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 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I'm 25 and I slice my fingers all the time.

Yeah but that's your own foolishness and you're not 8 years old, thus your parents can't[snip...]

morgoth wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I'm 25 and I slice my fingers all the time.

Are you begging for attention?

Jeez chill out both of you, it was a joke. No need to be so hostile.

Geez, chill out all of you, that was a joke.
it's not hostile.
nobody would seriously consider that you are slicing your fingers for attention.
the joke is that you're telling us you're clumsy, as we all are, and i'm saying maybe you're cutting yourself because you're emo, on purpose, to grab attention.

Can everyone just chill out and stop telling people to chill out and just chill out.

I think that we can all agree that you are both crap at jokes.

 notprop wrote:
Can everyone just chill out and stop telling people to chill out and just chill out.

I think that we can all agree that you are both crap at jokes.

Chill out dude...

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/GAW/13148435.html

Games Workshop Group PLC

TRADING STATEMENT

For the period from 16 January 2017 to 26 February 2017



For immediate release 6 March 2017

Games Workshop is pleased to announce that the sales and profit growth, that was discussed in the January 2017 trading update, continues. Income from royalties receivable is also ahead of expectations. In light of the above, profits for 2016/17 are likely to be materially above market expectations.

Sales and profits have further benefitted from the continuing favourable impact of the weaker pound. However, the Board remains aware that there is some uncertainty in the trading periods ahead for the rest of the 2016/17 financial year. A further update will be given as appropriate.

Meh, without Kirbys laughable rantings, these statements have become as boring as...financial statements.

At least they didn't try to say that the weak pound was hurting them after saying the reverse in previous statments.

I do wish BoLS wasn't dying a death.

Reading the comments on financials over there usually gave me a good chuckle.

Warseer had a great thread on financials too that were always good for a chuckle or five.

I think my favourite to date has been the assertion that AoS might be selling, but it like, wasn't profitable. And was like, losing them money.

Natch, no sources were cited, presented or named. We just have to 'believe'....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I do wish BoLS wasn't dying a death.

Reading the comments on financials over there usually gave me a good chuckle.

BoLS is dying?

Have a look at their Forum. Dead as a doornail.

Mind, I suppose that's what happens when you repeatedly ban the trolled rather than the troll.

Or the more... passionate political activist members getting banned for not knowing when to quit.

BOLS is garbage anyways. Clickbait titles, shilling articles with OMG GUYS L@@K AT THIS NEW GW THING! GET YOUR WALLETS READY BOYS!, tactics that show nothing new, malware/redirects to sketchy sites (every time I go there on my mobile phone more often than not I get redirected to one of those "Your phone has 500 virus! install software now to fix!" fake detection sites), picking up and running with/stealing anything remotely resembling a rumor to get hits.

Good riddence. Now if only Spikey Bits would follow them, they are nearly as bad.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Natch, no sources were cited, presented or named. We just have to 'believe'....

Just like people need to believe that it is successful?

The increase in licensing revenue probably has something to do with Warhammer:Total War being the best selling TW game to date and there are 2 more games in the cycle. I would be very surprised if WHFB doesn't get relaunched.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Natch, no sources were cited, presented or named. We just have to 'believe'....

Just like people need to believe that it is successful?

The increase in licensing revenue probably has something to do with Warhammer:Total War being the best selling TW game to date and there are 2 more games in the cycle. I would be very surprised if WHFB doesn't get relaunched.

You are going to be waiting a long time a financial analyzer on bolter and chainsword(So we can get the bias argument out of the way) said AOS is carrying it's own weight. This is the previous report before this one, also royalties have been calculated before by a poster here the money is good none can deny that but majority of GW's money comes from their miniature line GW would see no reason to bring it back since they can just milk money from total war warhammer while making money with their miniature lines. If AOS was doing extremely poorly worse than whfb then I would see your point.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/329700-good-news-from-gw/page-2

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/329700-good-news-from-gw/page-3

User 1(who is doing the analysis: I met with a 40k friend who has even more management experience as a financial controller than I do. We both had experiences in finance and sales & marketing, but also share a love for The Hobby, like you! This is a shortened version of our lengthy discussion/fist fight, shared in normal Low Gothic.

User 2:Great review but I am struggling to see how you can extrapolate AoS sales being the cause of growth. It's an assumption surely, based upon there being a summer campaign?

I'd say it's 40K gowing what with Genestealer Cults, Adeptus Mechanicus and Deathwatch being quite popular yet expensive armies to get into (actually the Deathwatch are fairly cheap if you're savvy).

User 1: We started with no assumptions. Regarding the summer campaign issue, it was only after we started looking for areas where growth was greatest, like in the clear case of where Trade and Retail grew by 30+ percent%+ while Mail Order only grew by 9%, that we started exploring what brick & mortar stores had.

The summer campaign, which directly matched the reported time period, was clearly the biggest change from Business As Usual. It happened to relate to AoS, and had a mechanism that was designed to drive sales, therefore seemed very relevant to the issue of sales growth.

In other words, we didn't start with a line of reasoning, or certain products, or theories, or personal preferences in mind.

User 2:I agree that solid rules does drive players, but I haven't witnessed, in my bubble, any increase in AoS.

How would we best quantify whether AOS has spurred sales? We might best glimpse 40K future if we can determine what encouraged the customer spending?

Personally, I interpret the increase is from boxed set sales like the HH games that drove army building. Battle of Calth was phenomenonal in its reception. Many players bought 2-3 copies and it sold out often. These fueled more purchases and that's before we start to count other boxed sets like the Knights and fliers.

I think AoS has been a blip compared to the 40K sales. 40K was losing ground each year despite being the biggest fish in the sea and I see it as this year GW finally reversed that trend.

User 1:I think I understand where you're coming from. I think the new way 40k products were bundled contributed to growth, too.

We agree AoS, until the release of the General's Handbook, was a blip. Therefore, by definition, it had the most opportunity to grow.

40k/30k basically held the line for all of GW in the last few years, since AoS, and before that Warhammer Fantasy. In last year's annual report, the CEO let slip a point that AoS, despite its unpopularity, had already outdid Warhammer Fantasy's sales for years, just to show how bad things had been.

The question we asked wasn't so much what's new; it was what's changed. The 0% or negative growth represented 40k/30k having to carry Warhammer Fantasy, then AoS, for years. GW doesn't borrow money for new development, meaning particularly 40k "paid" for all of WhF and AoS's development, with no return...until now.

What changed was that, these 6 months, the fantasy line, AoS, is finally pulling its own weight. That's something to be celebrated, that 40k no longer has to carry its load. If anything, some of the lessons learned from AoS, like how a summer event can drive sales, will benefit 40k.

 shinros wrote:
Stuff

GW doesn't publish its sales data so only GW really know how well AoS is doing. Anonymous financial analysis or not.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 shinros wrote:
Stuff

GW doesn't publish its sales data so only GW really know how well AoS is doing. Anonymous financial analysis or not.

Well we will see if they relaunch it, at most I can see forge world doing it like the horus heresy.

GW killing off 30 years of WHFB right before the release of its biggest ever licensed game has to be the most idiotic decision that it ever made.

It would be easy to roll back as well.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
GW killing off 30 years of WHFB right before the release of its biggest ever licensed game has to be the most idiotic decision that it ever made.

It would be easy to roll back as well.

Now? I disagree around the time it came out? Yes.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 shinros wrote:
Stuff

GW doesn't publish its sales data so only GW really know how well AoS is doing. Anonymous financial analysis or not.

Well GW already said in their official financial report that AoS was selling better than fantasy had for years.

I guess that's case closed then.

Not in the least. A jump from 5% to 5.1% of total sales revenue makes that statement true, but functionally irrelevant.

Christ almighty. GW is ahead their entire financial year at the half year mark but we're still pretending that AoS isn't contributing?

Given Magnus/Tzeentch, DW, GSC, BOP and Gathering Storm, I guess that depends on whether you count Silver Tower as AOS or not?

There've been some big 40K releases (and they keep coming) but (speaking as a non AoS player) I'm not aware of any release of a similar magnitude? Except maybe the GHB, which was pretty cheap so wouldn't put much in the bottom line even if it went (relatively speaking) gangbusters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Plus, of course, "contributing" is a moving target. One box of Gryph Hounds sold would be "contributing', nobody's going to argue that it isn't selling stuff.

Sylvaneth and Disciples of Tzeentch are easily on part with any of the major 40k releases. If you're counting BOP for 40k you have to count the two Quest games. Overall AoS has had a pretty stellar 6 months and l99ks to be getting ready to release another AoS faction in March for dwarves with shadow elves supposed to be later this year.

I get that it's cool to hate things. But 40k had pretty good 40k things come up last fiscal year and it still didn't double out its previous year in profit in the first half of the year. GW says that AoS is selling well. They are telling their managers it's selling well and unlike wfb the managers agree from the ones I've talked to. At least since the ghb dropped.

We'll never see specific numbers for the last 3 years of wfb vs. the first 3 years of AoS once it gets there. But it's less of s stretch assuming it's helping their bottom line significantly than pretending that 40k suddenly doubled it's sales on the previous year when they've doubled down on 40k for an entire year and didn't see that kind of growth. And when 40k has been in a bit of a questionable place as people are nervous about 8th.

I get that it's cool to hate things.

And that little comment makes any further dialogue with you on the subject a waste of time. Nobody was hating, but if that's the only way you can frame your response, we're done.

Excellent response sir. Take umbrage at a small portion so as to not have to discuss the relevant topics of the post. We'll done!

When one sets up a moving target dismissal before even discussing the topic it does tend to lead one to the conclusion that your mind is already made up.

If you want to talk "mind already made up" why not enter a topic with a line like

Christ almighty. GW is ahead their entire financial year at the half year mark but we're still pretending that AoS isn't contributing?

I'm tired of anyone who cannot handle a contrary opinion to their own reducing it to hate, its juvenile and after hearing it for so long I'm just going to take a zero tolerance attitude to it.

By all means hang out in the thread and see if someone else is willing to discuss why your claim that "contribute" is a stone cold absolute, not a vague and spurious term up there with "better" or "improved." I'm not going to.

You're adorable. I've been in this thread a fair bit.

Just to be clear it's not that I can't handle a contrary opinion. It's when you're willfully pushing against reason just to stand on your soap box of AoS not selling that I tend to roll my eyes. It's not to dissimilar to a political argument honestly.

Thing is even in 2002-2003 I SAW the numbers for sales for WFB. At the time the Space Marine line alone outsold the entire WFB range. I have it on good authority with people I trust that were still involved with GW in 2010 that the range had actually dropped below the Tactical Squad box sales. It was in a single digit percentage performance.

The idea that WFB died because of lack of support is incorrect. It died partially due to cost to collect (even back in 2002 it wasn't the game beginners were supposed to start with) and partially due to poor rules in the back half of 7th and then 8th doubled down on both issues of rules/cost.

AoS had a bad launch. That isn't in doubt and that has led to hesitancy in the independent retailers. But how GW has handled it since the CEO swap is night and day. And AoS does seem to be finally gaining traction. AoS GT's in the US are crushing Kings of War which seems to have squandered it's chance to grab the market and while I know that 9th age exists it's not even a blib on the radar in the US.

GW's numbers are higher than the entire previous year (that was largely kept level from royalties) in the first 6 months of the year. They released a statement that they were above what they expected originally for Jan/Feb.

Do you honestly think it is more likely that a decently a solid uptick with several strong releases for AoS, along with Bloodbowl, and several strong 40k releases resulted in an entire years profit (with much less percentage in royalties this time) in just 6 months OR that 40k releases and Bloodbowl resulted in it with a mere 5.1% of the sales being AoS when we had similar solid releases for 40k in the previous year created that result?

GW says AoS is selling well. Events are selling out and getting big attendance in the US and UK. AoS has had several strong releases. Things have CHANGED from the launch. But quite a few people don't seem to want to move on from the launch or accept that maybe, just maybe, AoS isn't a failure any more.

I pick an arbitrary number out of thin air, to demonstrate how vague "better than WHFB" is as a statement (and a point that's been made repeatedly since everyone wanting to defend AOS jumped on it) and you take that as some sort of serious assertion that AOS
comprises 5.1% of revenue?

Read what I write, not what you read.

Everything else is mere supposition on both our sides, as we don't have the information to declare otherwise. I may believe that sales of the Magnus model alone will have generated as much cash as the total Sylvaneth and DoT releases combined. You're free to disagree, but nobody could argue that thinking a long awaited, well received, high unit cost model for the much larger system selling more in terms of revenuethan models for a system which, you yourself admit, got off to a shaky start and is decidedly still finding its way is exactly flawed logic.

Not to mention BB, which I'd forgotten to consider, which is definitely not allied to either system as they currently stand, and almost certainly generated a huge chunk of revenue.

@Hulksmash,

Well said, sir!

From what I've seen GW's profits are better than the last five years, AoS is stated by insider sources to be 30% of their profit and one fellow calculated the combined royalties from the last report to be only 1/6 the profit.

I don't know why it's success is such a argued case, it's a fun and easy to get into game with amazing models and constant support and company feedback.

If that failed then there's no hope for any TT game.

 shinros wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
GW killing off 30 years of WHFB right before the release of its biggest ever licensed game has to be the most idiotic decision that it ever made.

It would be easy to roll back as well.

Now? I disagree around the time it came out? Yes.

Indeed, by the time they'd be able to bring it back TW:W would be over and the hype gone anyway.