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Given that they have been moving their stores to lower profile locations... I suspect that business would move to online retailers and to local gaming stores.

A local game store has one major advantage over a GW store - they do not rely on a single company's products.

I actually think that GW stores could turn a much better profit if they opened their shelves to products by compatible companies.

I remember, back in the 'nineties, that GW told the local store that they were to 'discourage' people buying GW miniatures to use in other games....

So, short sightedness in regards to supporting businesses is nothing new for GW.

The Auld Grump - the store in question didn't pay much attention to that request... a sale is a sale.

Carrying FFGs licenced warhammer products would be a good start.

 Talys wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
What are you not understanding?

One man stores are cheaper to run, not least because they have also mostly been moved to lower rent locations... And supposedly, this cost reduction has more than offset the drop in sales as a result of fewer people walking in the door due to the poorer location and dodgier store.

Oh, I didn't realize they actually moved to poorer locations (this did not happen in my area). What didn't make sense was: either there aren't enough customers to support more staff, or there are. A 30% drop in sales is because of less staff is huge, and doesn't make sense to me (just hire another person...). But relocating to cheaper rent is totally different.

You're not grasping the fact that staff are expensive. They will constitute a larger percentage of a store's overhead than the other running costs combined. It isn't just wages, it's all the other associated costs such as sick pay, holiday, pensions etc, plus the associated admin needed to process it all. It is perfectly feasible that cutting a staff member will reduce overhead by more than the income drops, especially as for every one high flying money maker you have there's just as likely a bunch who just about make enough to cover their own salary and a few who don't even do that.

 Talys wrote:

An interesting hypothetical has always been, if GW shuts down a store that's only marginally profitable (or isn't profitable at all), how much of that business would shuffle over to another GW store, or to GW goods in a non-GW store -- versus how much would be lost either in less hobby spending or non-GW hobby spending.

Well, speaking from experience... both of the GW stores near me closed. The next nearest are both 45min to an hour from where I live, and in areas that are... not the nicest. As a result, once they closed I stopped going to GW stores. Any business I still give to GW has now transitioned to extremely limited online purchases (like extra flying bases for my BFG models, and such) and the rest of that potential was lost to non-hobby spending.

 Azreal13 wrote:

You're not grasping the fact that staff are expensive. They will constitute a larger percentage of a store's overhead than the other running costs combined. It isn't just wages, it's all the other associated costs such as sick pay, holiday, pensions etc, plus the associated admin needed to process it all. It is perfectly feasible that cutting a staff member will reduce overhead by more than the income drops, especially as for every one high flying money maker you have there's just as likely a bunch who just about make enough to cover their own salary and a few who don't even do that.

I guess maybe it's a matter of where you live.

For argument's sake, in my area (west coast Canada), the minimum wage is $10.45 / hour. Call it a 40 hour week, 52 weeks a year, that's $22k. Be really generous with benefits, at 50% (it won't even be close to that), and you're still only at $33k. Let's be generous, and say that this guy is really good, so they pay him, with benefits in and all, $44k (double minimum wage). That's as much as a many skilled professional make.

There is no way on God's green Earth that rent in the location that GW is in here is $4,000 per month. The hobby shop I normally go to pays 3 times that in rent, and GW is in a way higher profile location (though much smaller store); it's gotta be at least $10k a month in rent. Insurance, hydro, shrinkage (theft) and other overheads, keeping furniture and fixtures in repair, IT costs all weigh in too. So yeah, maybe in some regions where minimum wage is very high and rents are very low, your scenario is plausible, but no way out here, unless GW moved somewhere really remote.

I guess it's worth mentioning that GW at one point (decades ago?) had a location right in a triple-A shopping center, and moved from there. But that was a terrible location; the shopping center's rent is humongous, and they want a cut of every sale (and not a small percentage, either). Plus, it was 10 minutes walking distance from a hobby shop that carries (literally) a hundred times more inventory, and sold GW stuff at a discount.

I think that it makes sense to move a store from a really upscale location to another one that's "dodgier", as long as it's still accessible and isn't TOO dodgy. But I don't think it makes any sense to let people go if that causes a significant drop in sales (like 30%) due to poor customer service. There is nothing more irritating than walking into a store, not being able to find anyone to help you, or having to wait forever to make your purchase.

Its quite simple really.

Lets say the store doesn't move but goes from 2-man to 1-man.

Lets say you're working somewhere that the stores are open 9am-9pm, 7 days a week, and you have labor laws saying you only work 8 hour days, 6 days a week, 50 weeks a year. Lets also say that 1 person can comfortably handle the workload of a GW store.

A 3-man store can be open 84 out of 84 retail hours every week for 100% availability.
A 2-man store can be open 80 out of 84 available retail hours for 48 weeks a year, and 48 hours a week for 4 weeks a year (assuming holidays don't overlap), for 92% availability
A 1-man store can be open 48 hours a week 50 weeks a year for 55% availability.

GW is asking themselves: if we increase our opening hours from 55% to 92%, is that going to bring in more or less extra profit than hiring this one extra person?

Now obviously the answer varies based on a number of factors (and one or all of the assumptions I made about the worker's hours are off by a bit) but you can boil this down to a yes/no question.
It might be irritating to go to the 1-man store that is closed 45% of retail hours, if all GW is caring about is profitability of that individual store, then being closed some (or all) of the time might be the correct answer.


Personally, I think its the wrong question. The question should be how does the store affect the business as a whole, rather than looking at it as something that MUST make money.

The store COULD be considered a form of advertising - none of my non-gamer colleagues/relatives/friends have heard of Mantic or Infinity, but most of them have walked past the Games Workshop store in the city center. It COULD be considered a loss leader - entice new people in with the big shiny store and show them the models and they come back to the store a few times, before making their way to independents/online retailers. And I think those are better ways of looking at the GW stores: the individual store might be making a loss, but GW's profit is going up because that store is adverting and attracting people to the hobby, regardless of where they buy from. And crucially, the store can't do this if it is closed 45% of the time.

 Talys wrote:

I think that the cost of labor is actually a pretty significant issue in operating small retail stores, and GW is right in saying that recruiting is tough. Maybe a franchise model would have been better for GW -- even if it's like an owner-operator of a gas station -- though I suspect they'd never allow for the loss of control.

They are struggling to recruit and retain regular staff for their stores, they'd have no chance recruiting and retaining franchises. Who in their right mind, after doing any research, would want to buy a GW franchise when they could open up an indy store and sell a broader variety of stuff?


I agree with the idea of them expanding their store range though - FW, FFG, code cards for the mobile games, hobby stuff they don't produce themselves. There's no reason, for instance, that they couldn't sell 3rd party resin bases. Beyond control.

As someone who has owned a franchise 1) I'd always advise anyone to not own a franchise period anyway b) I'd double-down on how heavily I'd make that recommendation for a company managed by the sort of people that manage GW. Be quicker and less painful just to set fire to your house.

The retail chain is one of GW's key pillars of marketing, the others being White Dwarf/Visions, and the third being word of mouth from veterans. They also used to outreach, such as club support, but they stopped it some years ago because it cost money.

The reasons why these activities are important is that they can catch the attention of people who aren't already specifically looking for Games Workshop. From that angle, moving the shops from high footfall locations to cheaper, low footfall locations may be counter-productive even though it makes the shops individually more profitable in the short term.

Note that GW's sales have been dropping significantly for several years as their one-man-store strategy rolled out, although their profitability has been sustained.

IMO it is the reduction of word of mouth support that has convinced GW to re-introduce an outreach campaign for AoS, in the form of their after school league system.

That was an interesting read.

To me, retail chain is the main pillar to GW's marketing. This is where the passion is truly ignited, and where "true believers" can hear what they want to hear (and be reassured as well). Giving that job to clubs and players alone is dangerous, because it is easy to hear something very different from people playing something else.

It is only inside of GW's World that everything is fine for them, after all. If they were alone like they felt they were in the past, there wouldn't be any problems; people would have to buy from them to enjoy their true Hobby. Now, this is not true anymore - but they must not say that to their customers, obviously.

Funny enough, I don't really wish GW's demise anymore. In fact, GW is a great entry door to the world of games with miniatures you love to build and paint. Their shops do a nice job initiating the beginners, and when they are dropped because "they aren't true believers anymore", then they are ready to open their eyes to the huge variety we have now in this Golden Age for Miniature Market.


Otherwise, I agree with the statement of GW not being a game company anymore. I always said they should change their name to "Warhammer Collectors" so that it becomes clear to everyone, but then indeed they wouldn't be able to trick new players in thinking they really make game systems. That is fine; sooner or later, illusions break and a new gamer will be born, for other games, for other companies.

Indeed, the market will certainly be hurt if GW would suddenly disappear. Of course, the miniature market will not die, it will just need to adapt - but losing such an entry door as GW would still be bothersome, IMHO.

I'm not convinced the whole market will suffer if GW disappears.

I think that would have been true 15+ years ago, but GW have been declining for a good five or so years while the rest of the market has been flourishing.

Companies that exist to sell supplements to GW games, of course would be in great difficulty.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I'm not convinced the whole market will suffer if GW disappears.

That's why I'm talking about adaptation. Most miniature wargame companies don't really use such an entry door like GW - and a lot of their players usually have a past with or at least have heard of GW.

It's true GW's influence isn't now what it used to be in the past, but I believe it's still there. It's just my opinion, but I expect there would be some chaos and trouble in the beginning before the market adapts itself to the loss of GW, should it be happening.

But we're talking about a "what if" situation, of course.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I'm not convinced the whole market will suffer if GW disappears.

I think that would have been true 15+ years ago, but GW have been declining for a good five or so years while the rest of the market has been flourishing.

Companies that exist to sell supplements to GW games, of course would be in great difficulty.

I think it's hard to say what the overall effect on the market might be, I think for enthusiast wargamers it would have little to no effect, for more casual gamers or gamers who rely on the expansive community that GW offers would be hurt the most.

GW would never disappear, or at least 40k never will. At worst, another company would buy them out.

Given how quickly Mantic jumped on the death of Fantasy and used it to drive the popularity of KoW I'm not convinced that GW sinking tomorrow would hurt anyone that didn't rely solely on their product.

Chapterhouse would suffer but places like Scibor that make actual whole models would be fine.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I'm not convinced that GW sinking tomorrow would hurt anyone that didn't rely solely on their product.

Well I think there's a decent number of people who rely solely on GW products for gaming. For years even though I collected models for other games, GW ones were the only ones I could actually find an opponent to play against.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I'm not convinced the whole market will suffer if GW disappears.

I think that would have been true 15+ years ago, but GW have been declining for a good five or so years while the rest of the market has been flourishing.

Companies that exist to sell supplements to GW games, of course would be in great difficulty.

This is only my experience, of course, but I can agree with this opinion.

At the FLGS I most often visit, there are entire swathes of players who have never played any GW games, and another large group of people who have entirely quit playing or only very rarely play GW games who used to play quite often. It is not uncommon to go into the store (which has 16 dedicated tabletop wargame tables, and more than that many boards to drop on top of card tables to make more space) and see literally not one table with a GW game on it, while 50-75% of them have games of Warmachine/Hordes, Infiniti, Bolt Action, Flames of War, Dark Age, or any number of other wargame systems that I don't necessarily recognize immediately. This store is one of the top GW retail locations in the USA (the owner was invited by GW a year or so ago to speak to a group of new GW store managers about how to sell the game), but even with that considered, the percentage of stock space dedicated to GW products has dropped over the past 3-5 years, with the space being replaced by a variety of other game systems. I'm sure GW is still the largest single seller (just based on shelf space; the owner wouldn't keep that much in stock if it weren't selling. He's too business savvy), it's clear to see that other game systems are growing in popularity.

I think you are right but they are people who only play GW games and are not helping the expansion of the rest of the market.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I think you are right but they are people who only play GW games and are not helping the expansion of the rest of the market.

But they are still a significant chunk of "the market" and should be considered when considering the effect on the whole market.

If you mean "the market excluding GW", then sure, GW's death wouldn't hurt the market that excludes them (other than possibly reducing the number of people who start other wargames via GW games).

I think when you consider how many wargamers there are in the world and how many people are playing globally, there's a good chance 40k and WHFB/AOS dying would adversely affect that.

I also think a lot of players don't just believe there are really other good games/miniatures outside of GW. They just don't think about this possibility; they're too used to GW and have fond memories with GW, so why wanting something else? Don't underestime the power of nostalgia.

I have a friend who recently was really fed up with AoS (he was a great fan of the "old fluff" and was completely lost when the Old World exploded and WFB rules were throwed outside the window). Until now, he was a "GW miniatures only" collector. He just couldn't bring himself to have other miniatures than those from GW, because he growed up with them and their universes. That was also the reason he never played any other game than those from GW (at least wargames ).

Now he still wants to collect miniatures but just can't follow GW's politic anymore. He isn't a "true believer" anymore. And he discovered there were plenty of other companies/games with awesome miniatures - last time I checked, he was buying a lot of old Rackham miniatures out of E-Bay, just because he fell in love with their design.

I don't think it's an isolated case. May be an "extreme" one, but when someone has a very specific passion, it's easy to only see what you love to see. The Hobby as GW sees it is something similar, I believe.

 Sarouan wrote:
I also think a lot of players don't just believe there are really other good games/miniatures outside of GW. They just don't think about this possibility; they're too used to GW and have fond memories with GW, so why wanting something else? Don't underestime the power of nostalgia.

I simply think a lot of people are simply in to "40k" more than they're in to "wargaming". Their interest might have been piqued because of the expansive community (which would be far less if GW died) and they got in to the fluff, the universe, and the game is a way to immerse themselves in that.

I know for me personally a game is worthless to me without a universe to back it. I almost exclusively collect WW2, WHFB and 40k models because those are the universes that interest me (WW2 isn't a universe but you get what I mean). I started collecting models when I was 7, I'm now late 20's (scarily close to 30, I'm getting old ) and I struggle to get interested in new universes now and without that background I can't really get interested in an associated game regardless of how technically good it might be.

Even WW2 stuff I've only really recently become interested in gaming because I've only recently become more interested in the ground wars (loved WW2 aircraft since forever, it was only when I started becoming interested in the tanks and soldiers that I also got interested in wargaming WW2).

The bit about the "games" in games workshop being a misnomer. Wonder what Steve Jackson and the other founders think of that.

Honestly I think the "GW only" crowd bring nothing to the wider hobby as that includes the 14 year olds why buy a starter, a codex and a couple of other boxes then forget about it 6 months later.

The 'churn and burn' has been a GW sales tactic for a while now and while there seems to be less emphasis on it now it seemed to be a staple for a while.

That policy drove a lot of potential life long hobbyist away from the wider hobby imo and thus hurt the larger industry.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Honestly I think the "GW only" crowd bring nothing to the wider hobby as that includes the 14 year olds why buy a starter, a codex and a couple of other boxes then forget about it 6 months later.

The 'churn and burn' has been a GW sales tactic for a while now and while there seems to be less emphasis on it now it seemed to be a staple for a while.

That policy drove a lot of potential life long hobbyist away from the wider hobby imo and thus hurt the larger industry.

I dunno, I don't really think I agree with that. GW introduced a lot of people to wargaming who probably never would have otherwise, people who might not have fit the typical mould of a wargamer. Even if they are only in the hobby for a couple of years, they're still adding to the pool of gamers which IMO is a good thing.

Not everyone needs to be a die-hard-life-long-gamer-collecting-every-game-that-comes-along sort of gamer.

I mean of course you can say "bring nothing to the wider hobby" because then you're excluding GW's rather large chunk of "the hobby". You might as well say "X-Wing only players bring nothing to the wider hobby" or "Warmahordes-only players bring nothing to the wider hobby", it's a self fulfilling statement

I know it's annoying when people consider GW to be "the hobby", but you also can't really exclude them from "the hobby" either

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I think you are right but they are people who only play GW games and are not helping the expansion of the rest of the market.

But they are still a significant chunk of "the market" and should be considered when considering the effect on the whole market.

If you mean "the market excluding GW", then sure, GW's death wouldn't hurt the market that excludes them (other than possibly reducing the number of people who start other wargames via GW games).

I think when you consider how many wargamers there are in the world and how many people are playing globally, there's a good chance 40k and WHFB/AOS dying would adversely affect that.

True, there is hobby games market that includes GW, however GW themselves prefer to pretend it does not exist and I think there are significant numbers of people who are in the hobby games market but only the GW part of it and do not realise the rest of it exists or partake in non-GW games.

Furthermore, while GW probably play a big role in building up various aspects of the hobby games in former decades, I don't think this is treu any more but it does not matter because the non-GW part of the market has reached critical mass.

Thus if you are not interested in GW games, if they vanished, all the other games won't vanish too.

@Kilkrazy - Speaking for my part of the world only, GW vanishing would be a huge hit on at least 3 FLGS stores (I don't really visit the others, so I can't say). Whatever the decline in their sales, it remains a very significant part of revenue for them, with by far the most shelf space, revenue, prominence, etc. Many of the GW customers don't have any interest in non-GW games or models -- and even within GW offerings are interested, really, in 40k.

 Talys wrote:
Many of the GW customers don't have any interest in non-GW games or models -- and even within GW offerings are interested, really, in 40k.

Hence GW's tactic of further narrowing their niche to target the most profitable customers to the exclusion of all else. One of these days, the line will be crossed even for those "golden" customers and GW will have to take a long look at either slowly retreating over that scorched-earth wasteland of ill-will they've sown among their abused/discarded customers and stockists. The only other option at that point will be death. Kirby will fly away in his golden parachute regardless. I don't hate GW. I'd rather it return to the glory days of the early 2000's. In my neck of the woods, instead of having a critical mass of players driving new customers towards the hobby, they have a critical mass of players driving new customers AWAY from their hobby. Outside of a few strongholds (GW's own stores, a handfull of FLGS) - GW has been driven into the figurative backwoods in terms of prominence in most of my local game stores. Ask any of the players enjoying Malifaux, X-Wing, Warmahordes, Infinity, Armada, Krossmaster etc. if they own any GW product - it'd be a safe bet almost all of them do - many of them multiple full armies. Its telling that none of them still buy or play however.

I feel GW has gone down their path of maximizing profits / sale too far to easily mend relations with disaffected fans - hence, management has clearly decided that it's not even worth their time/money to try. The problem is that the more they narrow their focus, the more people they are going to forcibly shove out of the hobby - the more voices will arrayed against them. Word of mouth is a powerful tool. GW ignores it at their own peril.

Funny how that varies from region to region. Of the three FLGS's (all 20 miles, I'd say local enough ) I know enough about one has actually flat-out dropped all GW product: owner was pretty much just tired of putting up with their gak and didn't sell that much GW product anymore, anyway; one still has a fair amount but from what I understand could get by even if the revenue just all vanished tomorrow, and basically has players fleeing the GW nest in terror in favour of other systems just about every week, and the third one is very new and still struggling for market share, but even they seem rather lukewarm when it comes to GW product (owners having been mostly WHFB players who are now rather disillusioned might have something to do with that).

In short, GW could vanish and take both its stores and its player base with it and I'd likely still have three healthy FLGSs within a 20 mile radius (plus a fourth one which I don't really frequent, so not sure how they'd do).

If GW vanished over night the stores in my area would be alright. Magic the Gathering is what keeps the lights on in many of these shops. Miniature guys in my area don't spend half the money the magic group does.

Agreed with Kilkrazy. I agree that GW was and probably still is the biggest intro to the hobby, but I think that time's passing. I've heard anecdotes like Saldiven's before, and ones about kids in FLGSs bypassing the GW shelves just because of the prices stick in my head. The local Forbidden Planet started stocking miniature games alongside boardgames, CCGs, and RPGs, but stocked X-Wing and Star Trek: Attack Wing long before they got a (very small) GW rack. The culling of Specialist Games and everything besides the big two (or, since AoS, the big one) not only allowed all those replacements to spring up, as we all know, but by getting rid of even the idea of alternate (better) rules in their own repertoire, they've also arguably further cut off diehard GW fans and store gamers from the rest of the hobby. They're part of the wargaming hobby, but increasingly irrelevant to the 'rest of the market'. Barring all those who made the exodus to KoW.
With that and all the other big and little mismanagements of latter years, steadily driving more gamers away, I'd say it's less providing an intro to the rest of the hobby, and more preparing the hobby for it's eventual demise. The market will be smaller if GW leaves it, but I don't think that'll directly correlate to impoverishment. I think there'll still be a bit of a drop-off in recruitment, for some time, but also a loss of diehards who wouldn't engage with the rest of the hobby anyway. Which would be neither here nor there to the market. There's a term for that on the tip of my tongue, can't quite remember it. Anyway: it'd be like taking the big fish out of the small pond - of course the water level's going to fall, but that's because the big fish was taking up so much space and displacing so much of it. To torture that metaphor even more, there'll be less food thrown into the pond, but the small fish will get it all.