Key thing here is "3rd Party sales". In the UK, at least, you tend to go to a third party store BECAUSE you're looking for something that ISN'T 40k - otherwise you'd just go to GW, since there is pretty much a GW in most towns with a population over 20,000.

So yes, if you consider just the sales from FLGS without factoring in GW store sales, then it might appear that other systems are closing the gap. However once you factor in GW store sales then everyone else is still left behind in the dust.

However having played X-Wing, Warmahordes and GW, I can say from my point of view that GW is running on two things - Market Share and the best multipart plastic miniatures money can buy (if not the cheapest).

Other people do better resin, do decent metal, do decent plastics, but at the end of the day I have yet to see anything from anyone that matches the consistent quality being produced by GW on a grand scale. Also, if you ask anyone between 12-30 what toy soldiers they used to play with when they were younger, the odds are good that it was 40k/WFB. Hence the market share.

However in terms of rules, and bang for buck, GW is fast dropping in both, which has led to my selling off everything GW related I own apart from my two main armies, in order to invest more into X-Wing, which has a far richer and stronger rules system.

Hi all,

Big bad GW is going to be kicking about for some time yet. Their share price is about the same as it was before the recession, and although there's a large drop in profits, it doesn't seem to be putting the investors off.

I used to read threads announcing the death of GW every other week over on whineseer, after 5 or so years they've become boring.

That said, X-Wing is a great game, relatively cheap entry level starter and simple, but very effective rules that most people can learn in a relatively short time. But how long will its popularity last?

Cheers

Baaa

Sethis, in the UK you are probably right. Outside of the UK, and especially in the US, there aren't GW stores to go to. For most of the company'a history, the closest GW store to where I live was an 8 hour drive away. Put another way, you could have fit all of England around my home town and not had a single GW store in the area. And I don't live way out in the boonies or anything.

If you asked a random person between the ages of 12-30 what toy soldiers they played with, they would probably say the little green army men. Most of them will have never ever heard of wargames in general, much less GW. If you limited it to specifically gamers, the old ones are probably more likely to list off ral partha and grenadier along with maybe GW, while the younger ones are going to come up with D&D, pathfinder or hero clix minis.

Icv2 collects their information from phone interviews with various store owners and distributors in the US. While the information is interesting, it does not take into account sales direct from manufacturers, GW's own stores, the international market and it relies on the accuracy (and honesty) of the people they are talking to.

That's interesting, since GW has adopted a business model almost entirely based around their web bundles. I've talked about it a fair deal with my LGS owner, and apparently they have a problem coming by quite a bit of product that GW simply isn't interested in distributing to physical stores.

Regarding sales figures, that list seems a bit misleading without all of the pertinent information. 40k's player base may or may not be dwindling, but that hasn't stemmed the flow of money into GW's coffers from a handful of very affluent players. If the list above is merely a reflection of sales, then yes, I have no doubt that FFG will be outpacing GW in the near future, if they aren't already. On the other hand, not every X-Wing player is shelling out several grand a year for whatever army happens to be the flavor of the month. If X-Wing has a high sales-to-cash ratio, I imagine 40k is quite the opposite - and their numbers are sufficient, at least, to still dominate the marketplace.

that hasn't stemmed the flow of money into GW's coffers from a handful of very affluent players.

Yeah, actually, it has. GWs player base has been plummeting for years and the past 3 financial statements have shown dramatic drops in profits, despite an increased release schedule and several really high profile releases.

Imagine what X-Wing sales would have been had all the expansions actually been in stock.

Yeah, actually, it has. GWs player base has been plummeting for years and the past 3 financial statements have shown dramatic drops in profits, despite an increased release schedule and several really high profile releases.

While that may be true, your reply is also somewhat out of context, given the latter half of the sentence you quoted. Perhaps you'd care to rethink your comment?

Well say what you want about the sales figures but they sure do match my hobby spending trends. I think the last couple of years Ive spent more on hobbies then I had though all the 2000's combined.

I think the last gw models I bought were some finecast skaven characters and that pretty much killed warhammer for me, now days with the end of times stuff i look at it and think their not wrong. Also $80 hard cover codex books that are pretty much useless after a year? No thanks I still have a shelf full of 2nd&3rd edition soft cover books that are perfectly fine.

That mixed with the the numerous other game companies that are turning out miniatures now days its hard to justify paying 50 bucks for 5 models when other game companies will happily give me 10, 20 or even 50 good quality models for the same price.

Yeah, actually, it has. GWs player base has been plummeting for years and the past 3 financial statements have shown dramatic drops in profits, despite an increased release schedule and several really high profile releases.

While that may be true, your reply is also somewhat out of context, given the latter half of the sentence you quoted. Perhaps you'd care to rethink your comment?

Not sure what your trying to get at, since I WAS quoting the latter half of the sentence. I figured it was pretty self evident that the radically shrinking player base was the cause of the falling profits.

You said

40k's player base may or may not be dwindling, but that hasn't stemmed the flow of money into GW's coffers from a handful of very affluent players.

Yet we know for a fact that the player base has been shrinking, basic math on their financial statements tells us that, and we also know that profits have been falling for 1.5-2 years. Unless you are trying to argue that the player base is shrinking, and that "the flow of money into GW's coffers" has been falling but that the two are not causally conntected, then I dn't know what your point is.

GW basically caters to small children in that they don't seem to care about customer retention at all. They've stopped being aware that their long-term base is hobbyists, people who would like to be able to stick with the product and not get screwed sideways every year or two. Of course GW keeps screwing them, and they keep leaving, which is simply karmic.

It seems clear to me that GW needs to put their prices up again.

A cute little upstart company like FFG having a mins game that is closing in on the popularity of 40K....this.is.madness (not sparta)

If the cost goes up surly the player numbers will skyrocket...right....???...hello....

Yeah, it's meaningful. It'd be interesting checking how meaningful, i.e, if the ranking reflects the total amount of money that is spent for a single game or the total number of units sold for the same game.

I.e., if warhammer minis cost more than X-Wing (on average), this could mean that there are already more individual copies of x-wing ships around than of WH40K minis.

Hard to say if that is meaningful.

I find the fact that X-Wing is beating Warmachine telling. I do find it a little troubling that two wizkids games are 4 & 5, but not surprised that Attack Wing has fallen to #5, given the way Wizkids does things.

I suspect that there's a really big drop-off after the top 3 (and a very large margin between 1 and 2)

I mean, D&D Attack Wing? you've got to be REALLY into dragons to get something that lame.

The only person I know who plays that is the 6 year old son of my FLGS owner - says it all really

Oh sure playing with little toy dragons is sooooooo much more lame that playing with little toy spaceships...

Yeah, it's meaningful. It'd be interesting checking how meaningful, i.e, if the ranking reflects the total amount of money that is spent for a single game or the total number of units sold for the same game.

I.e., if warhammer minis cost more than X-Wing (on average), this could mean that there are already more individual copies of x-wing ships around than of WH40K minis.

Hard to say if that is meaningful.

I find the fact that X-Wing is beating Warmachine telling. I do find it a little troubling that two wizkids games are 4 & 5, but not surprised that Attack Wing has fallen to #5, given the way Wizkids does things.

I suspect that there's a really big drop-off after the top 3 (and a very large margin between 1 and 2)

I mean, D&D Attack Wing? you've got to be REALLY into dragons to get something that lame.

The only person I know who plays that is the 6 year old son of my FLGS owner - says it all really

Oh sure playing with little toy dragons is sooooooo much more lame that playing with little toy spaceships...

The problem with D&D:AW is that they've seen a popular rule system and tried to squeeze their fluff into it, rather than designing a system appropriate to their fluff.

If your only going to base a game on its tourney level play then yes Trek Wing is crap as will D&D wing become, we all know what fail kidz are like...how ever if you ignore tourneys (you have X-Wing for tourneys) then Trek Wing is a great game when played faction vs faction as it should be

Icv2 collects their information from phone interviews with various store owners and distributors in the US. While the information is interesting, it does not take into account sales direct from manufacturers, GW's own stores, the international market and it relies on the accuracy (and honesty) of the people they are talking to.

In other words, it's probably the best information people like us will ever have access to...

It should be pretty straightforward to do the math on this.

GWs revenues are a matter of public record - £123.5m (approx $188.5m) june 2013-june 2014 - but they basically only sell 1 product.

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2013-14-Press-statement-final-website.pdf

Best I can find for FFG is 2011 at $22m

http://www.inc.com/profile/fantasy-flight-games

If we can find out the latest sales figs for FFG and what proportion is made up by x-wing, then we've got our answer

Only 5 million of that was pure profit though the rest got eaten up by production costs, that's a stark contrast from just five years ago where they made 35.5 million profit.

Last year's financials were a major decline for a company as established as GW.

They are driving people away with poor rules and models that are way overpriced that's been the case for years but they've now hit the point where the players leaving way outnumber those starting.

We looked at the new harlequin army on their website it's about 1500 points worth for £400, on top of that you need the rule book, paints, glue and tools for construction so you actually pay £500 for an army that's too small to use in a tournament.

When I got into the game it cost me £70 back in 94, now times change and price inflation happens but from £70 to £500 is totally unreasonable.

They've lost the merican market and are not doing well anywhere outside the UK, and even here they have started closing stores.

I was hoping there would be less of the GW hate wagon train in the X-Wing forums, but haters gonna hate.

I enjoy both games. They aren't comparable, they are very different, and they are both fun. Enough said.

RoV

It's less GW hate and more dissatisfaction. As a GW fan of 10+ years, I don't find their new rules systems as fun as the old ones. And the blatant cash grab for a product that's sub par compared to their old ones is disappointing.

The joy I feel from X Wing is the same joy I felt playing Mordheim, Blood Bowl, Battle Fleet Gothic and 40k 5th. GW were much better than this.

On a side note, I have really been enjoying all the Video Games that have come out from GW selling off their IP to third parties.

Its cool if warhammer's your thing ive met plenty of cool dudes though playing warhammer and your probably cool dudes too but for me those days are gone. Being based in Australia we get the terrible prices. Im not sure if its greed or the quality at any cost mentality. But i know its defiantly the Gw proper gander where they sport the finecast garbage like its the next thing in sliced bread and then all you end up with is a flaky bubbly mess of mis-cast skaven. Or how about we do a new edition of 40k 2years after our last edition with some superficial rule changes so players need to buy our new $140 rule books. Or you know what people aren't buying out space marines anymore how about we change the base sizes by a few millimeters just so they have to re-base the 600 space marines they already have or buy a whole new army just so their troops feel more "thematic".

If i wasn't a Gw fan on some level i wouldn't rage so much when they treat the people who play their games like money pits and pretending their the only miniature game company out there. Any of their games that ive enjoyed over the years like necormunda, blood bowl or battle fleet gothic i can get from someone else and these profit losses are just that people like me sick of the Gw nonsense and lies and willing to go elsewhere for their gaming fix.

The problem with D&D:AW is that they've seen a popular rule system and tried to squeeze their fluff into it, rather than designing a system appropriate to their fluff.

To be fair, they did far better work at adapting D&D than they did with Star Trek.

The problem with D&D:AW is that they've seen a popular rule system and tried to squeeze their fluff into it, rather than designing a system appropriate to their fluff.

To be fair, they did far better work at adapting D&D than they did with Star Trek.

Seems to fit the system better the D&D 4th ed too

It's less GW hate and more dissatisfaction.

If i wasn't a Gw fan on some level i wouldn't rage so much when they treat the people who play their games like money pits and pretending their the only miniature game company out there.

Yeah, actually, it has. GWs player base has been plummeting for years and the past 3 financial statements have shown dramatic drops in profits, despite an increased release schedule and several really high profile releases.

While that may be true, your reply is also somewhat out of context, given the latter half of the sentence you quoted. Perhaps you'd care to rethink your comment?

Not sure what your trying to get at, since I WAS quoting the latter half of the sentence. I figured it was pretty self evident that the radically shrinking player base was the cause of the falling profits.

You said

40k's player base may or may not be dwindling, but that hasn't stemmed the flow of money into GW's coffers from a handful of very affluent players.

Yet we know for a fact that the player base has been shrinking, basic math on their financial statements tells us that, and we also know that profits have been falling for 1.5-2 years. Unless you are trying to argue that the player base is shrinking, and that "the flow of money into GW's coffers" has been falling but that the two are not causally conntected, then I dn't know what your point is.

That's twice you ignored the 'handful of affluent players' part, which actually qualifies the whole sentence. I don't suppose you'd care to go for a third?

Hard to say if that is meaningful.

I find the fact that X-Wing is beating Warmachine telling. I do find it a little troubling that two wizkids games are 4 & 5, but not surprised that Attack Wing has fallen to #5, given the way Wizkids does things.

Not surprised at all, Warmachine, while no doubt a wonderful game, does not draw people from all walks of life like x wing does, it appeals to one target demographic, 18-35 year old male hardcore miniature game players, usually jaded 40k players.

In contrast X Wing appeals to people between the ages of roughly 5 and 60.

First thing that comes to mind: that list will always have a number 1, 2, 3, etc spot. We simply don't know the composition of those spots. We don't know anything about why one company is 1st, and another is 3rd.

I do know that if I'd been selling minis longer than FFG, but had a spot lower on that list, I'd try to figure out why. But I don't know if number 1 should be concerned at the existence of a number 2.

"That's twice you ignored the 'handful of affluent players' part, which actually qualifies the whole sentence. I don't suppose you'd care to go for a third?"

I really don't understand what your point is? They are making less money. Yes, what money they are making is coming from a "handful of affluent players". So what? The flow of money HAS been stemmed. Is it somehow significant to you that profits are "only" down 50% instead of 90% because there are still players with money supporting them?