Latest financials from Granny.

[Thadrin]

2nd half year profits down from 11million to 7.7 according to new official figures.

So - huge drop in profits....but she's still raking it in.

Further rumours that WFB is far from healthy just now too.

[Joemanji]

They should design games to be played rather than to just exploit kids and maybe WFB would be fine.

[Thadrin]

They should design games to be played rather than to just exploit kids and maybe WFB would be fine.

Agreement.
We all know they're minis first, rules a distant last.

[Darkson]

Share price was (is?) down about 24% on the news.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/01/ ... early.html

[Dr. Von Richten]

They should design games to be played rather than to just exploit kids and maybe WFB would be fine.

What? No man, that's just silly talk!

[JT-Y]

Figures explain a lot.

Ouch though.

[Thadrin]

More rumours...none of them look good for granny. I think Panic mode may have been engaged.

http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/gw ... o.html?m=1

http://natfka.blogspot.se/2014/01/games ... -down.html

[JT-Y]

All as the CEO attempts to survive another catastrophe with his own position intact. Maybe this time the share holders will be wise to him.

[Eski]

Quick.. Someone buy the rights to blood bowl for a penny

[JT-Y]

Quick.. Someone buy the rights to blood bowl for a penny

I believe that even now Rick Astley is in talks to buy them from Fantasy Flight Games.

[worthy]

Quick.. Someone buy the rights to blood bowl for a penny

I believe that even now Rick Astley is in talks to buy them from Fantasy Flight Games.

I've heard that he's put an offer in and he's "never gonna give up" till he owns them

[lawquoter]

I hope Granny continues to rot...

[JT-Y]

Just posted this elsewhere, but I'll share it here for anyone interested in my thoughts.
Bear in mind I don't hate GW, but I stopped being loyal in 2005 for a couple of unpublishable reasons. I'd prefer to see core problems within the organisation addressed than to see the company fold, it'd harm our hobby in a big way if the high street face ceased to exist.

It's a very simplified model, but this is how I explained their future problems a few years ago:
Imagine you have 10 customers and your business is doing fine. But one day for whatever reason you lose one customer.
You have a problem.
The clever thing to do would be to look at why you are happy to survive on that level, you should look at the bigger picture, advertise, expand, grow the business. If you could get 11 customers you'd be better than before.
But that takes time and money, and resources you are unwilling to invest in because you have an old fashioned idea that such resources lead to wasted money and devaluing your business (only losers need to advertise).

So you increase prices, meaning that your 9 remaining customers will be paying more and profits don't take a hit.
Golden.
But 2 of your customers take offence at the price rise and go elsewhere.

Shit. But nevermind, you rise prices again, because clearly it'll work, the plan is sound. And it does work, and alongside repackaging existing products and releasing newer versions of old products you are able to keep most of your 7 remaining customers happy and all is well.

But it isn't, because 3 more customers are drifting away and finding lower priced alternatives.
So you raise prices again.

There comes a point when you have one customer left and you are about to price himout of the market as well.

When the LOTR sales bubble burst panic set in. The board assumed that those sales would continue, and they had spent those profits very badly.
They were also oblivious to the power of advertising at that time. GW was advertised in the cinemas during the trailers at the insistence of New Line, and in every home in the country via the magazines being on TV.

The decision was made to focus on core values, and to upsell.
It worked for a while, but a deliberate move to alienate the core market didn't help.
The real core market was known to be adults who play WFB. Granted those adults may not spend £10 per week like kids do, but once every couple of months they were spending £250 plus. A much higher total. Same was true of adults playing 40k.
But that market was ignored and marginalised, kids were favoured. I was once told by some dick that we could always hit parents hard because spending more shows love.

There was always a false statement that 40k outsold WFB. It was known to be untrue, but it got repeated ad tedium. And it has become an accepted truth, to the point that it has been made true.
By releasing a weak edition of WFB, GW shed customers but did succeed in attracting a few kids to the game.
But the belief that they can charge what they want is coming home to roost.

When Empire Greatswords released at £25/10 we thought they'd be the exception rather than the norm. But then it became the norm, so that a unit costs £75, more than when the models were metal, and you lose custom.
But look at Delfs, £30 for core, £35 for special. £90 or £105 per unit.

And on top of all that 40k has had the treatment in terms of price/mini so that even small skirmishing forces are a horrifying price.
But it gets better, as now the studio has followed instructions and made FW and Apoc models available in standard games. A nice idea, but it accelerates the arms race to a level that most customers, or their parents, simply can't maintain.

And the changes to WD indicate another desperate measure. They want to sell it for twice what they do now to make up for falling sales and reduced distribution,but they know they can't. But they can sell it for that if they go weekly...

All of these issues could have been dealt with before they became issues, but sadly what we see is bad leadership.
There can be no other reason why all of these factors came into play than that the board allowed them to. If they didn't foresee problems then they were blind and that is unforgivable, if they did then they chose to ignore problems, and that is worse. In either case the shareholders should be asking questions of the board rather than allow the board to put blame onto the shop floor staff who only enact such long term doomed policies.

GW can fix this, but they need to reduce prices, introduce bulk buy discounts, and cotton on to what consumers want. No one wants a one-click-online-bundle that saves 0 pence, but if it was 25% discounted they'd fly out the door.
They need to address faults in core game systems that have turned veteran gamers to competitors, or that have directly led to the ever growing 'Oldhammer' movement.
They need to thank their customers and appreciate them. Shutting down online blogs or Youtube channels hurts the community which they need to survive, sending C&D orders to people writing fan fiction or house rules kills the customers love of the company.

In 2005 when I left I gave them 10 years with the caveat that I hoped the company would redirect and rebirth. They have until the end of 2015 to do that I think.

What they need are salesmen. The board is made up of people who have an idea of how they wish selling to work, and a belief that if it doesn't work then the problem isn't their attitude, rather the problem lies with their customers, so to fix it they simply need to change the customers to suit the business.

That is the clearest way that any company can fail. You can't change the consumers, but you can change to suit them.
If they had a few salesmen telling them how selling and upselling really works they'd be selling more.
Sadly there are those on the board who pride themselves on skill they do not, infact, possess.

[AllyRdr]

excellent post.

pretty much sums up exactly why myself and my group of friends have all drifted away from GW over the last 10 years.

[Darkson]

+1 to both JT-Y's and AllyRdr's posts. The only GW games I and the majority of the other ARBBLers play these days are BB, Necro, Mordheim and Quest - all games they no longer support or even seem to want to acknowledge. Not sure on Oldhammer, as WFB was never a fave for me, but I'm looking to play a few games of Rogue Trader later this year.