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 jonolikespie wrote:

I don't think the Hobbit was anywhere near as successful as the Lord of the Rings.

We're still talking about multi-billion dollar, multi-year film franchise with saturation media coverage, toys everywhere and an advertising spend that dwarfed GW's entire budget. It's not like they tried to make a toy line out of some low-budget indie film.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Talys wrote:

I think that there is a nostalgic desire for Games Workshop to return to the type of company it was when it was small and scrappy AND the dominant wargaming company.

If GW don't rediscover what they were doing right when they were "small and scrappy" they won't be dominating wargaming for very much longer.

Eh, no matter how bad they screw up, they've got years before they stop being dominating. They'll first stop being the majority of tabletop games played/sold in stores (likely true already in alot of places)... a few years after that they'll stop being the biggest game sold/played. It's a long road paved with lots of yellow messed up bricks but I have faith in GW being able to stay the course. For every step forward like BaC, there are two steps back like AoS.

 warboss wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Talys wrote:

I think that there is a nostalgic desire for Games Workshop to return to the type of company it was when it was small and scrappy AND the dominant wargaming company.

If GW don't rediscover what they were doing right when they were "small and scrappy" they won't be dominating wargaming for very much longer.

Eh, no matter how bad they screw up, they've got years before they stop being dominating. They'll first stop being the majority of tabletop games played/sold in stores (likely true already in alot of places)... a few years after that they'll stop being the biggest game sold/played. It's a long road paved with lots of yellow messed up bricks but I have faith in GW being able to stay the course. For every step forward like BaC, there are two steps back like AoS.

That part has been true of Australia for a year or two now, and we've always been a year or two ahead of you yanks in price rises. Interesting times ahead for GW methinks.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Interesting times ahead for GW methinks.

If by "interesting" you mean "really bad," I agree.

 Elemental wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Definitely agree, it gradually lost the tongue-in-cheek side and became far too po-faced and serious.

Depends. Do you consider things like Murderfang the Murderdreadnought with murderfist from planet murder who murder people to satisfy his murderlust, or Santa Space Wolf in his anti-grav sleigh tracted by wolf because WOLF WOLF WOLFY MCWOLF to be serious or tongue-in-check?

I get a strong 90's comics vibe from GW now, in that the concepts were probably honestly thought of as edgy and gritty by the creators (and 13-year-old boys), but to everyone else, they just seem like self-parody.Everything, in concept and sculpt, is just more and more XTREME, to the point where it's just deafening. Space Marines in power armour--inside bigger power armour. (DUDE!) Chaos always had skull iconography, but now they've got so many skulls, they're bursting out from the inside (WICKED!). These aren't your dad's Slayers, these are FyreSlayers who are, like, literally burning with rage (SWEET!).

I can easily imagine FyreSlayer and Murderfang teaming up in the epic BloodBound crossover, to fight the mega-villain Omnicide.

I was shocked that in Dreadfleet (I being the only regular where I live to own one) didn't have a classic skull island, yes it had islands made of skulls but I mean the classic pirate skull island.
Missed opportunity, I mean that whole game was a missed opportunity.
Still enjoy it, though it was the last GW model purchase I've made (what a way to go out on lol).
I did feel their over the topness worked a bit better on a game like that, the over the top Pirates of the Caribbean thing they had going on.


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 Rayvon wrote:
Lord of the rings sold because it was lord of the rings, not because he made the right style minis.

When I started becoming aware of GW Lotr was still coming out, heck the Two Towers had just come out when I started playing and I was swept up in it all (and as well as being 12 years old) I both loved the movies, the books and the models were cheaper.
The starter set was like 75 dollars, which compared to the 40k one of 120 or so (and having far more models) it was an easy choice.
Average box sets ran like 22 dollars (that low for 24 models, from something I knew and loved, easy choice) I actually bought things back then, mostly Lord of the Rings because it was cheap and GW still had dedicated nights to various games back then so I could turn up Monday and be guaranteed a game.
It went for a good while, I had a Hobbit army (which I still own) which was... interesting on the battlefield to say the least.
I've not played the game in a good few years, don't know anyone who bought any of the Hobbit stuff, the starter set is too much, and while I like the Goblins (I want to use them as Ghouls in KoW) they're too expensive. The cheap alternative no longer.
They're not worth being on par, price wise with 40k.
When War of the Ring came out it got a tiny return, like people actually played it a little, though I didn't, not being able to with my Hobbits and it quickly went away.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That said, LoTR reportedly is a good system, the figures are nice and true to the films, and it's good that GW are continuing to support it.

The core of the rules found its home in the now defunct Warhammer Historical range, where most of their games (Legends of the Old West and the like) used the same system to great effect.

 Rayvon wrote:
Lord of the rings sold because it was lord of the rings, not because he made the right style minis.

Mini style was definitely part of it, it's impossible to say how large of a part of it.

LotR was cheap and I'm sure the simplistic models is part of what allowed them to do that. Many of the infantry kits were 12 models to a smallish sprue so a box could be 2x identical sprues to give you 24 models. And at 24 models you don't really notice that there's 2 of each model in there anyway. Good value and much easier to put together a force (I'm sure a lot if not most new WHFB and 40k players fall flat on their faces when they discover just how long it's going to take them to assemble and paint all those models).

That value is part of what made LotR popular, the lack of value in The Hobbit is part of what made that a flop.

Also the more realistic proportions I'm SURE brought in some customers even if it pushed some of the WHFB fans away. It was the LotR models that first made me realise how derpy the rest of GW's range actually looked And I don't think it really hurt them if some fans stuck with WHFB or 40k instead, all the money is going to the same place in the end as long as they didn't quit GW completely.

 warboss wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Talys wrote:

I think that there is a nostalgic desire for Games Workshop to return to the type of company it was when it was small and scrappy AND the dominant wargaming company.

If GW don't rediscover what they were doing right when they were "small and scrappy" they won't be dominating wargaming for very much longer.

Eh, no matter how bad they screw up, they've got years before they stop being dominating. They'll first stop being the majority of tabletop games played/sold in stores (likely true already in alot of places)... a few years after that they'll stop being the biggest game sold/played. It's a long road paved with lots of yellow messed up bricks but I have faith in GW being able to stay the course. For every step forward like BaC, there are two steps back like AoS.

Years? Maybe, but the long road will have a roadblock called the investors at some point. Unlike most in this industry, GW are publicly traded. As soon as they stop being the biggest game sold, the investors will look for the company to be sold out. If that doesn't happen, the investors will start dropping the stock and a hostile takeover becomes likely.

A hostile takeover by.... whom?

As much as I love gw models, gw makes a microscopic amount of profit relative to its share price, and those profits have a very low ceiling in its core niche (wargaming minis). There is nothing that gw could do to increase the profitability of that niche by a factor of 5 or 10 or 20, because the market isn't big enough and it's not going to get big enough. They can't charge an order of magnitude (factor of ten) more for models, and even if they owned 100% of the market and everybody loved them, they'd sell, what, only three times more stuff at most. So what does that leave? IP for movies and video games.

But strike the last one, because licensing ip for videogames is already practically free (look how little they charged relative to how many video games came out), so it's way cheaper to just license it than buy GW.

We've already had the movie discussion many times

The smart thing to do if the stock price craters is for insiders who already made their tens of millions to buy it back, and ultimately turn it back into a private company. Then, they can do what they want for a decade or so then go public again and make tens of millions again. Rawr.

 Talys wrote:


The smart thing to do if the stock price craters is for insiders who already made their tens of millions to buy it back, and ultimately turn it back into a private company. Then, they can do what they want for a decade or so then go public again and make tens of millions again. Rawr.

...oh my God.

It all makes sense now. The nonsensical business decisions...the meteoric price rises...the turning out of old customers and horrendous PR...they're subverting them from within, joining the foe and even going so far as to tear down an ancient pillar of the company as part of a secret plot to restore the old order.

Tom Kirby is a member of the Alpha Legion.

I think GW is actually a terrible company to have made public, although I won't dispute that it was highly profitable for a small number of people.

It really doesn't make sense as a public company because the whole reason you become public is that you want more capital to expand your business -- for example, acquiring competitors, or expanding into other areas. But GW doesn't want to do any of that, and it doesn't even know what to do with the profit it does make (it just returns it to shareholders). Basically, they have all the downsides of being a public company, like having to show people their books and being stuck with all the regulatory overhead, without having need of any of the potential advantages.

The only thing GW got out of going public was an exit strategy for its founders -- which is a good reason for the founders, but not a great reason for the company or investors.

GW results would be published whether they were public or privately owned.

Your assessment that GW is a bad company to float makes no sense given that it has bee run profitable as such for nearly two decades, caries decent capital and pays dividend.

The yearly reports have often said as an investment anyone looking to the a quick buck would do we to look elsewhere as the goal of GW is sustainable growth over many years. They must know the limited nature of their niche and proceed accordingly. Basically they are like any other small to medium sized UK company.

Think Talys is dead on with that one, think the majority of complaints that people level at GW are due to the policies they follow from being a publically owned company.

Have to say it probably wouldn't be the case if they were still privately owned, and not having to think of share-holders with every decision that is made.

 notprop wrote:
GW results would be published whether they were public or privately owned.

Why? Privately owned companies do not publish their results, generally speaking. Certainly, none of GW's competitors do

 notprop wrote:
Your assessment that GW is a bad company to float makes no sense given that it has bee run profitable as such for nearly two decades, caries decent capital and pays dividend.

As a private company, it would make more money, and pay higher dividends to its shareholders. Just talk to any broker and ask them, "why should I take my company public?". They'll tell you the main reasons are for liquidity (the ability to cash out) and to raise capital. The other reasons -- like being able to attract top employees because they can own a piece of the pie and become billionaires if they get in early -- don't really apply to GW.

 notprop wrote:
The yearly reports have often said as an investment anyone looking to the a quick buck would do we to look elsewhere as the goal of GW is sustainable growth over many years. They must know the limited nature of their niche and proceed accordingly. Basically they are like any other small to medium sized UK company.

I'm not arguing that GW stock is a terrible buy, or that it's overpriced. It's okay. However, it's not going to make anyone huge bucks, because although it's a decent business, it has a very low ceiling due to a small market. Therefore, it makes it a terrible target for a hostile takeover. Because if you're going to go to all that effort (and risk), you want a much more significant potential payout.

Going back to when GW went public -- which is only an academic exercise, because it's already happened -- I'm saying that the only reason it went public was for founder liquidity, despite anything the stock promoters said back then. History has proven that despite them being a successful business, they won't ever rake in hundreds of millions of profit, unless they basically go into another line of business in which they currently possess no competency (the entire market for miniature wargames isn't worth hundreds of millions of profit a year on the manufacturing end, and there's no plausible way to grow it to the point where it is). Again, hindsight is 20/20, and it's perfectly fair that at the time GW went public, investors had another view of its potential, and now, it is what it is: a reasonably performing, relatively stable and profitable stock.

GW would be more exciting as a stock if it decided to leverage the advantages of being a public company, raise a hundred or two hundred million dollars, and do something exiting and risky that could potentially make it a billion dollars every year -- because that's what you can do as a public company, that is generally impossible as a private company (unless you have an extremely wealthy benefactor).

 Talys wrote:

 notprop wrote:
GW results would be published whether they were public or privately owned.

Why? Privately owned companies do not publish their results, generally speaking. Certainly, none of GW's competitors do

Private limited companies (here in the UK anyway) are required by law to submit accounts and a report annually to Companies House. Everything is searchable online. They're not required to make the investor reports that public limited companies have to, but they're not without oversight - a bankrupt can be disqualified from being a Ltd company director. You won't get as much information out of the submitted accounts as you would for a public limited company either, but it does exist.

Any company in the UK with Limited (Ltd ) after its name only exposes the company officers to limited liability in the event of a company failing. Public limited companies use the abbreviation PLC. With a more basic company structure, like Sole Trader, the company owner is personally liable for ALL company debts.

It's not compulsory to create a Ltd company, but if you don't want to lose your house and don't mind a bit of paperwork, limited status is the way to go.

 Elemental wrote:
I get a strong 90's comics vibe from GW now, in that the concepts were probably honestly thought of as edgy and gritty by the creators (and 13-year-old boys), but to everyone else, they just seem like self-parody.[…]
I can easily imagine FyreSlayer and Murderfang teaming up in the epic BloodBound crossover, to fight the mega-villain Omnicide.

You think they were serious with Murderfang?
It's hard to say.
It's hard to get anything about how GW people think though, so…

Momotaro wrote:

 Talys wrote:

 notprop wrote:
GW results would be published whether they were public or privately owned.

Why? Privately owned companies do not publish their results, generally speaking. Certainly, none of GW's competitors do

Private limited companies (here in the UK anyway) are required by law to submit accounts and a report annually to Companies House. Everything is searchable online. They're not required to make the investor reports that public limited companies have to, but they're not without oversight - a bankrupt can be disqualified from being a Ltd company director. You won't get as much information out of the submitted accounts as you would for a public limited company either, but it does exist.

Any company in the UK with Limited (Ltd ) after its name only exposes the company officers to limited liability in the event of a company failing. Public limited companies use the abbreviation PLC. With a more basic company structure, like Sole Trader, the company owner is personally liable for ALL company debts.

It's not compulsory to create a Ltd company, but if you don't want to lose your house and don't mind a bit of paperwork, limited status is the way to go.

Wow. So, if I incorporate a 3-person company in the UK, I need to make available to the entire world, over the Internet, all of my revenues and costs? That seems extremely uncompetitive internationally, as that is certainly not the norm in most countries, including EU countries. I've operated limited liability incorporated companies in Germany, Switzerland, China, South Korea, the USA, Taiwan and Canada -- and I assure you that although for tax purposes you must submit such information, it is remains confidential.

Perhaps there is a UK equivalent to North American Reporting companies, which is a class of private company that exceeds a certain number of shareholders (around a hundred) and is subject to regulatory oversight. Even then, you can avoid it by simply bundling some of the shareholders (eg these 70 shareholders own shares of company A, which is only 1 shareholder of company B.

I would truly be shocked if ALL incorporated entities in the UK had to make public their financials; what foreign ibvestor would want to do business there?

Be shocked.

The only distinction is that in order to get the full accounting information for a Ltd company you need to make a request (or pay a subscription, I don't remember) and the amount of information publicly available is limited to a few key pieces such as turnover, names of Company Officers etc..




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It's perfectly reasonable as in return for protecting your personal assets, you're obliged to provide the information to potential investors or creditors who will themselves be taking a potential risk by dealing with you.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Be shocked.

The only distinction is that in order to get the full accounting information for a Ltd company you need to make a request (or pay a subscription, I don't remember) and the amount of information publicly available is limited to a few key pieces such as turnover, names of Company Officers etc..




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It's perfectly reasonable as in return for protecting your personal assets, you're obliged to provide the information to potential investors or creditors who will themselves be taking a potential risk by dealing with you.

Not on the rest of the world ;D For example, GmBH in Germany or a Ltd/Inc/LLC in North America has no such issue. Otherwise, we'd all know what privateer press did last year. So are companies like Darksphere NOT incorporated?

Incidentally, in north America, everything bigger than a guy operating out of his garage has significant advantages in incprporation, with almost no downsides. It's also impossible to have disproportionate ownerships by multiple parties without an incorporation structure, and where there is multiple ownership, it doesn't make sense to have an owner be responsible for more than their investment in the company, if they have nothing to do with its operation.

In hindsight, I guess I'm happy I never had to run something out of the UK

On the monopose thing, I really think it's easy for those who like multipart kits to feel that they are the "norm", but there are probably quite a lot of people who don't really enjoy assembly or conversions. (I'm one of them!)

I've been getting a lot more hobbying done since I switched to mostly monopose for my minis, because I get to skip the least exciting stage for me. That's why I buy box after box of LOTR plastics. The undercuts and so on don't bother me.

But the Hobbit, well, it's problem was price. The kits were actually really nice, and I picked up a few of them, but the price was just too much, even for me. I'm a big fan, and I haven't even bought the Escape From Goblin Town starter set yet.

 Talys wrote:

Not on the rest of the world ;D For example, GmBH in Germany or a Ltd/Inc/LLC in North America has no such issue. Otherwise, we'd all know what privateer press did last year. So are companies like Darksphere NOT incorporated?

Dunno, there's no legal obligation to become Ltd, you can be a sole trader with a turnover of millions, but, being a matter of public record, you can go look?

What happens in the rest of the world is utterly irrelevant, GW are a UK company, if they reverted to a private company, these are the rules they'd need to abide by.

Doesn't seem to have impacted the UK's position in the global economy overmuch.


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Here we go, Darksphere..

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07016318/filing-history

Mantic

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06770093

@Az - am I missing something? These tell you almost nothing of the company, relative to what you must disclose as a publically traded company. As a public company, you must tell the general public (your potential investors) everything that you tell your actual owners (shareholders) who aren't involved in the operation of the business, and you must disclose actual financial statements that indicate how profitable you are, what your revenues and costs are, how much your cashflow changes, what capital equipment you own, what investments you made, and so on.

Revealing that is a huge disadvantage (compared to not revealing it) because competitors can make business decisions based on what you must disclose.

Knowing who the shareholders and officers and dorectors are, capital contributions, etc. is not harmful to the business, generally (or that helpful to the competition).

It could just be my phone, but I couldn't see how profitable Mabric was Las year, for instance (not all the pages would load).

I've submitted annual returns for a limited company. They have to cover the basics, like balance sheet and P&L.

I haven't had to do one, nor studied up on company accounting and law, since the mid-2000s.

The weird thing about reading this is that I really like the product GW has been putting out. I figured with the new CEO and bringing back Specialist Games and short/limited runs meant that they had their back office in order and they were planning on competing with a broad range of products again. Which has me slavering because I am in love with the new plastic kits. Putting together some odd Drop Pods, for example, had me wondering just how easy they would be to put together using the technology and design put into, say, the 2014 Assault Squad.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I've submitted annual returns for a limited company. They have to cover the basics, like balance sheet and P&L.

I haven't had to do one, nor studied up on company accounting and law, since the mid-2000s.

Well sure. Everyone has to for tax purposes. But can someone else that you don't authorize get a copy of it? That's the crux of it.


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Nomeny wrote:
The weird thing about reading this is that I really like the product GW has been putting out. I figured with the new CEO and bringing back Specialist Games and short/limited runs meant that they had their back office in order and they were planning on competing with a broad range of products again. Which has me slavering because I am in love with the new plastic kits. Putting together some odd Drop Pods, for example, had me wondering just how easy they would be to put together using the technology and design put into, say, the 2014 Assault Squad.

You're not alone -- I love the new plastic kits too, and I'm sure, so do a lot of other people. I think sometimes it's hard to differentiate between people who just don't like the new product and people who just don't like the new, less friendly price tag.

A lot of it is how you perceive the kit, and what you want to do with it. I think the more time you plan on working on it, the more value you associate with the model (because, after all, your own time has some value too). So if I'm only going to spend 1 hour on a model, I would want to spend less on the model than if I were going to spend 30 hours on it, because in the latter case, it's more important to me that the model be as close to perfect as possible. To take it to an extreme If I plan to spend 500 hours on a competition grade model, the actual price of the model becomes nearly irrelevant -- would I pay $50 to get the perfect axe for that competition model? You betcha. But if it's going to be a grunt that I'm going to spend 30 seconds to drybrush, I want that part to be about $0.05 (or some little fraction of a kit that's good for some sorts of other things).

 Talys wrote:
@Az - am I missing something? These tell you almost nothing of the company, relative to what you must disclose as a publically traded company. As a public company, you must tell the general public (your potential investors) everything that you tell your actual owners (shareholders) who aren't involved in the operation of the business, and you must disclose actual financial statements that indicate how profitable you are, what your revenues and costs are, how much your cashflow changes, what capital equipment you own, what investments you made, and so on.

Revealing that is a huge disadvantage (compared to not revealing it) because competitors can make business decisions based on what you must disclose.

Knowing who the shareholders and officers and dorectors are, capital contributions, etc. is not harmful to the business, generally (or that helpful to the competition).

It could just be my phone, but I couldn't see how profitable Mabric was Las year, for instance (not all the pages would load).

No, you couldn't see how profitable Mantic was, because you clearly missed the bit in the filing that explained that they were below the threshold for detailed filings. I've no idea what that threshold is any more, but smaller companies only have to publish a truncated report.


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Whereas larger firms, such as these guys..

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00229606/filing-history

Or GW Ltd, which is a subsidiary of GW PLC but apparently still have to satisfy the same filing criteria as any other Ltd company, file a full report.

I really don't think it's the massive disadvantage you're trying to paint it as, any company that's likely going to be big enough to be making the sort of strategic decisions you're talking about are going to be in the same boat. It's been this way since forever, and I've never once heard anyone bemoan it.

@Az - I gave my accountant a phone call out of curiosity.

European Union limited liability companies, including those in the UK, both public and private beyond the sized of SMBs (small and medium sized businesses), must now publish their annual reports including financials, so you're absolutely right. They actually need to publish less than North American counterparts, but both private and public companies have this requirement. There are some exemptions for small and medium sized business, but GW wouldn't come remotely close to either.

In a huge chunk of other jurisdictions in North America, South America, and Asia, most privately held limited liability companies don't need to tell anyone other than the government much of anything.

What a difference!

Edit - sure, if you were GW, wouldn't you like to see the books of Privateer Press and Fantasy Flight Games? They don't have to show *anything* because they're privately held companies in the US. It's certainly not a disadvantage not to have to show anyone your financial statements.


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Edit #2 -

@Az - You know, that Mantic listing actually lets us deduce a few interesting things! First off, it's filed for a small company exemption for abbreviated accounts. That means that ALL of these criteria must be met - sales below £6.5, balance sheet total below £3.26m and less than 50 employees.

Also, it's larger than a micro-entity, so at least one of the following must be true: its sales must be greater than £632k AND/OR its number of employees must exceed 10. The micro-entities also require a balance sheet total not to exceed £316k -- it does, but by so little that they'd just knock it off the inventory or write off some plant equipment to stay a micro-entity keep the benefits of that category, if that were the case.

you can also draw whatever conclusions you want with their short term liabilities growing much more quickly than their cash and receivables - receivables stayed flat, cash went from 525k to 672k, while, debts went from 733k to 1,293k -- a massive jump On the other hand, it is offset by long term debts dropping from 415k to 122k. We don't have the reasons why (no notes), and are many plausible, good reasons for this, and reasons why this might not be of any concern. On the other hand, I would guess (perhaps incorrectly) based on their cash and short term debt year-over-year that their revenues did not significantly grow in 2014 to 2013. It's possible, for example, they sold a lot more, but were less generous with credit; and didn't re-invest a lot of their profits into assets, but rather paid it out either in the from of wages, higher expenses, or dividends.

Interesting stuff!

The accounts are also filed so far in arrears as to be near worthless from a commercial viewpoint, knowing what my competition did in their 13/14 FYE is going to be of limited use in planning my 16/17 strategy unless the market is incredibly static. GW knowing what PP did nearly 2 years ago is going to be of limited insight.


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As for Mantic, I agree that they're not the financial player that one could perhaps casually assume given their apparent place relative in the market.

Very interesting, as a new player who has seen all these things and heard people talk of the "glory days". This gave me some very interesting insight into the past.... And hearing all that from the creators of the game and one of the founders of GW... Wow.

 Talys wrote:

A lot of it is how you perceive the kit, and what you want to do with it. I think the more time you plan on working on it, the more value you associate with the model (because, after all, your own time has some value too). So if I'm only going to spend 1 hour on a model, I would want to spend less on the model than if I were going to spend 30 hours on it, because in the latter case, it's more important to me that the model be as close to perfect as possible. To take it to an extreme If I plan to spend 500 hours on a competition grade model, the actual price of the model becomes nearly irrelevant -- would I pay $50 to get the perfect axe for that competition model? You betcha. But if it's going to be a grunt that I'm going to spend 30 seconds to drybrush, I want that part to be about $0.05 (or some little fraction of a kit that's good for some sorts of other things).

This is why I don't get up in arms about the prices, even though I'm on a strict budget. A $40-60 (CAN) unit box will probably last me anywhere from 10-25 hours for modelling and painting, without even factoring in playing. That's quite a lot of hobby and personal enjoyment bang for the buck, in my opinion. I also love that once painted, the miniatures exist forever for me to look at and enjoy. I have other hobbies that are completely consumed in one go and show no finished product once over. The hobby time I get out of good GW plastic kits justifies the price tag for me. Crap models in bulk even for a great price are no use to me and won't fill up my hobby time because I want to spend time with things I find valuable.