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 agnosto wrote:

Rountree's other comments are just typical corporate speak for different things that companies do anyway which makes me question a bit who they think their target readers are for this because any experienced trader can read between the lines.

Interesting you should say that, because I very much felt it was written with one eye on the likes of us as much as actual shareholders.

 aka_mythos wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Accolade wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:
[spoiler]This hasn't been mentioned yet:

I have set a goal of getting the business into sales growth in 2015/16 and have asked staff to accept a salary freeze until December
2015 to allow us to maintain our cost to sales ratio. If we deliver sales growth in the first half of 2015/16 I have agreed to back date any
salary reviews to 1 June 2015. We are all working hard to deliver this goal.

They are on a salary freeze in the same year they payed out a dividend?!? And they literally just put a gilded statue out in front of the building. They need to start worrying about the squirly guy burning the building down. And getting their raises is contingent on turning around a multi-year sales decline trend. Good luck with that.

Seriously though, this is death spiral stuff. Put salary freezes into a company with failing sales and anyone talented enough to get a job elsewhere, will. You end up left with the people too thick to see the writing on the wall, or people who aren't qualified enough to do good work, but just good enough not to get fired.

I do wonder if these freezes include the chairman's golden parachute

Kirby owns, what, about 7% of the stock?

You guys mean Kevin Rountree the new CEO?

I'm not sure what a price freeze has to with prior agreements to the "chairman's" severance package?

Yeeesh, it was just a joke. I was just commenting on how I find it funny that Chairmen/CEOs are always so excited to show off how they're sticking it to their employees via pay freezes, while I'm quite sure their ability to reap in more profit will go unhindered.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

Rountree's other comments are just typical corporate speak for different things that companies do anyway which makes me question a bit who they think their target readers are for this because any experienced trader can read between the lines.

Interesting you should say that, because I very much felt it was written with one eye on the likes of us as much as actual shareholders.

My thought as well since they don't have an official communication channel to their customers outside of White Dwarf which doesn't strike me as the place to do anything except sell the new shiny.




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 Accolade wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Accolade wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:
[spoiler]This hasn't been mentioned yet:

I have set a goal of getting the business into sales growth in 2015/16 and have asked staff to accept a salary freeze until December
2015 to allow us to maintain our cost to sales ratio. If we deliver sales growth in the first half of 2015/16 I have agreed to back date any
salary reviews to 1 June 2015. We are all working hard to deliver this goal.

They are on a salary freeze in the same year they payed out a dividend?!? And they literally just put a gilded statue out in front of the building. They need to start worrying about the squirly guy burning the building down. And getting their raises is contingent on turning around a multi-year sales decline trend. Good luck with that.

Seriously though, this is death spiral stuff. Put salary freezes into a company with failing sales and anyone talented enough to get a job elsewhere, will. You end up left with the people too thick to see the writing on the wall, or people who aren't qualified enough to do good work, but just good enough not to get fired.

I do wonder if these freezes include the chairman's golden parachute

Kirby owns, what, about 7% of the stock?

You guys mean Kevin Rountree the new CEO?

I'm not sure what a price freeze has to with prior agreements to the "chairman's" severance package?

Yeeesh, it was just a joke. I was just commenting on how I find it funny that Chairmen/CEOs are always so excited to show off how they're sticking it to their employees via pay freezes, while I'm quite sure their ability to reap in more profit will go unhindered.

Pay dividends but don't pay your employees!!

Their comments about putting stores in tourist locations/ high foot traffic areas baffles me. Why put a test store in FN Boston when you could do it in Vegas, Orlando, New York, or even LA? All 4 of those cities probably get far more tourism than FN Boston...LOL.

 agnosto wrote:


Pay dividends but don't pay your employees!!

That's the Kirby way!

Come what may, it's good to see that the chickens are still laying.
Never change Kirby.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They still fail to acknowledge the obvious elephant in the room:

Barrier to entry is far to high, and constantly increasing the prices to ludicrous levels (seriously, look at the cost of those Sigmarines!) is not going to rescue them.

They do acknowledge that though in the comment about a "broader range of price points". They also follow that up with the stupid comment about no price drops so the only option there is to offer more "board game" style one and done offerings like that assassin game or come out with rules that support much lower model counts (like AOS).

Kevin Rountree wrote:In the period we signed 17 new deals and have 44 contracts currently in place to produce more than 50 interactive products. Reported
income is split: 52% traditional PC games, 27% mobile and 21% card, board and role-playing game licences. 37 new products were
released in the period. We also announced a major tie up with SEGA to develop a real time strategy game ‘Total War: Warhammer’

 Gamgee wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't think 40K is getting Age of Sigmar'd.

Horus Heresy on the other hand...

One of the most trusted rumors guys has said 40k is basically getting sigmar'ed. Now we have a financial report that says they are revaluating their range.

It's over. Done. Pack it in. That's polite corporate bs talk.

They'll gak out as much codices and anything else they possibly can before they go the sigmar route just to milk the old fans one last time. Then kick them out on their way to their new fanbase. That simple really.

^

If it means all armies get 7th edition codices I'm all for that. Then I can play 7th with all armies on the most equal playing field since like ever. And my group can adjust the rules mess and broken units as needed knowing there won't be any new offenders.


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Also if they clean up 40k but keep it mostly intact, and make horus heresy the new AoS, that's fine with me too.
The forge world books are written as a 40k expansion after all.

 warboss wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They still fail to acknowledge the obvious elephant in the room:

Barrier to entry is far too high, and constantly increasing the prices to ludicrous levels (seriously, look at the cost of those Sigmarines!) is not going to rescue them.

They do acknowledge that though in the comment about a "broader range of price points". They also follow that up with the stupid comment about no price drops so the only option there is to offer more "board game" style one and done offerings like that assassin game or come out with rules that support much lower model counts (like AOS).

None of these would be a long-term winning strategy. If they make board games, people that play board games but aren't already GW customers will not likely give them custom because other companies are more established, do it better and cost less. The assassin game was, what 15 models for over $100? Limited releases are completely useless as a marketing/entry-level gimmick; if no one can buy it a few months after it's released how are you going to attract new business?

I still say that the best way to do things are battle-box type products, pre-packaged with kill-team or similar, low-point rules. An HQ, a troop squad and a vehicle for 40K and something the size of one of the AoS box forces for around $50-$60 would be the perfect entry into the games and good starting points for new players. Even better if these are simpler to build products like the AoS snap-fit models then people don't feel like they need to spend tens of hours building their units before they can even get a game in.

GW is finally making a concentrated effort to move away from the crap TT and push in the direction of the video game master race. My millenial blood races at the thought!

Itshappening.gif

 BlaxicanX wrote:
GW is finally making a concentrated effort to move away from the crap TT and push in the direction of the video game master race. My millenial blood races at the thought!

Itshappening.gif

ohgak.jpeg

Nomeny wrote:

Kevin Rountree wrote:In the period we signed 17 new deals and have 44 contracts currently in place to produce more than 50 interactive products. Reported
income is split: 52% traditional PC games, 27% mobile and 21% card, board and role-playing game licences. 37 new products were
released in the period. We also announced a major tie up with SEGA to develop a real time strategy game ‘Total War: Warhammer’

http://licensing.games-workshop.com/news/

Not sure that this is actually a feather in their cap!!! Browsing their list of licensed video game products - GW doesn't seem very picky about who licenses their IP. Lord Kirby does not care from where the cash flows, as long as the cash flows! Cash for the Cash God. Dividends for the Dividend Throne!

 keezus wrote:

Nomeny wrote:

Kevin Rountree wrote:In the period we signed 17 new deals and have 44 contracts currently in place to produce more than 50 interactive products. Reported
income is split: 52% traditional PC games, 27% mobile and 21% card, board and role-playing game licences. 37 new products were
released in the period. We also announced a major tie up with SEGA to develop a real time strategy game ‘Total War: Warhammer’

http://licensing.games-workshop.com/news/

Not sure that this is actually a feather in their cap!!! Browsing their list of licensed video game products - GW doesn't seem very picky about who licenses their IP. Lord Kirby does not care from where the cash flows, as long as the cash flows! Cash for the Cash God. Dividends for the Dividend Throne!

Truth be told, there's a lot of good stuff in the video games section but stuff like the GOD-EMPEROR AWFUL "Storm of Vengeance" and "Snotling Fling" kinda ruins the whole deal. (There are many I didn't even know existed so no idea about their quality. Hell there's one in the Horus Heresy era!)

@TheDraconicLord: That's part of the problem... we don't know half those products exist! We are steeped in GW's lore... Think about how newcomers are supposed to find out about this crap!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They still fail to acknowledge the obvious elephant in the room:

Barrier to entry is far to high, and constantly increasing the prices to ludicrous levels (seriously, look at the cost of those Sigmarines!) is not going to rescue them.

A store local to my university is selling the 5 man liberator box for $35 dollars. 30% cut right off the bat.

Rapid fire releases for the new year really seemed to have closed the gap on their losses in the first half of the fiscal year. If they can maintain that sort of actual performance you might see them actually grow vs. this year.

I mean, if I remember correctly, weren't they almost double digit down on the previous report or year to date in the half year report? Closing that gap seems like they are going in the right direction. They also seemed to feel they didn't need the new SM codex to boost this year and saved it for the 2015/2016 fiscal year.

It's interesting to see an actual acknowledgement of issues they've been having. I'm cautiously optimistic about next year.

Also lets be realistic. 40k isn't getting AoS'd. You may see a move to "dateslates" so model rules are free online but they aren't going to kill their golden goose. I really wish people would stop assuming it's going to happen. The entire fantasy range was down to single percentage digits of their total sales. Even with the End Times boost they only jump to low teens. It was a dead game. 40k is far from anywhere near that position.

 Azreal13 wrote:


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 gorgon wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
Jeez GW is taking a long time to just collapse already

I have it on good word that they've been in a death spiral ever since they moved to white metal in the early '90s.

Smug much?

Look at all they've done in the last year just to tread water, and while the intro makes a lot of the right noises, it's still just words and modern GW is almost defined by the right idea being executed poorly, so I wouldn't crow too much just yet.

No, it's perspective much. Conversations extremely similar to these were seen on rec.games.miniatures.warhammer 20 years ago.

I realize that reality doesn't fit in with certain agendas and world views. But people have literally been declaring GW's imminent demise for a couple decades now, and yet somehow that turd still floats.

And "crowing"? This may be very, very hard for you to understand, but seeing some of the doomsaying here for what it is doesn't make me a "white knight." And these numbers aren't anything to crow about, even if I was one. Then again, they aren't something to crank up the gloom and doom machine about either. However, I'm sure that seeing the world in black and white creates a lot of nice contrasts and makes life easier for you, so...have fun with that, I guess.

 keezus wrote:
@TheDraconicLord: That's part of the problem... we don't know half those products exist! We are steeped in GW's lore... Think about how newcomers are supposed to find out about this crap!

You would think that if, as a company, you are licensing your name and "universe" that you might actually advertise the products created in some way since the more money it makes, the more money you make...

So revenue dropped by 4.4 million, which is a decent chunk of the typical profits but since costs were also reduced the profit remained similar.

I don't think GW is going anywhere for a while. They have a long way to fall and lots of costs to cut before they go down the hole. So unfortunately that means if they ever do go down the tube, they'll be dragging their games down with them.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Rapid fire releases for the new year really seemed to have closed the gap on their losses in the first half of the fiscal year. If they can maintain that sort of actual performance you might see them actually grow vs. this year.

I mean, if I remember correctly, weren't they almost double digit down on the previous report or year to date in the half year report? Closing that gap seems like they are going in the right direction. They also seemed to feel they didn't need the new SM codex to boost this year and saved it for the 2015/2016 fiscal year.

Yes, the second half of YE2015 was very good (much better than the second half of 2014) to make up for a slow first half, for sure. Detractors of GW don't want to acknowledge this, and also don't want to acknowledge that "high prices" haven't hurt GW at all in 1H 2015.

My reading of it is that GW products are not too expensive for GW to be profitable and that GW products released at a rapid cadence is not a bad thing. Sure, the prices might be too expensive for some people, but GW is probably near the sweet spot on the elasticity curve. However, in 2015, GW launched more products that people wanted, hence better revenues: AdMech, Eldar, IK upgrade, Harlequins, etc. Note that SM had no impact as they launched in June.

It's interesting to see an actual acknowledgement of issues they've been having. I'm cautiously optimistic about next year.

Also lets be realistic. 40k isn't getting AoS'd. You may see a move to "dateslates" so model rules are free online but they aren't going to kill their golden goose. I really wish people would stop assuming it's going to happen. The entire fantasy range was down to single percentage digits of their total sales. Even with the End Times boost they only jump to low teens. It was a dead game. 40k is far from anywhere near that position.

It's simply an argument by people who want to see players flee 40k. There are lots of people who would love for GW to get rid of points from 40k, because it would make a big chunk of 40k players leave the game, and this type of anti-GW observer is of the opinion that (a) GW is stupid/incompetent and (b) GW hates its players and (c) GW wants to wreck its games.

Of course, GW making a profit of USD$32M in one year, probably exceeding the REVENUES of almost every other direct competitor doesn't mean anything at all to the business acumen of those running GW. It must all be because of blind luck and the sheep who have GW products on autoship!

I found Snotling Fling was pretty darn fun to play. That was until they released an "optimising" patch, which literally brought all the cash milking "goodies" you'd normally find in all other "free" games.

Too bad, they didn't post that diagram with cash flow every month. This way we could see what brought the most profit

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
So revenue dropped by 4.4 million, which is a decent chunk of the typical profits but since costs were also reduced the profit remained similar.

I don't think GW is going anywhere for a while. They have a long way to fall and lots of costs to cut before they go down the hole. So unfortunately that means if they ever do go down the tube, they'll be dragging their games down with them.

It didn't really, though. It only dropped by this as a differential in currency valuation.

Canadian exporters do the same thing all the time (value revenues at constant currency) -- because of Canadian dollar fluctuations relative to USD, what happens is one year, it might look like your sales spiked 25% or dropped 25%, when in fact the number of units sold was exactly the same, and the only difference was the Canadian dollar. Many manufacturers like GW don't sell in their home currency, because that would cause fluctuations in the marketplace. For instance, it's not helpful for the price of a box of liberators to be more cheaper when USD or AUD happens to be stronger relative to GBP.

Keep in mind it works both ways; just as often constant currency revenues reflect a decline in sale.

 gorgon wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
Jeez GW is taking a long time to just collapse already

I have it on good word that they've been in a death spiral ever since they moved to white metal in the early '90s.

Smug much?

Look at all they've done in the last year just to tread water, and while the intro makes a lot of the right noises, it's still just words and modern GW is almost defined by the right idea being executed poorly, so I wouldn't crow too much just yet.

No, it's perspective much. Conversations extremely similar to these were seen on rec.games.miniatures.warhammer 20 years ago.

I realize that reality doesn't fit in with certain agendas and world views. But people have literally been declaring GW's imminent demise for a couple decades now, and yet somehow that turd still floats.

And "crowing"? This may be very, very hard for you to understand, but seeing some of the doomsaying here for what it is doesn't make me a "white knight." And these numbers aren't anything to crow about, even if I was one. Then again, they aren't something to crank up the gloom and doom machine about either. However, I'm sure that seeing the world in black and white creates a lot of nice contrasts and makes life easier for you, so...have fun with that, I guess.

All of which would be quite reasonable if I hadn't read a bunch of your other posts.

@gorgon -- seeing your post made me actually really miss the old, LEAD miniatures :(

 Talys wrote:
@gorgon -- seeing your post made me actually really miss the old, LEAD miniatures :(

I don't know if I miss the lead ones... the white metal ones sure lol.

 Talys wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
So revenue dropped by 4.4 million, which is a decent chunk of the typical profits but since costs were also reduced the profit remained similar.

I don't think GW is going anywhere for a while. They have a long way to fall and lots of costs to cut before they go down the hole. So unfortunately that means if they ever do go down the tube, they'll be dragging their games down with them.

It didn't really, though. It only dropped by this as a differential in currency valuation.

Canadian exporters do the same thing all the time (value revenues at constant currency) -- because of Canadian dollar fluctuations relative to USD, what happens is one year, it might look like your sales spiked 25% or dropped 25%, when in fact the number of units sold was exactly the same, and the only difference was the Canadian dollar. Many manufacturers like GW don't sell in their home currency, because that would cause fluctuations in the marketplace. For instance, it's not helpful for the price of a box of liberators to be more cheaper when USD or AUD happens to be stronger relative to GBP.

Keep in mind it works both ways; just as often constant currency revenues reflect a decline in sale.

Yes, but keep in mind that with "constant currency" it still went down a tiny bit DESPITE them practically doubling their new product output. LOTR and WHFB had very few releases during that time compared with previous years and 40k really ramped up the codex and kit releases during the same time... and their "constant currency" sales didn't budge except to drop a tiny bit. They made tons more yet folks didn't actually buy tons more. That is also a key piece of information.

@warboss, yes - through the whole year, revenues went down a little bit under constant currency. Objectively, I think an observer would say that revenues were flat -- if it had gone up by less than 1%, an objective observer would also have to say that revenues were flat.

I think that people need to recognize how good 2015 must have been to make up for the weak 2014 half of the full year.

Frankly, I expected revenues to be lower, as well as profits (most people expected profits to be in the order of magnitude of GBP 10m lower than 2014). I don't think that GBP 16m profit and GBP 25m increase in cash was something that most people on these forums would have guessed (not me). I didn't even expect the sales in 2015 to be as strong as they were.

I suspect, Fantasy/LoTR sales declined a little, and 40k sales increased a little (less, over the whole year). But of course, we don't have any data to substantiate that, except that the first half of 2015 was almost all 40k.

It might have already been brought up, but I only just read this bit...

We have taken the decision in the year to rebrand our stores ‘Warhammer’. It is what our customers call us.

So, is this confirmation that GW's perceived customers are the parents of Little Timmy? Because I've never heard an actual hobbyist call GW themselves "Warhammer" unless referring specifically to the game not the company.

How much have GW's prices increased over the year?