"Changes at GW?" Topic

Ok, Over st bartertown they have a news item saying the high officials of US GW have been sacked. With statements that this is due to the loss of 8 million bucks this year.

8 MILLION dollars? expletive deleted!

So the question is- if GW sales are declining, not how can they bring them back, but CAN they bring them back now they have alienated a lot of vendors, and let other game systems get in the door?

Expect a 'collectable' game from them in 5, 4, 3, 2 ….

--
Gregg – Strange Cargo Games – Key West, Fl
strangecargogames.com

Any reliable sources on that rumour?

Makes some of the pro-GW comments in earlier arguments/threads lose all the air out of their position.

As Hillman said, the sources need to be crediable before the anyone stars GW bashing again.

I dont know about the money losses figure, but I do know GWUS will be appointing a new CEO soon.

To say CEO John Stollard was fired might be overstating, it was clear to all for quite a while that he wanted to return to England after many years of service. I understand he is being given a plum new assignment inside GW, more of a hobby promotion type gig. I hear he is an excellent speaker and wish him all the best.

Obviously I am hopeful of change at GWUS. I do not think anyone wins in the hobby business with GW having problems.

Neal

forget GW bashing, lets start up with some Collectable game bashing. I could really care less how well they sell or how profitable they are (Reality shows are popular and profitable, too, and no one calls them art), but Magic style collectable card games are the worst thing I have ever seen enter the whole of the gaming hobby. Collectable minutures are worse. You just can't randomly build an army.

And they look like crap.

If the news is credible, then I-Kore is the new trend setter, not GW...

Yes... Feels... Weird...

"but CAN they bring them back"

Steps GW needs to get my money.

1) Stop the codex escalation and army book of the month club

2) Be secure enough in their own figures to include design your own stats rules...Rogue Trader had this.

I think they could recover easily if they restored some sanity to their policies, especially price hikes, vendor relations (at least here in the US), game support, etc. If they decided to re-release some of their stand-alone games, such as Space Hulk, Mighty Empires, and Talisman, they could really pick up some market share, since there's already a loyal fanbase devoted to those games.

I know my FLGS won't stock additional GW merchandise unless it's requested specifically. The owner made a point of showing me a $50 box of five Terminators -- he's only got the one and it's never sold, so he doesn't stock multiples of them. He took a bath a few years ago on Epic, too, so he's not going to stock anything for E:A. Sad but true.

"You just can't randomly build an army."

AMEN!

Of course, I just buy the singles I need to flesh out my Dirtside forces. I picked up twelve Mechwarrior VTOL's for $18, enough for a full air assault infantry company. Thanks, WizKids!

They'll never have 'design your own stats rules' because they have "dumbed" the game down to make it more appealing to kids and to make the games move faster. If anyone remembers the old psycher rules in 2nd edition knows how long and drawn out the old version of the game was. The continued revisions of the codex rules really pisses me off to no end and the new core rules has been tweaked to make hand to hand even more bloody and quick paced. We'll never see the RT days again.

GW already HAS Collectible games - the Lord of the Rings collectible minis game and Sabertooth card games - Horus Heresy and the Fantasy version (can't remember its name right now, and I don't care enough about it to look it up). None of them are doing especially well, at least in the areas I've seen. The 40K card game had an interesting premise and a solid game engine, but it suffered from very poorly balanced forces (Chaos was unbeatable when the players were of anything close to equally skill).

I assure you that GW won't do a collectible minis game based on 40K because such would undercut the sales of their metal figures.

I still say that they could make so much more money if they went for a high-volume, lower cost sales approach, especially since they have so many plastic figures. I have spent less than $100 total on GW miniatures in '04, but that dollar value would triple - even quintuple - if I felt I was getting more for my money. GW's staunchest defenders typically scream "I'f you don't like it, don't buy it," and it looks like we're finally listening to them. Good.

Miniature gaming, especially fantasy and sci-fi, have grown too much in the last five years for the loss of GW to be the death-knell of "The Hobby" that it once may have been. A little competition will do the gits some good, and might finally shake that holier-than-thou attitude out of the GW studio once and for all..

They have design your own rules for vehicles.

They came out with vehicle design rules a few years ago.

I don't like them and I would hate to see them do a similar thing with the infantry. It isn't too bad if people are going to make neat little characterful things for their army but what more often ends up happening is the cannon of doom from beyond that can blast everything to pieces on the table without line of sight.

In a non-historical game I would rather see more tightly controlled versions of the rules come out. I like the revision of the codices. I always viewed the initial Codex: Chaos for 3rd edition as something that was released as a stop gap measure to get something out there and would be revised, or at least the daemons would be, later.

It was only $15. It's not like it was a huge investment in my hobby. The second one that bridges the gap between 3rd and 4th edition is only $20 and it came out about 5 years later. Neither one made any troops redundant. They released new models for the new codex, some of which were a great improvement over the older figs (the obliterators, for example.)

That did not make the older figures "useless" as many would claim. If you wanted the new obliterators in your army you could make the old ones into possessed marines. If you didn't want the new obliterators keep the old ones.

I also like them changing the rules occassionally. It forces a change of tactics and thinking on the parts of the players and makes for different games. Now that 4th edition is out I will probably start playing a lot more 40K, which had become somewhat cliched after 6 years. The trial assault rules also spiced things up.

For historicals I play enough periods that the tactics are always different for each period, no need to spice that up, but with fantasy and sci-fi I like things being switched up a little bit. If my Space marine with power fist isn't king of the field any more too bad, it was probably becoming a cruch to my thinking anyway.

Just my thoughts.

"You just can't randomly build an army."

They agree! Only through persistance can you build an army; i.e., persistantly buying booster after booster after booster...

"They agree! Only through persistance can you build an army; i.e., persistantly buying booster after booster after booster..."

I'm actually just starting with the 40K game, so no, I'm not just a GW "fanboy" or a "Warhamster kid". (24, btw)

And in response to the comment made by Andy Cowell, I have this to say:

You aren't buying "boosters," you're buying different types of units, that do different things for your army. Your selection of these "boosters" as you call them defines the tactics and strategy of your army.

This is absolutely no different in effect than buying say, Norman cavalry or Greek spearmen to flesh out an army. Or say buying a tank to add to a WWII army.

So why attack from a baseless position? I can sympathize with those of you that don't particularly like their business practices. Heck, I even agree with most of the GW bashing that goes on. But the simple fact that I find the game interesting and fun is enough to keep me wanting to build an Imperial Guard army and take the hurt to the 'nids.

Simply put: yes, we'd all like to see them go to business ethics training. However, it really does come down to "If you don't like it, don't buy it." And I'm not saying it to be sarcastic at all. I personally don't like the way Magic turned into a money pit after beta, so I don't buy the cards or play anymore.

But there's a point where that becomes a sad thing, not something to rejoice about. Now I (and many others that feel the same way, applicable to any game/system) no longer have the viable option of continuing to play.

Sure some folks would cheer and feel like they had won some great victory if GW went under. However, think of the thousands of people that DO like it and DO play it. They would be out a hobby.

Meh, my current .02

Interested to see some official print on this matter!

Rabbit!

Um, I don't think Andy was talking about 40K; he was responding to Utini420's post. I think he was referring to the collectible miniature games where you buy boosters that have randomly packed, pre-painted, plastic models. Lots of people hate that stuff.

"...games where you buy boosters that have randomly packed, pre-painted, plastic models. Lots of people hate that stuff."

Not me! I save hating for evil things. For random collectable miniatures packs I do have massive levels of disdain, I will confess.

I think, Grungydan, that Andy Cowell's point is that real military forces aren't a random hodgepodge of whoever the heck feels like going into battle that day. As a veteran myself, I prefer being able to assemble a balanced, effective force rather than just throwing a bunch of crap on the table because it's what came in the random booster pack. That's no fun at all -- it'd be like going to play a chess game and seeing that the other guy has eight Queens. He wins, not because he's a better player, but because he could (or his daddy could) afford to shell out more money for boosters and thus get better playing pieces. Those of us who enjoy these games as contests of skill and thoughtfulness find that there is no incentive to learn and grow as a tactician in Clicky-type games, because all you have to do is keep buying boosters until you get the Ultimate Super-Heavy Mondo Butt-Kicking Xtreme Champion Mech (now with sprinkles!!!), then easily wipe out all the other players without breaking a sweat. Why try to play with skill and finesse when you can just simply outspend the other players? After all, it's really about the power to crush the other kids... ain't it?

On GW, I think that some of us are more bitter than others because we remember a time when the company was more committed to turning out cool games than turning out a cool paycheck for the CEO (Note: GW, with an employee population of 3,200, paid its CEO a 2004 salary of £1.66 million, or about $3 million, plus 1,487,000 stock option grants). Having started playing Rogue Trader, Space Marine, and Space Hulk back in 1988, I feel like I know as much about 40K as anybody, and I used to love going down to the FLGS to see what they had in stock. 30 Marines for $22? Game on! Three Rhinos in a box? Excellent! It felt like there was real value for the money. Now, we are subjected to three price increases per year, an ever-shrinking bang-for-the-buck ratio, and Clicky-style "power pricing"; why the hell are five plastic Terminators fifty bucks when they use about a fifth of the styrene of the LOTR boxed set, which is ten dollars cheaper? Answer: because they kick butt in the game. So instead of building balanced armies and seeing the forces on the table achieve a natural balance through point-costing systems (like, who would put eighteen Basilisks and one Ratling on the table anyway??), GW decides that achieving that balance should have a proportional impact on your wallet.

Personally, I like the GHQ model of pricing -- minis that use the same amount of pewter in the mold cost about the same. Sure, M1A1s would kick butt all over BRDMs or BTR-60s, but five M1A1's cost about the same as five BRDMs or BTR-60s anyway, because the point is to build your force using scenarios or point systems, not Mastercard and Visa.

I for one find that the more I am forced to spend on a game, the less I enjoy it. An inverse-proportional relationship, in my book. Now I'm off to paint up some more of my 15mm Kra'vaks (which come as a full squad of eight for five bucks, which is perfect in my mind).

Checking out the careers at GWUS shows they are hiring a high level sales type.

Pictor --

I wouldn't have bailed on 40K and Fantasy if it were just one codex/army list book once a year. (In fact, I still do that for Warmaster.) My criticism is that, if you want to know all the rules of the game, you have to buy several.

I think where GW is fouling up their pricing is that they don't recognize the difference between a hero and a squad. I can trick myself into paying $10 for a single fig if I only need one of him for an army -- I assume that GW isn't going to sell too many of them, and they need to recoup costs with a higher unit price. But $10 Terminators?

Finally, I don't think GWUS has lost money. Their last company statement indicated that they did experience a revenue growth in the US -- but it was around 10%, and they had at least one 25% price increase. They're still making money, but they are losing market share -- and given how big the US market can be, a company that establishes itself in the US will be a strong competitor for years to come, and GW really doesn't need that. If that happens, they get to wave goodbye to that 35% yearly growth in Europe.

"We'll never see the RT days again."

Great! I thought Rogue Trader to be the worst of the versions of 40K I have played, and subject to huge abuses. Plus there were NO victory conditions, NO scenarios, and NO game balance. Cry about the old days all you want-- you can bloody well HAVE them!

jgwane: Do you have a link to this news item. I was just looking at Btown and can't seem to find it anywhere.

"Those of us who enjoy these games as contests of skill and thoughtfulness find that there is no incentive to learn and grow as a tactician in Clicky-type games, because all you have to do is keep buying boosters until you get the Ultimate Super-Heavy Mondo Butt-Kicking Xtreme Champion Mech (now with sprinkles!!!), then easily wipe out all the other players without breaking a sweat. Why try to play with skill and finesse when you can just simply outspend the other players? After all, it's really about the power to crush the other kids... ain't it?"

I heard this a lot back when I was playing Magic. I was a high school kid with a penchant for crashing cars so I had a limited budget. For me, the fun came from building powerful decks with cheap cards. My Scryb Sprite / Flying Men / Giant Growth deck was a blast. The looks you would get after beating someone's mox / lotus superdeck with $4.50 in cards was just priceless. I don't play clickies but I imagine a similar sort of thing is possible there.

For the record, I love clickies. Yes, I realize I just said that I don't play them. You can assemble all kinds of great armies with those things. The commons cost you like 50 cents per figure and there are zillions of them. I bought a big cool dinosaur last week for $4.50. I'll just crack him off that lame base, put him on a Warhammer 50mm base and add a saurus rider and my carnosaur is set. You go ahead and buy your $50 carnosaur. I'll be happy with my $4.50. I haven't played in a GW sponsered tournement ever and I am not too eager to do it either.

Yawn!

...Play SOLDAT!

Just check`n in you know.

;)

BME

kalgaloth -- '[Games Workshop] have "dumbed" the game down to make it more appealing to kids and to make the games move faster. If anyone remembers the old psycher rules in 2nd edition knows how long and drawn out the old version of the game was'.

Yes. You could go and have lunch during your opponent's turn. Now you have to have a sandwich at the gaming table, throwing crumbs all over the terrain and putting greasy finger marks on your nicely painted figs. Dreadful.

javelin98 (a box of 5 terminators for $50??) that means that I definately started my ebay offers of 4 nicely painted terminators/characters for $24.00 too low. Oh well I am learning about GW pricing.

Utini420, while I am neutral about GW bashing since I do not stock their product. I also do not stock card collectables (cannot beat the Walmart price) but I would be happy to bash them anyway.

-Time Portal Hobbies- ebay= rudiscott

" is that real military forces aren't a random hodgepodge of whoever the heck feels like going into battle that day. As a veteran myself, I prefer being able to assemble a balanced, effective force rather than just throwing a bunch of crap on the table because it's what came in the random booster pack."

We've had a commo breakdown here somewhere. For the record, I fully agree with you all when it comes to "random collectable" games. I hate the concept, because it leads directly to what you're complaining about: He with the most money, wins. And if I took Andy's statement out of context, then I apologize.

However, even under their currently (admittedly) hideous pricing, I can't see as how WH40K is under the same blanket. It's hardly random, as you know exactly what's in each package you buy. It's also hardly a hodge-podge, unless you either don't pay attention to what you're amassing, or don't have a sense of direction in building your army.

You mentioned liking the process of building a balanced, effective force. Well, I do also, in theory at least, and I'm having a bear of a time doing it. (New wargamer 8-)
I have to weigh my options for light troops, heavy support, specialty units, transports, firepower. If I don't construct my forces well, I won't stand a chance. Where's the difference?

Back to "outspending" your opponent to win. The battles are fought between two armies of a set (and usually equal, unless it's a scenario or some sort) points values. I'd wager that you pretty much spend as much on one 2000 point army as the next.

"(like, who would put eighteen Basilisks and one Ratling on the table anyway??)"

Probably no one, it wouldn't be a legal army ;).

"On GW, I think that some of us are more bitter than others because we remember a time when the company was more committed to turning out cool games than turning out a cool paycheck for the CEO..."

Again, totally sympathize/understand. I don't know if you're a role-player at all, but perhaps you followed the death of Dungeons and Dragons? Just look at what they've done to my game! Talk about a money pit. Quality gone, price up!

I can see where some of these comments are coming from, but others seem to be half-hearted attempts at playing the age old game of "mine is better." (No one in particular, just an observation.) I can't say that later on I won't change my mind, but I'm going out there to give it a fair shake anyway.

Well, it WAS there. I just looked again and the new item vanished. Again, I don't know if this was true and was hoping someone here could confirm it.

But what the heck, J, let's talk it into the ground anyway! That's what we DO here on TMP! 8)=

I have to say we got a good laugh when we saw this posting. No, John isn't getting sacked. He came over years ago for what was going to be a temporary stay as our General Manager, and with the changes brought about by regionalizing the company he stayed on to see it through.

Things are more settled now, so he's returning with a promotion to his home in the UK. We'll be very sorry to see him go and of course wish him all the best. And so we're hiring a new GM for the US company.

Sorry all, no grand conspiracy or bad news for anyone; it's just more net silliness. I tried to find the thread on Bartertown but couldn't see it anywhere (though I did find out that we're cancelling Bitz according to them - right after we open that GW store in arctic Hell I guess). Gosh, isn't the net fun :)

I know it's boring and all, but if you want to confirm rumors just email or call us. We do respond to all of the contacts we get, me included.

-Tim

Well, so much for that rumour then... :-)

Cheers/Fredrik

I looked at GW's last yearly financial report. They are a public company so anyone can pretty much get a copy. I am recalling from memory but the U.S. division was the one division that lost money. It was something like 1.6 million. More ominous was the decrease in sales volume.

This was the fist year since the division started it did not have positive sales growth. When you consider that it comes at a time when they have become much more public with all their new mall stores it is indeed a bad omen for the company.

Purely on the rumor front I have heard froma few people inside the company they are expecting to lose several million by the end of this fiscal year.

In my personal opinion they created the perfect storm and it is now killing them. They stopped all internet sales not controlled by themselves. They put their trade account minimum back to $500.00 and after two large price increases in a single year nearly every product they produce went up from 50% to 100% in price. Their dealings with Trade accounts is just terrible. They are unreliable, disorganized, have terrible communication and unless you beg for it they have completely forgotten what promotional material is.

GW is being mismanaged into oblivion in the U.S. In Atlanta this weekend they had the Rogue Trader Grand tournament. There were some 200 people in the tourney but it was so badly managed they only had the local district manager and two outriders overseeing 200 40K gamers needing rules decisions and help. All of this was apparently wittnessed by corperate officiers.

Hopefully they will get the company fixed before it is too late. Dispite all the bashing I strongly believe that miniatures wargaming needs a company like GW out there and it will hurt badly if they go under.

Well, I'm glad to see noone is getting sacked. :) So far, everyone I've dealt with in the US structure has been pretty wonderful. The english lads are even better.

I would like to say that I have become disillusioned with GW-US over the last year or so. While I still love their models, they have recently 1) become to hard to get ahold of easily - and by this, I mean I really like Necromunda, Blood Bowl etc - but stores don't carry the specialist stuff anymore, or the black library publications, which I was buying pretty fanatically. Now I have to mail-order, and while it's not hard to do, it's not as convienant as walking into a shop and picking it up all the shelf. and 2) They have recently been priced to the point that I no longer feel they are of value. In my mind, they went the way of Foundry. Beautiful figures - but I'm not shelling out to get them.

It's now very easy for me to walk into a hobby shop and pick something else up off the racks. (Lately it's been 10mm WWII and Reaper's CAV and Warlord). It's there, easy to get not terribly expensive and fun.

I don't even pop into my local GW retail outlet to say "Hi", pick up a WD, and watch a game because there is noone in the stores playing and even WD has become too expensive.

Not so much a bash, but just one disheartened ex-fan's opinion.

SaintRigger is spot on. The metal trooper blisters have gone up almost 300% in price here in Sweden in the past ten years or so, and they are now three figures rather than four. I can see this working out in the 40K market, but how they intend to stay competitive in the fantasy segment is a mystery to me.

Hopefully Tim and the boys will have a good laugh at this comment too, assuming they are more knowlegeable of the tin soldier market than me, because the wargaming hobby really do need them. Don't drop the ball, GW!

Cheers/Fredrik

I don't know about you guys, but I think the GW rules just plain suck. Plain and simple. I like the minis, but hate the rules. Even when I first started playing minis games (about 8 years ago) I couldnt stand the GW rules. Don't know why. Just don't.

But anyway, thats my 50 cents worth.

Hey Tim, seeing as you are obviously a gamer (and possibly of dare I say it non GW games) can I ask what you think of all the negatives regards 'no value for money' on a lot of the GW ranges? for example, I will probably buy the new 40K out of interest as I have bought every previous version, and I still buy WD to see whats new. The thing is, much as I have enjoyed a lot of my GW stuff, and also working for the company, more and more I am finding myself thinking well, I'd like to get some of X,Y or Z from GW but at that price? Forget it. This isn't a dig, as I do like a lot of the GW figures, and some some of plastics are relatively good value. I say relatively in the fact that when you compare them to the rest of the range yes they are cheaper, but when you see other manufacturers bringing out highly detailed minis at a fraction of the GW prices, you do wonder. One of the things that really does confuse me is the cost of plastic kits, and certainly the forgeworld resin pieces. AS someone who's father designs and makes resin kits and masters and molds for other companies I know that the price is out of line with the resin costs. Even taking into account paying the sculptor, the machinery to make it, and all sorts of overheads, whatever way you look at it, GW is overpriced. Not across the whole range, but certainly in major areas. Is there anything in the pipeline from GW to combat this?
Some other things have made me wonder - when Talisman was re-released in America we had been told it couldn't be re-released in the UK as the art work had been lost so the boards and playing pieces couldn't be printed - surely in the age of superfast internet access etc the files could have been sent to the UK? I think a lot of the negativity to GW comes from things like this, and of starting up a non-core game, then dropping it and so on.

Like I say, this isn't an anti GW rant, more that there's a chance you may give us an honest answer or at least an idea as to GW's marketing strategies etc. I really do hope things continue well for you, I just wish all my favourites hadn't been removed from the GW universe. :-)

Thanks

Alien

GW is a real business.

According to some too much so with a loss in customer support/satisfaction. The GW bootom line and stock holder happiness becomes more important than pleasing the customer base.

Some say that it in not part of the "Hobby World". How can you support a hobby with a mega-bussiness frame of mind. Anybody view Sears, Walmart of Shell Oil in terms of 'Hobby'. No they provide products to a vast customer base realizing that you cannot please everyone. Only the stockholders count. GW has to adopt this same view.

Can and should a store ignore GW? Depends on the stores goals. I made my choice in my store.

What about the customer satisfaction/support/ Who to please. That is something that GW management decides upon. To the happiness of some and the sadness of others.

I think it started in 1991, when Tom Kirby led a forced buy-out of the company. You notice that after that, it began adopting the Hasborg mentality, cutting out games like Space Hulk and Mighty Empires and focusing on growth in the WHFB and 40K segments. Still, it rankles how contemptuous the attitude of GW overall is towards customers and fans. Huck, I know you say that we should confirm rumors by calling GW customer service, but the customer service trolls don't seem allowed to say anything other than what the lawyers tell them they can say. They aren't really a refreshing source of information, since they are constrained to echo the official line. Sometimes that's good, but more often it means scripted answers and frustrated customers.

Hey, they're just people doing their jobs :-) I also give my customers the company line, even if I sometimes privately think they're absolutely right.

The next big growth market = historical. Imagine a GW program to make figures for the WAB books, even take over that series, National tournaments.
Like Michael Corleone, they would be legtimate in 5 years.

Could WRG with its "traditional" style of publishing compete with that. The current DBM-Armati-Warrior-DBA events at Historicon/Cold Wars would be dwarfed by a big GW juggernaut of historical games. Then they take on Origins and GenCon. What a boon for the historical hobby if they embrace it.

Bob, it would really depend on the tack they took with it. If they started pushing their "to play with these rules you must use only these specific GW figures" doctrine onto the historical side of the fence, I think they'd find a lot more resistance than they face now in the fantasy/sci-fi arena.

I hope that the new GW-US management brings back bitz for Epic and other Specialist Games...

Shalom,

Maksim-Smelchak.