"Sales woe for Games Workshop" Topic

It's anecdotal evidence that amounts to nothing but: I made one of my infrequent visits to our FLGS recently and was surprised to see that the GW section, which once dominated an entire wall of the store, had been compressed to about half its former size. FoW, Warmachine and Vallejo paints now fill the extra space.

Justin wrote:

"Well I apreciate you are just guessing at the 300% increase in revenue but lets do the figures (remember, initially a box costs £18.00 GBP GBP of which £12.00 GBP GBP is profit)."

I realized quickly after my post that 300% was too aggressive.
I believe 200% is reasonable.
GWs prices have nothing to do with actual costs of goods.
As an example, traditionally, 12 chaos warrors costs the same as 20 goblins. Certainly, more material is expended in the box of goblins.
4 years ago, a plastic infantry box cost $20. USD It is now $35. USD I do not find it reasonable that GWs costs increased
from $10 USD to $25 USD in the course of 4 years.
To think that a box set costs $12 USD to produce is extremely
liberal. If a box costs more than $4 USD I'd be surprised.
IMO, If GW priced boxes at $20, they would make $15, and sell three times as many. So, profit would be $45 USD versus the current $30. USD O.k..not quite 50%

Rob

Where are the products we need, like drop pods for space marines? Produce games with rules so difficult to use and remember that it is hard to justify buying more than two armies. Put stores in expensive shopping malls like Annapolis Mall in Md. when strip mall space is much less expensive. Fail to carry merchandise to support their historical miniatures rules, even the rules themselves…..

If they do drop the LOTR line, then they will get no more of my money. I will just stick with my historicals.

Also, I used to buy a whole lot more back when the price was about $3.00 USD less per blister. Now, I rarely buy products because I can't afford to buy very much.

I let my US WD subscription lapse. It's been tiresome these last 6 months seeing it half full of staff painting contests. I've also noticed a lot of references lately in the articles subtly hinting that you *must* buy the Forge World items to make your army the *best*. Even the bonus offer for resubbing wasn't enticing ($20- of minis, *their* choice. Bring back the free reg't box and maybe I'll reconsider.) But the truth is, they've simply watered (dumbed?) down their games too much. The "character" from the early days is gone, and with it the "spark"…. [End Rant]

The reason given to me years ago for the constant raising of prices, was to cut down on demand. Well it worked, by the way does anybody actually buy Forge World stuff, great to look at but yourself laughing at the prices, are they made out of solid gold?

Who are GW anyway? Oh yes, the are the ones who I buy my paint from. Well, I can always use Valejio (or something like that) when they are gone.

Right, lets talk about Hasslefree, Warmachine, Rackham, Reaper, Spriggan, Alpha Forge, Urban Mammoth…..Hasslefree again…did I mention Hasslefree?

Sorry, who were we supposed to be talking about?

"Whether you think this achieveable is based on how important price is to hobbyists."

Almost all the gamers I know are in the end, cheap. And the most common comment heard at my local game shop re GW is "nice figs, too expensive" and they head off to buy something else. So I would say price is important. I would have kept buying figs from them if they hadnt gone to ludicrous speed with the pricing. (I stopped buying a long time ago) Never liked their rules though ;) The constant production of new versions to sell product didnt help either.
Space Hulk, BloodBowl, Warhammer Quest, Epic and Squats all command good prices on Ebay. Seems to be some life in those games yet.

GW are getting whats coming. I hope they sort out the problems & bring down the **** stupid prices. If not then burn baby burn.

Providing the figures are up to a decent level of sculpting, i'll always go with the cheapest sorry but its a fact.

>It's anecdotal evidence that amounts to nothing but: I made >one of my infrequent visits to our FLGS recently and was >surprised to see that the GW section, which once dominated an >entire wall of the store, had been compressed to about half >its former size. FoW, Warmachine and Vallejo paints now fill >the extra space.

This has happened in my local store as well, with some of the space also being taken up by the increasingly fantastic selection of board games that have come out recently. Granted, GW product is geared towards a set target group, but more and more I find that target group to be branching out into other types of games; hence the continued increase locally of board games. Perhaps GW would in fact be better served taking a closer look at the success of these games and think about returning some of their older games into production to compete. Doom and the like have taken the spot of Space Hulk, and Runebound/World of Warcraft seem to have gotten the old Talisman spot. Shouldn't GW consider competing with these types of games a bit more?

Hmmm… I broke down and submitted a question in the "Talk to Tom" portion of the Investor Relations page. I wonder if he'll even respond.

My missive:

Dear Mr. Kirby:

Given the downturn in GW's performance for 2005 and the continued decline of the Lord of the Rings property, has any thought been given to diversification of the company's product lines? It seems, from an outsider's perspective, that GW has increasingly been putting its eggs in only three baskets — 40K, WHFB, and LOTR — and has not taken advantage of the LOTR windfall to bring new lines to market. I don't intend any insult to the leadership of the company, but there seems to be a bunker mentality forming, that all the company's fortunes must rely on those three product lines, without any consideration of the viability of spin-off lines such as the Specialist games or one-off boardgames, such as Mighty Empires, Space Hulk, Man O' War, Talisman, or others that have continued to prove popular on the second-hand market. Would the directors and marketing staff consider reconsidering GW's previous stance on those sorts of efforts?

Also, has any thought been given to picking up other licenses, such as Paramount's Star Trek franchise or a partnership with Disney to adapt the LOTR or WHFB engines to the Narnia franchise?

We are all interested in seeing the continued good health of our hobby, and GW is a big player in that field. I hope that plans are in place to recover GW's market position and financial health.

Thank you,
(signed by me)

Now we'll wait to let it cook and see if anything comes of it.

I can understand that it is preferable to sell one item and make a high profit, than try to sell several items at a lower rate of profit. However, common sense would seem to dictate that constantly raising prices to keep up profits while sales decline is a practice that can only last so long.

I would agree in general that gamers are cheap, however that can play both ways. I have one fried for example who says "I'm invested too heavily in 40k to change games now!". He says this because he only plays 40k with us about twice a year. But it means that when he does buy minis he buys GW.

Me, I buy them because I think they make high quality miniatures – really nice sculpts (for the most part) and great casting. Yes, there are some other manufacturers out there that are of equal quality, but it would cost a lot to really get into an entirely new game. And I already have so many 40k miniatures that it's cheaper to add to them than to get an entirely new force.

Looks like the time is right for another price increase.

I can see how on paper selling less for the same money looks great. However, I would think that if they dropped the price back a little on the regiment sets, so that their plastic figures were costing less than £1.50 GBP each, the extra sales would more than compensate.

I'm toying with the idea of a small eldar force at the moment, but I just can't quite bring myself to buy into it, BUT, if the basic trooper sets were cheaper then I would, and most likely I'd buy more of them than otherwise too. Then GW would have another customer for the Eldar range, who would get a few vehicle kits, some metal minis and a codex, just from a lower 'buy in' price. I appreciate that it's a 'luxury' item, and you don't have to buy it, but from GWs point of view, they need to make it so that you feel you DO have to buy it. The minis are decent quality, (sculpting anyway, I've seen some dodgy castings lately), maybe if the games were cheaper to get started in they'd build up a bigger consumer base.

Good one, jlmartin. Of course, if past behavior is any indicator that's probably what they'll do to counter the loss of profit. I may be a little too detached as I've pretty much stopped buying minis (too much lead piled up) but I'd be very curious to see what the wargaming world would look like if GW collapsed.

GW relies on people needing to buy their miniatures to compete in their games. That is why they can charge outrageous prices . . . they are the only shop in town for official merchandise. And, if you make the best units more expensive, people will pay the extra $$$ to have competitive armies. GW does not have to compete on price like historical manufacturers that have interchangeable product lines. GW really competes by getting you hooked to a rule set. So, lowering prices won't help as much as finding a replacement for the LOTR rules.

Ach, too many guys posting here are simply old pharts! You're out of touch with reality. Learn the truth below….

tinyurl.com/99ptb

GW losing money on toy sales is not surprising. Check this article from Bloomberg.com. Here is the title: "Toy Sales in U.S. Falling for 3rd Year, Hurting Mattel, Hasbro". Sales are off 5% this year alone. I've been reading about this all over the www the past week.

The reason according to the article? Many more people are buying electronics and video games instead of toys. Guess what? GW's core audience is the same audience for video games. I bet if you ask around, guys are spending more on video games/electronics than they are on miniature gaming, regardless of GW prices. Expect miniature sales to really hit the skids when the Playstation 3 is released this year.

It's a no-brainer IMO. Shame GW can't see it. I doubt that they can stop it no matter what they do or how cheap their products become.

I don't think the video games are the problem. Sure there are a ton of gamers who play video games, but the majority of people who play these games wouldn't have been gamers anyway, thus they wouldn't factor into the equation.

If the article was correct companies like Privateer Press, Mongoose, Hasslefree and others would not have taken off last year. Gamers want to spend money, but they don't want to spend it blindly.

Hey, Javelin 98 – if you get any sort of reply (pft!) let us all know, willya?

CPBel: GW saw what you are talking about ages ago and have been involved in the computer games industry for over twenty years. They often work in partnership with specialist computer games companies who provide the technical skills while they provide the intellectual property.

I worked for them back in the 80s and even then the powers that be (Tom Kirby) was talking about how GW's main competitors weren't other companies producing wargames and miniatures but those producing other things that would appeal to their target market, teenage boys. Computer games were held up as being the prime example.

GW started off by producing a few titles (Battlecars, D-Day and Tower of Despair IIRC) for the Sinclair Spectrum in the mid 1980s and there's been a steady stream of computer games bearing the GW logo and featuring the Warhammer and Warhammer 40K universes ever since.

Recently Warhammer Online turned out to be a total disaster, while Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War was popular enough for them to produce an expansion and has even won some award for "Game of the Year".

@Hasslefreisian;

Hey there, you hang onto to that younr woman fer yerself!!! Don't be givin' 'er over to the dark side! She's worth 'er weight in gold, no, make that diamonds!

=]

OK, "young" woman. spelling. ugh.

I always enjoy listening to opinions that make seem to make intuitive sense, but, when tested fail….

For instance….

>>> their policy of using independent retailer sales to determine where to open up their own shops. A GW shop siphons off the sales going to the local IR/FLGS, who then closes >>>

Seemingly makes sense – however the actual fact, borne out by sales figures, both GW's and the stores in norhtern VA near the GW stores there; is that while local shops take a short turn dip in sales – a local GW store, that does well, actually improves long term GW sales in other independant stores as the enitre "pie" of gamers grows.

>>>>I think they would see a real surge in sales if they would just back off their prices a bit. >>>>

While it is true that I would be able to buy more stuff if prices are lower, it is not true that I would necessarily spend more money…

The company would not make any more money unless I SPENT MORE CASH myself – in fact they would make less money if I spent the same $s amount and prices were lower as the per item cost of goods would be higher.

So GW lowers prices – their profit per item drops as cost per item raises – I then spend the same $s, which is my gaming budget, and while I get more stuff – GW makes less money!!!

The simple fact is we all have a limited amount of discretionary income – It is ludicris(SP) to expect that lower prices of items will have any impact on my amount of discretionaly income – the object is for a company to make suffuciently cool products that I'll want to spend all my discretionary income on their products!!!

Well, on the other hand, GW gets none of my money right now, but lowering prices might bring them $25 USD to $50 USD per months they don't get now. I think there are a lot of peole in my boat.

While it is true that I would be able to buy more stuff if prices are lower, it is not true that I would necessarily spend more money…

This statement contains a fallacious assumption: that *you* are the sole target of the price reduction. GW's problem is that their audience is shrinking, not growing — and the older players don't need that many figs once they've filled their army.

Granted GW has had a few computer games, I still have some. However if that is the market they are trying to have their miniature games compete with, they're aiming at the wrong demographics.

Wargaming is a niche market, there's no way around that when you realize most people don't have or want to spend the time to assemble and paint and army of models just to roll some die to play with them. By that reasoning GW is completely trying to sell miniatures and models to the wrong groups. They are the big fish in a little pond.

And yes, GW competes by getting you hooked to a rule set, but they change the rule sets every few years. What is the number of gamers they loose when they do this?

Two points That I think would help. Definately a decress in prices. I would buy more miniatures if prices were lower. Thus creating more sales and more profit. If they don't belive this try a sale like Old Glory did a couple of months ago and compare thier profits. And second, don't be so restrictive on venders selling their products. Once the sale is made to the vendors, GW has made it's sale. Allow the vendor to make a small profit and move more of GW's products. For example I buy all of my LotR from a familar web site for a 20% savings! It would be easier for me and the vendor and more profitable to GW if I could order GW products directly on the WWW from a vendor of my choice(The one offering the best service and discount). This is proof that gamers take thier business were they can get the most for thier buck! Keep HASBRO and WOC away from GW. They have caused enough problems in the industry with thier tactics. What ever happened to the good old TSR miniatures and D&D? GW can become more profitable if they change thier thinking. They need to be more Gammer friendly!

We have our own stores now! Now WE get ALL the profits from those stores. Victory at last!

We have to pay rent on those spaces? Salaries? Workers compensation insurance? Utilities?

We have our own stores now :(

I seem to remember them using the 'cost of materials going up' for the last price increase. Then I read this in the operating review of their web site…

"Amongst the product delivery risks are those relating to input prices. The cost of core raw materials (metal and plastic), represents no more than 3% of our sales. While the prices of these commodities have shown significant volatility during the last 18 months, we do not believe that this volatility represents a significant threat to our long-term profitability."

If this is true then why the increase? Needing that profit margin is why. This is also why they have culled so many staff from operations duties. This is why they do not show at major conventions other than their own (it is not profitable). This is why they do not currently have a Grand Tournament or Rogue Trader Tournament season (they are not profitable). Allowing you Accountant to run your business can kill it if it relies on the feeling of being special and rebellious. This is what GW had as a face for its company for a long time.

Now GW needs to find its focus again. Its pricing structure is not really out of whack compared with Warmachine, Confrontation, or others. What is out of whack is what their customer base sees in GW, a company that does not "like them". If they could regain their core audience's favor, they could pull the company out of its funk. That is going to be a long hard road as gamers are fickle….

Its seems that there are a number of contributing factors to the sales decline at GW.
Increased competion from the companies already mentioned, plus the other leisure areas that are attractive to their consumers, mainly computer games etc.
The inability to use their LotR windfall to increase thier market share, or make the other games more attractive commercially.
The general economic downturn, the first thing to suffer is always hobbies , or luxury goods. You have to buy food and heat your house. although I've seen more than a few gamers who could live for a year on their fat supplies!!!

They need some fairly drastic action to recover from a loss in profits that big, but can they really afford to drop the prices in the hope that consumers will flock to their stores?

I can certainly see them moving their plastic manufactoring to Eastern Europe or the Far East, probably China or Taiwan, but do these countries have experience in metal casting?

A takeover would be interesting, but are Hasbro, or any of the other big toy groups in a position to buy out GW.

Should be an interesting year!!!

I just can't see buying GW figures-even with a 20-25% discount. I think they have finally hit that magic price point people have been talking about for years. The stuff just isn't moving at all in my area. Couple that with big minimum orders for my local store-and the GW area is shrinking. Warmachine is growing in a big way. I do think video games are hurting the company. Personally, I couldn't believe how expensive the figures are. I went to my store looking to flesh out an Undead army. Some of the regiment box sets were going for 45.00 a piece. I was truly shocked! There is no way I am going to pay that much. I just search ebay for big time deals. If they go under, oh well-I'll feast on their corpse….then I'll get some great deals.

A company that tries to monopolize and overcontrol the movement of its products in distribution and retail has only itself to blame when sales fall flat.

The Squats are having their revenge.

GW is trying to be a producer, distributor and retailer. Are there any other companies that try to do all 3?

No one can buy your products if they can't get them!

Well, just as a testimonial, when GW plastics were $22 USD a box (for 16-20 figures, plastic), I spent (shudder) over $2,000 within a little over a year. A lot went to paints, special figures (at no more than $4 USD a pop), terrain, etc. When prices hit $25, I slowed down. When prices hit $30, I almost stopped. Now in the last three years, my total GW expenditure has been $200 USD (for White Dwarf, I like the glossy pages and terrain ideas, and for Battle of Five Armies). So I went from around $1,000 USD to $100 USD per year because of price increases. That money (which could have gone to GW) has now gone to Wizkids, WOTC, Scotia, and other fine miniature companies (which I only got into because of insane prices).

All said, GW has gained probably around $3,500 USD from me, and lost over $4,000. USD Just to put a monetary term on things. But that's just me.

Captain Oblivious- My spending habits are very much like yours. When I've seen repetitive price increases I often shift my hobby budget to the companies where I get more for my dollar. I switched out of 40k and WHFB back in the mid-90's to other games and genres. I've got a load of the initial plastic LotR sets but none of the metals because they just cost too much compared to many other products that are available.

It's funny, but a lot of people here are making noise about Warmachine, Rackham etc as cheaper alternatives to GW. Alternatives, yes, but cheaper? Not so much. In fact Warmachine prices seem to me to be pretty close to GW, and in some cases Rackham are higher. The difference is in availability and the way GW markets their stuff – I've heard horror stories from stores that say that to get the new GW stuff (that people want) they had to also place an order for a crapload of old stuff. As a result both my FLGSs to home dumped them.

Now, though, the word is that this policy has been relaxed as at least one store is investigating getting some GW back in. I also have a store nearby the office that still moves shedloads of GW product (especially the battalion/battleforce sets, which can save you from anywhere between $15 USD to $45 USD on buying the contents separately) but has pretty much dumped Warmachine and Rackham as nobody is buying them.

I think GW is changing, but the changes are slow coming. Yes, they do revise the core systems occasionally but nowadays again they are trying hard not to invalidate previous supplements/armies. Finally, remember that Warhammer has been around for over 20 years – six editions in 20+ years isn't *too* bad, hell WRG Ancients got up to 7th Ed before being mostly replaced by DBM etc.

If GW dies so does most of the hobby. We'll only have have a few small companies supporting our crack habits; many of who will go out of buisness without disgruntled ex-gw customers. Where qare all the pre-GW companies?

No mass market appeal equals no new customers.

Of course Chaos Space Marines and cartoon orks are retarded to a grown man. Chaos Space Marines are not retarded to a prepubescent boy who will some day mature and either quit the hobby or collect unpainted lead nappies.

We should join forces and buy the GW, D&D and Old Glory and take over the whole industry.

BTW. LOTR Peter Jackson Skinny GW orcs are the best orcs ever.

Captain Oblivious is dead on. I spend a fraction of what I would on GW products since the huge price increases. The huge cost of starting any new army keeps me from even trying in most cases these days. Right now I would probably spend a ridiculous amount of money on a new Chaos and Orc army in both 40K and Fantasy but the cost of even getting started just keeps me away.

As if to prove the point the only decent value GW has going right now is the Mccrage set. The result has been a huge surge in new Space Marine and tyranid armies at our local store because you can get into them for a reasonable amount and from that point you just nickle and dime your way into thousands of dollars.

The biggest problem I have seen with GW U.S. other than prices is they run off every decent employee they have. Our local GW store had, I kid you not, a 1000% turn over in its first two years of business. The local reps and district managers turned over 4 times and now the local trade account stores never even hear from their sales reps. Not to mention zero product and prize support for RTT events being run by local shops. GW is just living off a foundation of customers built years ago.

At last years Atlanta Gamesday a GW USA exec (no longer with the company) told me that GW U.S. was only paying its operating cost as a result of Gamesday revenues in 2004 and 2005. I wonder how long that can be kept up. Please do not let GW die. With out them miniature wargaming in the U.S. may well go away completely or become a total closet hobby.

One other thing that puzzles me.

On the why can GW not seem to expand its market into other products.

HOW ON EARTH CAN THEY BE SO DENSE AS TO NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF WHAT IS NO DOUBT THE BEST FIRST PERSON SHOOTER ENVIROMENT GOING IN 40K!!!!!

Sorry to yell but to me this is such a great example of how pathetic GW is at exploring the potential of its franchise. Such a game would be fantastic and appeal directly to its core market and dramatically expand its exposure to many more potential customers of their miniautres and games.

Also, have they even tried to come out with an on going animation product on the lines of the great cut scenes featured in the Dawn of War series? How clueless do they have to be not to realize the potential such a product could have to expand their market. How about direct to DVD live action? These days such animations are not very expensive. Particuarly one all the models are created on the front end. Such animated products virtually saved Marvel and DC single handedly when they nearly went belly up a little over 10 years ago. Very similar customer bases and very similar companies in terms of rich and deveoped creative enviroments full of existing characters.

For the cost of their bonuses to upper management they could fund all these things and not effect their budget one bit. I do not begrudge good management getting bonuses but GW does not have good management.

Games Workshop has tried to spread into other areas- unsuccessfuly so far. People may not be aware that Tom Kirby promoted himself to Chairman of Games Workshop 'group'. That is, he overseas a number of companies one of which is GW as we know it. I forget all the others- black library, sabertooth, WHonline until it collapsed I think.
So the actual chairman of GW is no longer Tom Kirby, I forget the new guys name!
Tom Kirby was against the LOTR license from the start for this very reason of it being a craze of sorts. GW has done well by steadily growing year after year. LoTR and things like the whsmith promotion with the weekly figure only gave false figures as to the popularity of the company.
For me, things are now returning to normal. I see no sign of the company collapsing or lowering prices.
Do people forget this same thing happened a few years back? (they blamed pokamon) The GW shares dropped to under £1.00 GBP at one point but they came back again.

For my two pence worth!

Although pricing is and will continue to be a major problem, the big nail in GW's coffin is the lack of a real spark in its products right now.

Lets look at a few examples:

40K 4th edition: I bought this to stay up to date and what a pile of poo it is too, do something new and interesting with the rules instead of just churning out new rulebooks and codicies ad-nausem. I got fed up and switched to my own tweaked version of Aetherverse instead (now thats going, but hey-ho).

White Dwarf: Just as it was getting back to the good old days with some nice new rules, articles and a little bit of humor, they kill it flat. After buying WD almost solidly for 3 and a bit years I haven`t bought more than 3 all year (and one of them was for holiday reading).

LotR: This really bugs me, I like the books and I love the Films but game it? Too expensive!.

Too restrictive is a point I keep coming back to, I love plenty of other rulesets and miniatures lines out there, so why do I have to play by GW rules, the answer: I don't!

This year I also bought Combat Zone and have managed to tweak the Aetherverse rules so that can be used at the very small unit size level by lifting some of the combat zone activation point rules etc. I can now use these rules to run Aetherverse Combat Zone games, Shadowrun or even Heroquest and/or space hulk type games.

In essence apart from paint and brushes (still the best), (I have enought Marines to last me a lifetime LOL!) I don't need GW in their current form. They will have to evolve or die, the choice is theirs.

Listen to your customers, build a balanced customer base (not just all kids) and act like your customers are an important and respected part of the business. Without us GW will cease to exist in very short order.

Bring back Space Hulk etc and put out a free PDF army list so that all of those poor Squat players (I`m not one) can use their army under the current 40K rules.

I would like to point out that the first sci-fi game I ever bought was the original Rogue Trader rules in 1987 or 88 and I would like a return to the days of a more generic GW, rather than the copyright monsters that they have turned into today. I am just sorry that things have gotten this bad for them but the answer probably is.

Have someone who wargames in charge, hire accountants by all means, but DO NOT let them run the company. With a company like GW they will just kill it in the end.

My 2 pence worth

Stormwolf

Battlestandard Miniatures, Good idea about doing a 1st person shooter. Downside for GW is that it won't sell enough miniatures, which I think is how they really make the money. Maybe that is why the Inquisitor figures were a larger scale, so they could charge more to make up for lack of volume?

I was hoping they'd jump into an [affordable] Anime style mass combat game with Mechs, infantry, and characters after they came out with the Tau. That would have mass market appeal. I'm thinking stuff similar to Infinity and JC Figures which are cool looking new figure ranges I'm hoping will expand.

GW really needs a new original game, and preferably with new game mechanics, not something reusing M WS BS S T W I A LD.

If GW dies so does most of the hobby. We'll only have have a few small companies supporting our crack habits; many of who will go out of buisness without disgruntled ex-gw customers. Where qare all the pre-GW companies?
—————————————————————————

You need to get out more. There were Historicals LONG before GW, and will be around LONG after GW, when/if they fold their tent up and move on.

GW didnt make the hobby. Not by a longshot.

>If GW dies so does most of the hobby. We'll only have have >a few small companies supporting our crack habits; many of >who will go out of buisness without disgruntled ex-gw >customers. Where qare all the pre-GW companies?

Back in the early 90s when I was still a gamer in HS, none of the regulars in a rather large gaming club played WHFB or 40k. Everyone played Battletech, Renegade Legion, Car Wars, OGRE and a smattering of historicals. A few of the later members got into Man 'O War, Talisman and a few of the other 2nd Line GW games, but until the mid90s the larger GW games never made a showing. In fact, it wasn't until around '94 that our FLGS started regularly doing anything with 40K or Fantasy, before that it was all Battletech or interestingly enough Titan Legions.

The Wargame market is much, much larger today that it was back then. In the 15+ years that I've been actively wargaming, there hasn't been a better selection of readily available wargames like there is today. Warmachine, Flames of War, Confrontation, plus the various Clix and WOTC games have solidified a pretty strong presence of late, many of them making serious inroads in getting GW customers away from GW.

Like many others have said, I used to heavily buy GW. From '99 – '03, I purchased insane amounts of the stuff, creating some pretty large armies for both WHFB and 40K. Since the prices have increased, I find it impossible to justify throwing down $35 USD for a basic troops/common choice. I don't even buy their paints and brushes anymore, and have moved on to Reaper PRO and Vallejo. GW went from getting nearly all my wargame money to not getting a single dime in over a year and a half. The last thing I purchased that was GW was an old Wood Elf army set, and I got -that- off ebay.

Instead, all my money has gone to other companies. I'm willing to bet that people like me make up a fairly good sized statistic as well. The argument about videogames cramping their market is a lame excuse too. I play World of Warcraft very regularly, in a large group of friends who mostly tabletop. Every one of them, while playing a videogame for nearly 20+ hours a week, still find time to buy, paint and play wargames. Again, this can't just be a small minority of people either.

Fact of the matter is, there was a time when I'd buy at least a small 1000-1500 point force for any GW army that caught my eye, impulse buyer that I am. Now, with the prices so high I simply cannot justify it. I love the look of the newest Black Templars and would love to have a 1500pt force, but just cannot bring myself buy them, not when I can get a better selection of things for other games for that same amount of money.

I would say most of GW money comes from the under 18 group. I go to another message board and 40K is a frequent topic. I've found a few Full Thrust and Dirtside II players there, but 40K is the most dominant. And you can tell these are just ignorant kids when you tell them the history of GW and there are other games out there and they get all huffy about you bashing their fav game. Even when I used no inflamitory words about GW, I simply told them the facts. Maybe I got to some of them, the cost of it was their biggest concern. GW is starting to price it's current base out of the game.

I don't believe video games are the problem. Back in the early 80's I used to buy video games one month minis the next, as did most of my friends.

I think the real problem for GW is ebay. I can always get what I want on ebay as either new with a few GBP off the GW price or 2nd hand for a lot of GBP less than GW charge.

I also think GW need to start doing games like Space Crusade and Heroquest again, but with mini's from their current lines to hook kids into 40k and WHFB with a "stand alone" board game you can buy in a high street toy shop.

Compared to other figure companies, GW is a BIG market opportunity in the unlikely event that they fold (which won't happen).

Like any other business, they need to cut costs and focus on their opportunities. The Far East outsourcing is a given. Their killing off the indies and opening more of their own outlets is a mistake- the overheads are too high. I used to own an indy (put out of business by GW when they took my market), but they opened in a mall and are paying a very expensive rent. Internet sales pressure and independent manufacturers (read: GW knock-offs) will beat them up if they try to keep this approach going.

They still sell a quality products (which justifies higher prices) however, as competitors come up with good sculpts, this weakens their ability to raise prices (which, has probably reached it's pinnacle about now).

I've just spent my monthly budget on figures for my KOTR conversion project, even last year I would have spent this at GW but now I've moved on to other companies.

GW has been steadly pricing it self out of the market for years now, maybe this will finally get them to think about their action and reign themselves in. Find me another company that thinks it can steadly raise prices every year without taking any notice of what's happening in it's market and I'll show you a ex-company.