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frozenwastes wrote:
I think you're on to something with that 80/20 split. I think one of the main reasons people are (justifiably) negative towards GW is that they have basically been fired as GW customers and just haven't been explicitly told or realized it for themselves.

While I may think GW is better off embracing a variety of approaches, the management team Kirby has built feels differently. They see a certain utility in intentionally shrinking their customer base to concentrate on the 20% (or whatever it is). Imagine GWs revenue if they get to a point of growth in recruitment and everyone they recruit is one of the 20%.of their former customer base.

They just need to figure out how to get there. I know they've been doing what they can to find people for the one person store manager position and have been expanding trade sales, but with their terrible wwages and freeze on wages, I just don't see them attracting the necessary talent to make growth possible. I'm sure one of the advantages of hiring for attitude rather than skill is they can scrape the bottom of the barrel and get people who are happy with less money than a similar position in another industry. I'm sure the next report will mumble on about new stores and new trade accounts being the way forward just like the last several. At least hiring for attitude is cheaper in the short term so GW will keep its costs down as they flail about for tthe right combination of staff and retail locations.

Talys very much is correct

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/empirical-rule.asp?

 Guildsman wrote:
See, I think that argument makes no sense. You're assuming that only a small fraction of customers make up a majority of profits for a multinational corporation.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the majority of GW's customers buy a starter or a couple kits or whatever, some paint and then maybe a kit every now and again and a large minority (*not* a "tiny fraction") buy multiples of that amount.

You're assuming that ostracizing the vast majority of your customers will potentially improve the profitability of that small fraction.

No, I think it was a stupid move and hasn't really worked. Until GW figures out how to reach more of these ideal customers they will continue to shrivel. Fortunately for GW they were correct that a subset of their customers were true believers who would pay a higher price for less to make up for the lost sales, so the shrivelling is largely in volume of products sold and number of customers rather than revenue. Less people are buying less product, but they're paying so much more for it.

You're assuming that the 20% (in this example) are the casual, "I just like to paint and push models around over a beer" crowd, instead of the competitive tournament player that buys an entire new army every tournament season. So many assumptions, with nothing to back them up but a gut feeling.

It's not based on a gut feeling but on observed behavior. Geeky purchases tend to be made shallowly by most customers and then a slmall group go super deep. You'll see it in people's signatures here on Dakka where they list multiple armies at thousands of points. Or people who post "shelfie" pictures of all their gaming books or graphic novel collections. It's also a common thing amount MTG players where you have people who buy packs every now and again and then others preorder entire cases or spend $1100 on a new modern deck that happened to win a tournament.

Also, how many times do we have to repost the "We do not ask the market what it wants" quote from the frikkin chairman of the company before people take them at their word? Even if all of those wildly unsubstantiated claims were true, the whole strategy would still be a coincidence, because GW does no market research. They don't know and don't care what any of their customers want. They've publicly stated so in a legal document.

This isn't the type of thing they'd need to consult the market about because they have the sales data. They know the purchasing behaviour of their customers and I'm guessing a lot of decisions have been made with this information in mind. I bet a quick analysis of purchase totals in GW stores and through Mail Order would bear out something like the 80/20 idea. Just like how GW learned that demand was higher for new products than existing products so they switched from across the board price adjustments and instead starting jacking up the prices on new releases as their means of protecting their margins.

It's also based on comments made in GW financial reports after the LOTR bust. Their plan during the LOTR years was volume, volume, volume. Their earnings per share during the height of the LOTR boom was actually lower than today [not quite]*. Their margins weren't as good and they opened so many stores and expanded their manufacturing as if it would go on forever. They even explicitly described their customer base in some of their reports and they see them as being the truly dedicated purchaser of their products.

This premium pricing approach of margin protection and cost cutting was a direct result of their previous approach endangering the company. They tried the mass volume approach and it left them vulnerable to a sudden downturn in popularity of a movie franchise. Now they are sacrificing volume for higher margins. This opens them up to new vulnerabilities though.

*EDIT: My bad. Earnings per share in 2004 were 40.1. From 2010-2013 they were 48.4, 36.1, 46.8 and 51.5. In 2014 they dipped to 25.2 but now they are up in the same area at 38.3.

It's important to remember that in terms of actual money earned per share in the company, GW had been equaling (or even surpassing) the height of the LOTR boom. During a time of stagnation in volume. This wasn't an accident but a plan born out of the restructuring following the collapse of the LOTR boom. I may happen to think the plan is short sighted, but GW seems to be chugging along year over year finding enough new ideal customers to make their premium price, low volume approach work. I have serious concerns about their lack of marketing and reliance on word of mouth and tiny retail locations with bad hours when it comes to finding their ideal customers in relation to the rate of losing existing customers though.


--

There's a problem though Talys; I know lots of people who play the way you do. Hell, I much prefer to play the way you do and try to whenever I can(hard these days since all my regular Warhammer mates moved away for work/family). But I also know a lot of folk from that group, including myself, who find GW's corporate behaviour alternately confusing, counter-productive or repugnant, and their prices prohibitive. Many to the extent that they've stopped buying from GW or like me have drastically cut spending with them.

So it can't just be "models > fluff > > > game" people they're targeting unless they're doing a pretty gakky job of it. The problem is I can't figure out who else they could be targeting, because no matter which sub-group of gamers comes to mind GW have taken actions that seem tailored to drive them off.

GW stock is up from a couple of days ago.

Revenue is still down. There's no way to make this sound like an achievement.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Revenue is still down. There's no way to make this sound like an achievement.

Largely this. It's volume x price = revenue where revenue is lower. A year over year ceding of market share as less people buy less product for a higher price. Their earnings per share might be around the same as during the LOTR boom, but their customer base is a fraction of the size. Well, I guess the earnings per share should also be adjusted for both changes in outstanding shares as well as inflation. So once you factor that in, the current earnings are actually only about 75-80% of 2004.

 Radiation wrote:
GW stock is up from a couple of days ago.

The expectations were set very low, and almost everyone (me included) expected a weaker earnings report. Then, BOOM. stock price jumps, because the current price was adjusted for a poor 2H showing.

My Econ prof's favorite expression was that it's not useful in the stock market to be right, because lots of people are right. If you want to make money, you have to be right when pretty much everyone else is wrong!

@Yodrhrin - Yep, I fully understand that if my thought process is correct, it leaves some people, who would be an ideal customer in every way other than budget, priced out of the game (which is actually what's happening to some, for sure).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Hoping region based gouging doesn't make Forge World even more price prohibitive than it is now.

This is my biggest fear.

I'd be more worried about the massive FW price rises to bring it into line with GW, if they share a website. There's no way GW will allow FW to produce resin mini's for less than the plastic equivalents cost.

Herzlos wrote:


I'd be more worried about the massive FW price rises to bring it into line with GW, if they share a website. There's no way GW will allow FW to produce resin mini's for less than the plastic equivalents cost.

Good point, looks like Australasia might be about to get shafted some more.

frozenwastes wrote:

 Guildsman wrote:
See, I think that argument makes no sense. You're assuming that only a small fraction of customers make up a majority of profits for a multinational corporation.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the majority of GW's customers buy a starter or a couple kits or whatever, some paint and then maybe a kit every now and again and a large minority (*not* a "tiny fraction") buy multiples of that amount.

--

It's perfectly reasonable to assume a large percentage of the profit comes from a small group of fanatics. Something like 60% of alcohol sales are a result of alcoholics (which constitute a small percentage of alcohol drinkers). Hobbies by their nature are money pits and a fanatic will spend way more than casual customers.

Take myself for example. I've probably spent more money on GW than 500+ of the average customers that spend 100$ on a boxset.

frozenwastes wrote:

This isn't the type of thing they'd need to consult the market about because they have the sales data. They know the purchasing behaviour of their customers and I'm guessing a lot of decisions have been made with this information in mind. I bet a quick analysis of purchase totals in GW stores and through Mail Order would bear out something like the 80/20 idea. Just like how GW learned that demand was higher for new products than existing products so they switched from across the board price adjustments and instead starting jacking up the prices on new releases as their means of protecting their margins.

You might remember this as well, but in Canada they used to take your postal code at the GW stores with a sale, so they were able to track purchases in store as well as online.

If I were GW then I'd cross reference every email address subscribed to their newsletter against email addresses used to purchase from the website in the past 6 months.

Any email address which hasn't bought anything gets invited to take part in a survey to find out why they haven't bought anything. If they complete it they get a £5 online voucher.

Would allow GW to assess how many customers had stopped buying but were possibly still interested in future releases (and so hadn't unsubscribed from the newsletter), let them know why customers had stopped buying and so be in a better position to make products or changes which former fans wanted, and possibly tempt them back in to make a purchase with the voucher.

Considering that there isn't a lot you can buy from GW for £5 they will still make money from those voucher purchases.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Revenue is still down. There's no way to make this sound like an achievement.

Yeap, revenue is down, which is more of a problem when every year has some level of inflation. Based on the Bank of England inflation calculator, the UK has about 3% inflation per year. Inflation means GW needs to show a positive increase in revenue of 3% per year to match inflation, otherwise they are falling behind. If you adjust GWs revenues from 2011 (based on the report for that year) then the numbers look like this when inflation is applied to those numbers:

2011 - 138.2 (122.8 raw)
2012 - 142.9 (130.8 raw)
2013 - 143.9 (135.6 raw)
2014 - 129.7 (125.9 raw)
2015 - 123.1 (123.1 raw)

2011 to 2015 shows about a 11% reduction in revenue when inflation is taken into account (which makes sense as the raw numbers are basically equal). Investors a buying the stock now because it's paying a dividend, but from a long term perspective, having no or retracting growth is a bad thing.

Overall inflation is just an adjusted average of a basket of commodities, and tends not to reflect specific increases in costs.

Revenues
1/2011 $29.0B
1/2012 $29.5B
1/2013 $29.3B
1/2014 $28.3B
1/2015 $24.8B

OMG This company's revenue growth isn't keeping up with inflation. What a POS company that must be totally mismanaged. DEATHS SPIRAL! SELL NAO. Can anyone guess what company it is?

http://www.streetinsider.com/ec_earnings.php?q=IBM

Yeah... IBM.

Games Workshop is the closest thing that this niche (miniature wargaming) has to a blue chip stock. And I don't mean that just because it's the only traded company; GW steadily pays dividends, it's not a growth stock, and its profitability per period has a pretty small variance. It's a large company in its sector and is as likely to plummet as it is to skyrocket (both are highly unlikely). That's why it's comfortable writing those fat dividend checks -- GW doesn't feel any need to horde money, because it knows more cash is coming in, and is extremely confident of that cashflow.

There is a rather significant difference between millions and billions.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
There is a rather significant difference between millions and billions.

Not when you're arguing "Revenue is revenue" and "a company not growing is dying".

You could say that there's a significant difference between a $250m and $25m and $2.5m too, which is likely the difference in sizes between some wargaming companies.

Here's an example of a company that's badly run:

2011 32B
2012 30B
2013 28B
2014 28B
2015 27B

Looks similar, right? The stock is HPQ (Hewlett Packard), a horribly managed company that's destroyed a century's worth of reputation in engineering and innovation in a decade.

My point is, looking at revenues and revenue growth as a sole (or even primary) indicator of a company's success or failure is a great way to lose all your money at the stock market. And also, with a few exceptions (like AAPL) longtime industry leaders in stable markets tend to simply follow (or be a part of defining) the industry trend, rather than significantly outpace it.

I think we are all agree that GW plc is chasing the 'easiest to please.'
The 'super fans' who will buy everything GW plc release, at the price GW set.

Those difficult customers who want rules sets to be proof read and edited professionally , and play tested to arrive at enough balance for random pick up games.
Are far too much hassle for GW plc.

Those people on average wages , who can not keep up with GW plc retail price increases, and bleat about wanting better value for money.
Are not the sort of people GW plc want to sell things to any way.

Since when was it good business practice to shrink your business to fit your 'super fans' , instead of growing your business by appealing to a wider market?

IF you make PLASTIC TOY SOLDIERS that is !
(Before some idiot compares GW to a company in a different market, like Bugatti or Ferrari etc.)

@Lanrak - there's more than one way to look at "chasing the easiest to please". The first question is, can they make the superfans AND the less-super-fans happy at the same time?

I'm not certain.

1. Upgraded kits are more important to superfans. For instance, the new Assault kits, a lot of people didn't care about, but the people that GW identifies with most, *LOVES* them. But those kits cost something to develop and to tool, so GW isn't going to put them up for sale at the same price as the old kits, which haven't had a price increase in quite a while.

So how do you please both crowds?

2. Rapid release cadence of models is really pleasing to superfans. They love the new models, and could care less how it disrupts the meta or the game, because likely, they own the models or are willing (or happy to) buy models to adjust their game. Non-collector gaming types are going to hate this.

3. Rapid release of rules is going to really annoy people who only play the game 10 times a year. I mean, you buy a book, and play it 10 times, then buy a new book? That's crazy. But if you get lots of use out of it, that's a whole different story. So how do you please both?

I believe that GW consciously seeks to please the fans it most identifies with. Knowing this will shrink their customer base and being unwilling to reduce total profits, it has no choice but to increases prices, to make the fans that are getting what they want pay for it.

A reasonable compromise, of course, would be for GW to simply make less profit, and increase the price a little bit instead of a lot. Also, to increase price of products across the board, instead of just new products, which make new releases seem incredibly expensive, especially in comparison to old kits. But again, this shifts to the superfan-focus -- they'll sell a lot more new kits to superfans, and they're not going to sell a lot of old kits to them (because they've already bought a whole bunch).

With respect to "better rules" -- I totally agree that more balanced units in the rules would make everyone happier, and in this, GW has historically done a terrible job, since 1988. To be fair, I also believe that the factions post-2015 (with the exception of the not-really-complete-factions of Harlequins and Assassins) are largely well-balanced to each other.

 Talys wrote:
Revenues
1/2011 $29.0B
1/2012 $29.5B
1/2013 $29.3B
1/2014 $28.3B
1/2015 $24.8B

OMG This company's revenue growth isn't keeping up with inflation. What a POS company that must be totally mismanaged. DEATHS SPIRAL! SELL NAO. Can anyone guess what company it is?

http://www.streetinsider.com/ec_earnings.php?q=IBM

Yeah... IBM.

Games Workshop is the closest thing that this niche (miniature wargaming) has to a blue chip stock. And I don't mean that just because it's the only traded company; GW steadily pays dividends, it's not a growth stock, and its profitability per period has a pretty small variance. It's a large company in its sector and is as likely to plummet as it is to skyrocket (both are highly unlikely). That's why it's comfortable writing those fat dividend checks -- GW doesn't feel any need to horde money, because it knows more cash is coming in, and is extremely confident of that cashflow.

Really big companies are hard to determine year over year revenue without knowing if the company sold off a portion of itself, thus producing more revenue with less cost, even though the revenue is lower than the previous year.

However, GW is very small and we know that it has defiantly not sold off any portion of itself, meaning revenue is still basically flat or declining with the same market and costs.

@Talys.
I agree that GW plc identifies with customers who think that GW products are as premium as GW plc thinks they are.

I will try to address these 'issues' that GW plc can not find solutions for.

1)The upgrade kits the super fans want , are developed specifically for super fans, not the game players.
So the development and production costs should be applied to the upgraded kits.The super fans will pay any price as they are super fans remember.
And continue to sell the old kits at the old price for gamers that are not super fans or can not afford to be super fans.

EG New upgraded kits for super fans with super gribble and super load out options £100 for 5 minatures.(Or £200 for 5 minatures perhaps?)

And the old kits for game players are still sold for £25 for 5 minatures.Because they are just delux playing pieces for gamers.(Gribble free standard options.)
Not the jewel like objects of wonder for super fans.

2)Rapid release of new kits for OLD UNITS does not change the way the rules for random pick up game work.(For gamers with old units using rules for random pick up games.)
But the super fans get FREE to DOWNLOAD (code with every super fan unit ) scenario rules for narrative campaigns!

3) Rapid releases no longer effect the core 'random pick up and play' rules .The super fans get super narrative rules for super scenarios and super campaigns.

This means the average gamer/fan gets to pay average prices for average (good enough) playing pieces for a good enough rule set for random pick up games.
(80% of customers buying 50% of sales, high volume lower profit per sale.)

And the super fans get super kits and super rules, at a super price , because they are so super. (And GW plc thinks they are super special too!))
(20% of customers buying 50% of sales low volume high profit per item.)

So the average gamers /fans get the average game and minatures they want.
And the super fans get all the super stuff they want to pay super prices for .

What is so wrong with that?
Unless GW plc realizes the super fans may not be so super, IF they get the chance to be average fans?

@Lanrak -

There are 2 groups of fans: Group A spends $200-$2,000 each month, with a lifespan measured in decades (perhaps with breaks in there). Group B has a one-time spend of $200-$400, and an annual spend of $100-$300, with a gaming lifespan measured in years. Of course, there are people in between, too.

Games Workshop has determined that it is better to make things optimal golden for Group A, and do nothing at all for Group B, so *everything* is geared towards Group A -- at least, this is how I perceive it.

But to your points:

1) This doesn't work. Everyone wants the new kits, because the new kits have new weapons and new stuff. Case in point: the old devastator kits and Assault Marines, and old Windriders are available at my FLGS at 50% off of the original MSRP. So literally, like $20 boxes. They've sat there since the new kits have come out, and *dozens* of the new kits have moved.

Who is going to buy a devastator box without a grav cannons?

Player A says, "SWEET! GRAV CANNONS! EVISCERATORS!!!" Player B says, "Are you kidding? I gotta play $50 for a 4 Grav cannons?!?!"

I should point out that Player B doesn't want to ever buy a new Assault Marine, because it's just a game piece; while Player A will happily replace all their ASMs every 5-10 years, because it's a cool model AND a game piece. Which do you think GW wants to support?

2) Rapid releases are often of new units. They are meta-changing, often; for example, Imperial Knight, Windrider.

The problem is, player A says, "SWEEET, I get to add 5 Imperial Knights to my collection!" Player B says, "WTF, how am I supposed to beat these Imperial Knights with my existing models?!?!"

Player B wants to build an army of a finite size for a known price, and wants to game with it in a way that is relevant to modern battle forces and useful for a very long time; Player A is going to add a lot of models to their collection anyhow, and loves trying out new stuff.

3) Player A says, "AWESOME. Superformations ROCK. All I need to do is buy another $400 in models." Player B says, "WTF. I don't want to shelve half my army. There's no way I'm going to sink another $400 in a crap game."

It's just 2 sides of the same coin.

But one side, GW thinks, is more profitable, and they want to keep those players at any cost, even if it means pissing off the other. I am not entirely convinced that they can make both sides very happy at the same time; though I am pretty sure there is a better middle ground.

@Talys.

There are 2 groups of fans: Group A spends $200-$2,000 each month, with a lifespan measured in decades (perhaps with breaks in there). Group B has a one-time spend of $200-$400, and an annual spend of $100-$300, with a gaming lifespan measured in years. Of course, there are people in between, too.

I totally agree.

Games Workshop has determined that it is EASIER to make things optimal golden for Group A, and do nothing at all for Group B, so *everything* is geared towards Group A -- at least, this is how I perceive it.

I agree with this slightly changed statement.

1) It does not work if you invalidate the old units like GW plc do.
IF grav cannons are only used in the super narrative super scenarios for super fans. Gamers playing the standard rules for pick up and play games , can buy the new minatures IF they think they are worth the price for cosmetic reasons . OR use the old minatures if they do not.

Gamers are primarily concerned with GAME PLAY. oddly enough.And minatures are to a degree less important to them than collectors.

2)Rapid releases are for super fans who want lots of new shiney minatures to collect.if they have new shiney free scenarios to use them in , NOT affecting the standard game for gamers.Super fans get what they want , and GW plc do not piss off the standard gamers.

3) Forcing everyone to buy the new models because you invalidate the rules for the old models in the standard game.IS JUST pandering to super fans and making normal gamers pay the price too.

Targeting the opposing ends of the spectrum separately means BOTH get what they want and pay for what they want.And the folks in the middle fan pick and choose exactly what they want from a wider spectrum.

Just picking one set of customers at the detriment of all the others is not a good option IMO.

I would add that GW historically has always liked campaigns and noncompetitive play more than tournaments and list-building for advantage. This really has nothing to do with profitability; it's just the way the founders of the company and many in management still feel the game is best enjoyed.

I've always maintained that GW should pick a better middle ground. You can't really expect them to create two environments for one game, though, no more than you could expect PP to make a version of WMH that would suit people who want to play 200 model armies on 8x12 tables, because, after all, that would make a segment of wargamers very happy.

Once upon a time, people who didn't really like GW's rules and style of game put up with it because there was nothing else. Now, it's not like GW's rules are worse, they just are built with the same philosophy as decades past, with the caveat that 30 years adds a lot of models, and people have choice, so some will naturally flock to other games that are a better fit (as it should be!). In other words, it's not like GW's been inconsistent with it's vision; it's just that there are now other choices.

The people I really feel for are the people who philosophically are compatible with GW's playstyle, but are just priced out of the game (like Yodhrin) -- some because it's just actually too expensive, others because they don't want to spend that much on a game. I don't feel bad, for example, for people who just want a small model count skirmisher and aren't happy with 40k, or who want a larger scale game that's perfect for a tournament setting, because never since RT was this what the game was about, though of course, there have been add-on rules both official and fan-based that make these more feasible.

@Talys.
I can remember ages ago when the GW devs used to write stuff that was just for fun and with opponents permission in the WD. And they also provided 'Errators' and 'F.A.Q.s' to correct the worst issues with game play .

And some times they would release 'collectors' edition minatures, Not any thng much to do with the games but just really cool minatures.

So when the game devs were in charge of game development they appealed to both ends of the customer spectrum.

However, when the sales department took over the studio schedule, they were under pressure to maximize sales.

And so they just picked the most profitable lines of return , without understanding thier market properly .

Currently GW sell quality minatures and hobby supplies aimed at collectors.

If they provided good rules and better value for money as well as quality minatures , they could sell to more people, including the collectors who want to , but can not afford to any more....

Talys, once again I feel the need to ask you to look out of your window, and to tell me how many moons you see or whether you inhabit a binary star cluster.

There is a sliding scale between something being a tight, balanced rule system and something akin to an RPG where complete freedom is allowed on behalf of the player and self-moderation on their part. Different wargames occupy different spots along this scale, I would say for some that 'balance' being more of a priority than with others (something like WMH or Infinity for instance), but what is true is that when you are creating a game where victory is predicated on finding tactical advantage, and the analytical thought of players will direct them towards any imbalances and loopholes.

I would argue that 4th and 5th edition of 40k were at least an attempt to make the game more tournament friendly, representing a gradual progression from the RPG with miniatures settings of early WHFB and Rogue Trader, and an evolution of design, a cutting away of the extraneous. The designer of 5th edition, Alessio Cavatore, has said as much about it and tried to make a balanced system. It wasn't perfect by any means (you could say it was impossible considering the release schedule of different armies, written by different authors with different design philosophies) but the tournament scene exploded during that period.

What's happened now, and this is evident both in the way the 40k rules have developed, and in the creation of AoS and dumping of WHFB, is that at some point the design philosophy has switched from 'lets make a game that players can enjoy, and buy our miniatures to use in that game' to 'lets sell miniatures that can also be used in a game'. Or, depending on how cynical you are, you could say 'let's remove any elements of this game that stop people from buying as many of our miniatures as possible'. This is written through and through the design of these games. It's not just me and countless other veteran wargamers saying it, it's the people who made the games themselves and have since left GW. The modern games 'design team' work under a yoke of maximising sales of plastic kits and new releases, at the expense of making a game that has tactical elements (i.e. a 'wargame'), and this is why the force composition rules (which effectively govern how it's possible to have a 'balanced' game in a PUG setting) have effectively destroyed the use of these games in a tournament setting.

This is a very real change that has happened within the company, it is most certainly not, 'how it has always been'. And saying this is an insult to the numerous game designers and developers that made some of the previous, very well designed, games that GW has produced in the past.

Exalt. 'Nuff said.

 Pacific wrote:

This is a very real change that has happened within the company, it is most certainly not, 'how it has always been'. And saying this is an insult to the numerous game designers and developers that made some of the previous, very well designed, games that GW has produced in the past.

Exalted (not that that actually does anything)
Also, We've always been at war with East Asia.
Just like, "GW's never supported tournaments."
Or, "WHFB has never sold well."
Or, "Points were never useful for making armies."

Ok, just going to make broad points rather than address specific quotes.

"Focusing on the 20%" suffers from the same flaw as engineering a virus just to wipe out the bottom 20% of humanity. Sooner or later, we're all in that percentage. Or, not in that percentage in this case. Unless we're making the (fundamentally flawed) assumption that the top 20% love all of the same things equally all of the time, there are inevitably going to be things that sell in greater or lesser amounts, so what do GW then? Start focusing on the things that sold well, making those who liked the things that didn't sell so well feel less included, until GW are ultimately selling to the top 20% of the original 20%?

Trying to sell to a minority of your customer base which is fanatical enough to buy whatever you're putting out anyway is the complete inverse of what any company should be doing. With notable exceptions, selling to the broadest market possible is the way forward, GW are not one of those exceptions. The easiest route to growth is not trying to squeeze ever increasing amounts of money out of an ever decreasing customer base, it lies in looking at the customers who would like to buy, but aren't, and those that are spending a little bit that could be induced to spend a lot, or at least more.

But, of course, only knowing the whats of what sold and not the whys of what sold (or didn't) makes this a near impossible undertaking. Imaging what it would do to their figures if they could just get every customer who purchased a box last year to buy two next year? Whereas getting all of the customers who bought one of everything to buy one of everything again would just keep things level.

I also think that the constant currency thing is a bit of a red herring.

Let's not forget that the justification for regional pricing is supposedly to protect them from currency fluctuations, the current U.S. prices are probably the closest to UK RRP, but at time of writing a £30 box of Sigmarines is priced at $50US. That's a price of £32 GBP. So even with a strong pound, they've still got a built in buffer of over 6%.

2014/15 has seen a 5 year high for the pound, but it has, in the same period, seen a 5 year low.
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=5Y

Now, those peaks and troughs don't necessarily coincide with GW accounting, but I'm fairly confident that we wouldn't be hearing about constant currency if there were notable growth.

Pacific wrote:I would argue that 4th and 5th edition of 40k were at least an attempt to make the game more tournament friendly, representing a gradual progression from the RPG with miniatures settings of early WHFB and Rogue Trader, and an evolution of design, a cutting away of the extraneous. The designer of 5th edition, Alessio Cavatore, has said as much about it and tried to make a balanced system. It wasn't perfect by any means (you could say it was impossible considering the release schedule of different armies, written by different authors with different design philosophies) but the tournament scene exploded during that period.

I'd argue that there were periods in 4th and 5th where the game was much more unbalanced that it is today. Also, I'm not saying that GW doesn't want to have a balanced game in 40k.

What seems to happen is that because the release cycles for the codex system is spread over a period of time, someone gets a bright idea mid-cycle, and GW is willing to adopt that idea, before all the other books are done. For example, lowering the power level was a good idea in 7e codexes. So was Decurion style formations. But doing half one way, and half the other way is terrible for balance.

GW has always been like this: they have no problem in just shifting gears, because they figure that players will be like them, and just make adjustments in their own play groups. I sincerely believe that in their minds, they believe that players would rather have the lastest cool idea, then wait for a fresh new cycle, perhaps 2+ years down the road.

Overall, GW places a much greater emphasis on a narrative, sportsmanship, and being an interesting player over building smart lists more than any tabletop wargame that I know. it's the ONLY tabletop wargame I can think of that, in its core rules, stresses so, prominently, all over the place. Just like AoS is the only game that I know of where the game designers say, "Yeah, the broken auto-win combination is there intentionally: but if you use it, expect to have nobody to play against."

I mean, feel free for disliking GW for eschewing the segment of competitive players who enjoy list-to-win and basically giving them the middle finger. But I think they've wanted to do it for like, 30 years.

Pacific wrote:What's happened now, and this is evident both in the way the 40k rules have developed, and in the creation of AoS and dumping of WHFB, is that at some point the design philosophy has switched from 'lets make a game that players can enjoy, and buy our miniatures to use in that game' to 'lets sell miniatures that can also be used in a game'. Or, depending on how cynical you are, you could say 'let's remove any elements of this game that stop people from buying as many of our miniatures as possible'. This is written through and through the design of these games. It's not just me and countless other veteran wargamers saying it, it's the people who made the games themselves and have since left GW. The modern games 'design team' work under a yoke of maximising sales of plastic kits and new releases, at the expense of making a game that has tactical elements (i.e. a 'wargame'), and this is why the force composition rules (which effectively govern how it's possible to have a 'balanced' game in a PUG setting) have effectively destroyed the use of these games in a tournament setting.

This is a very real change that has happened within the company, it is most certainly not, 'how it has always been'. And saying this is an insult to the numerous game designers and developers that made some of the previous, very well designed, games that GW has produced in the past.

Well, the people who buy everything buy all the models regardless of what the rules are anyhow. "Unbound" style rules simply give them an avenue to play them under official rules. The people who enjoy them would argue that it allows you to put humans and dwarves and elves together in a reasonable way; the people who hate it would argue that it would allow sigmarites and chaos demons to be on the same army. They're both right. GW just doesn't care about the players who would stick sigmarites and demons on the same army anyhow, and expect the former group to just say "no" to them when they want to play a game.

Lanrak wrote:@Talys.
I can remember ages ago when the GW devs used to write stuff that was just for fun and with opponents permission in the WD. And they also provided 'Errators' and 'F.A.Q.s' to correct the worst issues with game play .

Yeah, like I've said many times, a lot of what I post is trying to understand GW's thought process than agreeing with what they're doing. There are many things they could do better, and FAQs and Errata that are meaningful and timely would be greatly appreciated.

From a models perspective, I love what they're doing, and as of very recently (after January 2015) I've liked what they're doing in 40k. It's too early to say that I like what they're doing in 40k as a game, because they haven't finished a cycle yet. I do not like how the 2014 part of the 40k 7e cycle is drastically different from the 2015 part, and I'm curious as to how GW addresses that, if at all.

Lanrak wrote:And so they just picked the most profitable lines of return , without understanding thier market properly .

Currently GW sell quality minatures and hobby supplies aimed at collectors.

If they provided good rules and better value for money as well as quality minatures , they could sell to more people, including the collectors who want to , but can not afford to any more....

I would argue that quality scifi miniatures in 2015 are simply more expensive than quality scifi miniatures in 1985, relative to disposable incomes and inflation. I would further assert that although the size of the wargaming market may be somewhat larger, the size of the wargaming market interested in large scale wargames is smaller. There is a large part of the wargaming market that wants small scale wargames -- a lot of this has to do with more people taking transit (or cycling) instead of driving cars, people having less money, and people having less time. If you took all the terrain and models that we use for one night, you'd have trouble cramming it in the trunk of a car -- I actually have to put down my SUV seats to accommodate my stuff, when we want to take our gaming somewhere, though a lot of that is terrain that's up to 24" tall, and packs very awkwardly.

I think the people who remain interested in wargames with 75-150 models (per side) that are of various sizes and difficult to transport, with terrain that is also hard to transport, are generally less price sensitive than those interested in a lower model-count game. So if you're going to make a game that appeals to that crowd specifically, the price is going to be higher (relative to inflationary forces). Unlike some people, I do not think GW has any obligation to try to make a cheap large scale scifi wargame; as someone who likes large scale miniature scifi, I recognize it's a relatively small niche and I'm willing to pay the premium.

The smart move for Games Workshop would be to make OTHER skirmish level games to appeal to the folks who want smaller scale miniature wargames. Smaller scale games are also MUCH easier to balance -- the more strange, large stuff you take out, the easier that will be. That would also make for better tournament play, assuming GW has any interest in appealing to that niche.

I think that WMH is a good model for GW to look at in terms of a successful skirmish level game. I also think that the prices for WMH models and battle boxes are very fair (and not terribly different from GW's), considering today's market.

Incidentally, GW plastic stuff IS their cheap line of products, with Forge World resin being their expensive line of premium collector models. Just look up how much a squad of ten 30k models costs