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 Bull0 wrote:
Do people think GW are somehow scraping the barrel already? Even if they burn out on all the 40k support they're currently doing, there are so many classic games I'd like them to bring back! I don't get it. /shrug

Already? No, not even close.

But look at the number of "never thought we'd see that" releases we've had in the last year. Every single one of those can only have the impact they've had the first time, beyond that it's diminishing returns. GW have played heavily on the "long awaited" concepts and the nostalgia gene this year, and credit to them it has worked and got a lot of people excited.

There's a lot more they can exploit, years worth at least, but if they want to keep going forever (which is their corporate statement) then I think their core products need a lot more attention (the games systems, the drivers of the model sales.) Otherwise, all they're doing is arresting the decline, even if that decline is now much gentler and stretching a lot further into the future.

 Bull0 wrote:
Do people think GW are somehow scraping the barrel already? Even if they burn out on all the 40k support they're currently doing, there are so many classic games I'd like them to bring back! I don't get it. /shrug

Oh, no, they're not scraping the barrel. The potential problem is that they've been doing some of the "break glass in case of emergency" kind of things, like plastic Knights, plastic Horus Heresy (and Custodes and Sisters of Silence!) and now a Primarch (a demon one, anyway) in 40K. We're soon to be getting back an army that has long languished (Sisters of Battle). We've got Specialist Games returning. But, the weird thing about all of that, is that most of it still basically reinforces GW's old Kirby-mentality of "model company first". They're throwing all the cool toys at us, which is certainly making them money, but what's left after the toys? 8th Edition is supposedly around the corner, and I think that will answer a lot of questions about where GW is going.

EDIT: lol, was typing my post just before Az posted his, and we're saying almost the same exact thing.

I'm very interested to see what direction 8th will bring. I hear talk of a new kind of space marine (new armour pattern and rapid growth, similar to corax's supermarines in deliverance lost) coming out with it. If that is true, and they are messing with space marines (I haven't heard it from enough people I trust to fully believe it yet), then anything could be on the cards.

Now that I think about it, GW isn't going to run out of things to do with 40k for at least a decade, probably 2, if even that.

Consider this: Chaos Space Marines have been around since the inception of Warhammer 40k nearly 30 years ago. And people are still saying that the current state of the Chaos Space Marine line is unsatisfactory. If there's one thing Games Workshop has proven to us, it's that they can drag their feet until the end of time. They could just as easily go another 30 years without satisfying consumer demand.

 JamesY wrote:
I'm very interested to see what direction 8th will bring. I hear talk of a new kind of space marine (new armour pattern and rapid growth, similar to corax's supermarines in deliverance lost) coming out with it. If that is true, and they are messing with space marines (I haven't heard it from enough people I trust to fully believe it yet), then anything could be on the cards.

Subverting humanity's last, best hope into barely stable, rabid animals because the attrition rate has gotten so great that their losses cannot be sustained in the traditional sense could be very, very grimdark.

But I'd doubt they'd take that big a risk with the poster boys.

Although the Wolves may be looking for a new direction...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EDIT: lol, was typing my post just before Az posted his, and we're saying almost the same exact thing.

Great minds!

 JamesY wrote:
I'm very interested to see what direction 8th will bring. I hear talk of a new kind of space marine (new armour pattern and rapid growth, similar to corax's supermarines in deliverance lost) coming out with it. If that is true, and they are messing with space marines (I haven't heard it from enough people I trust to fully believe it yet), then anything could be on the cards.

Sincerly doubt it. this would be too big of a gamble and their situation is not dire enough to make it worthwhile (in fact, they seem to be in a pretty good place right now). As for the profit, I would bet a tenner that it's mostly due to the weak pound.


The fact that that they used the phrase 'strong sale' and not sale growth is probably an indication that their sale didn't moved too much compared to last year.

 455_PWR wrote:
Let's see... gw lowered their prices (a little)

No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 455_PWR wrote:
Let's see... gw lowered their prices (a little)

No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

yeah, it's weird that they managed to convince so many that they did so, while it's clearly not the case.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
To me, the concern is how sustainable this is. GW has released a lot of stuff in the past year or so. While we know that more is to come (specialist games, maybe more 40K primarchs, 8th edition, etc.), how much longer before the train starts to lose steam?

Dunno but I would be relieved if they would slack off their pace, at least with the self-contained board games.
They're the only thing I buy, apart from my starter box investment in AoS/Generals Handbook, and it seems like every two months there's something in the board game category.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

Do you...do you not know what profit is?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

Australians should be banned from any and all discussions regarding GW pricing policy, for the sake of everyone else's sanity.

 streetsamurai wrote:
yeah, it's weird that they managed to convince so many that they did so, while it's clearly not the case.

If a hundred units of your chosen currency buys you more stuff this year than it did last year, the difference between "lowering prices" and "competitively priced bundles" becomes semantic.

People notice they get more bang for their buck from GW as of late. No hypnosis required.

 streetsamurai wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 455_PWR wrote:
Let's see... gw lowered their prices (a little)

No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

yeah, it's weird that they managed to convince so many that they did so, while it's clearly not the case.

Except they have. AoS releases are cheaper on a per model bas is than before. Outside of an outlier character model or two the clam packs have actually gotten cheaper. Start Collecting has provided cheaper entry into the game than we had a year ago. Overall prices have stabilized or gotten better.

Outside of Australia/NZ that is. I get that the pricing is crapshoot for you guys and that they are handling you guys differently for whatever reason but to the majority of the market what I said above is true.

ERJAK wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

Do you...do you not know what profit is?

That you ask this shows you don't understand the subject sufficiently to get what Skink is driving at.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
If a hundred units of your chosen currency buys you more stuff this year than it did last year, the difference between "lowering prices" and "competitively priced bundles" becomes semantic.

People notice they get more bang for their buck from GW as of late. No hypnosis required.

There's a significant difference because the bundle discounts only apply if you're buying those exact items. If you just want, say, a single tactical squad box you're paying the same ridiculous prices you've been paying.


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 Azreal13 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
They haven't really said anything that you can use to draw conclusions about anything.

We have profit but not revenue and the number we have isn't at constant currency. Brexit happened pretty close to the start of this financial year and even before brexit the pound was a lot weaker than it was in 2015, so the exchange rate is going to be a biggy and because we have profits instead of revenue we can't say much about it.

Do you...do you not know what profit is?

That you ask this shows you don't understand the subject sufficiently to get what Skink is driving at.

To give a little help here: GW reports their profits in GBP, but gets income in a variety of currencies, including a huge amount of revenue in USD from the US market. If the pound crashes relative to the dollar then the profits GW makes on all of their US-market sales will increase. To put some (completely made up) numbers on it: let's say GW sells a box for $50 in the US. Before the pound crashes that box provides $10 profit, which translates to £5 profit in the financial report. Now let's say the pound crashes to half its value. Now the $50 box in the US market is still making the same $10 profit, but that $10 now translates to £10 in the financial report. GW has "doubled" their profit without improving their business at all, they just happened to benefit from a favorable exchange rate. And it works both ways, if the pound doubles in value that US sale would only provide £2.50 in profit.

This is why looking at GW's numbers at constant currency and considering revenue in addition to profit is important. It removes the exchange rate factor and removes things like "we closed a store and made more profit by not paying rent this year" from the profit numbers. Constant-currency revenue is the best indicator of how many boxes GW's customers are buying, and therefore how healthy the company is.

It's isn't even that complicated. It's very easy to defer payments or take other very short term actions in order to inflate profits. Accounts are based on figures at a very specific point in time, if you don't pay that massive invoice until after that point, your figures look that much better in the short term.

Nobody's suggesting that the extra profit is bad, but that without context, there's all sorts of conclusions that cannot be drawn.

- Has volume increased (higher revenue)
- Have cuts been made
- Have efficiencies been employed

For example. The only one of those that's genuinely positive for the GW gamer is volume, as it most likely means more people are buying more stuff. The other two are good for the long term health of the company (depth of cuts notwithstanding) but have little impact on the state of the game as it would be most important to an AoS or 40K player.

 Hulksmash wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 455_PWR wrote:
Let's see... gw lowered their prices (a little)

No they didn't.

People need to stop saying that.

yeah, it's weird that they managed to convince so many that they did so, while it's clearly not the case.

Except they have. AoS releases are cheaper on a per model bas is than before. Outside of an outlier character model or two the clam packs have actually gotten cheaper. Start Collecting has provided cheaper entry into the game than we had a year ago. Overall prices have stabilized or gotten better.

Outside of Australia/NZ that is. I get that the pricing is crapshoot for you guys and that they are handling you guys differently for whatever reason but to the majority of the market what I said above is true.

Really?

AOS recent release are only cheaper than the fyreslayers, who were themselves even more absurdly priced than the other AOS release. I won't give GW credit simply for returning their price to a less insane level, after the fail experimentation of the fyreslayers. And AOS has it's share of absurdely priced boxed recently (the cavalry boxes are around 100 CAD for 3 models, and the Dracoth is 80 for 2 models :0). The average price per model has in no way decreased. They did repackage a few boxes which resulted in a drop in the price per model of these, but we can't really claim it's an actual price decrease since it force you to buy more models.

Clampack character are cheaper than before? That's new to me. I see the ironjaws clampack and they are all around the 40 CAD pricepoint, and the warboss is almost 50. I don't see a trend of them getting cheaper. Hell the last that was release IIRC, is the GSC icon guy, and he cost 30 CAD for a guy that look like a minor kitbash

Bundle boxes existed before the start collecting boxes. I did the math before and the battalion were giving a bit less of a discount, but you have to consider that the price of the SC are inflated because of the inclusion of a clampack character (which also make them a lot less interesting for multiple buys compared to the battalion boxes)

A few items where priced relatively cheap compared to a similar product (the DW veteran box for example), but this is offset by the increase on some other boxes (for example, the TS marines are 10$ more than a regular marine box, and the GSC acolytes hybris is 50 CAd for 5, which is insanely overpriced for some average sized, troop models)


GW have done some pretty great move recently, but decreasing price is not one of them

 Azreal13 wrote:
It's isn't even that complicated. It's very easy to defer payments or take other very short term actions in order to inflate profits. Accounts are based on figures at a very specific point in time, if you don't pay that massive invoice until after that point, your figures look that much better in the short term.

Nobody's suggesting that the extra profit is bad, but that without context, there's all sorts of conclusions that cannot be drawn.

- Has volume increased (higher revenue)
- Have cuts been made
- Have efficiencies been employed

For example. The only one of those that's genuinely positive for the GW gamer is volume, as it most likely means more people are buying more stuff. The other two are good for the long term health of the company (depth of cuts notwithstanding) but have little impact on the state of the game as it would be most important to an AoS or 40K player.

I don't know what strong sales are if not an increase in volume. They seperate this and profit out. They also make it clear that this is before the beneficial effects of Brexit. Another point is that GW had a terrible December last year. With the thousand sons, bloodbowl and the bundles there is unlikely to be a repeat of that this year. They also say this exceeds the estimates of the board so it is highly unlikely there has been much massaging of numbers going on. We will get a more detailed breakdown in January so it would look pretty stupid to paint a rosy picture now only for it to be reversed in a month.

The issue is that it's all vague PR speech and no hard facts. There is no definition of "strong" in accounting, nor is there any fixed point for what "expectations" were.

There is no reason to expect the Jan report not to be positive, but there is no reason to respond to someone raising the valid point that profit in isolation doesn't tell the whole story with "do you even know what profit is" either. Unless you don't understand the topic.

Chikout wrote:
I don't know what strong sales are if not an increase in volume.

Strong sales are whatever GW decides to call "strong". Sales volume could drop by 99% and GW could still legally call that "strong sales". Even in the worst possible situations the verbal descriptions in the financial report will find a way to be positive. This is why you assume that everything except hard numbers (which are legally required to be accurate) is spin by the company's PR people.

They also say this exceeds the estimates of the board so it is highly unlikely there has been much massaging of numbers going on

And this is the same kind of thing. Did GW exceed the estimates of the board because the company performed well, or because the board expected "stock prices will crash by 99% and the company will go bankrupt"? There is no legal obligation to tell the truth about this, so the information is worthless.

In terms of burnout how's this for a future release list.
40k: sisters, greatcoat guard, Ork speedfreaks, eldar Exodites, world eaters, death guard, emperors children, custodes, inquisition, chaos guard, dark mechanicum, eldar book with plastic aspect warriors and plastic avatar, dark eldar with vect, and new plastic kits, the fallen, black legion with new core chaos plastics.
AOS, Tzeentch, slaanesh, nurgle, shadow elves, light elves, humans, grot pirates, etc, etc,
Specialist, Necromunda, mordheim, bfg, warmaster, epic expansion to Adeptus titanicus, warhammer war of the beard, (with modified 8th edition rules)
40k 8th edition with an annual living rule book, with point balancing each year.
Inq 28 official skirmish game.
All these things would sell like hot cakes.

There's a real possibility that, given the contraction of recent years, that the customer base is what could be at risk of burnout, not the release schedule. Pacing will be critical.

 Azreal13 wrote:
There is no reason to expect the Jan report not to be positive, but there is no reason to respond to someone raising the valid point that profit in isolation doesn't tell the whole story with "do you even know what profit is" either. Unless you don't understand the topic.

Yeah, the way I see it, each number has a story behind it... actually it has a tree of possible stories that might get you to that number. Profit which hasn't been adjusted to constant currency is obviously important for the company, it's the amount of money they have in their bank account more or less than the previous year to reinvest, grow or pay shareholders.

BUT, it's also the number that has the most possible paths to get to it, without knowing things like revenue and constant currency numbers it doesn't tell us much about the health of the company.

For example we know last year they spent over 2 million pounds on tooling upgrades, if they didn't this year, that 2 million pounds comes through as a profit increase.


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 Azreal13 wrote:
There's a real possibility that, given the contraction of recent years, that the customer base is what could be at risk of burnout, not the release schedule. Pacing will be critical.

Yeah that's my thought. GW could keep releasing things for years for 40k, the question isn't when they run out of things to release, it's when they run out of things the customers are willing to pay more money to buy.

Customers are reacting to getting a whole heap of cool stuff they've been asking to get for years by buying heaps of it, when they realise they have a stack of unpainted models and the rules still suck I think sales will start to peter out. When GW releasing some new shiny each month becomes the norm, existing players are going to start spending less and they go back to relying on new customers to step up and spend big.

It's also a question of how much 40k can actually bear. You can keep releasing new stuff but then using GW's current rules-creep method you just end up with more rules upon rules with supplements upon supplements and you need more inventory space and the more new-release driven your revenue is the more of a ball and chain the existing stock will become.

Chikout wrote:
In terms of burnout how's this for a future release list.

You mean fan wishlisting, not a product schedule from GW? And I think it really says something that half your new releases for 40k are "every space marine chapter gets its own codex", a textbook recipe for burnout.

I'll make a more sane fan boy wish listing of real viable armies.

Imperium: Arbities, Sisters of Silence 40k, Sisters of Battle, Scum and Villainy Gangers

Imperial Guard: I would like to see a cool new and very unique regiment created for the end times and makes them really stand out enough to get new models and would use some of the basic gear of the IG but would utilize a lot of their own ingenious designs kind of like how GSC need to improvise a lot a very heavy survival theme to their gear.

Rogue Trader list mostly drawing from the Imperial Guard lists but wealth has its benefits and they can afford to arm elite squads of soldiers with human power armor for the lulz. has lots of "acquired" and "totally legally" purchased gear from pieces of living saints to dark eldar weaponry and tau drones.

Orks: ??? I honestly can't say. Just new models and some updates. Maybe some cleansing of the range to open up some new ideas? Or perhaps we can see Freebootas or some unique spin on orks. Maybe a Rogue Trader vs Freeboota release? I like orks, but I struggle to think of where to take them creatively. Do we see an intelligent off shot of orks similar to Thrall (Warcraft) versus the regular orcs we usually see?

Chaos: Dark Mechanicus (I would be really excited to see warp priests and tech priests cooking up some cool designs. FFG's rpg book for chaos had so much cool weapons.

A Chaos Xenos faction would also be interesting.

A games workshop Chaos Renegades/Lost and the Damned basically chaos IG.

Renegades: Thunder Warrior Survivors. I say renegades because 40k Imperium is usually just depicted as Law vs Chaos and there are very rarely neutral factions shown that are just out for themselves but are not chaos influenced.

Eldar: Exodites, a big Dark Eldar update, and an Eldar update.

New Xenos Factions: Demirg. it's time GW. The fan reaction to them in the battlefleet gothic video game is very positive. You have a solid design do it.Kroot Mercenaries/Empire/hunters, Vespid, Hrud, I can't remember the name but there is a faction to rival the Tau in the lore that operates similarly by working with the Demiurg, and finally a new alien race that has never been mentioned in the game and is wholly new and surprising.

Necrons: I would love to see an offshoot book/small army release of Necrons who are like the old fluff. More sinister and single minded for those of us who liked them better that way give us the Old-Crons and call them something cool like the Phyrax Dynasty who believe in corrupting all Necrons back to a single purpose to wipe out and harvest all live int he galaxy. They definitely hate their new nerdy necron goodie two shoes brothers. The big center piece is a massive harvesting and grinding machine they use to literally grind kill and harvest the biomass or whatever it is for the C'tan. Bonus points for having human slaves held captive in cells above the massive grinder waiting to be released inside.

Tau: Lots of mechs and titans, but seriously an auxiliary codex if they don't make any new full alien factions. I would also like the Farsight Enclaves to get a few unique models or something like melee crisis suits or a dedicated melee class battlesuit the size of a riptide. Something cool since so much time has passed.

Tyranids: A cool offshoot Tyranid faction led by an actual sentient Tyranid Queen that acts as a face for this very unusual sub faction. Yes it's a queen of blades ripoff but they ripped of 40k so who cares. These unusual hive fleets are brought in when typical hive mind tactics don't suffice since the hive mind is not spontaneous enough to be truly creative or sneaky something that is only found in more independent thought. So it created this weird offshoot for specific tasks but keeps a tight leash on them and it isn't uncommon for uppity Brood Mothers and their fleets to get devoured by regular Tyranids.

Also this would just be a cool fun release and small. A cool mercenary band of unique characters. The best and most badass mercenaies in the galaxy.

Humans, Tau, Kroot, Demiurg, Vespid, a big ogryn, a dark eldar sniper, an eldar, a rogue space marine (not chaos) and a rattling make up this elite squad of mercenaries and commandos. Lead by a Rogue Trader. Caaam aaan it would totally be awesome to see them all fighting and intereacitng in stories.

Edit
An actual robot faction that started as robots and are happy to kill all life. The Necrons started as organics and want to go back to them currently and this sucks.

Edit 2
An offshoot Tau Drone army with their next generation artifical intelligence network. Basically friendly skynet that helps the Tau. We would see more advanced Tau drones appear such as bipedal walking ones, hover tank drones, air drones, hover drones (like a helicopter). Later on down the line like in real life a decade down the line they can get corrupted or want to go independent.

GW managed to get some of my money this year with the bundles and boxed games.

However, if they really want to turn the ship around, they need to fix the gaping wound to the flagship game of 40K.

And, with what they've been putting out with late between rulebooks and board game rules and the FAQ's, I ***REALLY*** don't have confidence they are up to the task.

I came back to 40K when Newcrons were released and bought quite a good bit since then, but with the state of the rules since 7th I've not only slowed on buying new 40K books and models, but have been looking at other companies for games and models. For example, I didn't buy a Taurox for my IG, this Black Friday I bought the DF Eisenkern transport to use it as a proxy.

@Azreal13 & Streetsamurai I don't think I was clear in what I meant, I haven't heard that they are replacing the traditional marines with a new kind, rather than adding to them with some created by a different process. Same stats and rules, different armour mark and fluff. Could be bs, but I have heard it from a couple of different people now.

 Peregrine wrote:

Chikout wrote:
In terms of burnout how's this for a future release list.

You mean fan wishlisting, not a product schedule from GW? And I think it really says something that half your new releases for 40k are "every space marine chapter gets its own codex", a textbook recipe for burnout.

You kind of missed my point. An earlier user pointed out that the recent 40k release list has been a selection of wish listed armies, but they were in danger of running out of ideas.. That list was just pointing out that there is a LOT more fan wished armies that they could still release. Also that list does not contain a single loyalist chapter in it.
I will agree that 40k users are in danger of burnout as that user base does not seem to be growing particularly ( maybe Vedros will help with this) and the are relying on existing users to buy additional armies.
In regards to AOS, every new release will help increase the user base as they are all 'new' armies.
The criticism I have, is that the balance of releases recently have been very poor. If the rumours of another 40k month in January are true, that will mean 7 months at least between AOS battletomes. That is the longest wait for a new fantasy book I can remember in the last 30 years.

I've not been a fan of GW for quite a while. However, today I ordered the kill team box. Am I hopping back into 40k? Nah, they need to consolidate and streamline or bring the model count back down before I will start taking 40k seriously again.
GW fantasy.. sorry but AoS won't be a game I'll play. If they revisit Mordheim.. hey, cool, I'm all over that. Skirmish? Sure.. maybe. WHFB though, as flawed as it was, is the fantasy game I have burned into my mind as GW. Age of Spacemarine is not that.

Okay.. now.. from the above, it would sound like I'm not someone who would really give them a lot of time or money.. right? Well, the boardgames get me.. and I think that's really smart of the old Geedub.

 MLaw wrote:
I've not been a fan of GW for quite a while. However, today I ordered the kill team box. Am I hopping back into 40k? Nah, they need to consolidate and streamline or bring the model count back down before I will start taking 40k seriously again.
GW fantasy.. sorry but AoS won't be a game I'll play. If they revisit Mordheim.. hey, cool, I'm all over that. Skirmish? Sure.. maybe. WHFB though, as flawed as it was, is the fantasy game I have burned into my mind as GW. Age of Spacemarine is not that.

Okay.. now.. from the above, it would sound like I'm not someone who would really give them a lot of time or money.. right? Well, the boardgames get me.. and I think that's really smart of the old Geedub.

Yup. Diversifying the portfolio is very important if GW wants to continue to grow. I am sure there are some people who for whom bloodbowl was their first purchase in years.

 JamesY wrote:
@Azreal13 & Streetsamurai I don't think I was clear in what I meant, I haven't heard that they are replacing the traditional marines with a new kind, rather than adding to them with some created by a different process. Same stats and rules, different armour mark and fluff. Could be bs, but I have heard it from a couple of different people now.

I was pretty sure that was what you meant (or at least was a new unit type for the next codex update) but I liked my idea better!