Troubled Games Workshop Appoints New CEO for 2015

[JonB]

Troubled Games Workshop Appoints New CEO for 2015

The flagging purveyor of miniatures games and all things Warhammer has chosen a company veteran for their new CEO.

Despite the fact that since 2008. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131450-Games-Workshop-Stock-Plummets-By-24-Percent]

While the company might not be doing too well, it still has Fantasy Flight Games [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/criticalintel/10946-Games-Workshop-is-Dead-Long-Live-Games-Workshop].

Source: GW Investor Relations [http://investor.games-workshop.com/the-board-of-directors/]

[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tabletop/]

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[PunkRex]

Unless his first order as HQ is to make every thing a f*ck ton cheaper it won't make a difference.

 

[The_Darkness]

Games Workshop, I have one simple message for you.

Figure out who your audience is.

Because at the moment you are selling stuff that appeals very strongly to teenagers and young adults, but at prices that require a very stable income. Restricting your actual audience to teenagers with generous parents, and adults willing to pour money into the hobby.

You need to trim your prices. If that means dropping your quality, so be it. But a small pot of paint shouldn't be almost £3. And a squad of ten Space Marines shouldn't be £25 (TWENTY FIVE POUNDS?!). The rulebook is £50? You're kidding me.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

The problem with GW is their price increase. They think they have a monopoly on miniatures and wargaming, so they can charge whatever they want. I remember when $50 would get me a land raider. Now $50 gets me a single tactical squad with 5 times the number of bits I can actually use!

 

[dalek sec]

Unless his first order as HQ is to make every thing a f*ck ton cheaper it won't make a difference.

Pretty much this, just knock down the damn prices and they should be ok for a bit. A person shouldn't have to start breaking bad to be able to get themselves a modest army or a new codex.

 

[Vivi22]

Games Workshop, I have one simple message for you.

Figure out who your audience is.

Because at the moment you are selling stuff that appeals very strongly to teenagers and young adults, but at prices that require a very stable income. Restricting your actual audience to teenagers with generous parents, and adults willing to pour money into the hobby.

You need to trim your prices. If that means dropping your quality, so be it. But a small pot of paint shouldn't be almost £3. And a squad of ten Space Marines shouldn't be £25 (TWENTY FIVE POUNDS?!). The rulebook is £50? You're kidding me.

Yeah, when I can buy the rule book and a starting army of one of their competitors for less than the cost of their rule book (and in the range of 3 times less than their rule book, a codex, and a battle box that isn't even a legal army to begin with), then they've lost their minds. Especially when their competitors are making games with better rule sets and generally not making everything you own worthless every time they update to force you to buy new stuff.

 

[Pyrian]

Promoting the COO (or CFO) to CEO is about as "business continues as usual" as you can get (short of, y'know, leaving the CEO in place).

 

[Karadalis]

ANOTHER updated ruleset for warhammer 40k?

Wasnt there one just last year? You know GW.. maybe you throwing to much shit around might be a reason why you hurt so much right now.. you know.. besides being total douchebags to your fans and customers... and overcharging by a giant margin for your products that have lost alot of quality in recent years (finecast/cratercast)... and butchering your own lore (speezmereenes inside speezmereenes)

 

[Baresark]

This was predictable. When the last guys says, "Down 25%, sounds good to me!", you knew he was not long for that world. Now to the elephant: Your shit is way too expensive. Take care of that and you will have a successful business on your hands.

 

[gigastar]

Unless his first order as HQ is to make every thing a f*ck ton cheaper it won't make a difference.

Actually that might not even work. Painting and assembling those sets is extremely time consuming, a tough sell against the glowy panel over there which will drop you into a game of pretty much whatever you want at a moments notice.

 

[mattaui]

I tried for years to keep up with the changes, but I wasn't playing very often, mostly collecting. After finding myself swapping out my rulebook and codex for the third time since I last played, each time feeling more frequent than the last, I decided enough was enough. I can't even justify buying a few minis to collect and paint when I see just how much they've gone up on their prices, and compare that to what other forms of entertainment will get me.

 

[Tyranicus]

It's a shame really...I love the Warhammer 40k/Warhammer Universe Gamesworkshop created. I wish I had the money to collect the codex and rulebook. I work 40hrs a week and I still can't afford it.

 

[J Tyran]

Games Workshop, I have one simple message for you.

Figure out who your audience is.

Because at the moment you are selling stuff that appeals very strongly to teenagers and young adults, but at prices that require a very stable income. Restricting your actual audience to teenagers with generous parents, and adults willing to pour money into the hobby.

You need to trim your prices. If that means dropping your quality, so be it. But a small pot of paint shouldn't be almost £3. And a squad of ten Space Marines shouldn't be £25 (TWENTY FIVE POUNDS?!). The rulebook is £50? You're kidding me.

Yeah, when I can buy the rule book and a starting army of one of their competitors for less than the cost of their rule book (and in the range of 3 times less than their rule book, a codex, and a battle box that isn't even a legal army to begin with), then they've lost their minds. Especially when their competitors are making games with better rule sets and generally not making everything you own worthless every time they update to force you to buy new stuff.

Its worse than that, for the cost of an army (paint, miniatures and bits, rulebook, codexes, any updated templates and new dice you can buy a fugging 3D printer and make whatever you want.

 

[Aetrion]

The really big problem with games workshop is that the hobby is simply not affordable unless you have tons of disposable income on top of a lot of time.

They are a perfect example of a business that is being screwed over by large swaths of people not being able to find a well paying job.

 

[L. Declis]

ANOTHER updated ruleset for warhammer 40k?

Wasnt there one just last year? You know GW.. maybe you throwing to much shit around might be a reason why you hurt so much right now.. you know.. besides being total douchebags to your fans and customers... and overcharging by a giant margin for your products that have lost alot of quality in recent years (finecast/cratercast)... and butchering your own lore (speezmereenes inside speezmereenes)

Well, the last edition update was 3 years ago, which had some MAJOR problems. 7th Edition has fixed almost all of them, and is widely agreed to actually be the most fun and (mostly) balanced edition since 4th.

Also, you say they're being douchebags because.... They are now releasing all those models they removed because they can now get around Chapterhouse feeding off their IP, or is it because of their amazing customer service, or perhaps it's because that people have complained about their rules not being updated so now GW has vastly increased their production... Maybe it's the way they revamped White Dwarf so people always have something interesting every week, another complaint fixed, or is it their famously amazing customer service?

No, that's right, they're massive arseholes because they don't listen only to you or the prices are high.

The really big problem with games workshop is that the hobby is simply not affordable unless you have tons of disposable income on top of a lot of time.

They are a perfect example of a business that is being screwed over by large swaths of people not being able to find a well paying job.

You see, you say this, but Forgeworld has only continued to grow. In terms of prices, it's really not much different than other hobbies like gaming. Did you buy Titanfall? How long did you play it? A few weeks? Well, this £40 kit will take a week to build, a few weeks to paint well, and then you can use it for the rest of your life. It's like roleplaying, it's expensive to start, but the cost SHARPLY drops once you cough up that initial entry fee.

The really big problem with games workshop is that the hobby is simply not affordable unless you have tons of disposable income on top of a lot of time.

They are a perfect example of a business that is being screwed over by large swaths of people not being able to find a well paying job.

Yeah, true. Forgeworld is doing well, though. But I agree, in this economy, it is very expensive. But you'll also notice they've stopped the annual price hike, so they hope that people can catch up, I imagine. I don't know, we shall have to see what the new CEO does. He shall have a fuck ton of eyes on him. But unlike Kirby who just manages things, this guy has actually been down in the ditches and seeing what is happening, so maybe he understands the situation of "This is going wrong?"

It's a shame really...I love the Warhammer 40k/Warhammer Universe Gamesworkshop created. I wish I had the money to collect the codex and rulebook. I work 40hrs a week and I still can't afford it.

Week 1: Box of Troops, Glue, Basic Paints. £50
Week 2: Build and paint
Week 3: More paints. £21
Week 4: Finished painting? Box of different troops, HQ. £35
Week 5: Painting
Week 6: Painting
Week 7: Done? Something fancy. £30.
Week 8: Painting.
Week 9: Small game.
Week 10: In that game, you didn't have enough of X. Get X. £30.
Week 11: Painting.
Week 12: Small game.
Etc, etc, etc.

You don't need to buy everything in some massive, orgasmic rush. Pace it out. If you follow the "Don't buy until you've painted what you've got" rule, you'll find it's actually quite cheap because it takes ages to paint things well and you can easily put aside £10 per week. If you paint REALLY slowly, you may even find that you save up enough for bigger stuff.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I've rightly been acknowledged as a GW apologist. I don't have quite the same vitriolic hatred for their business model as some folks do.

That being said, kindly knock that "web exclusive" shit off. Almost every army I've started is because I went to the shop to buy some Orks, browsed through the shelves to find some kits that had fun bits to cannibalize and ended up buying the seeds for a new army.

That kind of thing is damn near impossible when over 50% of your stock can't be purchased from the store.

 

[Grumman]

Everything Leon says is garbage, most notably the idea that spending 136 pounds and two months before you get your first game in is an acceptable investment, when all that gets you is the bare minimum legal army (and legal does not mean the rules actually function at that level) and no rules to actually play a game.

 

[Pyrian]

Well, the last edition update was 3 years ago, which had some MAJOR problems. 7th Edition has fixed almost all of them, and is widely agreed to actually be the most fun and (mostly) balanced edition since 4th.

Heh. That's one opinion. "Widely agreed" by the fewer and fewer people still playing, perhaps. The opinion of virtually everybody I know is that 6th edition (with help from several codexes) wrecked the game and 7th did very little ("less than nothing" by many accounts) to address the problems.

 

[Rellik San]

Week 1: Box of Troops, Glue, Basic Paints. £50
Week 2: Build and paint
Week 3: More paints. £21
Week 4: Finished painting? Box of different troops, HQ. £35
Week 5: Painting
Week 6: Painting
Week 7: Done? Something fancy. £30.
Week 8: Painting.
Week 9: Small game.
Week 10: In that game, you didn't have enough of X. Get X. £30.
Week 11: Painting.
Week 12: Small game.
Etc, etc, etc.

You don't need to buy everything in some massive, orgasmic rush. Pace it out. If you follow the "Don't buy until you've painted what you've got" rule, you'll find it's actually quite cheap because it takes ages to paint things well and you can easily put aside £10 per week. If you paint REALLY slowly, you may even find that you save up enough for bigger stuff.

Which is fine if you're playing Mehreenz, D/Eldar or to a lesser extent Cronz and Tau... but what happens, when your the kid that thinks those cool xenomorph looking Tyrannid dudes are awesome... or those Ork dudes were fun in DoW? And all of a sudden your financial investment is double/triple that of your friends just to bring the same points to the table?

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Unless his first order as HQ is to make every thing a f*ck ton cheaper it won't make a difference.

Actually that might not even work. Painting and assembling those sets is extremely time consuming, a tough sell against the glowy panel over there which will drop you into a game of pretty much whatever you want at a moments notice.

Eh, I don't think the time commitment for making the models is that big a barrier; for a lot of people, some of the best fun you have in Warhammer comes from the modeling side, and the vast majority of players I know take at least as much pleasure out of assembling their army as they do playing it. People who aren't interested in doing that will play a video game, or another tabletop battle game that comes pre-assembled, and there's not much GW can do to make people who don't want to have a hobby that includes that enjoy it.

Heck, from a flat comparison of hours spent doing each, I bet a person would conclude that Warhammer is like model trains, where it ostensibly has a purpose but is really an excuse for hobbyists to build miniature worlds.

OT: If we're very lucky, maybe GW will decide to ride the RPG boom that has made Dark Heresy and the rest popular and come out with a WHFR 4th edition (smacking any Fantasy Flight people who approach it with tiles). I've always thought that the Fantasy universe got short shrift in the peripheral games market.