge.

5th is definitely doing better locally than 4th did at any time past the original release.

Both games are currently doing very well.

And the ease that Pathfinder adventures can be converted means that 5th is actually helping the sales of Paizo adventure paths - and it is likely that assist goes both ways, with Adventure Paths helping boost the sales of 5th edition.(Not the first time - the best selling D&D Essentials was the dungeon tiles set - which people could use with Pathfinder....)

Now if only WotC would cement the license for 3PP to make supplements for 5th edition....

And one important note - WotC does do market research, and does do advertising. And when they had realized that they had fumbled the ball... they took action to turn things around. (WotC had failed to do market research for 4th edition - thinking that the name was what was selling, not the game.... Turns ot that they were wrong.)

The Auld Grump - of all the dumb things that Kirby has done, deciding that market research was 'otiose' was by far the dumbest.

In the days when I played RPGs, we were very un-loyal to game systems. It could be D&D for a while, then we might move to Rifts, then to Shadowrun, then GURPS.

Even within a game system, changing game worlds was done frequently.

The real cost to change for players is very small compared to miniatures/wargaming, because all you need to do is buy and read some books. There aren't minis to paint, you don't build themed terrain, and the dollar investment is quite small.

 Talys wrote:
In the days when I played RPGs, we were very un-loyal to game systems. It could be D&D for a while, then we might move to Rifts, then to Shadowrun, then GURPS.

Even within a game system, changing game worlds was done frequently.

The real cost to change for players is very small compared to miniatures/wargaming, because all you need to do is buy and read some books. There aren't minis to paint, you don't build themed terrain, and the dollar investment is quite small.

Dude, I totally loved Rifts. Let's not forget Toon because there's nothing like failing your smarts roll to allow you to do something insane.

 Talys wrote:
In the days when I played RPGs, we were very un-loyal to game systems. It could be D&D for a while, then we might move to Rifts, then to Shadowrun, then GURPS.

Even within a game system, changing game worlds was done frequently.

The real cost to change for players is very small compared to miniatures/wargaming, because all you need to do is buy and read some books. There aren't minis to paint, you don't build themed terrain, and the dollar investment is quite small.

True, to a degree- when Warhammer first came out Citadel was mostly selling miniatures for D&D - and Games Workshop was primarily a distributor for same.

Fantasy battles (Chainmail) led to fantasy roleplaying games (D&D), led to fantasy battles (Warhammer)....

Yes, RPG groups are fickle creatures, but they continue to buy stuff for the games that they like, even when that is not the game currently being run.

Sales for 4th started high... but just kept dropping. Pathfinder sales started low, but sales are still climbing.

The peak of Pathfinder may never have been as high as 4th edition, but sales have been a lot more steady, and are growing.

WotC is being a lot more cautious with 5th edition - they managed to glut their own market during 4th edition, which was all the worse when the returns started piling back into their warehouses. %th edition seems to be avoiding that fate.

Amusingly, the model used for releasing and selling Pathfinder was the one that the original owners of WotC had planned for Dungeons & Dragons, back before selling out to Hasbro.

Turns out that the old WotC had known what they were doing....

The Auld Grump - who admits that he took great joy in the demise of 4th edition....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 agnosto wrote:

 Talys wrote:
In the days when I played RPGs, we were very un-loyal to game systems. It could be D&D for a while, then we might move to Rifts, then to Shadowrun, then GURPS.

Even within a game system, changing game worlds was done frequently.

The real cost to change for players is very small compared to miniatures/wargaming, because all you need to do is buy and read some books. There aren't minis to paint, you don't build themed terrain, and the dollar investment is quite small.

Dude, I totally loved Rifts. Let's not forget Toon because there's nothing like failing your smarts roll to allow you to do something insane.

If ever there is a Kickstarter for a rerelease of Toon....

The Auld Grump - I ran a Toon/Call of Cthulhu crossover once.... Turns out that invading the universe of Toons is not a good idea for things from beyond the stars....

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
True, to a degree- when Warhammer first came out Citadel was mostly selling miniatures for D&D - and Games Workshop was primarily a distributor for same.

Kind of ironic that that's all my GW models are used for these days...full circle.

TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Talys wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
I'm gonna remember all this come July 28th.

I don't think there's any super special surprises coming. They've already said what the numbers, roughly, are, right (in percentage terms, anyhow)?

There is one possible surprise - will GW have yet another dividend, in spite of decreasing revenue?

And people will be surprised, either way....

A BIG surprise would be GW taking out another loan to pay dividends. (Well, I would be surprised, at any rate. I expect GW to send out a smaller dividend this year, but that they will send one out.)

The Auld Grump

I'd expect a smaller dividend payout as well, to be honest - suddenly stopping dividend payouts raises more red flags to shareholders than lowering it and blaming it on market conditions resulting in lower sales, etc. etc. which is what I'd expect them to do. If the Kirby conspiracy theories of him wanting to dump his shares at the highest value before he quits GW so he's rich are true, then he'll be trying not to upset the stock price.

Talizvar wrote:@Enigwolf: I am sure your education is hard-won, I think many (including myself) get a bit excited when people base their argument on "appeal to authority", you got me trying to lay down my creds in reply... hehe... the economic theory and models are great to throw about but it all boils down to figuring out a hypothesis and what data is available to give it some legs.

I can only point to the financial reports, their actions and some of the statements from Kirby.
I figure since he is a large shareholder, being in charge and making dividends a priority is a fantastic way to pay yourself and gives every motivation to have spare cash (and be in charge). It has the added benefit of making other shareholders happy so little resistance to be seen by "his" primary stakeholders.

The part that gets all emotional is that many would like to see GW survive past Kirby's retirement and it appears he does not care in that regard.
So, frustration runs high when so many would like to see the old GW community come back and Kirby obstructing this because it is rather irrelevant to his plans.
It is rather easy to have a rather snobbish behavior with customers when they supply money on demand and they have little impact on his actual job (we cannot "oust" him).

Not at all an unfair statement to make. My phat post was merely responding to a call-out by another person a couple of pages back that essentially said "prove that you know what you're talking about", which then turned on its own head. I don't doubt that Kirby is trying to make GW as fat as possible before he sells out (few people wouldn't?), frankly, I'm not a fan of the guy, and many GW staff don't seem to be either. I just don't think GW is going to die anytime soon despite their supposed financial troubles, because honestly even their own financial reports are too sparse for any of us to draw proper conclusions unless we're at one of their investor relations meetings. I think Talys pointed this out in another thread on GW finances, but all things come to an end eventually, and the doom-sayers are going to prophesize about the end relentlessly. Even if it means scrutinizing every bit of GW performance and finding a way to call it an omen of ill signs to come. If it's not tomorrow, it's the next month. If not the next month, the next year. So on and so forth. Eventually they'll get right, but such is the impermanence, really, of all things physical in this world. Talys did mention something which I thought was amusingly on point and shows the contradictions in the doom-sayers incessant arguments:

Talys wrote:If GW is producing a lot of stuff, it must be because it's desperate; if GW isn't producing a lot of stuff it must be that they're broke. If GW is making money, it must be because they're going broke because they're manipulating the numbers and cutting costs.

Deadnight wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

(side note: I will be more than happy to have an academic discussion about Games Workshop as a business with anyone who's interested, because I think it's a fascinating industry and company to analyze).

For what it's worth, I would love to take you up on this offer. First rounds on me

PM sent.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
If ever there is a Kickstarter for a rerelease of Toon....

The Auld Grump - I ran a Toon/Call of Cthulhu crossover once.... Turns out that invading the universe of Toons is not a good idea for things from beyond the stars....

Who knows, it might happen; I backed the Bard's Tale IV KS and I heard that Car Wars was re-released...

I can totally see how CoC wouldn't work well in Toon-land. "You fail and become insane." "Cool, I can just auto-fail my smarts and auto-pass chutzpah now!" "Doh!"

 agnosto wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
If ever there is a Kickstarter for a rerelease of Toon....

The Auld Grump - I ran a Toon/Call of Cthulhu crossover once.... Turns out that invading the universe of Toons is not a good idea for things from beyond the stars....

Who knows, it might happen; I backed the Bard's Tale IV KS and I heard that Car Wars was re-released...

I can totally see how CoC wouldn't work well in Toon-land. "You fail and become insane." "Cool, I can just auto-fail my smarts and auto-pass chutzpah now!" "Doh!"

Fun as all Hell to play though.

I admit, it was because I had just finished running a dead serious CoC game... and felt an urgent need for silly.

Lots, and lots, and lots of silly.

The Auld Grump - yes, one of the baddies got squashed by a falling anvil....

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
If ever there is a Kickstarter for a rerelease of Toon....

The Auld Grump - I ran a Toon/Call of Cthulhu crossover once.... Turns out that invading the universe of Toons is not a good idea for things from beyond the stars....

Who knows, it might happen; I backed the Bard's Tale IV KS and I heard that Car Wars was re-released...

I can totally see how CoC wouldn't work well in Toon-land. "You fail and become insane." "Cool, I can just auto-fail my smarts and auto-pass chutzpah now!" "Doh!"

Fun as all Hell to play though.

I admit, it was because I had just finished running a dead serious CoC game... and felt an urgent need for silly.

Lots, and lots, and lots of silly.

The Auld Grump - yes, one of the baddies got squashed by a falling anvil....

Last off-topic post from me (sorry folks). I loved CoC but playing it was more like the bard in the "Gamers" movie in that you had to make a stack of characters to replace the ones that went crazy or died. Twilight 2000 was another fun but complicated and deadly game. "You got shot, you're dead." "but...but....I made this character 5 minutes ago and it took an hour to make it!" "sorry, you're dead."

OMG, agnosto. I loved Twilight 2000.

I think in Rogue Trader, there was a photo Twilight 2000 model! Edit -- oops no, maybe I'm thinking Traveller. I'm confused now. hahaha.

 Talys wrote:

I've read a bunch of those. It's not really that helpful, though, because as I said, you know the pie is a bigger one now, but you're not sure how it's split up.

First of all, when they talk about hobby, they include Collectibles (like Magic), board games, card/dice games, RPGs, and non-collectible miniature games (like 40k). The hobby that I'm talking about are only those that compete with 40k -- so definitely anything that is a miniature skirmish/wargame, maybe miniature board games, but definitely not collectibles and RPGs.

What is evident is that GW's slice of ANY pie is shrinking as their sales are stagnant to decreasing while their prices go up. No matter what is happening, GW is not partaking of it. As for "only those that compete with 40k", I'm sorry but you seem to have fallen for the GW investor spin hook, line, and sinker. Only in the GW boardroom and their own corporate stores do GW products exist in a vacuum. In the real world, the same dollars that could go to GW could go to paper and pen RPGs, videogames, other minis games, and non-GW accessories.

Looking exclusively at the miniature-based hobbies, there are MANY producers of models now. But how many make money? How much money do they make? That's what I'm asking: for the health of companies like Mantic and Dreamforge, as well as the smaller ones like Anvil. I mean, does Anvil's sales equate to 5% of GWs? 1% 0.1%? Less? What kind of profit does that equate to? Inquiring minds would like to know.

What specifically is the market size increase of the noncollectible miniature games category? It says that even this category was up, but it doesn't say by how much, and it doesn't say how many new entrants there were, so for all we know, although the market expanded with more companies and more products, each existing company sold less. I'm not saying that's what happened; I'm saying we don't know.

In addition, something that people don't really talk whenever they bring this report up is the category noncollectible miniatures: The top 3, in order, are pretty consistently 40k, Xwing, Warmachines.

Better is NOT the enemy of perfect. You have better information after I posted the link than you did before but you're poo-poo'ing it because it isn't perfect. What you want will never exist simply because capitalism. There is no benefit to a privately held company opening up the books to their competitors and the general public just because of curiosity. You'll never get the perfect comparisons you want but you seem keen to disregard the good data you have at your fingertips. YMMV but that seems odd to me from a common sense point of view. The only reason we have that kind of info from GW is because they chose to become publicly traded and are REQUIRED BY LAW to file those types of reports. That isn't the case for any other gaming company besides WOTC and WOTC's share of the Hasbro pie outside of MTG is barely worth noting.

On this one that you sent, #4 and 5 are D&D Attack Wing, and Star Trek Attack Wing.

Now, this is pretty surprising to me.

First of all, that XWing outsells Warmachines. I don't really think that's great news for Warmachines, because I don't think the dollar sales of XWing is really all that spectacular. I mean, the gap between 40k and XWing must be humongous.

Xwing was pretty much sold out at the distributor level within days and after a few weeks post shipment at the store level for many months. For the first year, you could sell xwing OVER retail price used but complete in the swap shop and bartertown because the demand outstripped supply so much. FFG in one of their yearly statements said that they initially ordered more of xwing than any other minis product they ever made because they new the power of the star wars brand name. They kept increasing then doubling restock shipments and new waves until they realized that they were off by an order of magnitude in their assessment of demand. I'm not sure why you're so keen to downplay the interest in arguably the most popular scifi brand ever coming out with the first almost no effort required starfighter figure collection in almost 20 years (the last being the far inferior micromachines version) that came with a very elegant and balanced ruleset as well. None of those criteria are true for GW unfortunately. Just another footnote, Xwing took Warhammer Fantasy's spot in that list. It was for years 40k, fantasy, then warmahordes FYI.

In the end, the ONLY objective data we have is that GW unit sales and profits are down while the overall industry that GW is a part of has increased substantially during that time. If you have something beyond your personal experiences (which I've tried to keep out of the conversation on my end but which mirror the above), feel free to post a link. I'll try and find the interview where WOTC said as well that the hobby was growing (and at that time they were a minis manufacturer with both Star Wars and D&D minis) but you'll probably discount it because it largely refers to an rpg company... without providing anything at all to the contrary. Things are simply NOT looking bright for GW objectively nor subjectively (see the poll here on dakka over in 40k general). The rest of the industry though seems to have rebounded nicely after the recession.

@Warboss - That report isn't new. It's been pointed out many times before. I'm sorry to say this to you, but it's not news to me

What I was trying to highlight is this possible scenario.

Year 1: Company A, B, C each make $10m in sales, total industry = $30m

Year 2: 5 new companies jump in, and industry grows to $45m. Company A, B, C each make $8m in sales.

Year 3: 10 new companies jump in, and industry grows to $70m. Every existing company makes less money.

It is possible for an industry to grow massively, yet for every participant to make less money. You see this in the food cart industry in busy cities -- even though there are 5x more food carts, all the competition means that even the great ones make less money. Likewise for traditional restaurants. Just because people are spending more eating out doesn't rule out the possibility that on average, restaurants are making less money, because concurrent with the increase in market size, there may be an increase in supply.

Is this the case here? We don't know, and probably never will.

As I and others have pointed out, there is insufficient data to draw meaningful conclusions. I concur with the facts that the industry as a whole has grown (although we don't know by how much), and that Games Workshop's revenue, as an individual participant in that industry, has shrunk. That doesn't mean that this isn't the same for many other participants in the industry, despite its overall growth.

I'm not downplaying XWing. I'm just saying that as a fraction of the sales at the stores that I visit, it's not a huge chunk. I mean, NOTHING close to Magic -- of this I'm certain. And yes, I agree: Fantasy sales are dismal. Anecdotally, Fantasy doesn't appear to be moving at all. If anything, I would have to guess that 40k sales must have increased quite a bit to pick up some of that slack.

By the way, you cannot say that the industry has increased "substantially", unless you're including non-miniature wargaming things that hobby shops sell, which isn't a meaningful metric with relation to Games Workshop, as they have no desire to enter into those markets. All we know is that "even" noncollectible miniatures have grown (not by how much; for all you know, it's by 0.05%). Card games and wargames aren't the same thing, even if they're sold by the same people, in the same way that microwaves and dishwashers and televisions might be sold at the same store, but aren't comparables.

 Talys wrote:
We don't know, and probably never will.

As I and others have pointed out, there is insufficient data to draw meaningful conclusions. I concur with the facts that the industry as a whole has grown (although we don't know by how much), and that Games Workshop's revenue, as an individual participant in that industry, has shrunk. That doesn't mean that this isn't the same for many other participants in the industry, despite its overall growth.

By the way, you cannot say that the industry has increased "substantially", unless you're including non-miniature wargaming things that hobby shops sell, which isn't a meaningful metric with relation to Games Workshop, as they have no desire to enter into those markets. Card games and wargames aren't the same thing, even if they're sold by the same people, in the same way that microwaves and dishwashers and televisions might be sold at the same store, but aren't comparables.

We agree on that first part at least and probably agree to disagree on the rest. Just an FYI, GW is in the business of card games, board games, and RPGs through licences. When those segments of the hobby grow, their potential profits do as well. Whether or not they *actually* do grow up to them and their licensees. They may not be directly producing those but they have oversight over all of them and make money off of each and every item sold. It's a bit forced to say that they're somehow completely divorced from them.

Well, by that metric, GW is also in the animated feature and computer game business too. And clothing and music and...

I wouldn't count non-core business, because I don't think they have a lot of control over it (other than who they license to). Maybe a creative veto? I don't even know about that.

But sure, you can count GW as a full-fledged participant in the "overall hobby business" if you want. I still think, however, it's more useful to compare them to games/hobbies in the miniature wargames space rather than, for instance, Pathfinder or Magic. Or even Tamiya motorcycles or Revell tanks. I think that from the day MtG hit the shelves in my favorite hobby store, it stomped miniatures and models of all types in sales by a wide, wide lead. People were pouring in spending a hundreds, even a thousand bucks a shot, every day. Cases of boosters were spoken for before they arrived, and people were taking them by the tens (of cases), limited only by what the store would allow them to buy. There was never that kind of fever for any GW product, ever.