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 Overread wrote:
However much or little the national and global economic changes have influenced this is up for debate; and chances are without pouring over a lot of numbers we'd not get anywhere near a sane opinion on the situation and its likely so complex that opinion is the best we'd get rather than straight fact.

Actually I don't think it'd be all that hard to paint a relatively detailed picture, I just don't have the free time to look up their financial reports and try and break it down.

Because GW didn't change their pricing in their biggest markets, you don't have to make massive assumptions about changes in demand due to changes in pricing with changing exchange rate (except for FW, but I think they give enough of a breakdown to quantify that uncertainty).

 Overread wrote:
Lets face it; clearly the change in the attitude and business and release practice of GW has resulted in a real world benefit in increased consumer loyalty; increased sales and increased open communication between GW and the customers.

For us gamers this is a great thing; it means a company paying more attention to us; it means changes in release patterns for the better of the game; it means continued model support and new releases.

.... Yes 8th isn't perfect; but this is their first go at it. Plus we've not yet seen it finished with all codex released. Then again when 9th edition comes we''ll have another chance to see how they handle that. By that point new codex releases would make sense after all the FAQ and Errata updates plus new releases over the years. We could even see a time when GW doesn't wholesale change all of the core game between editions. 9th might build upon 8th much stronger.

To an extent, I suspect it has. I just think that at the minute people are overestimating how much of an impact this has actually had and as such are misleading themselves about how much GW has actually learnt/the extent to which they're putting their talk into practice.

The company I work for does an annual staff survey for example. I doubt anyone will be surprised to hear that each year this survey reports back that everything is brilliant and the staff all love the business and the way it operates and that everyone thinks senior management are doing a brilliant job, despite the fact you don't hear much of that from the actual staff. It's a survey in name only. In reality they probably look at the results once then chuck them in bin, not least because the same general complaints crop up each time and never get solved. There's a significant difference between actual change and presenting change.

Looking at some of the other threads for example I see lots of complaints that SM will effectively have gained three new codexes before some of the Xenos even have one. That's old school games workshop in action and doesn't strike me as a company that has learned much or thought much about the future. Of course we've seen complaints that such and such unit is underpowered/overpowered/unbalanced/undercosted/overcosted and all the usual, which in fairness would probably happen to some degree no matter how perfectly balanced the game was in reality because people like their factions and want them to do well, but the amount of complaining suggests that GW still has some room to grow when it comes to working out balance issues. I'm just not convinced personally that this is a major turning of a corner as much as it is switching lanes on the same highway. 9th edition will be interesting though, for example whether they address this issue around the order of codex releases.

Either way, cash wise they're in rude health and their business model is more resiliant than people think to downturns. Arguments about GW's business is never really about whether or not they'll make money, it's more about how much profit can they/will they/would they make.

Looking at some of the other threads for example I see lots of complaints that SM will effectively have gained three new codexes before some of the Xenos even have one. That's old school games workshop in action and doesn't strike me as a company that has learned much or thought much about the future.

But you have to factor in that Space Marines make an insane % of all GW's sales. So on that score it makes full sense that GW would support the larger portion of its buying market as early as possible.
It's a kind of self fullfilling issue in that Marines sell well so GW markets them more so they sell more so GW markets them more --

That said this round its far less of an issue than in the past. In the past armies went years or never got a new codex for some editions. This time we are looking at being completed early next year. By GW standards that's an insane speed of release; ontop of that the index, whilst not perfect, have done a big job of at least ensuring all armies are valid for 8th edition at a basic level.

I don't expect GW to respond to every user request or get it right every time, but I do think they are taking steps that many have wanted and have made some big changes to their release method and approach.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Forums are so binary... it's not an either/or.

The Brexit effect is that sales they would have made anyway will have 100% definitely made them more money via currency exchange shenanigans. Weak pound = exports get you more money, and sales are more profitable. Of course they didn't pass that on to wholesalers/retailers and lower their prices! They kept it. No visible outward change + currency benefit = profit.

That they have delivered two revamped game systems, a bunch of splash releases and their best models for donkeys years in that time and driven sales up too is why the figures look so damn good.

It's not one or the other, both are reasons for the upswing.

yeah ,this was already explained before. The real profit is 38,3 (up from 16,9), while the profit in constant currency is 31,3 (up from 16,9 obviously). So, we can see that while the brexit had an effect, it clearly was not the main driver of the growth since it only contributed to about a 1/3 of the rise in profit (this is taking as an hypothesis that retailers and distributors outside the UK can't buy directly from GW UK).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bouncingboredom wrote:

streetsamurai wrote:
GW
UK growth being weak after the Brexit compared to the other market probably is due to the difficult economic situation it caused in this country. Since GW stuff is pure hobby expense, it's pretty much the first thing that gets cut when the budget is a bit tighter

The UK is doing well. Being British we like to complain about everything, particularly first world problems; "Ugh, it's so expensive now to take the kids abroad during the school holidays". Poor didums. The reality is that GW has had a rough time in recent years. They're headed in a better direction lately, but there's still a long way to go to unwind some of the mistakes of the past.

Benn Roe wrote:
No, I'm a current retailer. I opened my shop in 2009. GW's prices in the US, both direct from them and from all other major distributors, have remained completely unchanged since their last big price hike back in 2012 or 2013 or so. Have you considered the possibility that Australia's growth was lower because by all accounts GW's prices over there are obscene, which limits growth potential, and that the UK's growth was lower because GW is much more of a household name over there, meaning a much higher percentage of the potential market is already tapped? Those seem like more plausible explanations to me, considering Brexit had zero effect on US prices at any level of the supply chain. I can't speak for the EU, though.

To put some perspective on how much the UK market still has left in it, when I first started playing 40K (2nd edition, aging myself a little) they used to run TV adverts, had distribution deals with major high street retailers, and gaming groups exclusive to GW products were everywhere with very solid numbers (our school, in a fairly small town 10 miles from the nearest GW store had 20 regulars at the group and a lot more people who played but didn't attend the group). Now they're running with one-man stores for the most part. They're a long way from their heyday, but with the right approach they could probably get back there.

Anyway, to the point. I did some very, very crude number crunching and by using what I think is a more realistic constant currency adjustor you get figures from the US and EU which are much more comparable with those from the rest of the world, still showing good growth in underlying sales (new stores, new products like AOS handbook, recovering from a rough year in 2015/16) but a little less hyperbolic shall we say. Smiles all round

Red_Five wrote:What is far more likely is that the management changes have pushed consumer confidence up. GW's core games are in a much healthier position today than they have been in probably 5 years or more. GW focusing on social media, GW focusing on sharing information, GW offering more bundles (with good discounts), GW releasing a more well rounded 40k game system, GW releasing lots of codexes, GW updating and FAQing on a consistent basis, etc. are all playing into this. GW has entered the 21st century and is embracing modernity. The buying public has very much rewarded GW for doing this.

I wouldn't hold your breath on that. I see a lot of peope grumbling already and it hasn't even been out that long. Any new release like this - especially of a game as important as 40K - is basically a license to print money. The volume orders from 3rd party retailers alone would have generated some healthy profits. Much hinges on where they go from here, in particular their strategy for retail outlets. It'll be an interesting next couple of years for sure.

the UK economy is not doing well, disposable income (probably the most important variable when it comes to hobby budget) supposedly have been falling for 19 successive quarters. Even if you want to contradict the veracity of most indicators, fact is, that at the very least, the perception is that the UK economy is not doing well, and that perception makes people a lot more reluctant to spend on luxury good.

Everything's fine!

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/30/britons-savings-at-record-low-as-household-incomes-drop-says-ons

 streetsamurai wrote:
the UK economy is not doing well, disposable income (probably the most important variable when it comes to hobby budget) supposedly have been falling for 19 successive quarters. Even if you want to contradict the veracity of most indicators, fact is, that at the very least, the perception is that the UK economy is not doing well, and that perception makes people a lot more reluctant to spend on luxury good.

I think it'll hit expensive luxury goods (TV's, high end computers, new cars, etc.) before it hits cheap hobby items like GW products.

The good thing about GW products in an economic crisis is they're a huge time sink for a relatively small money investment. While personally I think that's a horrible metric for hobby value, when purse strings start to tighten it's a good fall back hobby until you're so poor that you can only afford to stare at a wall.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
the UK economy is not doing well, disposable income (probably the most important variable when it comes to hobby budget) supposedly have been falling for 19 successive quarters. Even if you want to contradict the veracity of most indicators, fact is, that at the very least, the perception is that the UK economy is not doing well, and that perception makes people a lot more reluctant to spend on luxury good.

I think it'll hit expensive luxury goods (TV's, high end computers, new cars, etc.) before it hits cheap hobby items like GW products.

The good thing about GW products in an economic crisis is they're a huge time sink for a relatively small money investment. While personally I think that's a horrible metric for hobby value, when purse strings start to tighten it's a good fall back hobby until you're so poor that you can only afford to stare at a wall.

high end computer and cars have value besise their hobby aspect, while gW mnis does not.

And I would say a 40k army is much more expensive than a tv. I seriously get gonfused when I hear people calling GW a cheap hobby

Need to compare it to sports and that.

Whilst we tend to keep on buying, the actual necessary cost to get established in GW games is pretty reasonable compared to many other hobbies.

of course you can always find more expensive ones, but compared to most other hobbies, GW is far from cheap

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
the UK economy is not doing well, disposable income (probably the most important variable when it comes to hobby budget) supposedly have been falling for 19 successive quarters. Even if you want to contradict the veracity of most indicators, fact is, that at the very least, the perception is that the UK economy is not doing well, and that perception makes people a lot more reluctant to spend on luxury good.

I think it'll hit expensive luxury goods (TV's, high end computers, new cars, etc.) before it hits cheap hobby items like GW products.

The good thing about GW products in an economic crisis is they're a huge time sink for a relatively small money investment. While personally I think that's a horrible metric for hobby value, when purse strings start to tighten it's a good fall back hobby until you're so poor that you can only afford to stare at a wall.

It'll be a long time until I stare at a wall with my unpainted collection......

 streetsamurai wrote:
of course you can always find more expensive ones, but compared to most other hobbies, GW is far from cheap

£16 for a Blood bowl team? £20 for Necromunda? £14 for Shadespire?

let's not pretend that these are the bread and butter of GW (not to mention that Necro and Shadespire has nothing to do with the financial results we're discussing, since they were not even released at the time). ANd you for most (all) of these games, you also need to buy the main boxed set.

ANyway, no point in discussing this since it's obvious you're disingenuous

 streetsamurai wrote:
of course you can always find more expensive ones, but compared to most other hobbies, GW is far from cheap

I disagree. You can get a full GW army for less than £500 - if you plan your spending.

If you play a sport, you need your sportswear, which wears out. You also need a pitch or what have you to play on. Those aren't always free, and represent an on-going cost that Wargaming doesn't typically have.

To 'get better' at a Wargame, you might need a new unit or two, change up the dynamic of your army. To 'get better' at a sport? £200 on a pair of football boots. Oh, and super-duper-ultra-light-weight shin pads - those'll be a bit more cash.

Now, that's not to say GW games are cheap - £500 remains £500. But compared to a lot of other stuff, especially when you take into account it's rare any army can't still be used three or four years later?

I don't agree.
Most sport I've done (boxing, weightlifting, wrestling, soccer) cost me a lot less annually than what I spend on GW games (hell with the current price of GW mini, adding an unit or two might well cost you 200 pounds :lol

Anyway, we're getting off topic, but let's just agree that a game that need an initial investment of pretty much a 1000$ is not exactly cheap

Most hobbies scale in price. You can be into football for the cost of a football from the toy store or you can spend a small fortune.

Which is how it can get complicated comparing because its so easy to be arguing with multiple different impressions on "how much" it takes to take part.

 streetsamurai wrote:
let's not pretend that these are the bread and butter of GW (not to mention that Necro and Shadespire has nothing to do with the financial results we're discussing, since they were not even released at the time). ANd you for most (all) of these games, you also need to buy the main boxed set.

ANyway, no point in discussing this since it's obvious you're disingenuous

Not disingenuous at all. We're talking about if GW can be a cheap hobby. I've listed the cheap options available.

I'm not talking about this report or anything else - you said you were confused when people said it could be cheap. Those are 3 games where it's very cheap.

A £40 get started box would keep me busy painting for hours and hours - obviously need paints on top of that.

A £60 - £70 board game is self contained hours of fun. That's what Warhammer quest games were right?

As someone with 0 completed 40k/AoS armies I can tell you there are lots of ways to spend with GW that doesn't involve hundreds going on a playable army.

yeah, and collecting luxury car can be cheap too, if you steal them. But, as for your example, it is not what people have in mind when they talk about this hobby

Ah, yeah, if we discount all the cheap ways you can participate in the hobby then it is an expensive hobby.

Overread wrote:
But you have to factor in that Space Marines make an insane % of all GW's sales. So on that score it makes full sense that GW would support the larger portion of its buying market as early as possible.
It's a kind of self fullfilling issue in that Marines sell well so GW markets them more so they sell more so GW markets them more

True, they're a huge deal. They could still have released the basic SM codex first, hammered through the Xenos, then started on the BA etc. That way the marine players have something basic to work with, then get their fancy stuff later. It's certainly an improvement that some factions won't have to wait 2+ years to get their books for a change. I do wonder though if GW is aware of the kind of self-fulfilling nature of not giving codex releases to an army sooner? It happened with WFB as I understand it, where certain factions that were left in the cold for multiple editions saw their sales plummet, so GW waited even longer to give them books and the cycle continued....

streetsamurai wrote: the UK economy is not doing well, disposable income (probably the most important variable when it comes to hobby budget) supposedly have been falling for 19 successive quarters. Even if you want to contradict the veracity of most indicators, fact is, that at the very least, the perception is that the UK economy is not doing well, and that perception makes people a lot more reluctant to spend on luxury good.

I live in the UK. Trust me, the economy is doing well. Is it doing brilliant? No. Could it be better? Absolutely. Are the politicians helping? No, they never do. But things are solid. The economy is growing. Unemployment is at a record low level. Today at work we hit our sales target for the week, with two days left. That's something like 40 weeks in a row that we've consistently beaten the target (based off last years sales). You can see lots of people out and about, spending money. To be frank, this country has become quite entitled in many ways. People moan because they're stuck with a 42" TV instead of a 60". They moan because their phone bill is a few pounds more expensive per month, never stopping to consider that maybe they don't need an auto-upgrade every 12 months to the latest generation iPhone, with 4G and x number of roving data. Yet everyone keeps spending.

Vorian wrote:Everything's fine!

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/30/britons-savings-at-record-low-as-household-incomes-drop-says-ons

The amusing thing about this is I mentioned the Guardian newspaper as one that has a specific and quite vitriolic agenda, and then you dropped that also note that this article was warning about slowing growth, then the next quarter growth increased...

streetsamurai wrote: And I would say a 40k army is much more expensive than a tv. I seriously get gonfused when I hear people calling GW a cheap hobby

Depends what TV you're buying GW is a relatively cheap hobby considering how much it costs vs the time you get out of it. Consider that tickets to a Prem football match now are often the cost of a starting boxed set. I paid over £100 each time, including travel and food, to go and watch the NFL at Wembley. That's for what, 3 hours of entertainment? How much did some people pay to watch the Mayweather/McGregor fight? Look at how much a set of golf clubs costs. Or a "day" of paintballing. Go Kart racing. Think how much people spend on just a round of drinks at the pub, sometimes several nights per week. In the grand scheme of things GW is not super expensive.

Another advantage for GW is that a lot of their customers essentially have complete disposable income. Teenagers don't pay heating bills or the weekly shop. Most of them can't even be coaxed into buying deoderant. They will however fork out £40 on a fairly routine basis for the latest video game they've spotted. The entry cost of GW games might seem high, but again, how much does an Xbox or Playstation cost new? Not saying that GW couldn't do with dropping their prices a little, but it's not super expensive for anyone with even a modest income (talking minimum wage, full time) and who knows how to look after their cash a little.

Won't try to pass as a specialist in the economic health of the UK, but unemployement rate is one of the worst indicator to use. It doesn't accout for the people who stop actively looking for a job (in period of recession, a lot of people simply quit the labor force), nor those it account for the quality of the jobs created.

Disposable income is a much more meaningful indicator imo.

 streetsamurai wrote:
Won't try to pass as a specialist in the economic health of the UK, but unemployement rate is one of the worst indicator to use. It doesn't accout for the people who stop actively looking for a job (in period of recession, a lot of people simply quit the labor force), nor those it account for the quality of the jobs created.

Disposable income is a much more meaningful indicator imo.

Then you'll be pleased to know that the number and level of active participants in the economy are also at a record high levels.

bouncingboredom wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
Won't try to pass as a specialist in the economic health of the UK, but unemployement rate is one of the worst indicator to use. It doesn't accout for the people who stop actively looking for a job (in period of recession, a lot of people simply quit the labor force), nor those it account for the quality of the jobs created.

Disposable income is a much more meaningful indicator imo.

Then you'll be pleased to know that the number and level of active participants in the economy are also at a record high levels.

You know the amount of activity an individual has to do to count as being an active participant in the economy?

1 hour of unpaid work.

That’s why the government can claim we have record levels of employment, while at the same time we see food bank usage surge exponentially, homelessness double, child poverty going up and up, and productivity in the toilet.

This isn't even controversial, all indicators show our economy is doing badly - compared to the global picture (which is bad itself).

There are lots of independent reports that will explain how assets are overvalued, real incomes are declining, child poverty is increasing, productivity is terrible, growth forecast went off a cliff after Brexit, private pensions had 40% of their value taken by QE, austerity is causing deaths, etc

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Need to compare it to sports and that.

Whilst we tend to keep on buying, the actual necessary cost to get established in GW games is pretty reasonable compared to many other hobbies.

A 1500 point army bought direct from GW costs about the same as a mid-high range gaming pc depending on the army in question. Considering how many people consider that an extravagant hobby compared to say consoles, and I think it's pretty clear this isn't a hobby anyone can easily enter on a whim.

Specialists games have a lower barrier to entry, but that actually circles back around to reinstating specialists games being a smart move that let GW take less impact from an economic downturn resulting in less disposable income. Buying an army second hand is also cheaper, but wouldn't factor into GW financials except in by taking away sales as people turned towards being used due to tighter budgets (not to mention more people selling them off as they need cash).

General Kroll wrote:
You know the amount of activity an individual has to do to count as being an active participant in the economy?

1 hour of unpaid work.

That’s why the government can claim we have record levels of employment, while at the same time we see food bank usage surge exponentially, homelessness double, child poverty going up and up, and productivity in the toilet.

No, we're talking about people that are in paid employment, or who work unpaid in a family business and are considered to derive a benefit from doing so (i.e. a teenager living with their parents and working for them). Meanwhile the PMI (purchasing managers index - a survey of business confidence) has consistently been higher this year than the same point in the previous year. The PMI of manufacturers (no idea if GW is on that list btw) hit a 5 year high in november, driven by quarterly growth of 2% in the sector. Manufacturing orders for UK firms are at their highest rate since 1988.

As for food banks, one of my sisters is a single mum, three kids, low income. Times she's had to use a food bank = 0. Why? Because she works hard and she spends smart. Still able to afford a number of what we might call luxury items. There's some people out there who desperately need the help provided by food banks. The trouble is they're being stigmatised because there's also a hell of a lot of scummy people out there using them who don't need to, but are taking advantage of the free goodies. Homelessness and child poverty are also two factors which are well known for having poor causation with wider economic health. Lot of homeless people living in countries that are doing fantastically economically and in cities that are wealthy.

Vorian wrote:This isn't even controversial, all indicators show our economy is doing badly - compared to the global picture (which is bad itself). There are lots of independent reports that will explain how assets are overvalued, real incomes are declining, child poverty is increasing, productivity is terrible, growth forecast went off a cliff after Brexit, private pensions had 40% of their value taken by QE, austerity is causing deaths, etc

Except our economy is growing. Could it grow faster? Yep. But to say it's doing badly is ridiculous. As was explained earlier, our real incomes have been tremendous over the last few years as we've enjoyed above inflation pay rises each year in the private sector and very low inflation, inflation that at one point was so critically low that the economy almost went into deflation (ask someone from Japan how bad that is...). Now that it's starting to nudge back the other way some people are having a fit because they can't have their cake and eat it any more.

And judging by your last comment about austerity, I'm guessing your a labour voter? In which case, I get that you might not like the tory government. There's not a lot to like about them, they're something of a shower, especially lately. But as angry as you might be about them, you can't seriously argue that the economy is doing badly. Economies in recession are doing badly. Economies that are crawling along with virtually no annual growth are doing badly. Economies that are growing like ours are doing good. Yes it could do better, but if you think our annual growth is "bad", "terrible", or any similar negative then frankly you need to get real. It's like a spoiled child complaining that their pocket money is only going up by 1.5% instead of the 1.7 they'd hoped for. Take the pocket money away and they'd soon see what "bad" looks like.

SilverAlien wrote:A 1500 point army bought direct from GW costs about the same as a mid-high range gaming pc depending on the army in question.

How much is a brand new console now, especially at release? New PS4 with one game seems to come in at over £200. You can get a decent amount of GW product for that price.

And any of that is on topic... how?

Thanks for clearing up that only scummy people use foodbanks.

Wow, this is really running off the rails.

Either talk about GeeDub's stock performance or go argue economics in the OT Forum.

A choose your poison situation if I've ever seen it.

Lorek wrote:Wow, this is really running off the rails.

Either talk about GeeDub's stock performance or go argue economics in the OT Forum.

I assumed we were trying to establish the approximate baseline state of the UK economy, along with the general affordability of GW miniatures, as these two factors will (along with others) have a big impact on GW sales and as such their stock value?

My argument is that the UK economy is doing ok and that chatter about its imminent demise is mainly driven by people with agendas, predominantly political, and not a rational analysis of the actual state of the economy (which sums up the problem with economics in a nutshell), and as such we should expect decent christmas sales by GW here in the UK. The two factors that might work against them that I'd be more worried about if I was GW would be the reaction to the new Chapter Approved book, which might turn some people off spending until their codex arrives next year, and the fact that it's probably going to be quite a snowy christmas period (starting now) which could hurt retail sales tremendously (for those that don't know, UK infrastructure copes about as well with snow as flak armour does with lascannon hits, though it has been getting a bit better in recent years).

GW stock price already seems to have past its zenith for the year, but the half year figures come out in early January so they shouldn't drop off too far. It will be interesting to watch the price movement till then because it could give us clues about how investors rate the risk of reduced sales due to the wintery weather.

JohnnyHell wrote:And any of that is on topic... how? Thanks for clearing up that only scummy people use foodbanks.

Someone raised those issues as economic indicators, so surely it's correct to assess and respond? I'm also pretty sure I didn't say what your claiming. Let's have a look; "There's some people out there who desperately need the help provided by food banks. The trouble is they're being stigmatised because there's also a hell of a lot of scummy people out there using them who don't need to, but are taking advantage of the free goodies". Emphasis added.

Just recently started posting and already defying a mod warning. You'll fit in just fine around here, bb.