GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.

You're kidding, right?

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Chairmans-Preamble-2014.pdf

Read it by yourself. It's almost comical.

[facepalm]

Reading those is very informative. I used to work for GW, and you could tell what an entire year was going to look like by them. The year the investor's report opened with "We forgot that we were a business first and gamers second" was the year "bitz orders" disappeared and Specialist Games were nixed. I see it hasn't improved.

I do miss 40k especially the fictional universe. FFG has that 40k lcg coming out and I will definitely throw some cash at that. I'm sitting on three 40k armies right now. Haven't touched em since 5th ed. 5th ed was great though, miss that game.

I know a lot of people who have invested fairly heavily in GW stuff. Lots of money, time, energy... I've never actually seen or heard about any of them playing.

Ever.

I've always liked the idea of 40K. Seems like an amazing idea of a game. The idea of spending all that time painting painting, building, fixing building/painting mistakes, etc... all that needs to be done before I can even start playing. So no. Not worth it to me.

I can't blame Games Workshop too much for doing new editions. And the fact that your current models will still be usable is a good thing. But it sounds like their new editions aren't really ground-up redesigns to make the rules work better and smooth out the player experience. If they're not doing that, then I don't see the point.

Overall, I'm very happy to have gotten into X-Wing. It sounds like too many other companies are doing too much BS.

GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.

You're kidding, right?

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Chairmans-Preamble-2014.pdf

Read it by yourself. It's almost comical.

[facepalm]

Reading those is very informative. I used to work for GW, and you could tell what an entire year was going to look like by them. The year the investor's report opened with "We forgot that we were a business first and gamers second" was the year "bitz orders" disappeared and Specialist Games were nixed. I see it hasn't improved.

Not unless you consider a 54% drop in year to year profits an improvement, they've also slashed staff so almost every store is run by one manager now.

Job 1 is pleasing your customers. If you can't please your customers, nothing else matters.

Making money is, like job 1.3.

Pleasing customers and going broke is also bad. But you can _fix_ the problems that make you go broke. You can't really fix "everything we do pisses off our customers". A lot of companies reverse the order on those 2 jobs. That's when they start entering a death spiral. Reading the preamble, I read a lot about "business", and nothing at all about games. Sorry man. Games Workshop is Fudged.

Playing armchair CEO, how would I fix things? I'd start by recognizing that we have some great core IP, and some very talented designers.

I'd do a ground-up redesign of one of the core products, either Warhammer or Warhammer 40K. I'd rewrite the rulebook to make it modern, fast, easy to understand, and easy to play. Deep rule systems, rather than lots of small rules. And then I'd make sure that every army we'd ever done was represented in the new core books.

If the current "core" game is 1500 points, I'd create a pre-painted, pre-built game using the same rules, but designed for 300 point games. That game would be as cheap as I could make it, while still being quality product. This Starter", or whatever, should cost no more than $100. Ideally it would be $50. The idea would be to let people _get into the game quickly_. Once people get hooked, that's when they are willing to start spending a ton of cash and time. So that it doesn't go without saying: this "starter" game would would entirely the same as the "core" game, just smaller in points, and made of plastic.

Also, I'd recognize that some people just want to play, and some people want to build and display. The build and display folks won't bat an eye at dropping $100 on a single high-quality, large model of something awesome. But some folks are going to grumble about having to snap together their own plastic models (that they spent $20 on) to play the game. (I'm the later). The point is that both groups would be willing to give you money. Figure out how to get it.

Never, _ever_ make the person who spends $20 feel like a chump for not having spent $100. The person who spends $20 with your company 5 times needs to feel like they got as much for their money as the person who dropped $100 all at once.

So that's me. Redo the game rules. Lower the prices across the board. Have some prepainted minis and quick rules to get people in the door.

Killing Specialist Games really was a shame. Those were some of GW's best work.

GW doesn't even need pre-painted minis to help entice gamers. Plenty of minis games and companies do well without pre-paints. They just need non-absurd prices. When you have to drop $150 just for the rules to play a game, there is a problem.

Yes the Specialist games were the best. I really enjoyed Blood Bowl and Dungeon Bowl as well as Space Hulk (1st Edititons).n I also really liked Man O' War and made over a hundred ships for this from scratch! I also think Battlefleet Gothic was pretty cool for a Space Combat game.

If you want to see a pic of my Man O' War fleets just ask!

"Warhammer Will Never Be The Same"

*sees £100 book*

*puts entire Warhammer collection on eBay*

Yeah, you're not wrong, GW. You're not wrong.

pretty much my reaction too, I love the warhammer (especially the 40k) universe but I just can't justify continuing to play it, especially when you can field a competitive X-wing list for what I've paid for single models for 40k.

Aside from Epic and a few of the older dead games, I've completely refused to touch anything GW for a while. I own some LotR, but mostly because nobody else does making those models cheap second-hand.

Maybe now's a good time to buy some 40k second-hand and play an older edition?

I would probably still play GW games if I was still interested in the modeling and painting aspect of it. A $50 box of models isn't that big of an investment if you plan on spending 15-20 hours painting them. But I just don't have time for that anymore, and thus I play x-wing.

GW really does make some lovely models, and FFG has the advantage with x-wing, in that they have to develop little to no fluff for the game. The GW universes are pretty interesting and they do a good job of fleshing them out. While it is pretty cliche to regularly bash Games Workshop, you can't tell me they make a poor product.

However, they price themselves way above what I, and I think a lot of gamers, can really afford. As such, GW has gone from being the gold standard of gaming, to the country club of tabletop games. And a lot of us have decided that a Honda gets us around just as easily as the Bentley.

Losers... why can't I get kicked off this forum... no warning points yet... WTF!!!

I've been a long-time 40k player, and just couldn't buy yet another rules set that I didn't really like. I'm pretty competitive by nature, and the extraordinary poor balance and lazy rules writing was really getting to me. I actually started X-wing because I decided to pass on 7th edition. The thing that really bites me is that GW once had a great way to get people started. They had a set of rules for 500 point games that was pretty solid. Furthermore, there weren't these enormous and/or totally imbalanced sorts of units (pre-Grey Knights), so you could play 1000 points and not really feel like you couldn't handle the other guy's stuff. Now, 1000 points means there's enough points to bring a lot of problem units, but not enough to counter them. I still love Fantasy, but it's tough to find a game. The loss of Specialist games was pretty crappy, too.

I don't see how GW can continue on it's current path, but even if it goes under, it's still got a pretty valuable IP. My current dark wish is that GW goes bankrupt, and basically just exists to licence the IP to other companies. Then we can get FFG's version of 40k and WFB, and holy crap, that could be great.

WAIT, there's a 40k SEVENTH edition now?! Missed that...

I used to play 40k back in college, had three sizable armies. It was fun to play, but I think I enjoyed the building/painting more. And the fluff was amazing. After I graduated, I slowed down playing, because I didn't know anyone in my area who played. I've sold almost all my models, since I couldn't justify spending money on something I was never going to buy, but I've been tempted to get one or two of the new codexes for the fluff alone. Just glad I never got into Fantasy...

I now get my Reccomended Daily Value of painting/customization from other means (X-Wing, Gundam, and Zoids), though I have considered picking up one or two 40k models just to paint. Then I look at the price tag and get another Gundam instead...

Blimey, 100 quid a pop!

Looking through rose tinted glasses back to my past when I played GW products :

Blood bowl 2nd edition was £19.99 for the box.

You could get a box of plastic space marines for 40K - enough for a squad - for £10

And have money left over for the bus ride home :-)

When ever people talk about kids starting warhammer or 40k from scratch.

Still got 40k stuff, haven't played with it since March, our social group is starting kill teams, though we all have quite large armies.

I'm loving x wing, cant get enough of it. Keep up the good job FFG

The original LOTR was cool. Sort of like an X-Wing type game. Originally, low cost and you could run with as few models as you liked, so the initial capital wasn't too high. Sure, one big rule book, but after that real low cost.

From our regional point of view, I have to spend 55 for half a squad of guys when I used to pay 45 for a full squad. In one instance, I have to pay 85 to 90 for 8 models and it's not even a full squad, on top of that in games terms they are 9points per model!!!

GW have made a massive tactical error. Quite funny when you think about it.

Hobojebus, on 23 Aug 2014 - 11:39 AM, said:

GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.

http://investor.game...eamble-2014.pdf

That opening line of the preamble...wow. Just wow.

"Games Workshop has had a really good year. If your measure of good is the current financial year's numbers, you may not agree."

And then it gets better from there. You really should read this, it is worth it. It is very mentally stimulating to try and understand what they are talking about...

I've been a long-time 40k player, and just couldn't buy yet another rules set that I didn't really like. I'm pretty competitive by nature, and the extraordinary poor balance and lazy rules writing was really getting to me. I actually started X-wing because I decided to pass on 7th edition. The thing that really bites me is that GW once had a great way to get people started. They had a set of rules for 500 point games that was pretty solid. Furthermore, there weren't these enormous and/or totally imbalanced sorts of units (pre-Grey Knights), so you could play 1000 points and not really feel like you couldn't handle the other guy's stuff. Now, 1000 points means there's enough points to bring a lot of problem units, but not enough to counter them. I still love Fantasy, but it's tough to find a game. The loss of Specialist games was pretty crappy, too.

I don't see how GW can continue on it's current path, but even if it goes under, it's still got a pretty valuable IP. My current dark wish is that GW goes bankrupt, and basically just exists to licence the IP to other companies. Then we can get FFG's version of 40k and WFB, and holy crap, that could be great.

I got into x-wing after a year long hiatus when 6th came out. It's a better game overall.

I want FFG to bring back Battlefleet Gothic. I know they have Armada, but 40k space combat is way cooler than Star Wars.

Yeah, off topic. but pardon me well actually no I will not apologies for not jumping on the hate Games Workshop bandwagon.

Now it is no secret or mystery that GW is not doing so well. But is this the end of GW? Has the Time of Ending come and the Apocalypse brought by Acheron Lord of the End Times have finally the Chaos gods gain control of both Terra and Altordorf? No GW is in decline and the hobby of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 is in a recession (like the rest of the economy), but this is not the beginning of the end.

Now I am one of those people taking a break from Warhammer because lets face it there is going to need to be some restructuring of their current business to include games rules models and what not. You are going to see some characters disappear and I think later re-printings of their rule books are going to allow for smaller more skirmish type battles, maybe even some role playing support with Dark Hearsay, instead of the massive APOCALYPTIC ARMAGEDDON sized battles that their current set up is promoting. It will take some time but you will see they will realized that the floor sized battles while impressive is not the current need for their business.

I don't think GW will get this done overnight. It will probably not be fixed next year, but I am sure it will bounce back eventually. Lets wait a couple of years before we start joining the ranks of these folks.

I got into x-wing after a year long hiatus when 6th came out. It's a better game overall.

I want FFG to bring back Battlefleet Gothic. I know they have Armada, but 40k space combat is way cooler than Star Wars.

BFG is a great game, too. I have one cruiser to go to finish my Armageddon fleet.

Man, my iPad likes to reply to quotes. LOL

So the big "GW" is finally gonna show some interest in their own products well being, by advancing the story for the warhammer world, !!??

Well big deal. About 20 years too late if ask me.

Oh well!, I just got rid of my tomb Kings army.....I couldn't be happier.

After they screw the pooch on this little turd storm, anything that could be remotely usable, or considered a success

Will go straight to 40k and then both games will be nice and screwed up.

If anyone's interested have a look at their website and using the country selector at the top, switch between, UK, USA and Australia and look at the prices. For Nagash, which is a beautiful model if you like assembling and painting, you pay around $105.00 in the US, the UK 65 pounds and here in niche land Australia we are on $150.00 (AUS), or $290.00 if you want the book and model. And they wonder why we stop purchasing with these sort of pricing discrepancies??!! I have tried to account for the differences with limited success. I'm pretty sure that some one could fill me in on how this works.

I agree with @marinealver's last comment, they will have to turn this around if they don't want to wander off into the grimdark never to be seen again, by revamping the rules to give more consistency, bring back reasonable prices (or put more in the pack for the same price) and importantly putting the customer, read gamers/hobbyists, first. Customers are also investors, not just the ones who pour money into buying shares. They would do well to remember that "Customers are the ones who pay your wages".

I work in retail (I have to keep my spending under control as my wages are not huge, necessities first and then x-wing), and if my employer consistently priced items up to make the more margin whilst selling less to less customers, we would be in the same boat as they are, recession or not. People do shop on price, especially when there is less money to go round. And if we piss our customers off, they won't come back to shop and they tell everyone else as well, further lessening your customer base.

I am able to buy my FFG here from my supplier at around the same price as found in the US, allowing for currency conversion. UK is slightly higher allowing for currency conversion. I'll stick to x-wing, and my miniatures painting/scratch building for now in the hope that the emperor of mankind sorts out the problems (pricing more / balanced rule set) in the Warhammer universes.

Now that I've had a bit of a gripe (after I said I wouldn't in another post, I'll pin blame it on Force Exhaustion), back to my regular x-wing channels.

GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.

You're kidding, right?

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Chairmans-Preamble-2014.pdf

Read it by yourself. It's almost comical.

[facepalm]

Reading those is very informative. I used to work for GW, and you could tell what an entire year was going to look like by them. The year the investor's report opened with "We forgot that we were a business first and gamers second" was the year "bitz orders" disappeared and Specialist Games were nixed. I see it hasn't improved.

Not unless you consider a 54% drop in year to year profits an improvement, they've also slashed staff so almost every store is run by one manager now.

This really bothers me. There is one GW store 30 minutes from me and the hours suck there. The corporate looking glass can hold the sole employee accountable for everything, which feels so restricting. Only a Sith deals in absolutes, but I think my GW purchases will be restricted between paints, brushes, and the occasional single model for RPG use.