Dînadan:
The annual GW report is now out:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2013-14-Press-statement-final-website.pdf
I’m sure those with more business orientated minds than me will be able to make heads or tails of it and confirm Kirby’s claim that GW has had a good year.
One thing that baffles me - in Kirby’s preamble, he mentions that he’s stepping down as CEO and that applications open on September 18th and implies to apply you only have to write a letter and they won’t bother reading your CV, just your cover letter :o Then again, maybe that explains how he got the job 
MadHatter:
The annual GW report is now out:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2013-14-Press-statement-final-website.pdf
I'm sure those with more business orientated minds than me will be able to make heads or tails of it and confirm Kirby's claim that GW has had a good year.
One thing that baffles me - in Kirby's preamble, he mentions that he's stepping down as CEO and that applications open on September 18th and implies to apply you only have to write a letter and they won't bother reading your CV, just your cover letter :o Then again, maybe that explains how he got the job :P
Dînadan
Seeing the low profits for the shareholders I would'nt say it looks like the best of years compared to what's usually considered a good return but I wouldn't say it looks bad either. It sounds like he's preparing a sale. Hasbro?
Theres 6,087 shares at £605 each. If 600 of us get one share each we'll put a pressure on them from 10% of the stockholders to finecast hobgoblins, buy/publish Thommy's armybook and complete 'casual friday' with a 'big hat wednesday'. :cheers
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-markets/stocks/summary/company-summary.html?fourWayKey=GB0003718474GBGBXSSMM
Dînadan:
Theres 6,087 shares at £605 each. If 600 of us get one share each we'll put a pressure on them from 10% of the stockholders to finecast hobgoblins, buy/publish Thommy's armybook and complete 'casual friday' with a 'big hat wednesday'. :cheers
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-markets/stocks/summary/company-summary.html?fourWayKey=GB0003718474GBGBXSSMM
MadHatter
We should have done that back in March - only ~£475 then :P
snowblizz:
I'm sure those with more business orientated minds than me will be able to make heads or tails of it and confirm Kirby's claim that GW has had a good year.
Dînadan
It's a politicians answer really. It's really good if you compare with when the bottom fell out of the LotR market e.g.. It's not as good as last year...
It's not untrue, but have a bunch more of these good years and eventually someone has to admit that maybe it's not so great anymore. Phyrrus (sic?) won all of his battles and all that.
What strikes me as interesting is the tone taken, I'll admit I don't remember the preambles exactly but it's usually kinda formal sounding.
MadHatter:
I'm sure those with more business orientated minds than me will be able to make heads or tails of it and confirm Kirby's claim that GW has had a good year.
Dînadan
It's a politicians answer really. It's really good if you compare with when the bottom fell out of the LotR market e.g.. It's not as good as last year...
It's not untrue, but have a bunch more of these good years and eventually someone has to admit that maybe it's not so great anymore. Phyrrus (sic?) won all of his battles and all that.
snowblizz
One interesting thing is that the report mentions to many millions spent on dragging courts and lawyers, and that it costs much more than it returns, and that they estimate a badly detailed 3d printed army to take a year to print :yar perhaps they should hire or atleast contract great designers who cast their own models rather than sue them? Perhaps they have learned now that it would be more profitable for both parties. In any case it's good news for small alternative casting (and seriously GW, that's for enthusiasts, what share of the large market for WHFB and 40k was ever threatened?).
If they chill out and refrain from spending millions on new homepages and lawsuits and hire CEO's with a long documented passion for game then they will start seeing some changes in those numbers.
We could perhaps send in some applications? Much could be done in favor of the chaos dwarfs before we've officially sunk the whole ship :P
Dînadan:
We could perhaps send in some applications? Much could be done in favor of the chaos dwarfs before we've officially sunk the whole ship :P
MadHatter
Well going by the preamble all you need is a snazzy cover letter regardless of your CV, so I say go for it MadHatter :cheers
Fuggit Khan:
I work finance (healthcare operating budgets for State hospitals), and I have to say, in my opinion, after reading this…GW did not really have a good year at all.
All company Annual Reports are a lot like a politicians speech, full of fluff, short on straight forward facts.
They speak of ‘tangible assets’, but hardly a word of depreciation. Leased store fronts are not an asset…so where is the listing of ‘said’ assets? Glass display cases, gaming tables and stock item wall racks have no real marketable tangible asset value, and depreciation on such items would mean they are written off probably within 3 years (industry standard).
The dividends per share is embarassing, the number of shares itself is suspect to any investor…I would expect to see a reverse stock split 2-3 fold before they could expect more investment from outside sources (banking systems included)…which may not be coming because that would open GW to a larger pool of voters per company direction and choice of company directors.
And the current GW directors would fail their ‘panic test’ roll at the thought of that happening :hashut
cornixt:
"We have had a good year, if you redefine what the word ‘good’ means"
The dismissal of 3D printing was telling - although there is truth in that printing a whole army is not feasible yet, he really underestimates the standard that people will put up with. You don’t need an expensive printer that takes more than a day to make something that will look okay a couple of feet away under a bad paintjob. Not that people will be going that route anyway, far easier to just buy the much cheaper stuff from the competitors. And with GW disappearing from the high street, more people are happy to play elsewhere, without the GW-models-only rules.
They are shrinking. Only a matter of time before a bigger company buys them out and they start selling more than wargames.
snowblizz:
Theres 6,087 shares at £605 each. If 600 of us get one share each we'll put a pressure on them from 10% of the stockholders to finecast hobgoblins, buy/publish Thommy's armybook and complete 'casual friday' with a 'big hat wednesday'. :cheers
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-markets/stocks/summary/company-summary.html?fourWayKey=GB0003718474GBGBXSSMM
MadHatter
We should have done that back in March - only ~£475 then :P
Dînadan
That's actually 605 pence each. Or 6£ 5p.
There's around 32 *million* shares outstanding, and the company is worth around 192 million. But yes in March they were only worth around 154 million. Give or take a few tens of million due to my rounding.
So geee..., umm no thanks?
torn:
If they really want to make some money they need to sell some film rights, instead of trying to do it themselves. I mean instead of normal book publishing they made their own publisher, and everything they did apart from Horus heresy has flopped. I even have a sci fi anthology, I can’t remember the name maybe black sun.
But essentially a hit Hollywood movie would allow gw to really cash in on merchandise, which might in turn draw more people into the hobby. How many people play x wing, despite the ww1 and ww2 originals being out for years. How many people own a lotr or game of thrones living card game?
And let’s look at another option, how well would a spac e marine action figure collection sell? I’m guessing very well. Everybody knows games workshop and warhammer, but they need to give themselves a more mainstream image.
Helblindi:
I don’t know if a Hollywood movie would work that well. What kind of audience would they be reaching? Like someone from Bungie said, this sort of games pretty much appeals to people’s inner 7-year-olds. Apart from us nerds, most people aren’t very much in touch with their inner 7-year-old, and most parents wouldn’t want their actual 7-year-olds to watch a violent warhammer movie. With all the grimdarkness, it would probably be like 14+ or so. And I think around age 16 chainswords really don’t sound that cool anymore to most people. So I think they’d be mainly reaching the warhammer community and maybe some teenagers, probably cash in a bit, but nothing big time.
MadHatter:
I don't know if a Hollywood movie would work that well. What kind of audience would they be reaching? Like someone from Bungie said, this sort of games pretty much appeals to people's inner 7-year-olds. Apart from us nerds, most people aren't very much in touch with their inner 7-year-old, and most parents wouldn't want their actual 7-year-olds to watch a violent warhammer movie. With all the grimdarkness, it would probably be like 14+ or so. And I think around age 16 chainswords really don't sound that cool anymore to most people. So I think they'd be mainly reaching the warhammer community and maybe some teenagers, probably cash in a bit, but nothing big time.
Helblindi
I'm not sure I agree. A Warhammer fantasy setting would also appeal to LotR fans and 40k would appeal to the scifi community.
Check this out: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/fox-bring-magic-gathering-big-670529
"20th Century Fox has closed a deal to acquire the screen rights to the hugely popular fantasy card game from Hasbro and will develop the property with an eye to launch a massive franchise on the scale of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings."Mtg is a far inferior game and their newer writing is bad. The mtg universes, in comparision to the universes of GW, are hollow. Give my Urza, Phyrexia and Yawgmoth and I'm game any day of the week but these days it's all bad. Generally none can stand the presence of the average mtg player either.
Still... "on the scale of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings"
MadHatter:
That's actually 605 pence each. Or 6£ 5p.
There's around 32 *million* shares outstanding, and the company is worth around 192 million. But yes in March they were only worth around 154 million. Give or take a few tens of million due to my rounding.
So geee..., umm no thanks?
snowblizz
Oh lmao, my bad understanding of the brittish pound!
Maybe our brittish members could buy some shares for the right to speak for our cause at their annual-meetings? I'll donate for it! :hat off
Bloodbeard:
Mtg is a far inferior game and their newer writing is bad.
MadHatter
Let me just get my popcorn ready before I post this in a mtg forum - the first internet world flame war! We're talkng firesale hackng and captured intercontinental missiles here!
Dînadan:
That's actually 605 pence each. Or 6£ 5p.
There's around 32 *million* shares outstanding, and the company is worth around 192 million. But yes in March they were only worth around 154 million. Give or take a few tens of million due to my rounding.
So geee..., umm no thanks?
snowblizz
Oh lmao, my bad understanding of the brittish pound!
Maybe our brittish members could buy some shares for the right to speak for our cause at their annual-meetings? I'll donate for it! :hat off
MadHatter
To be fair to you there aren't any currency symbols on there, so for those of us unfamiliar with stocks, it would look like £605 ;)
I don't know if a Hollywood movie would work that well. What kind of audience would they be reaching? Like someone from Bungie said, this sort of games pretty much appeals to people's inner 7-year-olds. Apart from us nerds, most people aren't very much in touch with their inner 7-year-old, and most parents wouldn't want their actual 7-year-olds to watch a violent warhammer movie. With all the grimdarkness, it would probably be like 14+ or so. And I think around age 16 chainswords really don't sound that cool anymore to most people. So I think they'd be mainly reaching the warhammer community and maybe some teenagers, probably cash in a bit, but nothing big time.
Helblindi
As has been said LotR proves that this is an incorrect assumption. Even more if you take Harry Potter into consideration - that was a children's series that was popular with kids and adults alike, and not all of them were geeky/nerdy/insertpreferedtermhere. A TV example of a fantasy series that has become popular mainstream is Game of Thrones. On the sci-fi side, Star Wars and Star Trek are popular with non-geeks, and a Doctor Who is highly popular on the TV front. Add in the popularity of Superhero movies lately ( Dark Knight saga, the MCU, etc) and it's clear that things which are stereotyped as being geeky/nerdy have considerable popularity outside the 'geek community' and could be popular. The key would be in writing a quality script as opposed to the setting.
And having mentioned the MCU, if a Holywood film were to be made, they could follow that example, having a handful of separate series set within the 40k universe that tie together somehow, resulting in crossover movies somewhere down the line.
Dînadan:
Also, on the film idea - who says it has to be a Hollywood blockbuster? GoT is a popular, and therefore highly profitable, TV series, so there’s that route to explore aswell. A good choice is probably the Gaunts Ghosts series - unless I’m mistaken, GG is regard as Sharpe in Space, and the Sharpe TV movies were popular and well regarded in their day, so GG has potential to ape that success.
Pyro Stick:
Maybe our brittish members could buy some shares for the right to speak for our cause at their annual-meetings? I'll donate for it! :hat off
MadHatter
I'm looking in to it but the fees involved are already putting me off.
This shows how good a 40k movie could be and I'm sure an official one would be even better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjaYW5Cnr5k
Beats the crap out of Ultramarines. That was just embarrassing
MadHatter:
I'm looking in to it but the fees involved are already putting me off.
This shows how good a 40k movie could be and I'm sure an official one would be even better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjaYW5Cnr5k
Beats the crap out of Ultramarines. That was just embarrassing
Pyro Stick
You'll be the Deathshrieker that explodes with CDO opinions right in the flank of their army's command! If you feel like looking into it just send me a PM about the fees etc. and we can work something out. If your not afraid to talk before an audiance I think we could make some impact.We could plan this out further via PM and later if we get to "Go" we could have an operation-thread summing up in short what we want to reach the company and the investors.
Loved that trailer, looks alot better than Ultramarines.