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 NAVARRO wrote:
Funny if GW extrapolates from the sales boost that the gaming side of things is not that relevant.

I think this is good news overall for GW.

GW have reported for years that their sales are to collectors, this last year would seek to have backed this point somewhat but clearly playing will still be a relevant proportion of their sales.

 Aenar wrote:
I'd say our hobby is not going to face a crisis anytime soon.

The crisis may come when things start getting back to normal. If companies overstretch to meet demand and then demand starts tanking.


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 notprop wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Funny if GW extrapolates from the sales boost that the gaming side of things is not that relevant.

I think this is good news overall for GW.

GW have reported for years that their sales are to collectors, this last year would seek to have backed this point somewhat but clearly playing will still be a relevant proportion of their sales.

I think it's been the idea of a game that gets a lot of people to buy stuff. I think if the game dies, a lot of people who are supposedly collectors will stop buying.

I can say for my end I am getting things here and there to finish off projects I had on the go. I can't imagine I'm the only one who thought that with all the time at home.

Given that perspective, I'd also be willing to bet they'll see a downturn once actual life can commence in normal fashion again.

For now, very good for them. However I think this news will just push them to ever inflating costs for the products thinking it will never impact them and given the numbers, for now, they may be correct.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Aenar wrote:
I'd say our hobby is not going to face a crisis anytime soon.

The crisis may come when things start getting back to normal. If companies overstretch to meet demand and then demand starts tanking.


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 notprop wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Funny if GW extrapolates from the sales boost that the gaming side of things is not that relevant.

I think this is good news overall for GW.

GW have reported for years that their sales are to collectors, this last year would seek to have backed this point somewhat but clearly playing will still be a relevant proportion of their sales.

I think it's been the idea of a game that gets a lot of people to buy stuff. I think if the game dies, a lot of people who are supposedly collectors will stop buying.

The games were conceived as a framework, giving people a way to structure their collections. Apparently Bryan Ansell noticing "army" sets selling well was the impetus for writing WFB.

My understanding was that selling RPG models meant that typically somebody maybe bought 3 Orc Archers, and they wanted to give people a reason to buy 20, hence a rank and file game was born.

I can say for sure if there was no game I'd get rid of many of my models and wouldn't buy a new one. I can also say if there was no game I never would have bought even model 1 from them. Yet again I don't think I'm the only one of that mindset so I think the game is a huge motivator for their product as well their rule books must make them enough money as they sell plenty of them, just churning them out.

It's both, not either-or. The gaming aspect appeals to some and the collecting side appeals to others... It's a big Venn diagram, with the collector circle being bigger than the gamer circle with a significant amount of cross-over.

Oh I'm sure they'd be around a bit with collectors but I know not 1 person who buys their models just for the models sake and all of them for the game aspect. Anecdotal but telling for me.

Well of course. You just stated that gaming is your primary concern so you have obviously surrounded yourself with those kinds of people. Which is fine, and you recognise it's anecdotal.

Personally I’ve used the time to get more painted, in danger of having a full painted 4k AoS army by summer!

Purchasing wise , I’m better off - thankfully my employment has not been effected by the crisis, spending less on petrol , less overall. I found during last year that a lot of rare stuff cropped up on the secondary market and at FLGS online as places and people cleared out - I got hold of Deathwatch Overkill , Betrayal At Calth, at RRP prices.

With FLGS availability , my local basically ordered the entire range as soon as they could as things improved last year . A lot of FLGS just don’t hold enough stock and rely on customers waiting, which works when customers are coming back week on week to game , but with a background in the U.K. of changing rules and government messaging.

 kodos wrote:

Kitane wrote:
I am glad to see they are doing so well in the Covid and Brexit combo grip of death, they are quite vulnerable to both of them.

How is GW vulnerable to Brexit?

they are one of the few to provit from not being part of the single market any more as they can now enforce the same restrictions from buying from the UK as they do with others

Well for example I have to cut GW purchaces as hobby became 24% more expensive for me.

That's why I spent last year buying tons of model. I can afford to buy less this year.

 Overread wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Funny if GW extrapolates from the sales boost that the gaming side of things is not that relevant.

I think this is good news overall for GW.

Funny but flawed. I'd wager long term if there were no games many would slowly move on. It works know because its a short term break in games. Take them away and its like AoS at launch

Agreed.

At some point, people run out of shelf space.

 Hollow wrote:
It's both, not either-or. The gaming aspect appeals to some and the collecting side appeals to others... It's a big Venn diagram, with the collector circle being bigger than the gamer circle with a significant amount of cross-over.

I'd suggest the cross over region is bigger than either of the individual circles.

You have gamers who wouldn't buy if the models were just tokens, and you have collectors who wouldn't buy if there was no option to play a game with them.


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JSG wrote:
The games were conceived as a framework, giving people a way to structure their collections. Apparently Bryan Ansell noticing "army" sets selling well was the impetus for writing WFB.

I could believe that, of course that was almost 40 years ago and not only is the customer base orders of magnitude larger, I'd say the demographic of GW buyers has shifted significantly.

Well I think the proof is in the data. Record sales in a year when for large parts of that year, in the biggest gaming markets, it was largely impossible to play games with any frequency.

So I would say undoubtedly that the 'hobby' side of collecting, building, painting must be enough for a large part of that customer market.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Funny if GW extrapolates from the sales boost that the gaming side of things is not that relevant.

I think this is good news overall for GW.

Funny but flawed. I'd wager long term if there were no games many would slowly move on. It works know because its a short term break in games. Take them away and its like AoS at launch

Agreed.

At some point, people run out of shelf space.

I believe at that point people buy extra rooms for them to go in!

Oddly, GW's share price started dropping yesterday...

 Pacific wrote:
Well I think the proof is in the data. Record sales in a year when for large parts of that year, in the biggest gaming markets, it was largely impossible to play games with any frequency.

So I would say undoubtedly that the 'hobby' side of collecting, building, painting must be enough for a large part of that customer market.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Funny if GW extrapolates from the sales boost that the gaming side of things is not that relevant.

I think this is good news overall for GW.

Funny but flawed. I'd wager long term if there were no games many would slowly move on. It works know because its a short term break in games. Take them away and its like AoS at launch

Agreed.

At some point, people run out of shelf space.

I believe at that point people buy extra rooms for them to go in!

My kids are about to start college, soon to have three more rooms besides the basement and garage to store my plastics, though I might allow my wife a room for her home office .

Not a big surprise, we can only go to work , get food and other supplies and then go home, no getting together to actually play any miniature games. all that time sitting at home means you have plenty of time to build and paint those things you always wanted to do.

I myself did not add to any of GWs profits as all of my latest purchases were for old used epic minis, and 3rd party replacements, along with a bunch of various terrain. for a variety of games.

tneva82 wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Kitane wrote:
I am glad to see they are doing so well in the Covid and Brexit combo grip of death, they are quite vulnerable to both of them.

How is GW vulnerable to Brexit?

they are one of the few to provit from not being part of the single market any more as they can now enforce the same restrictions from buying from the UK as they do with others

Well for example I have to cut GW purchaces as hobby became 24% more expensive for me.

That's why I spent last year buying tons of model. I can afford to buy less this year.

but this is not the fault of Brexit but GW's prices being too high and as we don't know the margin of the regional priced products, GW might as well end up with more money from you although you bought less

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Wonder what plans might be afoot (if any) to capitalise on that? As there’s an argument to be made that this is more a front loading of sales, which could see a corresponding drop in months to come, due to people just bringing forward previously future plans.

The flip side is that GWs release schedule has slowed significantly and that there is lots of product in the pipeline that needs to be released. New releases drive sales, so even if there has been a "frontloading" effect going on, theres likely not going to be much of a slowdown as theres plenty of "new hotness" following it down the line. Also keep in mind that there seems to be excess demand relative to the supply of many of GW's products - Indomitus and the Battleforces being the most obvious examples, and that isn't entirely because of decreased production capacity resulting from COVID (at least as far as Indomitus is concerned, most of the production run for that was done before COVID hit and the lockdowns were initiated).

It's actually also interesting that by and large (speaking for the EU and US here as I know many parts of the world are doing better) this is against the backdrop of not really being able to do large tournaments and events through 2020. This would indicate (and is something that I have suspected, over many years of following the hobby) that a large proportion of hobbyists are involved to collect, model and paint the miniatures with playing as a secondary concern (or perhaps not even a concern at all).
I wonder if GW have ever conducted any internal market research on this? It would be interesting to know the what % of miniatures never get near a wargaming table, or if they do so it is very infrequently. I suspect that % might be very high *

They have, its been known for quite some time (though the exact numbers are not public, and many feel the accuracy of it is suspect) that hobbyists and collectors drive the majority of GWs revenue as opposed to gamers, but it seems the health of the game has a direct correlation to GWs non-game sales as the game acts as a "face" for the company which provides essentially free marketing in shops and venues, etc. I'm surprised you're unaware of this, as its mentioned in quite a few of their financial reports and there was a big controversy amongst the community a few years back when the previous CEO of the company essentially (if you squint real hard while reading between the lines) told the gaming community to get fethed because he made most of his money off of people that didn't play the game.

Supposedly, part of the reason that the hobbyists and collectors are such a big chunk of revenue is their shopping habits, in that they tend to buy direct, either online or through GWs official stores, which means a better margin for GW, whereas it seems the majority of gamers are frugal scummy lowlifes that buy discounted product through 3rd parties via online discounters, as well as eBay and buying peoples old collections, etc.

I think also many collectors dream of playing and for various reasons never or only rarely get too. So having it is important, take it away and they've no casual hook to stick to GW products over others.

Indeed with 3D printing and the big comptition on the market I'd be worried if my main consumer base was collectors who don't have to maintain brand loyalty



Plus don't forget "collector" or "gamer" are loaded terms. Many might consider themselves a Collector but play regularly. They just only play casual/not very well/not at major events. In other words what a person classifies themselves as might not be accurate and GW can only have an idea of gamer numbers at their own stores or marketed events; the garage/basement games are an unknown.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I'd suggest the cross over region is bigger than either of the individual circles

Perhaps, but we don't really know... Except for Gw saying that it's the case that collecters make up the majority of their sales for a number of years and sales massively increasing during a period where you can't really play. but nvm.

 Hollow wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I'd suggest the cross over region is bigger than either of the individual circles

Perhaps, but we don't really know... Except for Gw saying that it's the case that collecters make up the majority of their sales for a number of years and sales massively increasing during a period where you can't really play. but nvm.

But players can also collect and build during covid lockdowns. Without a lot of study of the customers GW can't easily tell which market is buying more right now.

"Defies Nurgle with sales"...? You mean "Nurgle blesses GW with sales!"

Pretty good proof that matched play and specifically the tournament scene are significantly smaller than they'd like to believe. (Personally I've played more games at home with my gaming pod in the last year than in any year of gaming! Though a renewed interest in Warmaster has sidelined 40k a little bit)

I’m not entirely convinced by that line of thought.

If anything, it only points to people partaking in the wider Hobby purely for the competitive scene are quite few.

It also points to the build/paint thing having a nearer universal appeal than the other aspects.

We don’t have enough info to say much more. Are people buying lots of kits? Or, with their more restricted leisure spending options, just going for the more expensive, project kits (ref Knights and Teclis and that). We don’t know, because GW don’t, and have never, broken their sales down more than by region. Not even by gaming system.

I would have to imagine many people have my mindset. We don't know when we'll be sure to get in game time, so, why not collect things to use when we can ? Finish off projects and be ready more so for when that time arrives ?

I'd say as well I've tried to get things now and then just to help my flgs during this time to support where has supported me with place to play and meet up with friends through the years.It's a complex thing but I highly doubt it will go on forever at this point. Unless you live the game/hobby eventually people do get to enough.

This may not bode well for anyone working in the retail arm. The conceit of their cost being offset by their role as recruitment centres and advertising may attract some fairly serious scrutiny given that GW has broken records with the majority of their retail estate acting as little more than shiny parcel collection points for a good bit of the trading period.

Well no store is going to run off GW alone but for their stores and if GW decides to close up more of their stores that will only bode better for none GW stores that still carry their product. Honestly GW could afford to probably shutter some store fronts and let FLGS take over the work. So long as we can last it out those on the other side should be sitting pretty as people want to live life again. That is what I am looking forward to.

 Azreal13 wrote:
This may not bode well for anyone working in the retail arm. The conceit of their cost being offset by their role as recruitment centres and advertising may attract some fairly serious scrutiny given that GW has broken records with the majority of their retail estate acting as little more than shiny parcel collection points for a good bit of the trading period.

No these stats won't do that.
The stats that would do that would be if GW stores fail to recover at year or three after covid safety measures are removed.

Right now ANY store is going to show higher online sales over physical because even when stores were open many were still avoiding due to Corona risk. The only ones that will buck the trend will be food outlets and anywhere that latched onto essential supplies. Plus don't forget a huge amount of this sales drive is likely established and returned customers, not new ones. So sure GW could cut the stores, but they'd lose recruitment. Plus if the majority are collectors/painters (as some argue), then GW would be on very fragile footing in the long term. Don't forget for the majority of the market, GW is the gateway brand/product. All the others mostly rely on leaching off GW. So if GW stops stores and dials back on them then they lose a powerful marketing and recruitment tool. They have to rely on 3rd parties like all of GW's competition.


There's no denying that the highstreet isn't good even before corona, but GW has made it work and turning back on it would be only a short term saving with potential increased costs in the long term in how GW would get fresh customers.

GW philosophy is that most sales are online, but the retail arm keeps the hobby in the public eye.
GW retail is not there to make money except near Christmas, its there to keep focus over the competition.

Its basically LARP advertising and a meeting point for like minds..