it couldn’t be worse for games workshop right now, i will go through games workshop’s problem for you.
games workshop is a PLC which means “Public limited company”, what does this mean? well it means that shares can be sold to the public and therefore the public have the majority stake, right now the public ain’t happy, and theres two ways to make stock holders happy is rise the price of the product to bleed dry the current fan base, or lower the price and chase after new customers, gw have not tried the second option, maybe they have greedy board directors or expensive manufacturing costs, we wont know, right lets have a look at the last 6 months
it doesn’t look good does it?
the last few months have been the lowest in since may 2000, gw has always been up and down and never consistent, till they got the lotr license in 2003
as you can see, games workshop was at its highest when the lotr franchise was in effect and 40k was in its full swing, at this time games workshop was worth more than pokemon ever was, just to show the scale of their earnings
but due to underwhelming expectations from new armies and rehashes of current armies, the public have not saw it necessary to buy the new miniatures for armies, and the new range hasn’t had much of an impact compared to last generations miniatures range.
in my opinion most of the hardcore gamers have jumped ship to new and more inspirational material from smaller company’s. plus the new generation of mmo rpg’s that are on the pc are bigger than ever and take up allot of fantasy lover’s time, ( world of warcraft ) plus give you more enjoyment for your money, games workshop has always been in direct competition to computer games although they don’t acknowledge it.
being a plc no one company can take them unless they go through the public and the court, usually when company’s turn to plc, they are in strife and it is hard to go back to a limited company and usually costs more than the company is worth, the average person will try to take as much as possible from the company in question. many plc company die before they are purchased and will sell off ip’s, warhammer will live on, under a new company but GW would die, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_limited_company
according to some septics on the Internet it can take up to £3,000,000 to release a new range for an army, although I’m not sure, don’t quote me on that. thats why they cant risk bringing chaos dwarfs back
i hope this sheds some light on games workshops problem,
Since the reason that people aren’t buying new models is because they already have the old ones, surely releasing a completely new army is the best way to get people to buy new models.
I don’t know why people are freaking out so much now, look at that massive drop back in 2005. It fell by 400 in just a few months.
surely releasing a completely new army is the best way to get people to buy new models.
cornixt
Either that or they release new miniatures for an existing popular army like VC that already sells well. Then they make those miniatures (or more accurately, their rules) so cool and powerful that people will buy them even if they already have that army.
I know i'll be buying a corpse cart for my VC army even though I can make a functional VC army out of what I already own (sneaky GW).
Mind you, I did buy my first corpse cart from Gamezone rather than GW, so perhaps not the result they were hoping for.
GW won't go under so long as they have enough addicts to keep drip feeding product to (although they may possibly get bought out, which is a whole other topic).
i like your last idea if they get bought out . Then they can get new ideasand better products
Kera foehunter
Or they could be asset stripped and left to die.
Hopefully it won't come to that.
I'm actually more optimistic about GW than most people on Warseer seem to be. LoTR made them seem bigger than they really were but they still have a sizeable market to target their products at. They're still bigger by far than any of their competition (unless you count computer game manufacturers amongst their competition).
There’s always talk about GW going under. I don’t know anything at all about business or markets or what-have-you so I can hardly claim to really know what’s going on. However, I think it’s a good idea to maintain a healthy level of skepticism regarding any predictions about the company’s future - if only because I don’t know enough to tell fact from speculation. Also I don’t know what those graphs represent - are they share price or profit or what?
My personal disillusionment in GW stems from my impression that the models are getting more and more of a cookie-cutter mass produced feel. Mostly because of the emphasis on the new plastics that in my opinion are fantastic in 40k and often bad in fantasy (with exceptions). Certainly on a personal level I’m much more interested right now in the work being done by Privateer Press, or Gamezone (altho I am too cheap to order from them).
So GW has my official “thbbbt” for the moment, but I just don’t have the knowledge to evaluate what their status really is in the grand scheme of things. Although they did just close up the Calgary battle bunker (abruptly?). Hm…
There's always talk about GW going under. I don't know anything at all about business or markets or what-have-you so I can hardly claim to really know what's going on. However, I think it's a good idea to maintain a healthy level of skepticism regarding any predictions about the company's future - if only because I don't know enough to tell fact from speculation. Also I don't know what those graphs represent :) - are they share price or profit or what?
My personal disillusionment in GW stems from my impression that the models are getting more and more of a cookie-cutter mass produced feel. Mostly because of the emphasis on the new plastics that in my opinion are fantastic in 40k and often bad in fantasy (with exceptions). Certainly on a personal level I'm much more interested right now in the work being done by Privateer Press, or Gamezone (altho I am too cheap to order from them).
So GW has my official "thbbbt" for the moment, but I just don't have the knowledge to evaluate what their status *really is* in the grand scheme of things. Although they did just close up the Calgary battle bunker (abruptly?). Hm...
ronsack thats called warhammer skirmish, and warband.
gIL^
I’m well aware of these and play them, but there not exactly stand alone proper games at the moment and you have to have the figures to start with. I was thinking of a game as cheep as a board game, not requiring any friends who currently play or even know of the game, or needing any extra (at first, all needed included in pack kind of deal) special equipment to play, ready to roll small kind of game that any interested people could play to get a taste. (Something you could sell at any average department store). Warhammer currently is a bit of an expensive gamble to non-players I mean $150 Australian (that�?Ts how much it BfSP costs here) is not exactly cheep and unless you know what your getting its hard to persuade people to part with that much cash on a whim, $50 on the other hand is plausible. The whole the people will split the $150 cost thing is great except that you then have to talk people into going halves in something they are not overly interested in, much easier to just make it cheep and people only have to persuade each other just to play.
Personally I would love if they made Skirmish and Warband into proper easy start games for under the $50. I believe they could, a small number of existing models a paper mat (just makes the game start faster if you can just place a mat on the table and have the right size playing surface laid out for you), a cheap rule booklet BfSP style, some objective tokens and away you go; of course with the if you like this try warhammer stuff on the back pages of the booklet with all the models etc. They don’t even have to do half the development as they are already clearly defined games that use existing fluff and storylines, heck they even use the same models and armies (obviously they’d have to stick to using only maybe 4 armies (with option to use your fantasy, 40K armies (were the ka-ching comes in)). The only challenge I can really see is finding out a way to use the basics of an army book without requiring an “army book.”)
I tend to think that alot more people would like 40K and Warhammer and give them a try if the prices didn’t make it so elitist for the beginner. (just my opinion) The price and scale alone just make it too daunting for totally non-exposed people to try. (again my own personal thought when I was first exposed)
if they started ready painted minitures i would quit warhammer forever
gIL^
When people were trying to get me to play ages ago one of the biggest turn offs was that I�?Td have to do so much work before I could even try the game out. Thinking about it more, good call on the paint job business Gil. It is the individually you can give your army that adds to the fun. But I still despise having to stick arms legs etc just so that you can have a model and you could finally try the (expensive) game (you just bought) to see if you liked it. Fair call for liking it after your’ve played a few times.
[/size]I accidently pressed post instead of preview so I had to fix it up a bit after the fact :rolleyes:
ah they just have to deal with the fact that they are to expensive for most Video Game addicted teens to worry about.
I say they come up with Mordeim like game with teaches the larger games and keeps the price at maximum �,�25 (
Maybe gamesworkshop should start marketing its role playing books because it would be relatively cheap and would introduce all the fluff on warhammer world.
I actually think that GW will come out of this. Why you ask, well simply that the last year I think GW has done everything right. A lot of great new products, aimed at the gamers, both new and old. In all system the diffrent games has got good upgrades and new rules that is fun to use. So at th emoment everything is going at least my way. Even WD is geting good again.
WD is getting good again???!! How? Have you seen the last issue?? All LOTR's. Pure catalog. Nothing has changed.
Yeah, they are doing everything right- $75 US for 5 Blood Knights. Bleh. No thanks.
BLOOD AXE
The Last few WDs tbh, although by no means being "Good" have been a definite improvement on many of the preceeding ones.
If GW did go ‘bust’, the only thing that would change is the people at the top. Warhammer and 40K has such a large fan base that the IPs for both would be snapped up sharpish. It would be most probable that the design team (that know the products inside out) would remain in place.
Also, it’s easy to be fooled by profit projection charts. I think you will find that GW has pumped a large amount of cash into new moulding technology for making it’s plastic kits and new bespoke CAD systems. This all costs a lot of money and would take a huge chunk of their profit. Also, the number of third parties that now sell GW stock has boomed. GW is still selling their stock to the distributors at a profit. If you take off the cost of distributing to their stores, paying the lease, electric etc in their stores, as well as the staff, GW will be making as much profit from the third parties as they do when you buy direct from their shelves.
With LOTR out of the limelight, GW sales were bound to drop. when it drops off enough, they can just shift it over to the less costly Specilist games department, and will not have to support it as fully as they do now and make shelf space for afformentioned necromunda/mordheim type games that would make them fast cash.
Most rumours turn out to be just that, rumours. When a business goes bankrupt or hits cash flow crisis, the first thing to cut out (as it costs the most money) is product development. This goes first as the business must make maximum returns from existing products to get back in the black. Product development does not make money until the development goes on sale. Therefore, the business stops developing new products to make more net profit from it’s existing products. There are no signs of this happening with GW in the slightest.
