Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

OK, GW has been coming undone for quite some time now. I've seen store owners fire-sale GW stock to get out from under the overhead, and to prepare for "the end". The doom cryers have been at it for at LEAST seven years. In that seven years, I've bought thousands in product and played hundreds of games. I've had a lot of fun, which I hear is what a hobby is all about, and intend to go right on doing the same. In this same time period, GW has been making bold moves. Some have questioned the intellect of these moves, some have questioned the motives, some have questioned the sanity. However, it cannot be argued that, while GW has been making bold moves (which one would expect to see of a ship trying to right itself. After all, if you just keep on as you were you are guaranteed to sink, eh?), it's profits and stock values have not (that I have heard about) done anything other than drop as an overall trend for those seven years.

So, what do we have? GW's "bold moves" seem to be having no effect (or worse, negative effect) on their bottom line. Either that, or they have possibly been "successful" by not allowing the bottom line to drop as fast? Interesting possibility. What is the logical conclusion here? Will GW ever pull it out? Hell, do they INTEND to pull it out, or is the leadership content ot ride it into the ground in order to extract max money while they can? Is it possible that the company, as a whole, is no longer a viable enterprise; or is there some "Miniatures Messiah" who actually knows how to run such a behemoth? Will some proffessional CEO get themselves into the leader-beast slot and try to pull the company out, or will they merely round-robin amongst the players already involved?

What does Dakka think? I'm curious.

>>However, it cannot be argued that, ... ... [GW's] profits and stock values have not (that I have heard about) done anything other than drop as an overall trend for those seven years.

If you check the stock ticker and financial reports for the past seven years, you will find a pattern of success from early 2001 to mid-2005, followed by a downward trend which continues to date.

Here's the ticker.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=GAW.L&t=my

I'm not going to bother digging up the annual accounts though they are available from GW for anyone who is interested.

The glory days broadly coincided with the successful LoTR film trilogy. There are indications that this revenue boost was not reinvested successfully in the core business, and actually served to mask decline in the vital 40K/WHFB market.

LoTR should get a new lease of life with the release of The Hobbit films in a couple of years.

The question is whether the core business is healthy or if not, why not, and can it be revived in some way.

I would argue that GW has actually done a pretty decent job of reinvesting profits, and that the real mistake was not investing *more* profits during the boom years, but rather giving too much awa as dividends.

For the most part, it is clear that GW has done a pretty good job of transitioning their product line and volume sales from 80+% metal to 80+% plastic. They appear to have been taking every new penny and to fund plastics development and production, which requires massive upfront investment.

But the problem was that they paid out too much when they were flush with cash. If GW had spent the majority of those dividends on plastics then, they'd be in much better position now.

As the first volume manufacturer to move to primarily plastic models, and the only successful one, the 40k / WFB core is well-positioned for future profits.

Compare with Rackham. They're now under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy because they couldn't manage the upfront investment to get from metal to plastic.

GW core business is fine - they're not going under anytime soon. But if they do, their IP and plastics molds will be snapped up by WotC or some other manufacturer, you can bet on it.

I think they spent too much expanding the retail network, which they are now scaling back.

The key advantage that plastic offers to the company is low cost. This assumes a high volume of production which may not be achieved if the popularity of the core games declines.

However it is interesting to note that two companies have recently announced historicals ranges in 28mm plastic.

Perry Miniatures is doing American Civil War and Wargames Factory is doing Ancient and Medieval.

If GW made a big investment in mould design technology and moulding equipment they may be able to take in work from these other companies to help support their fixed costs.

Killkrazy: Thank you for your input. You (and yahoo) are right, of course. Do you think this "new lease" from the Hobbit movie(s) will allow them breathing room to fully realize profits from re-investment of LotR profits into their plastics? Do they really need that breathing room? I find your comment about taking in work from other companies to be interesting. From what I understand of plastics moulding, it's the moulds themselves that cost so much (and some of the casting equipment as well, but mainly the moulds). If it really is the moulds that are the choke point, would they really be able to take in piece work from other compaines that cannot keep up? Would Citadel really do that, or would they see denial of service as being another method to gobble up market share, prehaps even press a competitor out of business? It would seem that your impression is that their main issue is marketing and sales, given your commentary about profits realized from plastics lines depending on high volume to overcome initial costs involved, that all being tied to popularity of core. Forgive the paraphrase. Given their track record of business decisions, do you think their decision that have been questioned closely by the gaming community have been money motivated to support metal-plastic transition and possible overextension, or do you think these decisions really are just gouging and insanity as so many seem to think?

JohnHwangDD: it would be ironic if the oh-so-closely-guarded GW IP was grabbed by a former competitor, wouldn't it? Only makes sense if the company had to cease ops, and the investors broke it up piecemeal to recoup investment. After all, they invested, they want money. I'm not so worried about the IP disappearing, rather just curious which way the GW ship is heading? Will it right itself, or will it continue a long, slow decline? It does appear that they have successfully made the jump from metal to plastic large-scale, which has been a huge financial burden I'm sure (no data). Point being, GW may, with sound leadership, be poised to realize huge profits if they can get their marketing and sales together. Do you think they will?

JHDD had quite a good post there. I think he summed it up nicely.

The one difference *I* feel is that GW will never "go under."

They will go the way of TSR before that happens. They'll get into a very tight spot and be on the verge of breaking down. Maybe (hopefully), we'll see a bit of a repeat of TSR as their catalo... err... MAGAZINE begins to flounder first and misses some issues. Hopefully, that will be the first sign.

Before they absolutely go under, though, they'll be bought. Perhaps by WOTC... or not... I don't see them being pieced out after closing shop.

Whomever DOES buy them, however, I sincerely hope they don't go the "pre painted" route... not even IN ADDITION TO the current style models. I think that taking 40K, WHFB, etc. to the "pre-paint" level will kill the game.

Maybe their older games... GorkaMorka, etc could eventually see prepainted versions re-released... but the core systems need to stay as they are.


Eric

JohnHwangDD wrote:Compare with Rackham. They're now under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy because they couldn't manage the upfront investment to get from metal to plastic.

Correction. They WERE. As in "Past Tense".

They have realized that completely dropping their metals was not such a hot idea after seeing every distributor drop their metals like a sack of potatoes. So Jean Bey has reversed that not-so-well-thought-out decision.

They may not be the strongest kid on the block, but the rumors about the bankruptcy needs to end. Its over.

grizgrin wrote:Killkrazy: I find your comment about taking in work from other companies to be interesting. From what I understand of plastics moulding, it's the moulds themselves that cost so much (and some of the casting equipment as well, but mainly the moulds).

Cutting a mold for plastics isn't that bad. If you've got a CAD/CAM model of the result, you can have a mold cut for $1000 to $10,000 USD.

No, it's really the casting equipment. You can easily spend $100,000 USD just to get the line set up. And you need to run them around the clock if you're going to make any money from them.

If it really is the moulds that are the choke point, would they really be able to take in piece work from other compaines that cannot keep up?

As many former GW retailers can tell you, there is a lot of dirty business that can occur when you make a deal with the devil...

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Perry Brothers in Debtor's Prison when this whole thing is through.

JohnHwangDD: GW may, with sound leadership, be poised to realize huge profits if they can get their marketing and sales together. Do you think they will?

I have no idea. Tho I relish the idea of WotC buying the GW IP for pennies on the dollar.

Hellfury wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Compare with Rackham. They're now under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy because they couldn't manage the upfront investment to get from metal to plastic.

Correction. They WERE. As in "Past Tense".

They have realized that completely dropping their metals was not such a hot idea after seeing every distributor drop their metals like a sack of potatoes. So Jean Bey has reversed that not-so-well-thought-out decision.

They may not be the strongest kid on the block, but the rumors about the bankruptcy needs to end. Its over.

Whatever.

The fact of the matter is that Rackham declared bankruptcy.

Mongoose (BE / SST) appears to be at death's door after their little escapade into plastics.

Privateer (WM/H) and Battlefront (FoW) haven't even bothered with plastics.

So of the major TTG systems, only GW seems to have gotten though OK. Say what you like about GW, but they did manage to make the transition without having to declare bankruptcy.

I'm sure GW relishes competing with Rackham & Privateer now that they have the production cost advantage of plastics *and* game engines that scale to 100s of models per side.

Is there a reason you outright dismissed a relevant post, JohnHwangDD?

Hellfury's post didn't invalidate your statements, just corrected some out-of-date information. It didn't affect your statements about GW at all.

Please try to be more polite with your posts.

JohnHwangDD wrote: Battlefront (FoW) haven't even bothered with plastics.

This also isn't completely accurate. While the majority of their product is still metal or resin, Battlefront have now released several boxed sets and blisters that have plastic components. The new 76mm Shermans, Panzer IV H's, and the new Sd Kfz 251 Half-tracks have plastic tracks and/or other accessories, like MGs, Schürzen (side-skirts), etc.

GW did not invent plastic miniatures. Warzone, VOID, Grenadier and a few others all had plastic figs at one point or another, and one could argue that this hobby begins with 1/72-scale airfix plastic toy soldiers. However, GW did 'up the ante' by moving a vast majority of their line to multipart plastic. GW's investment in plastic is starting to rub off on the rest of the industry. As Hordini pointed out, Battlefront is getting into plastic components. The Classic Battletech box comes with plastic mechs (from what I hear, of better quality than the old ones). Reaper has their prepainted plastic Dark Heaven Legendary Encounters line (essentially, their older metals in plastic form). EM-4 continues to put out plastic figs from the old Grenadier line. Rackham went that route prepainted, the Perrys are going plastic for their historicals, and Wargames Factory, a new company (and US too!) is putting out historicals (romans and celts for now) made from recycled plastic. Whether it's simply cheap enough to set up the molds/machinery at this point vs. when GW started heavily investing, or the price of tin has simply made the difference in cost meaningless is something unknown to me.

The big hurtles for GW is going to be the fact that they have had--and will probably continue to have--serious competition, in a way they haven't had since the early '90s. Privateer and Rackham are clearly not going anywhere, nor is Battlefront, and with the Perrys and Wargames Factory investing in plastic, it begs the question as to whether historicals are starting to become more popular (certainly there seems to be a growth of 'easy' historical wargames out there).

I think the biggest question for GW is going to be: what are they, a miniatures company or a games company? Or rather, how do they want to use their IP? Mongoose asked that question and has refocused on games, because they realized they were sucking at the minis end of things. GW puts out A LOT of miniatures, many of them affordable (LOTR plastics, plastic cadians, plastic WHFB boxed sets), and many of them well sculpted. Their rules are played throughout the land. But increasingly (though this has been going on for ages) people are using GW minis for their own ends (LOTR plastics for D&D, WHFB plastics for GASLIGHT or Space: 1889, etc.), while on the flipside, more people are using other product as essentially 'aftermarket' conversion kits (Pig Iron and Westwind Heads come to mind), assuming they're not replacing the figs whole-hog. Furthermore, there's a growing movement of people playing the older editions of games (3rd ed. Rogue Trader) and older, less supported games (Warmaster, Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Mordheim). This doesn't even touch upon the secondary market--there is just SO MUCH PRODUCT out there floating around on ebay and the like, and while the hard-core or newest GW gamers might be interested in getting the latest and greatest update of a unit, there are plenty of grognards and cheapskates who are happy to pick up an older version of a unit/model, especially if the sculpts are stil lholding up (it's not like a Jes Goodwin Exarch goes 'bad' after 10 years or something).

Game-wise, the most interesting stuff coming out of GW, frankly, is the WAB and LOTR lines. One has no official miniatures line, the other has one that is incompatible with anything else. Both seem to garner more enthusiasm of the miniatures community as a whole than WHFB or 40k.

So for me, the questions are:
1. Does GW want to be a miniature maker or a game maker?
2. How is GW going to relate to the historicals market?
3. What is GW's response going to be to increasing competition, including in the realm of multipart plastics?
4. What is GW's response going to be to older product, including unsupported games systems that continue to garner enthusiasm and older versions of now-updated lines?

I really think GW needs to focus more on getting a solid rules set that encourages people to buy their models. I think over time they have decided to focus more and more on the models, and let the rules slide, the result being that people look for other games to play. That wouldn't be so bad, except that it gets players cherry picking "cool" minis and completely ignoring parts of the line that don't interest them. I wouldn't own an Imperial Priest if it were not because I wanted the rules in my army, for example.

Now, that isn't to say that new rules are the end all be all solution. However, without controlling (to an extent at least) how the figures are used, it is terribly difficult to plan what to make. Not only that, but when people pick up gaming for the first time, they tend not to immediately start mixing and matching models and lines. That youngster whose friends play 40k is going to buy 40k miniatures. In other words, being the flagship game of a hobby ensures that people getting into the hobby buy things that have your game's name written on them. In these two ways will superior rules help pull GW out of it's funk.

You could add

Is GW a designer or a manufacturer?
Is GW a retailer and distributor?

Of course they are all of those. Their strength is their degree of vertical integration (meaning they invent something, build it, ship it and sell it all within their own company.) However this is a 2-edged sword. Firstly, it requires the company to internalise a wide variety of different skills which arguably would be better outsoured. Secondly, the entire operation is completely dependant on the continuing popularity of 40K/WHFB.

I think GW has had two long-term strategies.

One was to convert from metals to plastic. This has been a success.

The other was to keep all the pie by crushing internet retailers and local game store competition. This has been a dismal failure. I think a lot of the financial trouble they are in stems from that patch a few years ago when they were trying to open a bunch of brick-and-mortar stores, with the concomitant overhead.

Iorek wrote:Is there a reason you outright dismissed a relevant post, JohnHwangDD?

I don't quite see it that way, but I don't want to argue the point. My key point is that, relative to the rest of the majors, GW seems to have managed the transition from mostly metal to mostly plastic. Whether Rackham is still bankrupt is a trivial detail.

Hordini wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote: Battlefront (FoW) haven't even bothered with plastics.

This also isn't completely accurate. While the majority of their product is still metal or resin, Battlefront have now released several boxed sets and blisters that have plastic components.

OK, fine. I might as well note that Privateer and the rest use plastic bases - they're "components", too, but totally unimportant from a overall production / cost basis. When Battlefront starts making *hulls* or entire infantry sets in plastic (which they *should*), at that point, they're taking plastic seriously.

Wehrkind wrote:I really think GW needs to focus more on getting a solid rules set

I'm not sure that this would make that much difference. GW seems to be advancing the 40k ruleset as quickly as possible, with new editions every 3 (or 4) years, and for the most part, things seem to be solidifying pretty well.

But I don't think GW's rules do much marginal selling to any but the most hard-core tournament players looking to extract the last little bit of power from the armies. When you recall that most games are friendly / scenario, minor variations in power and niggles in rules probably make no difference whatsoever.

I would submit that having a clear, consistent visual approach sells more minis for GW than clear, consistent rules ever will. Given that GW seems to push "shiny" harder than anything else, while killing all WD rules features, one has to guess that they've figured out that 'Eavy Metal / Golden Daemon pr0n is what moves their product.

I agree with Mr HwangDD on this one.

We have been moaning about the shoddy rules for years. It would not be hard for GW to just effing well write them better so they would make proper sense. You can see the accessible yet unambiguous style GW are capable of in Warmaster Ancients.

The obvious conclusion is that GW don't *need* to write the rules properly to sell them. It's a shame, because it wouldn't do anything but good to fix them up but there you are. Perhaps 5th ed. won't be such a farrago.

In business terms the advent of plastics is dependent on very large production runs. I would argue that GW is probably the only firm in the "serious" TTG market large enough to make a success out of plastics.

Obviously that is changing since we've seen various other plastic ranges (including the Ancients I mentioned somewhere.) It could be due to cheaper design technology, cheaper manufacturing in China or some other reason.

I don't believe GW have a unique capability in plastics. Plastic moulding is decades old. Any company wanting to do it can find engineers and experts from the model kit industry and get started fairly quickly, if the investment is possible and worthwhile.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I'm sure GW relishes competing with Rackham & Privateer now that they have the production cost advantage of plastics *and* game engines that scale to 100s of models per side.

On the contrary, I am sure Rackham and PP enjoy the prospect of competing with a game company whose former loyal customers are leaving by droves.

All due to their magnificent game engines.

I think Wehrkind's point about rules still stands. Their models are not the porsche of the gaming industry if the motor driving that pretty thing is broken.

All GW is managing to do in solidifying is their competitions portion of the industries cake.

While models do indeed sell themselves, people who have tons of models would love to be able to use them in a coherent fashion. This is where other companies strengths lie, and why they are indeed doing so well.

GW seems to be trying to address this issue, but only time will tell if 5th ed. will bring back its customers who have lost faith in them.

Hellfury wrote:While models do indeed sell themselves, people who have tons of models would love to be able to use them in a coherent fashion. This is where other companies strengths lie, and why they are indeed doing so well.

GW seems to be trying to address this issue, but only time will tell if 5th ed. will bring back its customers who have lost faith in them.

While many existing players would love a clean ruleset, GW knows that they've got almost as many players wanting more pointless 2E-based chrome. Hell, we still have guys arguing for GW to return the misery of Overwatch.

Nobody's going to migrate their Space Marines over to play as Warmachine / Hordes. And as long as GW remains strongly litigious, nobody can dare to create a Codex with the necessary distinctive stats and rules. Based on the Damnatus experience, even a non-profit Codex would likely be crushed. God help HMBC if he were to ever try to print and then *sell* his "revised" stuff.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm sure GW relishes competing with Rackham & Privateer now that they have the production cost advantage of plastics *and* game engines that scale to 100s of models per side.

Errr, have we just skipped 20 years of history here? GW have been producing plastics since the late 80's and gradually moving towards a greater proportion of their models being produced that way over all that time. They saw step change in their CAD technology a couple of years back which allows them to cram more gubbins on the sprue and design stuff more quickly, but that's all, everything else has been incremental. And as far as I can ascertain their basic two-part injection mould casting technology hasn't changed since the days of the RTB01 beakie marines sprue. Heck, the Baneblade was the first GW kit that had pre-drilled barrels - at least according to WD anyhow, which hyped up their new dynamic mould. How long have Tamiya been doing that before GW could afford to step up?

And while GW in many instances charge as much for plastics as many other producers charge for metals, then nothing will change in terms of comparative advantage.

On the subject of plastic model manufacturing techniques, I am no expert, but I have read many comments from those that claim to be stating that GW is hardly using state of the art technology. These guys are launching a new plastics miniature fantasy wargame, and claim that (in an interview for TGN) because they are using new technology, the costs of producing plastics have been radically reduced allowing them to enter the market: http://www.kraken-editions.com.

While I personally am not over-enamoured with the background of their game and am not convinced it will take off because of that (although who knows what the French will like?), for the purposes of this discussion that is immaterial. It is very interesting that from a standing start a new company can come out of the woodwork and even consider such a venture. Not very long ago small start-ups were restricted to metal castings, but maybe this is no longer the case. If, instead of some hybrid cat-based fantasy world they had created a gothic sci-fi one infested with daemons and stuff that was designed to press the same buttons as 40k does would that have worried GW?

Tetchy wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm sure GW relishes competing with Rackham & Privateer now that they have the production cost advantage of plastics *and* game engines that scale to 100s of models per side.

Errr, have we just skipped 20 years of history here?

And while GW in many instances charge as much for plastics as many other producers charge for metals, then nothing will change in terms of comparative advantage.

Not at all. Yes, GW has had plastics for 40k dating back to the RTB01 sprue. However, when you look at the timeline of GW plastics, it's only been the last few years that their releases have been primarily plastic. Similarly, it's only been the last few editions that GW (and gamers) have 100s of models per side and still finish the game during a day.

I would say that other manufacturers are forced to charge for metals the same prices as what GW does for plastics. I would also say that these higher-dollar plastic kits are on an individual basis rather than a volume basis. And when GW gives a plastic kit for the same price as what someone else does in metal, long-term GW will make more money because their production costs are lower giving GW clear comparative advantage.

Quick comparison:

Wargames Foundry 28mm Imperial Romans, 18 figures for £27 = £1.50 per figure. (Metal)

GW Fire Warriors, 12 figures for £18 = £1.50 per figure. (Plastic, multipart, poseable.)

Foundry are considered a high quality, expensive historical producer. There are cheaper figures available but arguably less good in terms of detail.

25/28mm Ancients players are complaining about the cost of making an army. For a typical mass wargame army you need between 150 and 300 figures, so you can see the costs mounting up.

The key difference between plastics and metal figures for the manufacturer, is the setup cost for the initial machinery and moulds, and for each run of figures.

You can buy a brand spin casting machine for $3,000. You can set up a figure manufacturing operation in your garden shed for under £5,000. It works very well for small runs of figures.

Plastics works well for large runs.

The problem as I see it with the rules is that they
1) Drive old players to new games. Whether they still buy 40k or not, some % of their gaming dollars are going to other companies that they might not have otherwise.
2) Losing the "best game" title means more new wargamers are going to get into competitor's games. When a newbie interested in starting up walks into a FLGS to see what's happening, GW needs their game to be the one most everyone is playing. If half are playing 40k, half are playing Hordes etc., it's a toss up what a new player will get into. If half the people at the store say "Yea, 40k's rules kind of suck, but the minis and fluff are cool." whether they are the one with the Cygnar army or the Space Marines is pretty irrelevant. They are damning GW with faint praise.

I think GW really misunderstands the inherent importance of this.

In regards to vertical integration, I think that GW is really shooting themselves in the foot with how much they try for it. With so many companies discovering that it really doesn't work as well as they would like due to inherent inefficiencies, partially due to being overlooked due to the lack of competition, I don't see why GW is in a position to really benefit from it. I think that GW is slowly learning that a game store can not be profitable on GW alone, and it is much more damaging if a shop with their name folds, taking all their investment with it, as opposed to Bob's Games failing, and Bob taking the hit.

In fact, it strikes me that GW seems to run their business the same way people THINK businesses are run, ie. the EEEEEEVIL executives trying to build a huge empire monopoly to control the entire market for everyone. It just isn't what works, contrary to popular belief, but sometimes GW doesn't seem to really understand that, seemingly thinking that if they can just strong arm a few more competitors, they will have it made.

GW has serious issues. You guys have just touched on a few of them.

Thinking GW has emerged from the metal-to-plastics transition is a mistaken belief.

Thinking GW has profited hugely from the LOTR line is also a mistaken belief.

You have millions invested and don't get it back, see how highly you think of your investment when it's time to re-tool and you haven't gotten your original investment back yet.

That's why GW's stock is so overvalued and investors are hitting it like a crack whore hits the pipe, trying to get it back down to 100$ or less where it belongs.

At that point, you can look at the valuation of the company as a whole and see if it's really worth what GW thinks it is.

GW is running their shop like TSR did. Not like Walmart DOES.

Makes a huge difference.

If I was running GW, I'd kill 300+ of the GW only stores they have and support the FLGS market. Tossing 50-75 in-house employees who run everything but game design and miniature sculpting...yeah, that'd be my next move.

GW loses money because in all the areas it thinks it can save money, it has to take part of itself and kill it.

While the only areas it makes money with (game design and mini sculpts) it's not investing soundly in.

Something investors didn't really understand before, but are beginning to now. It's funny how investors have turned to reading sites like this one to get a grasp on how releases are doing instead of waiting a year for the GW line. Apoc is a great example where word got out quickly about how poorly it was doing because of sites GW does not control.

Oh and last but not least, them being total pussies and turning their own message boards off? Yeah, that too hurts the business.

I guess I should add this:

The direction GW took the business (catering to kids because some marketer said there's BILLIONS to be made off of that 'market segment' when the reality is, there isn't) has shrunk it's core base of loyal fans while not growing out past said core base.

What other game company can we compare this to, that has a solid IP but f-cked the dog completely with their attempt to sell their game to kids, lost most of their core base of loyal fans, and didn't grow out past said core base?

Here's a hint: Lucasarts, Star Wars Galaxies. Release of NGE.

Alot of old bitter devs at LA thought they could beat [insert any MMO title here] by making every kid able to be a Jedi with the release of the NGE.

Alot of old bitter devs at GW thought they could beat (insert any game system here) by making every kid able to play Warhammah!!

Both failed for the same reason.

LA got a ton of new subscribers, for 1 month. When that free month wore out, what'd they end up with? 1 less solid gamer paying a subscription fee, and 2 kids whose parents bought the game for 30$ (not 50$ or 80$ like at release). Since the sub fee was about 15/month, this was a loser for the company. See, the kids didn't want to play FOREVER (ok, a few months) to become a powerful end-game Jedi, they wanted it NOW. Nothing LA has done since then (like rolling back the NGE, duh) has brought success to that game. I expect it to live on the vine, but unlike other games that eventually go to free play, SW can't because the IP is too valuable to give away.

Now extrapololate all that out to GW's business model, and maybe you (or GW) will clue in that the adults are the core market who'll put up with your shoddy business, and the kids buy a boxed set then don't buy anything else because they can't turn on a GW army and be a general like all the adults with time (and massive effort) to burn in making a army so they go back to video games right quick. And again, the Warhammer IP is too valuable to just give away, so they really do need to ask you to pay 800$ for an army please.

Which kids (ok, their parents) just won't do.

Can always buy a Jedi on the internet for a few hundred bucks, but parents won't do that either.

And GW's embittered devs and embattled management wonders how they went so wrong, so horribly wrong.

Call up LA. They'll explain it to you, just in case my word isn't good enough for ya.

Kilkrazy wrote:Wargames Foundry 28mm Imperial Romans, 18 figures for £27 = £1.50 per figure. (Metal)

GW Fire Warriors, 12 figures for £18 = £1.50 per figure. (Plastic, multipart, poseable.)

If you're going to compare GW vs Historicals, compare with Fantasy, which uses comparable model counts on an army basis. Right now, you get 20 (plastic, multi-pose) Empire Militia for 18 GBP. Less than 1 GBP per model is considerably cheaper than 1.5 GBP.

I don't think there are many historicals that are price-competitive with GW's plastic Cavalry Regiments.

GW simply kills the competition with it's plastic cavarly. there was some hullaboo about the new BloodKnights, and I'm assumign they're all metal steeds, and a prime candidate for "super expensive model that can be replaced by a box of Empire Knights"

Buy 5 DKoK cavalry models.

Only 100$!

Real competitive there.

Stelek wrote:Buy 5 DKoK cavalry models.

Only 100$!

Real competitive there.

Except that DKOK are resin, not plastic. Suprise, Forgworld is expensive! It doesn't change the point that 8 Knights of the realm for $35 is unbeatable, as far as I've seen.