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Wonderwolf wrote:
Good to see it spelled out that miniatures is flat, even if the broader category is growing. People too often wrongly quoted ICv2 for the false argument of "GW is shrinking in a growing market". Miniatures just isn't going anywhere. It's fighting over slices of a non-growing pie.

And with CCGs being nearly 2/3 of the market, X-Wing style miniature-games/CCG-Hybrids clearly offer huge potential (though you can still bungle it, see Star Trek).

The report covers one year, during which GW posted a serious decline in sales. If GW constituted half the market and dropped 10%, the other half of the market actually grew 10%, to leave it level overall.

Another possible reason for miniatures being flat is the rapid increase in availability of the much cheaper plastic figures. Five years ago if you wanted a 28mm ACW army, your options were all metal costing probably $2 per infantry and $4 per cavalry. You can now do the whole thing in plastic, using Perry Bros figures that cost about $1 per infantry, $2 per cavalry. In other words, the number of figures being purchased could have doubled, but the sales revenue would be flat.

I am not saying this is what has happened, but it is a factor to consider. There have been similar changes in WW2 and various periods of Ancients too. I don't think it can be ignored.

 Talys wrote:
Well, interesting takeaway -- we have 2 numbers for 2014.

GW's sales is about 32.6M GBP, or $51M USD (in US/Canada -- for the full year ended Jun 2014, but it's not like the second half of the year was radically different).

Of those sales, 36% were through Trade, so that percentage is discounted 40% -- but surely the the independent will sale sell product at a markup.

36% * $51M = $18.4M
$18.4M / 0.40 = 45.9M Suggested Retail
45.9M * 0.85 =39M Discounted Retail (assuming 15% discount from MSRP on average through this channel)

$51M - $8.4M = $36.6M Full Retail (GW Stores and Mail Order)
36.6+ 39= $75.6M sales related to GW product in 2014

The total amount for miniatures market is $125m.

So GW's sales comprised approximately 60% of the miniatures market. And probably 90%+ of that is 40k.

TLDR -- 40k miniatures account for half of every dollar consumers spend on miniatures.

I can't argue with the numbers, but I don't think there's any way that GW is 60% of the mini's market in the US. I think we can assertain that it's no more than 60%, since we're using GW's direct + retail figures but not the direct figures from anyone else or considering things like kickstarter. 40K is still definitely the big dog by a long way.

It's interesting that it's not showing overall growth though, I would have thought all the signs pointed towards growth.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
Good to see it spelled out that miniatures is flat, even if the broader category is growing. People too often wrongly quoted ICv2 for the false argument of "GW is shrinking in a growing market". Miniatures just isn't going anywhere. It's fighting over slices of a non-growing pie.

And with CCGs being nearly 2/3 of the market, X-Wing style miniature-games/CCG-Hybrids clearly offer huge potential (though you can still bungle it, see Star Trek).

The report covers one year, during which GW posted a serious decline in sales. If GW constituted half the market and dropped 10%, the other half of the market actually grew 10%, to leave it level overall.

Another possible reason for miniatures being flat is the rapid increase in availability of the much cheaper plastic figures. Five years ago if you wanted a 28mm ACW army, your options were all metal costing probably $2 per infantry and $4 per cavalry. You can now do the whole thing in plastic, using Perry Bros figures that cost about $1 per infantry, $2 per cavalry. In other words, the number of figures being purchased could have doubled, but the sales revenue would be flat.

I am not saying this is what has happened, but it is a factor to consider. There have been similar changes in WW2 and various periods of Ancients too. I don't think it can be ignored.

I don't see the contradiction? GW lost market share in a flat market. Just like they did the year before. While the year(s?) before that, they also gained market share in a flat market.

It's a tooth-and-nail competition in miniatures. Nobody's denying that

It's just the claim that miniatures are a growing market, that's wrong (and was also wrong last year, though ICv2 didn't spell it out quite explicitly in their first report, instead highlighting the (to them understandably more important) massive growth in CCGs, as well as the growth in board games, etc...

In fact, if X-Wing (Armada, Star Trek, etc).. is calculated into the miniatures market part at ICv2, while arguably being a fair step removed from the "classic" hobby-and-paint miniatures game crowd, with pre-paints and a mini-CCG built-in, miniatures without X-Wing clearly has been shrinking (along with GW). So with X-Wing taking up a lot of the slack, it's probably fair to assume that PP, Wyrd, etc.. saw similar declines to GW in classic miniatures (and thus their diversification into RPGs, Board Games, etc..).

I thought KK explained it well enough, but it doesn't seem to have registered - falling retail costs could mean a growing market in terms of volume and participation but leave retail revenue flat. Plus GW are the only ones cranking up their prices at quite the rate they are, which will preserve their market share in terms of revenue, but mask falling volume and participation.

Also, Kickstarter.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Also, Kickstarter.

Kickstarter launched in 2008 and really took to the scene in 2009, 2010... maturing up to 2012. In those years, GW grew better than ever outside of LoTR, clawing itself out of the 2006/2007 hole.

2012 was GW's best year as a company outside the LoTR-years in the history of the company, coinciding with lots of Kickstarter hits that put Kickstarter on the tabletop gaming map: Sedition Wars. Reaper Bones 1, Zombicide 1, Early Mantic, Kingdom Death, etc.

When GW's recent decline started, Kickstarter was already well established.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No sign of the 40K RPG's in the Top 5 for the first time in a long time. Disappointing.

Disappointing but not surprising. Their policy of only supporting each RPG for 2 years because they've come out with 1-2 "new" rpgs in that same period certainly doesn't help (outside of those two years of course). I really wish when they redid DH that they had tied in all three of their created power levels into one game as I would have bought it. Heck, I have zero interest in anything chaosy and I picked up Black Crusade for that purpose. The balance isn't perfect by any means but it's nice to have all the stuff in one book.

DarkSoldier wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
Yes the new Star Wars movie is going to bring in a lot of new costumes.

Well, cosplay is a significant part of the Star Wars fandom and the new movie will have new characters, so new costumes are obviously going to happen. I wonder what FFG will produce as Ep7 tie-ins.

Auto correct got me .lol

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Also, Kickstarter.

Kickstarter launched in 2008 and really took to the scene in 2009, 2010... maturing up to 2012. In those years, GW grew better than ever outside of LoTR, clawing itself out of the 2006/2007 hole.

2012 was GW's best year as a company outside the LoTR-years in the history of the company, coinciding with lots of Kickstarter hits that put Kickstarter on the tabletop gaming map: Sedition Wars. Reaper Bones 1, Zombicide 1, Early Mantic, Kingdom Death, etc.

When GW's recent decline started, Kickstarter was already well established.

Are we talking about FY 2011-2012, 2012-2013 or 2013-2014? This latest ICV2 report is for FY 2013-2014.

GW sales have been declining for five straight half years. Even if total market sales were level, this means the non-GW part of the market was growing to replace lost GW sales.

Before that, GW's sales have been up and down since the end of LotR. Their profits have generally improved as they get efficiency savings into effect. YOu can make a higher profit on a lower sale, but if your lower sale comes out of a static or growing market, your market share is declining.

We also need to be careful to distinguish between sales revenue and sales in units sold. If you double the price of your product, and sell half the amount as the year before, your revenue and the size of your market is the same, but you have half as many customers.

AduroT wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
Why don't they group Warmachine and Hordes into just one game?

I think it has to do with something with one of the creators of warmachine leaving the company and not having to pay him for the royalties of hordes which he did not create.

In addition, as they're separate product lines, they get separate entries.

It's one game though, and for this kind of survey they really should be tracked together.

They probably should, but grouping them together in a survey like this would be evidence that they are, in fact, one game. Clearly PP sees value in maintaining that legal fiction. It'd be interesting to see how WM/H would register if they combined them though.

zedmeister wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

I think FFG's ship games will be in that top 5 list for a long time.

Indeed. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that when Episode VII drops, X-Wing and Armada are going to be knocking on 40k's door...

Maybe, but all licensed games have an expiration date. X-wing is already digging into the nether regions of the Extended Universe for new ships. Armada has a ton of room to grow, but there are really only so many ships you can sell to each person. New movies will give the game a bit more life, but as we've seen for nearly every licensed property, once you run out of source material, you run out of game to sell.

Personally I like the idea of a game being finished. I have nearly all the X Wing models I want. It will be nice to be able to put them away in the attic and bring them out in 10 years and have a game just as good as you can do right now.

FFG are already launching new games, e.g. Armada, and will have more new games ready for when the Armada licence runs out of steam.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I like the idea of a game being finished. I have nearly all the X Wing models I want. It will be nice to be able to put them away in the attic and bring them out in 10 years and have a game just as good as you can do right now.

I like that too. I have all my old MIddle Earth: The Wizards CCG cards still, because it's such a fun and complete game.

It's not fun for a company trying to sell product though.

FFG are already launching new games, e.g. Armada, and will have more new games ready for when the Armada licence runs out of steam.

I'm curious about Armada, but I haven't gotten a demo yet. It looks like a lot of fun.

 Polonius wrote:

I'm curious about Armada, but I haven't gotten a demo yet. It looks like a lot of fun.

I idly look at Armada from time to time. I try to avoid looking at in depth though. I don't want to be tampering with those floodgates at the moment!

 Kilkrazy wrote:

GW sales have been declining for five straight half years. Even if total market sales were level, this means the non-GW part of the market was growing to replace lost GW sales.

How did GW decline for five years?

FY 2008-2009 - GW Revenues grew in real terms from 110.3 GBPm to 113.9 GBPm at constant 2008 currency (125.7 GBPm in 2009 GBP)
FY 2009-2010 - GW Revenues decreased in real terms from 125.7 GBPm to 121.8 GBPm at constant 2009 currency (126.5 GBPm in 2010 GBP)
FY 2010-2011 - GW Revenues decreased in real terms from 126.5 GBPm to 122.8 GBPm at constant 2010 currency (123.1 GBPm in 2011 GBP)
FY 2011-2012 - GW Revenues grew in real terms from 123.1 GBPm to 130.8 GBPm at constant 2011 currency (131.0 GBPm in 2012 GBP)
FY 2012-2013 - GW Revenues grew in real terms from 131.0 GBPm to 135.6 GBPm at constant 2012 currency (134.6 GBPm in 2013 GBP)
FY 2013-2014 - GW Revenues decreased in real terms from 134.6 GBPm to 125.9 GBPm at constant 2013 currency (125.5 GBPm in 2014 GBP)
FY 2014-2015 - Early profit warning and poor first half-year seems to indicate a possible decrease in revenue

The last six FYs we have numbers for, GW grew three and decreased three (with improving profits through all of them except last year).

In a flat market, their share hasn't decreased significantly over 2008/09 to 2013/14 years, while their profitability improved. More recently, 2013/2014 (and likely 2014/15) looks a bit more troubling, as we all know, but hardly a long-term trend (yet), and a far cry from the loss-making years such as 2006/2007.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Also, Kickstarter.

Kickstarter launched in 2008 and really took to the scene in 2009, 2010... maturing up to 2012. In those years, GW grew better than ever outside of LoTR, clawing itself out of the 2006/2007 hole.

2012 was GW's best year as a company outside the LoTR-years in the history of the company, coinciding with lots of Kickstarter hits that put Kickstarter on the tabletop gaming map: Sedition Wars. Reaper Bones 1, Zombicide 1, Early Mantic, Kingdom Death, etc.

When GW's recent decline started, Kickstarter was already well established.

Not doing too well in the "discerning the point" stakes today, huh?

I wasn't suggesting that KS was stealing market share, so much KS represents a whole bunch of cash invested in miniatures that doesn't show up on this study, therefore increasing the size of the market and diminishing the size of GW's piece of it.

Even if the actual miniatures side boils down to just a few million, it is still money these figures take no account of. I've spent more in Mierce via KS in the last year than with GW directly, even though I've not been able to put as much cash into their KS as I'd have liked, for example.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I like the idea of a game being finished. I have nearly all the X Wing models I want. It will be nice to be able to put them away in the attic and bring them out in 10 years and have a game just as good as you can do right now.

FFG are already launching new games, e.g. Armada, and will have more new games ready for when the Armada licence runs out of steam.

Those are my thoughts on it. I'll never stop liking the X-wing and TIE interceptor designs and now I have some very nice to scale with each other minis that I can use forever. I missed out on the micromachines era (wasn't interested back then) of star wars figures on clearance.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

GW sales have been declining for five straight half years. Even if total market sales were level, this means the non-GW part of the market was growing to replace lost GW sales.

How did GW decline for five years?

Spoiler:

FY 2008-2009 - GW Revenues grew in real terms from 110.3 GBPm to 113.9 GBPm at constant 2008 currency (125.7 GBPm in 2009 GBP)
FY 2009-2010 - GW Revenues decreased in real terms from 125.7 GBPm to 121.8 GBPm at constant 2009 currency (126.5 GBPm in 2010 GBP)
FY 2010-2011 - GW Revenues decreased in real terms from 126.5 GBPm to 122.8 GBPm at constant 2010 currency (123.1 GBPm in 2011 GBP)
FY 2011-2012 - GW Revenues grew in real terms from 123.1 GBPm to 130.8 GBPm at constant 2011 currency (131.0 GBPm in 2012 GBP)
FY 2012-2013 - GW Revenues grew in real terms from 131.0 GBPm to 135.6 GBPm at constant 2012 currency (134.6 GBPm in 2013 GBP)
FY 2013-2014 - GW Revenues decreased in real terms from 134.6 GBPm to 125.9 GBPm at constant 2013 currency (125.5 GBPm in 2014 GBP)
FY 2014-2015 - Early profit warning and poor first half-year seems to indicate a possible decrease in revenue

The last six FYs we have numbers for, GW grew three and decreased three (with improving profits through all of them except last year).

In a flat market, their share hasn't decreased significantly over 2008/09 to 2013/14 years, while their profitability improved. More recently, 2013/2014 (and likely 2014/15) looks a bit more troubling, as we all know, but hardly a long-term trend (yet), and a far cry from the loss-making years such as 2006/2007.

Revenue and sales are not the same thing.

 agnosto wrote:


Revenue and sales are not the same thing.

Sales are GW's greatest source of revenues by far. I don't see the reason for nitpicking? I doubt non-sales-revenues from interest, licensing, etc.. play a significant part there.

Wikipedia wrote:In business, revenue or turnover is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers.

 Polonius wrote:

AduroT wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
Why don't they group Warmachine and Hordes into just one game?

I think it has to do with something with one of the creators of warmachine leaving the company and not having to pay him for the royalties of hordes which he did not create.

In addition, as they're separate product lines, they get separate entries.

It's one game though, and for this kind of survey they really should be tracked together.

They probably should, but grouping them together in a survey like this would be evidence that they are, in fact, one game. Clearly PP sees value in maintaining that legal fiction. It'd be interesting to see how WM/H would register if they combined them though.

My point is that ICV2 isn't actually tracking games, they're tracking sales of product lines for those games. Thus, the two are separate because ICV2 doesn't actually track by "game"(assuming ICV2 is even aware of the fact that they're essentially one game).

Wonderwolf wrote:

 agnosto wrote:


Revenue and sales are not the same thing.

Sales are GW's greatest source of revenues by far. I don't see the reason for nitpicking? I doubt non-sales-revenues from interest, licensing, etc.. play a significant part there.

Wikipedia wrote:In business, revenue or turnover is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers.

Strike three you're out.

As KK has already explained..

Sell 2 £50 things for £100 one year, increase price to £100, sell one thing for £100 the next year.

Sales have halved, revenue has remained flat.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Strike three you're out.

As KK has already explained..

Sell 2 £50 things for £100 one year, increase price to £100, sell one thing for £100 the next year.

Sales have halved, revenue has remained flat.

Wrong. Sales are measured in money, not quantity of product. A company selling paper clips for a million and a company selling a single villa for a million both have sales of one million.

And either way, the measure of concern (and the measure for which we have numbers) is revenue.

Are you claiming GW "declined" on the basis of a fictional version of "sales", defined differently than usually in business analysis, for which you don't even have numbers? Tinfoil hats ahoy!!

Azrael is a ninja.

I guess I'll ignore everything I know about sales volume and how it relates to revenue and per unit pricing structures.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Strike three you're out.

As KK has already explained..

Sell 2 £50 things for £100 one year, increase price to £100, sell one thing for £100 the next year.

Sales have halved, revenue has remained flat.

Wrong. Sales are measured in money, not quantity of product. A company selling paper clips for a million and a company selling a single villa for a million both have sales of one million.

Oh, so sales volume is totes a made up thing that nobody ever talked about ever?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 agnosto wrote:
Azrael is a ninja.

I guess I'll ignore everything I know about sales volume and how it relates to revenue and per unit pricing structures.

Im wrong as well, apparently.

 Azreal13 wrote:


Oh, so sales volume is totes a made up thing that nobody ever talked about ever?

Not when talking about the growth of a company as a business measure. No. Did Apple shrink when they switched their main seller from 15 quid ipods to 150 quid iphones?

Seriously chap, stop before you make yourself look completely ignorant, rather than mostly.

There are several people posting here who's main reference on this topic isn't Wikipedia.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


Oh, so sales volume is totes a made up thing that nobody ever talked about ever?

Not when talking about the growth of a company as a business measure. No. Did Apple shrink when they switched their main seller from 15 quid ipods to 150 quid iphones?

I want to live in the UK if iPods were 15 quid there when they were released.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Seriously chap, stop before you make yourself look completely ignorant, rather than mostly.

There are several people posting here who's main reference on this topic isn't Wikipedia.

Well, teach me!

Show me a more credible source showing that "sales" is identical/synonymous to "unit sales"; as you've claimed, and that these two identical concepts are the main measure to gauge a businesses health over all the published numbers? I am always happy to learn.

Sales is an aspect of Revenue though. And from an accounting perspective, the dollar value of sales is what is usually recorded.

Sales Volume is what I've generally seen to refer to number of units sold.

either way, as GW has flat revenues, but increasing licensing fees, it implies something about sales as well.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Seriously chap, stop before you make yourself look completely ignorant, rather than mostly.

There are several people posting here who's main reference on this topic isn't Wikipedia.

Well, teach me!

Show me a more credible source showing that "sales" is identical/synonymous to "unit sales"; as you've claimed, and that these two identical concepts are the main measure to gauge a businesses health over all the published numbers? I am always happy to learn.

Splendid goal post movement there old boy.

Nobody, least of all me, said that sales volume is any measure of the health of a company (although it could be) that company that sold 1 thing for £100 instead of two for £50 made more profit for lower capital invested, they were actually probably more healthy in year 2.

Sales can be a synonym for revenue, hence I didn't say you were wrong, but you decided to wield your degree from the university of Wiki to tell me I was wrong when it can also be synonymous for units sold.

This is why people familiar with the topic generally call it revenue, as it avoids confusion and poorly informed people getting overexcited on the Internet.

 Azreal13 wrote:

This is why people familiar with the topic generally call it revenue, as it avoids confusion and poorly informed people getting overexcited on the interest.

Well, I believe we started the conversation talking about revenue. And by revenue, GW was not in decline for 5 years straight, but now for one year (and soon likely two years). Not sure why you thought that was contentious?

 Azreal13 wrote:


Strike three you're out.

As KK has already explained..

Sell 2 £50 things for £100 one year, increase price to £100, sell one thing for £100 the next year.

Sales have halved, revenue has remained flat.

Also, you're "three strike you're out" post seems to consider "sales" as synonymous with "unit sales", not with "revenues". Please explain!!!

If sales are (for practical internet-purposes) mostly synonymous with revenue (not with units sold), how is it possible that, quote, "sales have halved, revenue has remained flat" in that example?

 Azreal13 wrote:

Sales can be a synonym for revenue, hence I didn't say you were wrong, but you decided to wield your degree from the university of Wiki to tell me I was wrong when it can also be synonymous for units sold.

It can and is often used this way, but that assumes insignificant income from other sources, such as licensing fees, which GW has.

I'm guessing this is some of the source of confusion.