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Warmachine is steampunk, 40K is trad Sci Fi with Gothic elements. Aesthetically they're really quite far removed, and by far the biggest objection I've heard from 40K players about not switching to WMH is the model aesthetic.

I'm also surprised you've apparently never heard of price leadership, because that's exactly what you're describing with your "higher average sale price" theory, and it's an established piece of economic theory.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Warmachine is steampunk, 40K is trad Sci Fi with Gothic elements. Aesthetically they're really quite far removed, and by far the biggest objection I've heard from 40K players about not switching to WMH is the model aesthetic.

I'm also surprised you've apparently never heard of price leadership, because that's exactly what you're describing with your "higher average sale price" theory, and it's an established piece of economic theory.

You don't think that if there were a large-scale game with Warmachines, combined with much lower prices (in the range of historical models), that some 40k players would be tempted to switch games?

Of course, there are people who just abhor the WMH aesthetic (just like there's people that hate space marines). I'm not one of them; I just prefer 40k as a game, and 40k models generally speaking, but I'd definitely saddle up if there were a Warmachines setting game that were high model count, and especially if the prices and rules were both great.

It's ironic that you mention price leadership. Generally, price leadership only applies when one company is so overwhelmingly dominant in their market segment that nobody else thinks they'll be hurt by raising their prices. The irony is that if we were to agree that this is the case, this becomes a strong argument that historical wargames, scale models, and Gundam models aren't a substitute (or market equivalent or market competitor) of 40k models, whereas PP models are.

After all price leadership applied, and they were in the same market, manufacturers of historical and scale models would maximize their own profits by increasing their prices to GW levels, something that obviously isn't the case. Basically, if you ascribe to the price leadership model and believe that GW is the price leader, then all companies that don't trail GW's pricing levels are either in another market (not direct competitors), or they're not maximizing their profits.

@Talys.
I can understand people liking the style of the 40k art and minatures,and some still find the background inspiring, despite GW messing about with it recently to try to boost sales.

But the game of 40k ONLY exists as an idea in the head of the group of players who agree what it is supposed to be.

The rule book does not clearly define how the game is played.
The codex books do not generate enough balance for fun random pick up games.

I can not understand why GW corporate can not admit they were WRONG, and GOOD game development IS important to ADD VALUE to the product range.

IF GW corporate had listened to Andy Chambers, and 4th ed 40k rules were written for the units and game size of 4th ed 40k.
Rather than a compromised backwards compatible version of WHFB skirmish.

Perhaps the gamers would not have left in droves, the retail price would not have rocketed , and GW would be able to produce a good sci fi wargame with cheap minatures because they could maximize the economies of scale.

The company best placed to produce a well written sci fi battle game with cheap minatures was GW plc.
But now GW only stay in buisiness because some collectors with deep pockets like their model range.
(The price elasticity of some collectors is quite astounding!)

Age Of Tyrants looks rather nice for a large scale sci fi battle game BTW.(In 6mm .)

Lanrak wrote:
they could maximize the economies of scale.

That is a good question, their whole manufacture is set to take advantage in economy of scale yet their strategy is to reduce production.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
they could maximize the economies of scale.

That is a good question, their whole manufacture is set to take advantage in economy of scale yet their strategy is to reduce production.

Given their costs have risen despite falling revenue in their core business (and after years of cost cutting measures), they may well be at the point where the high up front costs of plastic injection moulding are now a liability. Where the individual cost per sprue has hit a point where they no longer get a major advantage from the mass production process in terms of reducing their costs per sprue and by extension, increasing their margins.

frozenwastes wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
they could maximize the economies of scale.

That is a good question, their whole manufacture is set to take advantage in economy of scale yet their strategy is to reduce production.

Given their costs have risen despite falling revenue in their core business (and after years of cost cutting measures), they may well be at the point where the high up front costs of plastic injection moulding are now a liability. Where the individual cost per sprue has hit a point where they no longer get a major advantage from the mass production process in terms of reducing their costs per sprue and by extension, increasing their margins.

But that's rather the point, for GW the up-front costs of plastic injection aren't that high, certainly compared to just about anyone else in the miniatures business. All their design staff are salaried employees so their R&D cost is minimised; they use CAD to design the kits and have become fairly adept at cutting the models up and packing the sprues efficiently, so the cost to actually create an individual kit is minimised; and they own all the necessary machinery to produce, pack, and distribute the resulting products in-house and once again do so using salaried or wage-contracted employees. I think I recall someone saying GW had the cost to produce a new plastic mould down to the £10k region, which is a fraction of the cost it was even a decade ago, let alone when they first began making plastic models.

If they can make their production that efficient and cost-effective, yet still find that cost a liability, then somewhere there is colossal mismanagement going on.

I would say the following, if they can make a plastic mould for a limited edition plastic character then it does not cost them that much in production.

They have a "mass market" production facility and their plastic production is an economy of scale production, why having this as their only production they keep striving in reducing sales is beyond me.

Hell at this point they should consider offering their services to other companies just to make use of their production facilities.

 Talys wrote:

When you look at Mantic games, their models are much more spread out between properties, and couldn't be brought together into cohesive armies that could reasonably compete with 40k. It's not just about having a lot of models on the table; it's also about having a lot of models to choose from. Plus, they don't have a lot of bigger models (like Gargantuan / Titan sized), or even that many mid-sized models in each collection, which, like them or not, if you want to steal 40k fans in a 40k-size game, you're going to need.

When Warpath hits, there's yet another game to compete with 40k.
A vast amount of it will be in Mantic's decent HIP as well.

You also need to remember, a lot of people have moved away from 40k/GW because of the bigger models. There are a lot of players out there that liked 40k before it went to oversized (and overpriced) models.

Warpath will have quite a lot going for it. Here's a few of the simple armies they made up in the kickstarter.




Yes, some of the stuff in there is "restic", but in all honesty, I had less scraping and mold removing on the restic Striders from Mantic than the plastic lizardmen I just got from GW in the Seraphon starter box.


And despite yourself and the other defenders of GW continually telling us on this forum that GW stuff is quality and justifies the price, what you need to remember is that there are less and less kids getting "into" GW these days. Mainly because of the price. You can''t play for an afternoon in a GW store anymore then buy a blister to add to your army from your pocketmoney like the old days. As less people buy into it, the prices go up to keep the profits the same... you see the spiral GW are in surely?

Those starter sets were a great way to start breaking out of the cycle, but when players see the price of adding to their armies, many just don't bother. I know the middle class middle age males that they're targeting can afford it, but I bet most of those are only "into" GW because of discovering it in their youth. And when the youth are no longer getting into gaming GW stuff... the cycle ends.

frozenwastes wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
they could maximize the economies of scale.

That is a good question, their whole manufacture is set to take advantage in economy of scale yet their strategy is to reduce production.

Given their costs have risen despite falling revenue in their core business (and after years of cost cutting measures), they may well be at the point where the high up front costs of plastic injection moulding are now a liability. Where the individual cost per sprue has hit a point where they no longer get a major advantage from the mass production process in terms of reducing their costs per sprue and by extension, increasing their margins.

The up front cost of plastic injection moulding is nothing compared to what it used to be and those costs you are talking about are because they are opening more stores despite the fact the one man store system is clearly a failure.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
When Warpath hits, there's yet another game to compete with 40k.
A vast amount of it will be in Mantic's decent HIP as well.

You also need to remember, a lot of people have moved away from 40k/GW because of the bigger models. There are a lot of players out there that liked 40k before it went to oversized (and overpriced) models.

I don't disagree with you even a little bit. There are a lot of people who prefer the smaller model count and model size of 40k of yesteryear. Clearly, present-day 40k is not the game for them if they want to play with the majority of 40k players.

We presume that GW has identified that they simply can't make enough money selling mostly 28mm 40k miniatures anymore, possibly because it's a pretty mature market; in 30 years, you kind of run out of fresh things you can sculpt in that size to make people spend their next few hundred bucks.

If someone else like Mantic can hit the reset button with a fresh property, props, and all the power to them.

Looking specifically at Mantic, I'm sorry, but I think a lot of their models are junk. For me, a lot of models look way better in the renders or painted up on the web page than the sprues do in front of me, as a result, I have a couple of hundred dollars of Mantic models that will probably never get painted. But the question posed to me wasn't, "do you like Mantic models?", it was, "Why did you pick PP as an example, instead of Mantic in terms of suggesting a company that could start a cheap, successful large-scale wargame?"

To which, my response is that presently, Mantic's properties are way too spread out between different games to create large collections of cohesive armies. Privateer Press has the models ready, now and simply has to write the rules and drop their prices. They go hand in hand, because I don't think a lot of people would be excited about a 100 model army at PP's current prices (it would cost even more than a 40k army). I can't speak for other people, but I assure you that if I could have a 100-model Warmachines army for $300 with exceptionally good rules, the next army I'd paint would be a Warmachines army.

It's not a question of, "do you like Warmachines models better than GW models?" either, because I can have both, right? It's just that presently, there's no incentive (or intelligent reason way to) build a large Warmachine collection, and I don't really enjoy playing small skirmishers.

Looking at Warpath, it's hard to comment on a game and models that don't yet exist. Yes, it has exciting potential. Clearly, they want to be a direct 40k competitor. Some of the larger models look more exciting than others. I can almost guarantee you that I'll buy at least one Warpath army or a starter box (assuming one exists) when it comes out, to model if nothing else, though if the models are like Deadzone, they'll sit unpainted on a shelf except for my favorite ones. Will it unseat 40k? For me, that's unlikely for at least a decade because there won't be that many models in the collection for a long time.

Will using Warpath rules with 40k be a thing? Maybe? Don't know what the rules are, so I can't say.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

And despite yourself and the other defenders of GW continually telling us on this forum that GW stuff is quality and justifies the price, what you need to remember is that there are less and less kids getting "into" GW these days. Mainly because of the price. You can''t play for an afternoon in a GW store anymore then buy a blister to add to your army from your pocketmoney like the old days. As less people buy into it, the prices go up to keep the profits the same... you see the spiral GW are in surely?

Those starter sets were a great way to start breaking out of the cycle, but when players see the price of adding to their armies, many just don't bother. I know the middle class middle age males that they're targeting can afford it, but I bet most of those are only "into" GW because of discovering it in their youth. And when the youth are no longer getting into gaming GW stuff... the cycle ends.

I've actually never said that GW prices are justified by their quality. In all my thousands of posts, I don't think I've said this even once. I think that GW models are a high quality and I like their aesthetic, but that has nothing to do with their price.

In case there's any doubt, I'll state my position clearly:

In my opinion, GW doesn't need to justify their prices. GW prices are what they are because enough people will pay them. Obviously, there are many people mad at how expensive GW (and I presume Mantic and Wyrd and Corvus Belli) models have become, compared to model prices in 1985 or 1995. There are many people who are excluded from the hobby, or, as I said, forced to play a game with a smaller number of expensive models, when in yesteryear they would have enjoyed a larger game of cheaper models. But there are enough people paying $5-$10+ per 28mm model that the pricing scheme is both sustainable and profitable -- I assume, even to companies that aren't GW, that the pricing range is optimally profitable, because at the end of the day, that's pretty important to most companies.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Hell at this point they should consider offering their services to other companies just to make use of their production facilities.

I think that realistically, that is the only way GW is going to survive in the long term.Their only real asset is their production know-how and capacity.

Why would PP do that? their main game which is well regarded needs half or less the models and it is priced in a cost the market accepts, creating a new mass battle game would take away the feel of what WM/H is about create two systems that direct compete between themselves and there is no proof that the masses will jump on the mass battle system to justify lowering the prices.

Factor in, customer alienation and the necessary changes that are needed for this to happen, plus the cannibalization of resources for the new system to be created and it is an really bad idea.

GW's way is not a one way road, their production method requires economy of scale, they could have gone open get in stores and compete with everybody else, lower prices make the game accessible, make kits that modelers will pick up ectr, instead they went with forcing players to buy more and more by increasing the scope of the game and raising prices, now that enough customers left because of that, they make big models to justify their cost and sell them at great margins in order to survive, never achieving what their production method is geared to do, sell volume cheap.

If PP is a sensible company with a good financial plan, they do not need a mass battles game (at least not in 28mm) to go on, they can expand by making other IP and other types of games as they actually do.

Mass battle games take a lot more time, energy and financial investment on the part of players. I think its very important to draw them in with a small scale skirmish game, and a simplified mass battle ruleset for players with big collections who want to play larger games.

The LOTR did this quite well with the SBG as an entry point, and the WOTR ruleset for people who've been playing for a while and have big armies. That ruleset had promise, its a shame they didn't update and balance it.

If the argument is, "Why would PP want a mass battle game when they have a great thing going?", you could flip it around, and say, "Why would GW want a skirmisher, when they have a great thing going?" and both sides could stay in their respective comfort zones.

We actually don't know if PP's profits are going up or down from one period to the next, because they're not required (and don't) reveal this information. We do know that despite declines in revenue, GW continues to make a lot of money; probably more money than any other company in the wargame niche, and certainly orders of magnitude more than a company like Mantic (because of their registered company type, we know they are, at most, something like 1/50 the size of GW).

Obviously, there's a market for both types of games in the market. If PP is happy where it is in terms of market share and mindshare, profitability, and price levels, that would be further validation that prices are where they "should" be, and that the sweet spot right now is $5-$10 troop models, $20+ hero models, 50mm base models for $40, and or 120mm base models for $125.

Edit -

I think it's worth noting that when I defend GW, it's not because I think they're a flawless company or that there isn't lots of room for improvement. It's just that, perhaps contrary to the majority online, I'm genuinely happy with the general creative direction and the type of game and hobby it's evolved to in the last decades, and I don't vilify GW for pushing the envelope with its pricing.

It doesn't mean that I don't feel there's lots of things that could be done to make myself or a lot of other people a little bit or a lot happier. I say so lots of times.

On the issue of pricing, no matter the industry, I very rarely vilify a company for pricing: if my wife likes a $10,000 handbag or $200 perfume, and I can't afford it or think the price is nuts, I just tell her I can't afford it; I might say that the price is insane, but I don't accuse Channel of being an evil empire. The exception to this is when a company jacks up the price of a life-saving item at a predatory price because they're the sole source of it, like a life-saving drug. I can't recall the name of the drug, but some company recently bought out another and raised the price of some medication by orders of magnitude, putting people's lives at risk. In this case, I would vilify the company doing that. In terms of GW models? Price them whatever they want, if it's too much, I'll stop buying them, move on (maybe to someone else's models, maybe to another hobby), and be happy with the time I spent enjoying the ones I did. It's a hobby, not my life. Really, no different than ski passes. For many years, I quit skiing simply because the prices had gotten out of hand, and I couldn't afford to enjoy it anymore. I didn't think the ski hill operators were nefarious.

It is not "they have a great thing going" situation, its a "why they would do something that actively harms them" situation.

Why would GW want a skirmish game? there are reasons but GW cornered themselves in that area, its different from asking why would PP corner themselves in the same bad place GW has.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Warmachine is steampunk, 40K is trad Sci Fi with Gothic elements. Aesthetically they're really quite far removed, and by far the biggest objection I've heard from 40K players about not switching to WMH is the model aesthetic.

I'm also surprised you've apparently never heard of price leadership, because that's exactly what you're describing with your "higher average sale price" theory, and it's an established piece of economic theory.

Both steampunk and Gothic space fantasy are examples of pseudo science fiction - and there are also plenty of examples of Gothic style in WARMACHINE. (Cryx, mostly.)

This is one of the signs of the Apocalypse, you know....

I'm agreeing with Talys....

Locally, WARMACHINE stole far more players from 40K than it did from Fantasy Battle.

Skirmish level battles, with robots and guys in power armor... and round bases.

The Auld Grump, come to think of it, that was also about the same time that GW started pushing for larger armies....

 Talys wrote:
If the argument is, "Why would PP want a mass battle game when they have a great thing going?", you could flip it around, and say, "Why would GW want a skirmisher, when they have a great thing going?" and both sides could stay in their respective comfort zones.

They're actually not the same at all.

A mass battle game causes more problems in production with the need to at least produce more models, as well as more time in the design studio for bigger models (which again will impact production capacities) and rules development. This is all for a mode of play that might not take off.

A skirmish, or much smaller model count game for 40k could be done, and done well, with just rules. Models already exist, you don't need to go smaller. At most, a warhousing hit as you repackage some models into smaller boxes (with the obligatory price increase for the trouble). Simply have the design studio come up with a ruleset that works at a smaller scale, and release the book. Let people use existing assets to build their smaller armies. The modularity of their models makes this a perfect excercise - a box of Tactical Marines, Assault Marines and Devastators gives a huge wealth of options for creating things, as does a box of Hormagaunts and a box of Termagants. With a smaller outlay of just a rulebook, they have a gateway game into 40k, something they'd know they needed if they did that otiose thing called market research.

 Talys wrote:
If the argument is, "Why would PP want a mass battle game when they have a great thing going?", you could flip it around, and say, "Why would GW want a skirmisher, when they have a great thing going?" and both sides could stay in their respective comfort zones.

We actually don't know if PP's profits are going up or down from one period to the next, because they're not required (and don't) reveal this information. We do know that despite declines in revenue, GW continues to make a lot of money; probably more money than any other company in the wargame niche, and certainly orders of magnitude more than a company like Mantic (because of their registered company type, we know they are, at most, something like 1/50 the size of GW).

Obviously, there's a market for both types of games in the market. If PP is happy where it is in terms of market share and mindshare, profitability, and price levels, that would be further validation that prices are where they "should" be, and that the sweet spot right now is $5-$10 troop models, $20+ hero models, 50mm base models for $40, and or 120mm base models for $125.

Let me pop it back around - locally, WH40K did better when it was 'a skirmisher' than it is now with overcrowded tables and too many large figures.

I think that the folks at GW have lost 'the sweet spot' - when folks often had multiple armies, and bought all of the army books as they came out.

This, I think, has as much to do with rules writing as price - many, perhaps most, of the players in my Kings of War league are building multiple armies again.

And, given that some of those armies are mostly GW figures... it can't be just because the Mantic figurines are inexpensive.

People want good rules - they really like that all of the army lists for Kings of War are in two books - and that those two books together are thinner than the Warhammer rules, and less expensive into the bargain.

The Auld Grump

Admittedly at this point, if GW does a 40k skirmish game and it is good, it will cannibalize the sales of the existing 40k and this can be hazardous given they have put everything in gamers buying the huge model kits they sell which should not be compatible with a skirmish game, admittedly they could to a one big thing VS many small like OGRE, but it will need much work to pull that off.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Admittedly at this point, if GW does a 40k skirmish game and it is good, it will cannibalize the sales of the existing 40k and this can be hazardous given they have put everything in gamers buying the huge model kits they sell which should not be compatible with a skirmish game, admittedly they could to a one big thing VS many small like OGRE, but it will need much work to pull that off.

There's no going back for GW now without dinting the profits.
We're stuck with huge games, huge models and massive prices.

If they shrunk the game sizes and the prices, in the long term, profits could go up (as they build back up more players), but they won't accept the initial dent to profits and it would be too much of a gamble. A better short term solution in their eyes is to keep on making new stuff with higher and higher prices and lower and lower model counts.
It may have seemed that AoS dropped down in the amount of models required, but the prices went up significantly.

How long GW can go on like this I don't know.

What I do know is that my School 40K club which has remained pretty stable for over 10 years with 8-15 kids, now has 2 players left - and they leave school this year. At least GW will save me some time as I won't have a 2 hour after school club to run. :-)

Edit: The 2 new kids that planned on joining this year realised that for the price of 2 plastic toy soldiers, they could buy a PS4 game - never came back.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
It is not "they have a great thing going" situation, its a "why they would do something that actively harms them" situation.

Why would GW want a skirmish game? there are reasons but GW cornered themselves in that area, its different from asking why would PP corner themselves in the same bad place GW has.

40K used to be a skirmish game and G W have inflated the size of armies over the past 3 to 5 years, and are losing sales.

GW did the same to WHFB, until sales got so bad that they decided to can the game completely and replace it with a low model count skirmish game.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
It is not "they have a great thing going" situation, its a "why they would do something that actively harms them" situation.

Why would GW want a skirmish game? there are reasons but GW cornered themselves in that area, its different from asking why would PP corner themselves in the same bad place GW has.

40K used to be a skirmish game and G W have inflated the size of armies over the past 3 to 5 years, and are losing sales.

GW did the same to WHFB, until sales got so bad that they decided to can the game completely and replace it with a low model count skirmish game.

I agree and if they reach this situation for 40k now it will be catastrophic for them, I was replying to Talys, but have the bad habit of not quoting if the person I am answering is directly above my post.

I think GW has to take that temporary hit to profits. They NEED to split the game system between "skirmish', starter mode as a supported level to bring the startup cost under control, and then a full mode for all the hardcore grognards.

The full entry price for the skirmish mode needs to be brought back down to $200-300USD to maintain competitiveness with competing brands, where you can build a tournament level list for that amount. Just having cheap starter bundles is a good first step, but the structure of the game, and the necessity to buy the rules to play the full game is prohibitive. Its like the starter bundle ($85) is a video game where the retail version lets you play in this restricted sandbox mode, unable to join games with other players. To do that, you need to buy DLC to unlock the full game mode (rulebook: $85 again!), and buy additional DLC to unlock the in-game characters ($50-$58: codex!). That's a total of $220 for the full game experience only to discover you have a non-functional force, needing you to buy additional DLC to be able to play evenly with other players.

Anyone who gives it some research is going to balk at the prices... Either they have a strong community which persuades them to jump in, or they'll have a disillusioned community which will steer them to a cheaper game (being played in the region), or, left to their own devices, they'll probably pass, due to the costs involved, the uncertainty of getting games in, and the effort of having to grow the community from scratch, esp. with the prices being a barrier to that.

TheAuldGrump wrote:This is one of the signs of the Apocalypse, you know....

I'm agreeing with Talys....

Chaos shall soon rule supreme ^.^ Actually, I think that a lot of stuff you say makes a lot of sense. Mostly, when I disagree with you, it's just on the interpretation of the same set of facts, partly due to different priorities in the hobby.

In our meta as well, Warmachine stole way more players from 40k than anything else.

Really, what I've been driving at is that Warmachine has already raided the low hanging fruit from the 40k pool -- people who want a smaller scale skirmisher (and/or a lower total army price) who are unhappy with GW rules; if PP wants to continue chipping away at the 40k crowd, eventually, they'll need to consider a bigger scale game. There are some people (like me) who just won't ever be happy with a small table with a small number of models.

-Loki- wrote:A mass battle game causes more problems in production with the need to at least produce more models, as well as more time in the design studio for bigger models (which again will impact production capacities) and rules development. This is all for a mode of play that might not take off.

I agree with you in principle, but not as it applies to Privateer Press. Their troop boxes already come in 5's and 10's, and they're already making the transition to plastics where there are better economies of scale as model counts increase. Besides, people used to have 60-120 model armies all in metal from GW, at price points they could stomach, so it's not as if there's no market for this.

PsychoticStorm wrote:Admittedly at this point, if GW does a 40k skirmish game and it is good, it will cannibalize the sales of the existing 40k and this can be hazardous given they have put everything in gamers buying the huge model kits they sell which should not be compatible with a skirmish game, admittedly they could to a one big thing VS many small like OGRE, but it will need much work to pull that off.

I'm not so sure about that. I think there a lot of people who just want a bigger game with more models; or a game with bigger models. Locally in my area, Kill Team is actually a great way for people to start in a new army, have fun, and see if they like a new faction before they jump all in and spend their next paycheck on models.

Kilkrazy wrote:
40K used to be a skirmish game and G W have inflated the size of armies over the past 3 to 5 years, and are losing sales.

GW did the same to WHFB, until sales got so bad that they decided to can the game completely and replace it with a low model count skirmish game.

While 40k was more skirmishy and had smaller armies in the past, even in my oldest memories of the game (late 80s), 50+ marines or 80+ imperial guard on a table was pretty normal, and the table sizes were pretty big. While the model count has certainly gone up some, what's really changed seems to be the physical size of the models, and the total cost of the armies. It used to troops were the core of the army, and now, they're often a tax.

As for Mantic suddenly offering new competition in the form of Warpath, I doubt it will be any different than when they did that with Kings of War. Mantic, for whatever reason, just seems to always produce a modest success but no real breakout in terms of capturing market share. Mantic and a host of others will keep capturing market share in aggregate, but I don't think Warpath is going to significantly cause GW any problems on its own.

The key point that was raised though is the lack of recruitment. If GW is recruiting less and less new customers then those new customers are going to tell less people about their new hobby. GW's reliance on word of mouth advertising means grim things ahead if their retail approach fails to generate sufficient numbers of people talking about their game.

As for GW's costs, the cost of sales is actually lower than their operating expenses. And this report shows a decline in cost of sales (more one emoloyee stores and centralized trade sales) but an increase in operating expenses. This report also represents a decline in their return on capital. In the past, their cost saving plans kept that increasing (and in some years, quite dramatically), but now it's starting to reverse.

The biggest red flag continues to be their dividend payout ratio. 20p during a period in which they earned 14.9p. If anyone wants to know what the implications are, just do a search for dividend ratio over 100%. It's basically a sign that the company is propping up their stock by paying out the results of past years instead of using the money to right the ship and actually grow the business. It's not sustainable and any market historian can tell you what eventually happens. The dividend gets cut as the company moves into losses and since the reserves have been paid out, the company is forced to go into debt to finally try and fix things. And they do so years behind where they could have been.

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 Talys wrote:

I'm not so sure about that. I think there a lot of people who just want a bigger game with more models; or a game with bigger models. Locally in my area, Kill Team is actually a great way for people to start in a new army, have fun, and see if they like a new faction before they jump all in and spend their next paycheck on models.

While 40k was more skirmishy and had smaller armies in the past, even in my oldest memories of the game (late 80s), 50+ marines or 80+ imperial guard on a table was pretty normal, and the table sizes were pretty big. While the model count has certainly gone up some, what's really changed seems to be the physical size of the models, and the total cost of the armies. It used to troops were the core of the army, and now, they're often a tax.

At what cost? at the cost of their already existing player base? at the cost of their core game? at the cost of their company's reputation? and for what gains? the unknown but definitely minor part of the 40k player-base that cares for mass mega models games? the ones who have staid at GW for the fluff and the aesthetic, despite the horrible balance and rules, the overtly expensive kits some of them been the same models for 15 years? the ones who probably do not care for a balanced game with great rules writing?

Why would they endanger their company for this crowd? sorry that core is not big and is too much attached to GW for a company to even care about them.

Now 40k was released at the end of the 80's (88 IIRC) and at late 80's 30 marines were quite the norm but 50? you might mean the end of 90's which again was not that norm, maybe in "mega games" of 2500pts yes but not on the usual 1500pts game if nothign else the WD codex marine at the end of 2nd that allowed half squads helped some squads than never saw the battlefield to be fielded, as soon as 3rd got in 50 marines was the norm along with vehicles.

frozenwastes wrote:
The key point that was raised though is the lack of recruitment. If GW is recruiting less and less new customers then those new customers are going to tell less people about their new hobby. GW's reliance on word of mouth advertising means grim things ahead if their retail approach fails to generate sufficient numbers of people talking about their game.
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My uncle expressed interest in miniature wargaming a while ago. I told him to avoid Gamesworkshop like the plague, and told him about the Batman miniatures game because he loves superheroes and comics. I don't even play that game or have any of the miniatures.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
At what cost? at the cost of their already existing player base? at the cost of their core game? at the cost of their company's reputation? and for what gains? the unknown but definitely minor part of the 40k player-base that cares for mass mega models games? the ones who have staid at GW for the fluff and the aesthetic, despite the horrible balance and rules, the overtly expensive kits some of them been the same models for 15 years? the ones who probably do not care for a balanced game with great rules writing?

Why would they endanger their company for this crowd? sorry that core is not big and is too much attached to GW for a company to even care about them.

I disagree. Whether for better or worse, GW continually goes out of their way to please the type of hobbyist that views the game and hobby as their aspirational armies positively do. When you open up a White Dwarf or Visions, you see cinematic battles of seas of models, with huge models towering over little ones posed for a climactic clash of the titans. When you go to their YouTube channel, you see 100 modelling videos and 1 about gaming. When you read a batrep, its about one almost deity battling one actual deity. There are stories about the 10th company or about Garro. You'll learn that there the Sanguinary Guard number 30.

What you haven't seen in years is an actual game of 40k that resembles a game or 40k, or tips on how to build an effective army.

Maybe GW doesn't need to do anything to keep this captive audience, but they certainly do -- the group of people who model and collect a lot and play relatively little, and who are heavily invested in the lore and aesthetic of 40k... and who can afford the current ecosystem .... aren't feeling left out. Its the people who want a more competitive, pickup or tournament game that feels left out. Or the people that want a smaller game that doesn't take as much time or money to get started.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Now 40k was released at the end of the 80's (88 IIRC) and at late 80's 30 marines were quite the norm but 50? you might mean the end of 90's which again was not that norm, maybe in "mega games" of 2500pts yes but not on the usual 1500pts game if nothign else the WD codex marine at the end of 2nd that allowed half squads helped some squads than never saw the battlefield to be fielded, as soon as 3rd got in 50 marines was the norm along with vehicles.

Since RTB-01 came with 30 space marines and the old Guard and Ork boxes came with similar numbers, most people had at least 3 squads of 10. My very first complete 40k army had 3 tactical squads, 1 assault squad, and a number of personalities, including medic, captain, etc. And that was no vehicles.

Those haven't really changed (the number of small models). It's the extra special models added on that has. So, dreadnoughts, centurions, razorback, land raiders, drop pods, imperial knights, forge world knights, stormtalons, and forgeword flyers gradually added to the game, in addition to elite 28mm models. The philosophical question becomes, at some point, do you just stop? If you do, the veterans have nothing to add to their army other than replacing old models with nicer new ones, and may get bored and move on. Another army, you say? Over 30 years, they would have already bought into all the factions that appealed to them.

I think the perfect system would be two games, that share the same models so that players can grow from ne to the other.

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:My uncle expressed interest in miniature wargaming a while ago. I told him to avoid Gamesworkshop like the plague, and told him about the Batman miniatures game because he loves superheroes and comics. I don't even play that game or have any of the miniatures.

GW also has found itself in the unenviable position of having a large base of ex-customers who actively steer people away from their products. It's like the opposite of word of mouth advertising.

Talys wrote:I think the perfect system would be two games, that share the same models so that players can grow from ne to the other.

Can it really be so impossible to have a game that works at a lower model count and then has some simple changes that come into play at a certain points level to make larger games playable in the same time frame? Especially if the bar for success is as low as the current 40k?

A while back I got a massive amount of wargaming related publications and periodicals from the late 1960s and early 70s from an estate sale. The thing about Warhammer and 40k is that it really is just a conservative representation of ideas that already existed then. Dice per figure, a target number based on some sort of stat comparison. A save mechanic. And a very simplistic turn sequence chosen among many better ones that were already available. People have enjoyed games like this for decades. I bet you could take this foundation and just by having activation of troops change based on the game size make a really good version of 40k. In fact, I think Bolt Action and the Antares version of it pretty much show what this might look like.

But why would current GW ever want to invest in something like that? When it came time to do a game relaunch, Age of Sigmar shows us what they are willing to invest in when it comes to rules development and what GW really thinks people want to buy when it comes to rules.

EDIT:

Just wanted to add that while my posts have been negative about GW in this thread, I don't want them interpreted as being predicting of some great demise. GW has great access to debt and if losses force them to finally address their real problems, I'm confident they'll have the capital available to make the necessary changes. It would take a real revenue shock to put GW at risk as a company. And given how stringently they control costs and how conservatively they make product runs, I don't think we'll see a sudden shock, but more of this slow grinding down of both volume and market share.

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Well Privateer Press and to some extend are doing what GW are doing slowly pricing themselves out of the equation.

PP's game is also getting larger. with more miniatures. So my interest in it is waning.

Maybe GW should look at how Kings of War and Darklands are doing that seems to work.

I hope the return of specialists game will turn things around and that announcement was not a smokescreen. Decently priced original games like space crusade, talisman, blood bowl, necrumunda, mordheim could bring in new gamers especially now that there has been an upswing in board games sales in the last years.