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 Overread wrote:

FudgeDumper wrote:
The captive IPs will be spread with the wind and not before then might they thrive again.

Or the IP fails to sell and gets held for decades by a finance firm

Or the IP gets bought by a company well outside of the gaming world who uses it for other things - coming soon the new blockbuster Warhammer film by Hollywood. Follow the adventures of Private Bill who works his way from a lowly guardsman to the position of terminator with the help of his good friend Bob the Necron and his girlfriend who happens to be an Eldar Princess in hiding in the Emperors armies. (and of course no more models - its all action figures)

Or the IP gets bought by a company that tries their best, but honestly hasn't got the millions needed to save the franchise. You get a hit-miss series of random releases over a few years before it all dies off again.

Or another company buys it up, but uses it to market block and refuses to put it into production again, thus securing the market for thier own game

And that is basically what we have right now. GW cant stay true to its own roots because of pressure from the revolting, repellent, repulsive, sickening, nauseating, stomach-churning, off-putting, unpalatable, unsavory, distasteful, foul, nasty, obnoxious, vomitous shareholders.

All the options you listed would be a huge positive change to what we have now. GW had something great, but greed was the second thing holding their reigns beside inspiration, and now what we are left with is a bunch of unskilled morons trying to breath life into a rotten carcass while being flogged by their shareholder overlords.

I really had to force myself to not be negative while writing this lest my emotions take over and remove all my credibility. But its a damn shame seeing noble intention with great potential being slowly transformed into nothing more then systemized greed.

PS: And since when is mainstream something positive?

You're a hoot!

Fly away little crow, there's no carcass here for you, only a resplendent king who'll likely see you to an old withered age.

Long live GW and confusion to his enemies!

Fudge perhaps you just need a new miniature line or a new hobby? Seriously you seem to have a lot of bottled up hate that seems to be totally at the extreme end. It honestly sounds like you need to take a break from the game and get into something else. (esp after I spent all of 5 seconds having a quick glance at your thread/post history).

Step out and take up a new hobby - you sound so jade with 40K that its not healthy for you to keep going whilst you're clearly raging about it way too much.


Even just taking a step back and just painting might be all you need; though I'd wager you need a totally new direction. What about Warmachine/Hordes; or try a smaller game like Infinity; or perhaps the new up-coming Dystopian Age games; or heck try photography/sports/walking/books/snooker/other hobbies.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I think they did already? That terrible awful gakky 8th edition was canned - and then they released Age of Sigmar.

And Warhammer 40k is better than it's ever been

8th ed. Fantasy was the best rules set GW has ever produced. AOS is mindless drivel.

8th. ed. 40K is only better because 7th. sucked so badly, but truthfully 40K has always been bad rules wise. 8th. went way too far in oversimplifying the rules.

The best rule set GW has ever produced was the first Lotr skirmish one.

Yeah, it's strange that never really took off. There were so many great rules there for mass fighting or even just holding a wall.

Oh well, AoS is that for me but streamlined so I'm good there.

@Overread, pretty sure you're looking at his hobby...

 Galas wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I think they did already? That terrible awful gakky 8th edition was canned - and then they released Age of Sigmar.

And Warhammer 40k is better than it's ever been

8th ed. Fantasy was the best rules set GW has ever produced. AOS is mindless drivel.

8th. ed. 40K is only better because 7th. sucked so badly, but truthfully 40K has always been bad rules wise. 8th. went way too far in oversimplifying the rules.

The best rule set GW has ever produced was the first Lotr skirmish one.

Niet, it's shadespire (okay, most likely not, but it comes a close second IMO).

Baron Klatz wrote:
You're a hoot!

Fly away little crow, there's no carcass here for you, only a resplendent king who'll likely see you to an old withered age.

Long live GW and confusion to his enemies!

...and they say GW and its most devoted of followers are not like The Imperium at all. Nope. Nosireebob. Not. At. All.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I think they did already? That terrible awful gakky 8th edition was canned - and then they released Age of Sigmar.

And Warhammer 40k is better than it's ever been

8th ed. Fantasy was the best rules set GW has ever produced. AOS is mindless drivel.

8th. ed. 40K is only better because 7th. sucked so badly, but truthfully 40K has always been bad rules wise. 8th. went way too far in oversimplifying the rules.

1. Mind explaining why 8th Fantasy was their best?

2. Depends the simplified parts. Terrain and cover need more rules but that's really about it.

Ruin wrote:

Baron Klatz wrote:
You're a hoot!

Fly away little crow, there's no carcass here for you, only a resplendent king who'll likely see you to an old withered age.

Long live GW and confusion to his enemies!

...and they say GW and its most devoted of followers are not like The Imperium at all. Nope. Nosireebob. Not. At. All.

Wouldn't that make you a heretic?

 EnTyme wrote:

Ruin wrote:

Baron Klatz wrote:
You're a hoot!

Fly away little crow, there's no carcass here for you, only a resplendent king who'll likely see you to an old withered age.

Long live GW and confusion to his enemies!

...and they say GW and its most devoted of followers are not like The Imperium at all. Nope. Nosireebob. Not. At. All.

Wouldn't that make you a heretic?

We prefer the term "iconoclast"

...and they say GW and its most devoted of followers are not like The Imperium at all. Nope. Nosireebob. Not. At. All. 

Haha, that's a compliment in my book.

I was always devoted but nowadays I can honestly say I'd take a bullet for Rountree.

 

*edit*

Ack formatting mucked up.

 Galas wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I think they did already? That terrible awful gakky 8th edition was canned - and then they released Age of Sigmar.

And Warhammer 40k is better than it's ever been

8th ed. Fantasy was the best rules set GW has ever produced. AOS is mindless drivel.

8th. ed. 40K is only better because 7th. sucked so badly, but truthfully 40K has always been bad rules wise. 8th. went way too far in oversimplifying the rules.

The best rule set GW has ever produced was the first Lotr skirmish one.

Aye. Fantasy 8th was great, but LotR had the best rules GW ever made. I kinda wish GW would do more with it.

GW need to re-invest the money into production infrastructure and employment. Increase their molding capabilities so they can keep current models in stock and bring out new models. Hire new staff so they can reverse the one man store decision and expand the core staff at GW HQ

ERJAK wrote:


People are really heavily focusing on what this means for GW going forward but I think it's actually going to be much more valuable as a case study on the effects of consumer engagement.

I would think rather than consumer engagement, it'd be more like a drastic change to their business practices. Going from plugging their ears to the cries from the market to actually listening to their source of revenue.

I would definitely champion thus as an example of what not to do...followed with their current modus operandi.

Finally they're doing things that the entire business sector had been doing for 20ish years or so.

Applause all around.

 Rolsheen wrote:
GW need to re-invest the money into production infrastructure and employment. Increase their molding capabilities so they can keep current models in stock and bring out new models. Hire new staff so they can reverse the one man store decision and expand the core staff at GW HQ

I doubt the one man store thing is gonna change any time soon. In short, it's working for them. And each new employee is a wage and insurance bill. In the UK, on a minimum wage? Assuming a 40 hour week, that's an extra £15,600 just on paying them.

Sure, they could open two more days a week. But having worked in a GW store on a few occasions, I can be fairly confident that those two days alone aren't going to balance the cost of the staff member...

I do want to see them hire more creatives. The more creatives, the more stuff I can buy!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yes. Because £38,000,000 profit in six months is the hallmark of all poorly run businesses.

You assume you need good game to sell miniatures though. GW games have never been what could be considered good. They make good profit DESPITE their games, not because of them.

You do know things sell on other factors than rules right?

That's a matter of opinion, clearly plenty of people like their games.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Surely that would only affect the wholesale price?

I mean, if it costs $10US to buy in, then the buyer is getting extra munneh because the pound is shafted. I doubt they’re passing that on to the end user?

At the moment if I buy start collecting from UK I pay 49€(plus free shipping). If I buy it from finland I pay 65€ plus if I want to get it delivered(rather than go ~50km one way to shop) it costs shipping. That's 25% difference(plus possible shipping). This gap increases or decreases as pound value changes. Euro price stays same. However if I buy from UK I pay on pounds which gets translated by current exchange ratio.

Thus if pound crash sufficiently it's going to have big impact on my price. This is going to just have at least same sales for GW, possibly more if I use savings to buy more. I might even invest more than initially planned to take advantage of cheap price(ie if I was planning to spend 400€ which translated to say 320£ for GW. Then pound crash to same ratio and I still spend same amount but GW gets 346£. However I might easily decide that rather than 400€ I spend 450€ or 500€ to take advantage of price before it increases more.

So yeah the exchange ratio has HUGE impact. Even tiny ones can have big impact on absolute money count(ATM I'm following yen on vested interest as slight change there can mean hundreds of euro's won/lost)

tneva82 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yes. Because £38,000,000 profit in six months is the hallmark of all poorly run businesses.

You assume you need good game to sell miniatures though. GW games have never been what could be considered good. They make good profit DESPITE their games, not because of them.

You do know things sell on other factors than rules right?

Is your view. A lot of other people have enjoyed playing their games for 30+ years and consider many of them good. Don't present opinion as fact.

phillv85 wrote:
That's a matter of opinion, clearly plenty of people like their games.

Mostly as it allows you to be in GW hobby. But if there would be better rules that allowed to use it GW rules would be competing less well.

But GW has always had advantage in backgrounds, model quality/style, number of plastic kits, visibility...For many newcomers they might not even know of any other miniature games. It's so big that for newcomers words "miniature games" and "warhammer" are synonymous. This GW got on their very good PR system in '90's. This is something other companies struggle to get and results in new blood flocking to GW games _regardless_ of rules. Other games tends to get ex-GW players as source of customers. Complete newbies are much less aware there's this miniature game you might have to special order rather than just pick up from store shelf with big clearly visible attractive marketed starting box like GW has.

This advantage is HUGE and until some other company can get there GW has easy time getting new blood even without any effort spent on rules writing(as AOS showed).

It's so bad you can go to non-GW games store and you might think that's GW store as it's GW products visible easily with other games on some less visible location on shelves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnnyHell wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yes. Because £38,000,000 profit in six months is the hallmark of all poorly run businesses.

You assume you need good game to sell miniatures though. GW games have never been what could be considered good. They make good profit DESPITE their games, not because of them.

You do know things sell on other factors than rules right?

Is your view. A lot of other people have enjoyed playing their games for 30+ years and consider many of them good. Don't present opinion as fact.

You do know people don't even have to think rules as perfect to play? Shocking concept: People can play games even if they are bad because there's other concepts that counterfact. Like models(not easily usable in other games), background(not usable in other games), opponents(good luck playing better games if nobody else play!). What a shocking novel concept! Who would have thought! You need opponents to play game with 2+ players required! UNBELIEVABLE!

Well I very much enjoy their games. 8th fantasy, AoS (all it's spin-offs) and Mordheim. Excellent fun.

I do want to see them hire more creatives. The more creatives, the more stuff I can buy!

Hear hear!

Also, about upping production, someone made a very good point at the thread's start that it'd be best to wait and have the sales stabilize before investing in something which may become superfluous and costly in the future.

The only way they can and should increase the number of shop staff is if the costs of doing business for the shops lowers and/or the profit (sales) per store goes up by a significant amount.

Otherwise a single big cash injection (lets face it 8th edition sales rates will not last forever) would be a bad time to expand shop staff and then find in a year or two that the money is gone; that it didn't generate much extra in sales/support and that they've then got to let staff go again to keep things running


Much as I'd love to see the shops staffed up by three or so staff again I just can't see it happening unless the highstreet has a huge change in rent/rates

I enjoy Age of sigmar(and it's lore). It is what got me into the hobby.

Oh don't worry about people putting the game down.

Just seems to be the in thing these days.

Yeah, unfortunately, tough to find a fandom these days which doesn't bite the hand that feeds them.

Oh well, just carry on and keep rolling the dice.

FudgeDumper wrote:

I really had to force myself to not be negative while writing this lest my emotions take over and remove all my credibility.

You failed.

There have been alot of blunders in the execution of 8th edition (personal peeves include the double-dipping in customers' wallets with the sales of the indexes and Chapter Approved), but the current ruleset is still the most functional rendition of 40K rules we've had since 5th edition, at least.

 JohnnyHell wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

 Tamereth wrote:
The best thing to happen to GW was something they had nothing to do with, and that was the fall in valve of the pound.
GW sell a lot of stuff abroad, and almost over night all of those sales were worth 1.5 times more to them.
So don't go congratulating them too much. Hopefully if they invest this profit boost correctly it will mean good things for the future, but they may just pay out a big dividend to their most important people, I.e. Their shareholders, cuz that's how plc companies operate.

Do you have information to back up this claim? The only thing I can find is in the last report which had included revenue as constant currency. Please cite source. Also interested in the "1.5 times figure", could not correlate the pound crash to any other foreign currency at that increase in value.

I can believe it. The company I was working at at the time exported books. We had the best trading day in the company's history the day after the Brexit vote, bigger than any Christmas by a large multiple, as the pound plummeted and suddenly everyone overseas chose us to buy from. So sales leapt and being paid in dollars meant the weak pound benefitted the company when they changed it back. This effect didn't go away.

Sorry if I wasn't really clear. I was asking for specifics to back up a fairly extravagant claim ("the best thing to happen to GW"). The only specifics I know of are GW directly addressing it in their last report by discussing revenue in normal versus constant currencies. Additionally, I can't locate a "1.5 times" figure of the GBP versus any of their major export currencies. For example, the GBP to USD exchange rate went from ~1.49 to ~1.21 during the four-month decline post-Brexit, hardly "worth 1.5 times more" (actually more like roughly 1.2 to 1.25 times more for the US market)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

FudgeDumper wrote:
And what this tells GW is that it can keep making worse and worse rules + fluff and still make profit. Hopefully this will cradle them into a false security and then BAM a death knell will hit them like never before. Oh sweet sweet death of GW I cant wait. Like the waiting for a hated old father to perish.

The captive IPs will be spread with the wind and not before then might they thrive again.

Your theory would hold water if the premise wasn't the opposite of reality.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
8th ed. Fantasy was the best rules set GW has ever produced. AOS is mindless drivel.

Yikes. WHFB 8th is not just subjectively bad (to the majority of gamers, hence it's financial failure), the ruleset itself is so badly written that it is an objectively bad ruleset. While I'm sure there's a market for anything, no matter how bad it is, it's obviously not a good one, as evidence by, you know, Warhammer 8th being excised like a tumor.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Aye. Fantasy 8th was great, but LotR had the best rules GW ever made. I kinda wish GW would do more with it.

They are ramping up for the re-release next year under the new branding, "Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game". They renewed the licenses for a decade and put a dedicated team of writers, developers, and sculptors into the property. There have been numerous new releases in the last year, all ramping up to the relaunch for 2018. The GW Middle-earth team actively participates on Facebook and in the SBG events worldwide, and has included the community in playtesting scenarios, rules changes, and more.

Long time lurking, first time posting, as this subject caught my eye.

It's true that the devaluation of the pound has helped people like GW immensely. I say "people" because they're not the only ones to have benefitted. Essentially all exporters (but not all manufacturers) have benefitted from it, as it represents in many cases a 10-20% discount for overseas custsomers (depending on the specific exchange rate at the time you make your purchase/which currency you're buying in etc).

The fashion line Burberry for example was headed down the long spiral towards administration until the Brexit triggered devaluation handed them a lifeline. Not much of a lifeline, because their business is still a hot mess, but they've seen sales in China rocket which offers them at least some hope for the future.

Aston Martin has seen a similar boost. Back in February they revised their EBITA (sort of profit, but excluding things like tax) to a figure five times what it had been compared to the same time the previous year. This was largely triggered by the devaluation coming along just months ahead of the launch of the DB11, which was massive for them, especially in asian markets like Japan.

If you look at the finanical figures for GW from last year, everything was kind of flat until the Brexit vote, then their sales went mental. Notably, their UK sales didn't budge much (their retail business was and still is a basket case). If you look at the US and EU sales to trade however (third party suppliers/FLGS etc) you'll see massive spikes in sales. Remember that these suppliers already get a hefty discount from GW and were then handed another 15% odd on top. They've basically filled their boots with GW product while it's going cheap and will likely continue to do so for the forseeable future.

The moral of the story being a) GW is doing handsomely at the minute, but b) don't expect them to go all warm and fuzzy and start doing nice things for you all of a sudden, they probably will pocket the cash their making now, and c) judging by the way they've worded their financial statements it's entirely plausible that they think most (90%) of this success was down to them and as such haven't accepted some of the underlying weaknesses in their business. See the thread about "Chapter Approved" for warning signs that they've learned nothing in the last twelve months.