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ccs wrote:


GW simply makes a product people want & they know how to market it.

The glorious chairman would like to know how does that theory apply to stuff like Finecast?

ccs wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
This morning, as I edited a paper for a journal. I listened to a few popular Youtube channel videos. One concerned what the content creator considered is good and bad about 9th edition 40K. Scrolling through the comments, I came to this one, which I paste as a direct quote, here:
This company succeeds because a long time ago some genuinely passionate people wrote some kickass lore. That is the only reason people don't leave this game in droves. Nowadays the company succeeds in spite of itself. We love the IP too much to leave and they are our abusive spouse.

Ah, this crap again.

GW simply makes a product people want & they know how to market it.

As for any of you who think you're being abused by the eeevil toy company? There's plenty of options:
There's the door. You can walk away anytime you please. GW will never know. Or care. (As long as they make x $ in the end, it's all good)
You could discuss things with the people you play with & come up with some house rules.
Is co$t is the root of your issues? There's plenty of options that'll reduce that.

But if you're stupid enough to continue playing games you don't like, in ways you don't like, in environs you don't like? Well, that's a YOU problem.

Umm, maybe you failed to read the last bit of the original post, about please being constructive … actually, it seems that you failed to read the original quote or perhaps you did read it but failed to comprehend? Your comment here diverges a good deal from the point of the original quote. Maybe this is a YOU problem? Freeman would describe it as an attractor basin in your brain that forces the misinterpretation of such things, because what comes in falls into a ready made attractor in your brain… think of it as a prejudice, or as a hole in your head that sucks things into it that do not belong there.

Regardless, poll results as of now are currently pretty strongly in the True column…

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
False. They are successful because their miniatures are the best looking ones on the market. Simple.

When other companies' miniatures become better looking than GW ones for the majority, GW's success, and "monopoly", will fade away.

Simple. Quality of the games they sell does matter a bit but it's not the main factor for their success.

That's very subjective.

Considering GW's miniatures the best looking ones of course is. But other games have become popular at some point then died or had a drastic drop of their popularity, as they became popular becuse players were fond of the game, not the miniatures. GW ones are always extremely popular, even when the game is universally considered "bad", or at least not a really good one. And even when the lore isn't particularly like by the community, see all the primaris stuff: terrible lore, tons of enthusiasts about the models. Or anything AoS related.

GW's miniatures sell a lot, many people just buy from GW (or 2nd hand GW models) even if they don't want to play with their games and even when GW destroys the lore. It doesn't happen with other companies, not in these numbers.

 jeff white wrote:

Regardless, poll results as of now are currently pretty strongly in the True column…

59% out of 82 poll responses isn't a strong result. At best it's a very slim majority. Strong would be 70-80% out of 100-200 responses.

If GW succeeds in spite of itself, how has it been on the brink of collapse and bankruptcy before, only to pull back?

Also how has it more recently grown its business to a hundredfold of what it was during those "good old days", nostalgia to which allegedly drives it business?

Sunny Side Up wrote:
If GW succeeds in spite of itself, how has it been on the brink of collapse and bankruptcy before, only to pull back?

Also how has it more recently grown its business to a hundredfold of what it was during those "good old days", nostalgia to which allegedly drives it business?

One man stores. Retreat from high street.

Retreating from stupid things like finecast.

There's your answer.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
If GW succeeds in spite of itself, how has it been on the brink of collapse and bankruptcy before, only to pull back?

The answer is, it never has been. It wasn't making as much as it could've.

Indeed.

Bankruptcy, at least in the U.K. is broadly defined as being unable to meet one’s debts as and when they fall due.

There is of course considerably more complexity to it (for instance, if I get my gas, electric or water bill, and punt it on to the next payday, strictly speaking, I am bankrupt in that wording.

GW, if memory serves? Well since they hit the stock market, there have only been a couple, three at most, years where they didn’t make a profit. And even then the losses weren’t exactly disastrous.

And once again, that was when the LOTR bubble burst. Most curious thing about that overall situation? Even with that bubble gone, their sales were still higher than pre-LOTR. They had just grown cash complacent.

For any business where their borrowing is minimal to non-existent? It’s really, really, really hard to go Bankrupt.

See the 2008ish economic crash? It took out Big Names not because suddenly everyone was strapped for cash - but because they’d borrowed money to pay for expansion.

That included mergers, new stores, new ventures. As soon as the cash flow was slightly reduced? Those debts (sometimes into millions or billions) came with repayments and of course interest. That is what killed them. Otherwise, much like GW, they probably could’ve ridden it all out with a bit of belt tightening (including sadly redundancies for staff, closing non-profitable stores etc).

That is how you go bankrupt when people are otherwise buying your stuff.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

Bankruptcy, at least in the U.K. is broadly defined as being unable to meet one’s debts as and when they fall due.

There is of course considerably more complexity to it (for instance, if I get my gas, electric or water bill, and punt it on to the next payday, strictly speaking, I am bankrupt in that wording.

GW, if memory serves? Well since they hit the stock market, there have only been a couple, three at most, years where they didn’t make a profit. And even then the losses weren’t exactly disastrous.

And once again, that was when the LOTR bubble burst. Most curious thing about that overall situation? Even with that bubble gone, their sales were still higher than pre-LOTR. They had just grown cash complacent.

For any business where their borrowing is minimal to non-existent? It’s really, really, really hard to go Bankrupt.

See the 2008ish economic crash? It took out Big Names not because suddenly everyone was strapped for cash - but because they’d borrowed money to pay for expansion.

That included mergers, new stores, new ventures. As soon as the cash flow was slightly reduced? Those debts (sometimes into millions or billions) came with repayments and of course interest. That is what killed them. Otherwise, much like GW, they probably could’ve ridden it all out with a bit of belt tightening (including sadly redundancies for staff, closing non-profitable stores etc).

That is how you go bankrupt when people are otherwise buying your stuff.

IIRC this is exactly why GW explicitly *don’t* use debt to finance expansion.

 GoldenHorde wrote:

One man stores. Retreat from high street.

Retreating from stupid things like finecast.

There's your answer.

Using old pewter-moulds with spincasting-resin is something they still do. They slightly improved the formula, and that is what shifted it from a 6 GBP a share company to a 140 GBP a share company, while all the other "negative" stuff they do has no repercussions due to ageing 80s kids nostalgia? That is the hypothesis?

Lol.

And if that were true, it would seem they identified the right little lever to push with brilliance accuracy then, succeeding through almost god-like precision-management, rather then in spite of themselves as the OP claims.

GW has the advantage of market share and intertia. It is hard to displace someone with lots of marketshare without a significant innovation while also maintaining the same value the market leader currently has. They also have enough intertia that people are already in their ecosystem and buying their products, likely have been for some time and many stores already carry it. With those two factors alone GW could face plant for the next 5 years and still be just fine.

I think GW makes many, many short term business decisions where I would consider them to be succeeded in spite of themselves. But I'm also someone who prefers companies who grow value (and profits) over longterm instead of gouging as hard and as fast as they can to get a good graph for the next quarterly report.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 GoldenHorde wrote:

One man stores. Retreat from high street.

Retreating from stupid things like finecast.

There's your answer.

Using old pewter-moulds with spincasting-resin is something they still do. They slightly improved the formula, and that is what shifted it from a 6 GBP a share company to a 140 GBP a share company, while all the other "negative" stuff they do has no repercussions due to ageing 80s kids nostalgia? That is the hypothesis?

Lol.

And if that were true, it would seem they identified the right little lever to push with brilliance accuracy then, succeeding through almost god-like precision-management, rather then in spite of themselves as the OP claims.

No, I am saying GW has made slight course adjustments to prevent themselves falling off a cliff

Finecast is trash failed product and spin casting resin is stupid.
We know why GW attempted finecast. Increase margins $$$

GW have a dedicated global fanbase, a very strong brand/IP, an extremely effective advertising system, and they produce incredible models. Sometimes I think these factors do allow GW to succeed in spite of itself, and I think they're often not doing things as well as they could, but really, why would they do anything else? You can't view things in isolation because e.g. extortionately priced box benefits from decades of precedent which often allows it to succeed where an equivalent might not were it pushed by another entity. They do what they do because it continually works. They have no true competitors and fans want what GW are selling badly enough to put up with the FOMO and the bloat and the cost. If a new or smaller company tried to replicate their success, they'd fail.

 jeff white wrote:
This morning, as I edited a paper for a journal. I listened to a few popular Youtube channel videos. One concerned what the content creator considered is good and bad about 9th edition 40K. Scrolling through the comments, I came to this one, which I paste as a direct quote, here:
This company succeeds because a long time ago some genuinely passionate people wrote some kickass lore. That is the only reason people don't leave this game in droves. Nowadays the company succeeds in spite of itself. We love the IP too much to leave and they are our abusive spouse.

Simple poll: Do you feel that this statement is True, or False?

As a follow up, I wonder how much of this opinion has to do with 9th edition 40K. Maybe some have held this opinion for a longer time? Since when? Has your opinion changed in the past? Recently? What was the reason for this change of opinion? Anything specific?

Thank you in advance for contributing to this thread in a civil and constructive manner, respecting the fact that different people get different things from different things. The purpose of this poll is simply to survey the landscape of opinions here on Dakka. As usual, I will wait until poll results are obvious before voting, and volunteering my own experience, so as not to skew responses too heavily from the beginning...

I'm going to say false, at least to the statement that 40k succeeds because a long time ago people wrote some kick ass lore.

First off, I'm not sold on the lore's kickass-ness relative to alternative fare. While 40k's lore is funny and fun, I'd be hard pressed to say its better than that of its equally long lived and highly developed peer Battletech, which basically was dead until recently, or the intrinsic value of historical, and even newer fare like DZC have pretty decent lore if it hasn't been as thoroughly developed.

In addition, 40k was dying at the end of 7th, and warmahordes was experiencing something of a Renaissance. 40k's lore hadn't changed in forever at the time, and has only become more divisive since then.

In my opinion, the reason 40k succeeded and Battletech was basically dead until a little while ago is because of mechanics. I love BT, but I have to admit that it is hideously slow playing and clunky, but 40k has on general been easy to play and fast to play, even with large numbers of models. 40k's low point, 7th was when its mechanics hit an all time low, and 8th revitalized it by largely addressing many of the issues.

I'm going with False.

Aside from the distasteful comparison to spousal abuse (which, frankly, shows an incredible lack of perspective, and/or empathy for actual victims of abuse) what that comment is is projection. It's someone saying 'I no longer like what the game has become, therefore it's clearly not what people want and GW are doing it wrong.'

It makes sense. After you've dedicated a large amount of time, money and effort into something, it can be hard to accept that it's changed into something that just isn't actually aimed at you any more. So people hang around complaining that it's not like it was back in their day, and waiting for it to get back on track... because, surely, if we all keep making enough noise about it, they'll realise that they've made a mistake and go back to giving us what we want, right?

Right...?

Except they have no reason to do that, because there are plenty of customers out there who are perfectly happy with their current direction, as evidenced by their sales figures. So those complaining would be better off not waiting, and just make the change they want to see themselves.

It took me an embarrassingly long time myself to realise that if I wasn't enjoying the current direction of 40K, there was nothing actually forcing me to keep up with it. Even ignoring the overabundance of other games out there these days, if there was a version of the game that you enjoyed more than the current one, those rulebooks still exist. (In my case, they're still sitting right there on the shelf). So rather than waiting for 40K to turn back into 2nd edition or 5th edition, I decided to just go back to playing 2nd edition. Rather than buying Primaris marines, I chose to stick with my existing armies, or buy anything else I needed 2nd hand. I get the version of the game I prefer, and those who like the current stuff can carry on enjoying themselves without my negativity added to the mix.

In summary - never assume that your personal opinion is the majority, particularly when all evidence points to the contrary. And it's a hobby. Hobbies are supposed to be enjoyable. If you're not enjoying it, you're doing something wrong, and would be better off changing that rather than insisting that the company making the wildly successful product you personally don't like should change what they're doing.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GoldenHorde wrote:
We know why GW attempted finecast. Increase margins $$$

Yes, and no. They made the change to 'Fine'cast because tin prices were wildly volatile and IIRC had increased exponentially in a very short time, making large scale metal model production much more risky. And the common scuttlebutt at the time (which admittedly may not be true, just internet chatter) was that 'Fine'cast was rushed out because it leaked early and GW wanted to stay on top of the wave, despite it not actually being ready for release - they had the choice (allegedly) of pushing out a product and hoping for the best, or waiting to test it more completely and losing some of the momentum from the initial reveal. The skyrocketing tin prices forced their hand, and once they had made the change it would have likely been too expensive to change back.

For all its faults, 'Fine'cast as a concept, for what it was intended to do, was good. The end result was, IMO, a mistake brought on by hubris (Kirby's belief that GW's customers would buy whatever they chose to release) and a too-short development time. That doesn't invalidate every other bit of progress that GW have made. Every company makes mistakes, and they're often mistakes that in hindsight to the armchair critic seem obvious. See: New Coke.

 insaniak wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GoldenHorde wrote:
We know why GW attempted finecast. Increase margins $$$

Yes, and no. They made the change to 'Fine'cast because tin prices were wildly volatile and IIRC had increased exponentially in a very short time, making large scale metal model production much more risky. And the common scuttlebutt at the time (which admittedly may not be true, just internet chatter) was that 'Fine'cast was rushed out because it leaked early and GW wanted to stay on top of the wave, despite it not actually being ready for release - they had the choice (allegedly) of pushing out a product and hoping for the best, or waiting to test it more completely and losing some of the momentum from the initial reveal. The skyrocketing tin prices forced their hand, and once they had made the change it would have likely been too expensive to change back.

For all its faults, 'Fine'cast as a concept, for what it was intended to do, was good. The end result was, IMO, a mistake brought on by hubris (Kirby's belief that GW's customers would buy whatever they chose to release) and a too-short development time. That doesn't invalidate every other bit of progress that GW have made. Every company makes mistakes, and they're often mistakes that in hindsight to the armchair critic seem obvious. See: New Coke.

Give me a break.
Tin prices were not fluctuating, they were steadily rising. Which is fair enough reason to look away from white metal. Anyone could have predicted the bearish demand on tin due to the tech market.

The issue is what GW did and claimed was a flat out lie to consumers.
The reality is they just cheaped out by attempting to spin-cast resin.
What they did was avoid the investment of specifically re-molding for conventional resin. THEN they pretend as if their new product was the best of the best, which it was clearly not.

When your company claims it has the best material processes in the industry and it actually has the worst material process in the industry, you know something is very very wrong with the internal decisions and management of that company.

It wasn't rushed. It was a totally stupid idea in the first place.

 GoldenHorde wrote:

The reality is they just cheaped out by attempting to spin-cast resin.
What they did was avoid the investment of specifically re-molding for conventional resin. THEN they pretend as if their new product was the best of the best, which it was clearly not.

Opting for spin cast resin over conventional casting wouldn't have been significantly different so far as the cost of the moulds was concerned... they had to make new moulds either way. But casting their entire metal catalogue in resin the 'normal' way would have been prohibitively expensive in labour. Spin casting was supposed to give them the detail of resin with the practicality of spin casting. And when it worked, that's exactly what it did.

The issues were with the material being too soft, which likely comes back to insufficient testing and development time, and insufficient quality control to catch the miscasts and replace the moulds regularly.

When your company claims it has the best material processes in the industry and it actually has the worst material process in the industry, you know something is very very wrong with the internal decisions and management of that company.

Yup, that's that hubris I mentioned. I'd be curious to know how many people in the production process were fully aware that it was going to be a trainwreck but had to make the most of it because management had decided to go full steam ahead with it.

But, again, one mis-step, even such a seemingly big one, does not make every success an obvious fluke.

this is the sort of question that becomes a "no true scotsman" problem pretty fast, because what does "In spite of itself" even mean?

GW is competently run, and while they seem to be going back heavily to the well, they are continuing to expand their product line dramatically. they also bounced back from a disastrous launch of Age of Sigmar to make the game reasonably popular.

It's easy to look at GW and say that anybody could have that level of success with their starting position. that's very arguable, but is true of a bunch of companies. In some ways, yeah, GW is a restaurant in a good location, where it knows it'll do steady business as long as they stay solid. I just don't think that success in spite of itself.

 insaniak wrote:

 GoldenHorde wrote:

The reality is they just cheaped out by attempting to spin-cast resin.
What they did was avoid the investment of specifically re-molding for conventional resin. THEN they pretend as if their new product was the best of the best, which it was clearly not.

Opting for spin cast resin over conventional casting wouldn't have been significantly different so far as the cost of the moulds was concerned... they had to make new moulds either way. But casting their entire metal catalogue in resin the 'normal' way would have been prohibitively expensive in labour. Spin casting was supposed to give them the detail of resin with the practicality of spin casting. And when it worked, that's exactly what it did.

The issues were with the material being too soft, which likely comes back to insufficient testing and development time, and insufficient quality control to catch the miscasts and replace the moulds regularly.

When your company claims it has the best material processes in the industry and it actually has the worst material process in the industry, you know something is very very wrong with the internal decisions and management of that company.

Yup, that's that hubris I mentioned. I'd be curious to know how many people in the production process were fully aware that it was going to be a trainwreck but had to make the most of it because management had decided to go full steam ahead with it.

But, again, one mis-step, even such a seemingly big one, does not make every success an obvious fluke.

We can nitpick the finer points of finecast until the cows come home, but the reality is, the direction of GW is that GW has shifted away from its use .

Failed product.

Sure, and I don't think you'll find anyone who disputes that. Although I don't think it was ever supposed to be a long-term solution, either. It was a stop-gap that allowed them to stop buying tin, while building up their infrastructure to a level where they could switch entirely to plastic production. It was a means to an end, rather than the end itself.

Are we sure finecast was a failure? It wasn't a success, but did it lose money?

Also, wasn't that like a decade ago?

There's got to be a quote somewhere about "If you can manage to stay in business long enough, you'll hear everyone tell you how you should be running your business."

 insaniak wrote:
Sure, and I don't think you'll find anyone who disputes that. Although I don't think it was ever supposed to be a long-term solution, either. It was a stop-gap that allowed them to stop buying tin, while building up their infrastructure to a level where they could switch entirely to plastic production. It was a means to an end, rather than the end itself.

Its weird that they haven't finished doing either of those things (entirely plastic or entirely non-metal)

 Polonius wrote:
Are we sure finecast was a failure? It wasn't a success, but did it lose money?

'Failure' can be judged on more than just whether or not it lost money. There's also the goodwill that you lose amongst your customer base by selling such a shoody product, and by promoting it all the while as the best thing ever. But even then, it's assuming that the goal of 'Fine'cast was actually sales-based, which I don't think it was. But all we have is the perception of the product based on anecdotal evidence.

The fact that they stopped producing it isn't really in itself an indicator of failure, otherwise we would also have to deem metal models a failure, which is clearly not true.

For me personally as a consumer it certainly was a failure... After the initial quality issues that were shown around online, I flat out refused to buy it. But whether or not it was actually a failure from GW's point of view is not really a call we have enough information to make.

Absolutely false. GW is also more than just 40k. The support they have for all their games is greater than ever in the past.

 jaredb wrote:
Absolutely false. GW is also more than just 40k. The support they have for all their games is greater than ever in the past.

True (as presented by the OP, anyway), true and... uh, what?
GW doesn't support games at all!

Where's any variety of Warhammer Quest these days?
Necromunda is a random hash of mutually contradictory errors, sold over and over again.
Underworlds is planned obsolescence in its purest form
Apocalypse vanished into the ether.
Kill Team just swept the table of dozens of legacy products to start over with some nonsensically bizarre custom measuring devices.
LotR, Aeronautica and Titanicus don't even know if they're going to get new releases for months or even years, let alone support for stuff that's actually come out.
Blood Bowl's support model is 'Wooo, new edition!'
Warcry exists, and I guess it has a teaser or something, but apparently its either perfect, or its completely unsupported by FAQs or errata.

I believe sunk cost fallacy has seen them through some of their dumber decisions and eras. It also insulates them from losing players as it makes trying new systems a more difficult decision for many.

 insaniak wrote:
For me personally as a consumer it certainly was a failure... After the initial quality issues that were shown around online, I flat out refused to buy it. But whether or not it was actually a failure from GW's point of view is not really a call we have enough information to make.

Yeah, I suppose it probably was a failure. It certainly gained a terrible reputation very quickly.

I think there's more than a little support that it was a galaxy brain, 4d chess move to stop selling anything but plastic. Of course, a decade plus later we can still buy a handful of metal models from GW...

False. Sure, the lore is a big draw, but people will still walk away if gw stops doing what they like. There's an entire thread on Dakka right now about people taking "intermissions" from the game. So, obviously at some point gw did something wrong (in their opinion) that made them lose interest, and later did something right (again, in their opinion) that drew them back in. The fact that they can bring people back means that they at least occasionally do something right (in those people's opinions), so their success isn't "in spite of themselves", which would imply that they never get anything "right".

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
False. Sure, the lore is a big draw, but people will still walk away if gw stops doing what they like. There's an entire thread on Dakka right now about people taking "intermissions" from the game. So, obviously at some point gw did something wrong (in their opinion) that made them lose interest, and later did something right (again, in their opinion) that drew them back in. The fact that they can bring people back means that they at least occasionally do something right (in those people's opinions), so their success isn't "in spite of themselves", which would imply that they never get anything "right".

Sure. This.

And the current GW customer base is many multiples larger of what it was in the 80s or 90s or even early 2000s or whatever is implied as the "golden age" the nostalgia draws from.

If GW would sustain itself primarily on those customers' loyalty "in spite of itself", it wouldn't and couldn't have ever significantly and rapidly expanded beyond that customer base.


In many ways, this discussion is simply another version of "GW doesn't / didn't do what I would've liked them to do, thus they are worse off as a business" or "they would perform (even) better as a business if they did exactly what I'd like them to do".