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 Azreal13 wrote:
Was that really necessary?

I feel the same way about a lot of posts in GW Financial threads

Well hopefully they will realise that speak to the community which they are doing , give them what they want and boom profits rise.

How does the lower of Britain's (or is it UK? I never remember) Pound consider into it. I thought reading that while sales increased substantially it was because of the lower Pound that gave double the profits.

Did I read or understand that wrong? Great to see an increase in sales but talking about dollar exchange just bamboozles my mind.

Davor wrote:
How does the lower of Britain's (or is it UK? I never remember) Pound consider into it. I thought reading that while sales increased substantially it was because of the lower Pound that gave double the profits.

Did I read or understand that wrong? Great to see an increase in sales but talking about dollar exchange just bamboozles my mind.

It did indeed favour the profit but overall sales still got a big boost.

Davor wrote:
How does the lower of Britain's (or is it UK? I never remember) Pound consider into it. I thought reading that while sales increased substantially it was because of the lower Pound that gave double the profits.

Did I read or understand that wrong? Great to see an increase in sales but talking about dollar exchange just bamboozles my mind.

It breaks it down to 'constant currency' as well. Whilst understandably less, it's still an impressive upswing.

El Torro wrote:
This is better than I was expecting. Sales on a constant currency up 13%. Sales in Trade, Retail and Mail Order are all up, even on constant currency. Royalties more than doubled (thanks to Total War I guess).

The numbers read as if GW is making more products that people want to buy (surely not???). The two specifically mentioned in the report are Blood Bowl and the new format White Dwarf.

I am glad to see Games Workshop recover, but the new format should have been the format they went to instead of the weekly and the monthly visions magazine..
When other companies were cutting back on the paper side of print magazine publication; GW doubled down which boggled my mind.

Then the Age of Sigmar roll out that seem to destroyed most of the warhammer community; With years later its finally getting repaired and seeing small traction of
the hobby showing up in FLGS.

Magazine debacle and Train wreak Age of Sigmar roll out with no social media presence; there was only one way from there.. or maybe buyout /bankruptcy
For a while I thought they couldn't do any worse but they continued to shoot themselves in the foot..

But the said truth is .. just a few years ago I would drop large sums of money each month on Games Workshop stuff..
Then after all the mistakes I stopped cold, With the return to a competent company I have yet to return to buying things though is seems many others have.

I think you're making Fantasy a bigger deal than it was. It definitely hurt the Warhammer fantasy community but the 40k side was mostly shrugs besides the guys who liked saying 40k was next out of pure trolling.

And bankruptcy? The fact that Space marines sells were doing better than fantasy altogether was a good indicator that GW would've just dropped the fantasy stuff instead of having to go to those extremes.

Sorry to hear that you don't want to support them for taking steps on the right path of making themselves a even greater company but that's your choice.

I made a ton of purchases in the past and present because to me GW=Warhammer and I love Warhammer. Why wouldn't I praise them for making it easier to get into, bringing back alot of awesome things, allowing so many fun videogames to be made and listening to the community again?

Like you said though, many others have began buying from GW again because they're worth it and proved why that is.

Sorry if that came off like a rant.

 ChainswordHeretic wrote:

In addition,
the Group has a disaster recovery plan to ensure ongoing operations are maintained in all
circumstances.

Um, that's not what you guys think it means if you are not kidding. A disaster recovery plan is put in place to continue operation in a disaster. Plant burns down, how do you make models? President of the company dies, who knows his role and can take over? Your distributor blows up, who can replace them to ship your stuff. The business I work for has a recovery plan down to every machine operator on our plant floor.

Then again who says they can't have both kinds? Horus Heresy was never intended to be used as a model line except in dire situation as per Rick Priestley's comments. That WAS "sales bad, we need something that sells stat" line. It got used. Question is do they have any more cards like that?

tneva82 wrote:

 ChainswordHeretic wrote:

In addition,
the Group has a disaster recovery plan to ensure ongoing operations are maintained in all
circumstances.

Um, that's not what you guys think it means if you are not kidding. A disaster recovery plan is put in place to continue operation in a disaster. Plant burns down, how do you make models? President of the company dies, who knows his role and can take over? Your distributor blows up, who can replace them to ship your stuff. The business I work for has a recovery plan down to every machine operator on our plant floor.

Then again who says they can't have both kinds? Horus Heresy was never intended to be used as a model line except in dire situation as per Rick Priestley's comments. That WAS "sales bad, we need something that sells stat" line. It got used. Question is do they have any more cards like that?

Fortunately RP moved on sometime ago. HH was an obvious goldmine, an ideal 'new' property to be exploited. I'd think that its exploitation coincided with with declining sales, but that its time had come anyway.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Fortunately RP moved on sometime ago. HH was an obvious goldmine, an ideal 'new' property to be exploited. I'd think that its exploitation coincided with with declining sales, but that its time had come anyway.

Yes it was goldmine. Which is why precisely it was kept 'till sales dropped enough they needed something that WOULD be quaranteed goldmine. That's the frigging point. You don't keep something in your backpockets for low sale periods if you don't expect it to be gold mine.

-

Yup.

As I mentioned earlier (I think, might've been on another board) my only concern here is the simple matter of sustainability.

We've been spoilt rotten the past few months, and in a variety of ways. Long awaited armies released, and done right (seriously, Genestealer Cults are awesome, and an interesting army tactically), advancements to the story, lots of gorgeous models, superb community engagement out of nowhere.

For now, there's still Tin In The Mine - Sisters of Battle, Squats/Demiurg, Hrud et al, ready to be extracted and turned into something wonderful. Then there's the allegedly pending 8th Ed 40k (I say allegedly as I've long since found the rumour mill too erratic to rely on. Apologies to the more reliable rumour mongers, that's not a judgement on your character) which could be anything - though I'm just hopiing for mostly organisational changes to make stuff easier to find and carry (AoS app adapted for 40k would be lush)

-

 Bottle wrote:
For 40k all GW need to do is make the gold mine large enough that by the time one tunnel has dried up another has refilled and the game becomes arguably self-sustainable for the foreseeable future. I'll throw in Eldar Exodites, Nurgle Plague Marines and Long Coat Guard as more untapped resources. I am sure we could think of quite a lot more.

Various HH factions and subfactions as well. Then there's all the stuff between the HH and 40k like Vandire's Reign of Blood (Proto SoB?), Age of Apotasy and the Beast Series could probably made into a model range too.

In short, the possibilities are endless.

I think Thousand Sons were the heralds of plastic Traitor Legions in general. Would be very odd for them to get love, but nobody else.

Spesh with the Black Crusade about to kick off.

For me? I want Khornate Red Butchers. Stylistically one of my favourite units in Heresy - World Eaters so far over the edge they're sealed in Terminator armour which can be remotely switched off, as it's the only way to stop them.

But yeah, plenty down the mine for now - but at their rate of release, there's sadly opportunity to bodge it in a variety of ways. No expectation they will like, just keeping a realistic streak amongst my frenzied frothing

 Bottle wrote:
I don't think it could be argued that branching into 30k was anything but a good idea. It's super popular with fans, has made them loads of money, and doesn't look like it will be drying up anytime soon (indeed it is picking up steam with the plastic boxes).

Who saying it wasn't good? Point is that was their trump card to help them out of rough time if they need quaranteed sales. Whether you can call that disaster plan is another but certainly trump card to be brought when needed.

Q is will they have another if they need one in future?

tneva82 wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
I don't think it could be argued that branching into 30k was anything but a good idea. It's super popular with fans, has made them loads of money, and doesn't look like it will be drying up anytime soon (indeed it is picking up steam with the plastic boxes).

Who saying it wasn't good? Point is that was their trump card to help them out of rough time if they need quaranteed sales. Whether you can call that disaster plan is another but certainly trump card to be brought when needed.

Q is will they have another if they need one in future?

The return of Squats?

Magister wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
For 40k all GW need to do is make the gold mine large enough that by the time one tunnel has dried up another has refilled and the game becomes arguably self-sustainable for the foreseeable future. I'll throw in Eldar Exodites, Nurgle Plague Marines and Long Coat Guard as more untapped resources. I am sure we could think of quite a lot more.

Various HH factions and subfactions as well. Then there's all the stuff between the HH and 40k like Vandire's Reign of Blood (Proto SoB?), Age of Apotasy and the Beast Series could probably made into a model range too.

In short, the possibilities are endless.

Yep, this !

At the open days and in social media, there are always people interested in whether new xeno factions ( from Hrud to Megarachnids ) will be released in the future, and whether certain historical events like the great crusades or the unification wars will ever be covered.

I think there are so many possibilities for future releases, there is plenty of gas left in the tank as yet.

-

On the other hand, the emergency gold mines only work on existing customers. Somebody coming into the GW hobby doesn't start with a want for 30k (they probably can't even see the differences between it and 40k in the beginning) or new and different High Elves. GW have recently (again) looked a bit into expanding their customer base with boardgames and other initiatives (even if they are "GW boardgames that need assembly" and not what regular board-gamers expect from a board-game). More of that would probably be better in the long term than focusing too much on nostalgia mining their existing customer base (even if we all like it very much).

Even then the board games don't seem to be gaining much traction outside of regular or lapsed GW customers.

Blood Bowl is selling well, to old and current GW gamers, as did Space Hulk and Warhammer Quest. But they don't seem to have taken over from the board game crowd.

All of the other games seem to be regarded as a good source of models, and provide a basic game that is alright at best. I've rarely heard of anyone playing them.

I think they've run out of old box games (Hero Quest is a bit of a grey area), and the rest were all wargames in some form (Gorkamorka, Necromunda, Epic, Manowar), and I can't think of any other aces they might still have hidden up their sleeves (plastic thunderhawk? That's still going to be expensive. Epic? That'll cannibalize their 40k sales)

And they pretty much all suffer from having better, cheaper, modern competition in the board game space, so don't appeal particularly well to people who don't know about GW.
Why would random dude chose Blood Bowl over Dread Ball or Guild Ball, with no context and sharing a shelf?

Well... Blood Bowl is fantasy football. Guildball is fantasy soccer. Dreadball is sci fi.

For me without knowing any of the above, I'd choose Blood Bowl because american football is my favorite sport and fantasy is my favorite genre over sci-fi.

Would you still choose the fantasy football over the sci-fi football even if it was more expensive?

I generally prefer fantasy over sci-fi, but I don't know if I'd pay an extra £15 for it. Plus Dreadball reminds me of that Speedball Brutal Deluxe Amiga game from the 90's.

Herzlos wrote:
Even then the board games don't seem to be gaining much traction outside of regular or lapsed GW customers.

Blood Bowl is selling well, to old and current GW gamers, as did Space Hulk and Warhammer Quest. But they don't seem to have taken over from the board game crowd.

All of the other games seem to be regarded as a good source of models, and provide a basic game that is alright at best. I've rarely heard of anyone playing them.

I think they've run out of old box games (Hero Quest is a bit of a grey area), and the rest were all wargames in some form (Gorkamorka, Necromunda, Epic, Manowar), and I can't think of any other aces they might still have hidden up their sleeves (plastic thunderhawk? That's still going to be expensive. Epic? That'll cannibalize their 40k sales)

And they pretty much all suffer from having better, cheaper, modern competition in the board game space, so don't appeal particularly well to people who don't know about GW.
Why would random dude chose Blood Bowl over Dread Ball or Guild Ball, with no context and sharing a shelf?

Miniature games are a niche market even for board games. Seriously what's the most popular miniature board game? zombicide? It's such a tiny market you don't see many major board game companies invest much into them. I think you also forget there is a bloodbowl video game market that has many people who never touched a gw model before.

BFG (if tied for 40k campaigns), inquisitor 24mm, titanicus, and necromunda will all sell well. Mordhiem or hero quest can also sell well.

For 40k models primarchs, tons of metal figurines including many characters, tau auxiliary races, necron tomb king, eldar avatar, ork primus, speed freak codex, tyranid hive mind and gargantuan creatures, a new plastic great coat guard army, plastic sisters, vect, pretty much most of forgeworlds 40k figurines since they stopped producing rules or books that are all outdated for 7th let alone 8th or out of print, arbiters and their cyborg dog and hawks, combined and expanded ad mech, dark mechanism, lost and damned, 8th edition.

Sounds like a ton of content that will sell to me

Personally I'd buy the crap out of gorkamorka if they had plastic ork terrain and speed freak models.

For board games BFG, hero quest and or mordhiem can and will all sell well outside of 40k fan base. Taking out conjecture I know personally my game clunk is a solid non-40k, non-fantasy miniature club that mainly plays flames of war or historical games with some xwing, imperial assault and blood bowl is a huge hit for those guys and most don't play 40k. The main reason is that it doesn't compete with most miniature games and is quick to play.

Herzlos wrote:Even then the board games don't seem to be gaining much traction outside of regular or lapsed GW customers.

Blood Bowl is selling well, to old and current GW gamers, as did Space Hulk and Warhammer Quest. But they don't seem to have taken over from the board game crowd.

All of the other games seem to be regarded as a good source of models, and provide a basic game that is alright at best. I've rarely heard of anyone playing them.

I agree. Outside of Blood Bowl, who is buying those games for the game itself? I think most people are buying the games for the minis because it's a cheaper buy than getting them separately.

Outside of one thread on Goreschosen I think it was called for Age of Sigmar, I don't think I read anything about anyone playing the game. Even Deathwatch Overkill. I haven't read one thread about that game. I think we all bought it for the minis. This time I can say we ALL bought it for the minis. If anyone plays it's a bonus but I am sure NOBODY bought it for the game. The rest I can't say.

Herzlos wrote:
Would you still choose the fantasy football over the sci-fi football even if it was more expensive?

I generally prefer fantasy over sci-fi, but I don't know if I'd pay an extra £15 for it. Plus Dreadball reminds me of that Speedball Brutal Deluxe Amiga game from the 90's.

Yes I would. Expense is not the first thing that I look at unless the expense was absurd, which for me would be a 12 model team costing $300 or something silly.

I'm not going to play a game that I'm not that into just because its cheaper by $20-$30.

If I chose expense as my first factor in playing games, I wouldn't be playing games because all the games I can get into are more expensive than the games I'd rather not play.

I agree though with the fact no one is playing these GW board games. I have integrated silver tower into our aos campaigns but other than that thats the only time i see it played. I don't think they are BAD games, but I think that the market is glutted and well over saturated and people will only play what other people are playing regardless of the quality of the game for good or ill.

Davor wrote:

Outside of one thread on Goreschosen I think it was called for Age of Sigmar, I don't think I read anything about anyone playing the game. Even Deathwatch Overkill. I haven't read one thread about that game. I think we all bought it for the minis. This time I can say we ALL bought it for the minis. If anyone plays it's a bonus but I am sure NOBODY bought it for the game. The rest I can't say.

GW don't have to worry about this. These games used previously or future individual models. That means once they have sold enough, boxing them up with a few pieces of card is effectively pure profit other than operating costs. This is why IoB will make them a killing. It has already paid for itself many times over. All you are doing is selling plastic and boxing/shipping/operational costs. There is no design/art/rule writing required. Easy money. That is why they are liking the made to order range as the only costs might be retooling the moulds (but note we aren't getting the plastic ones which are much more expensive).

----------------

However on their profits; it's not quite as rosy as GW are making out based on the operating profit by segment section (page 2). The interesting bit is the constant currency part:-

Trade has gone to 6.6 from 5.8m (8.8 from 5.8m actual). So at constant currency that's an 11% rise. The actual rate is almost certainly to do with the collapsing £ and GW keeping prices the same for people not in the UK

Retail has gone to -2.2 from -3.1m (-2.4 from -3.1m actual). That's a decrease in loss of about 0.9m. Given they have closed 8 and relocated others the majority of that is probably from decreased costs rather than any change in sales.

Mail Order has gone to 6.4m from 6.2m (6.7m to 6.2m actual). That's only a 3% rise and it looks like a fair chunk of this is non-UK. Given the decreasing £ that implies Forgeworld aren't really being able to exploit the drop in the £

Product and Supply has gone to 5.0m from 4.7m (6.1m from 4.7m actual). That's a 6.4% rise. Again it appears that the collapsing £ and keeping prices the same is boosting profits.

Royalties has gone to 2.6m from 1.2m (3.0m from 1.2m actual). That's a big 100%+ increase, almost certainly associated with Total War plus likely a few non-UK developers.

Other costs have gone to -8.1m from -8.6m (-8.4m from -8.6m). This one implies that more savings have been made in the UK (which makes sense).

We also know that 0.8m profit has arisen due to changing accountancy methods on depreciation. That's a one off bonus and won't happen again for a while.

So (assuming 50% of the retail 'increase' is due to sales). Then we can conclude that actual sales profit has only risen (at constant currency) by about 1.5m. It's only streamling, shop closures/relocation/Total War that have really contributed to increasing profits more substantially at constant currency (most of which are likely one off benefits). However the big ticket item is actually nothing to do with GW but rather the £. GW are milking this by making all non-UK countries pay the pre-collapse prices. That's an artificial boost in prices. Or to put it more bluntly GW are screwing over the Europeans and Americans. But it can't last.

You understand the concept of constant currency? An 11% rise in trade after adjusting for constant currency mean that the effects of the dropping pound have already been taken into account.

Herzlos wrote:
Would you still choose the fantasy football over the sci-fi football even if it was more expensive?

I generally prefer fantasy over sci-fi, but I don't know if I'd pay an extra £15 for it. Plus Dreadball reminds me of that Speedball Brutal Deluxe Amiga game from the 90's.

Technically Dreadball is in some way closer to scifi soccer or maybe even basket.

And about Speedball2, well there is certainly an influence, as they made this special unique character during a dreadball kickstarter :



You can still buy him : http://www.manticgames.com/mantic-shop/dreadball/season-six/product/hector-weiss-speedball-mvp.html

From the description :

Hector spent many years playing a game in another reality called Speedball, which was similar enough to DreadBall that when he accidentally fell into this reality, he had a wonderful career opportunity. The rules may be a little different, but Hector has never looked back.

 silent25 wrote:
You understand the concept of constant currency? An 11% rise in trade after adjusting for constant currency mean that the effects of the dropping pound have already been taken into account.

Ermmm , yes that is why I wrote
"Trade has gone to 6.6 from 5.8m (8.8 from 5.8m actual). So at constant currency that's an 11% rise. The actual rate is almost certainly to do with the collapsing £ and GW keeping prices the same for people not in the UK"

I'm assuming you got to the second sentence and stopped reading and failed to note that in third sentence I stated "The ***actual*** rate" is to do with the collapsing £?