Games Workshop Stock Plummets By 24 Percent

[Rad Party God]

I've barely played and I'm already about to quit because of how lousy of a company they are.

I've never been into tabletop games, but man, that sure sucks... I guess I'll stick to the WH40K videogames then. It's not a good sign when another company puts more care into a franchise than the company that created it in the first place (I really liked DoW 2 and it's expansions).

OT: No wonder why their stocks have plummeted, overpricing your games is never a good idea, especially if you need your own players to assemble and paint the figurines for you.

 

[NSGrendel]

I recently tried to get back into the hobby. There are three basic reasons why there is GW fatigue.

1) World recession. Middle class parents are more price conscious and us poor people can't actually afford them.

2) Outrageous price gouging for boxed sets - the only time I buy retail is to keep my local FLGS (friendly local gaming store) open.

3) Terrible power creep in the rules, constantly expanded to only benefit people who buy multiple £40 sets, resulting in existing forces being worthless in the current metagame.

( 4) Awful fluff rape, turgid world expansion, consistent retcons and Matt Ward/CS Goto ) This last point is purely subjective and largely limited to neckbeards' like me - the rest have more or less universal community support.

None of this is news, it's been a constant topic of discussion in gaming circles for months. We're seeing a resurgence of tabletop gaming at the moment, but when you can buy a complete game system for £60, it rather makes £25 for 5 Terminators without the option of lightening claws for all of them seem like a vicious corporate fisting without lube.

But this is not an issue. Like everyone else in industry, the people at the top will move on when it suits them and the hobby can die in a fire.

Now if this was just my opinion, then fair enough. When a friend of mine who used to be a Games Workshop Mail Order Troll (and ex-Golden Demon finalist) is offering to sell me his Space Wolf army because he thinks the game is completely broken, then I have to lean towards the idea that the cash-cow has been fully milked and it might be time to start investing in your consumer base again.

But hey, what do I know. Apart from making a multiplayer game with millions of players and being a Commercial Analyst in the games industry. I'm probably just being cynical.

 

[AstaresPanda]

Well that explains why my local GW is half its dam size and only has ONE overly talkative guy buggin me while im trying to just check out some books. I stopped collecting and painting models myself around the 3rd maybe 4th edition rules due to it being soooo fucking costly. And its only got worse over the years hence why books are better and also Dawn of War 2 ^.^

The Emperor Protects.

 

[Sir Shockwave]

Serves them right. Between the big push towards Digital Books, to overpriced cover variants of Codexes/Army Books (that were in many cases MORE than double the price of the original army book - the worse being the Eldar codex with it's £30 removable dust jacket (meaning it didn't really have a variant cover) and Chaos Demons codex where they pushed out four of them for each system) and the whole suppliments thing, IN ADDITION to the usual price gouging and overpricing of models...

...Someone is about to lose to all the Xenos and Heretics and Monsters methinks unless it can pull a huge turnaround.

Also, for your conveniance and entertainment I leave you with this, which fits GW Company Policy to a T by a scary degree X3

 

[Starke]

I've never been into tabletop games, but man, that sure sucks... I guess I'll stick to the WH40K videogames then. It's not a good sign when another company puts more care into a franchise than the company that created it in the first place (I really liked DoW 2 and it's expansions).

Hey, I'm still lamenting Invasion being dragged out behind the woodshed. But, it's really not a good sign when you've got FFG basically making an alternative to the minis in disk form.

 

[matrix3509]

Welp this is what happens when they not only get dipshits like Matt Ward, Robin Cruddace, and C.S. Goto to utterly ruin Codex after Codex, but to ruin fluff as well (not to mention people are really getting fucking tired of the total stoppage of canon advancement), and also reducing miniatures to Chinese Knockoff level quality while simultaneously charging more for said miniatures. Eventually even the insanely loyal 40k fanbase will start leaving their hobby behind.

As someone up above said, people like to call the Codex authors dipshits (like I just did), but its actually really insidious. GW write a codex now for the sole purpose of making your old army fucking useless, so you are forced to fork over more money for their terrible quality models at highway robbery prices.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Well gee Games Workshop, I FUCKING WONDER WHY THAT HAPPENED?

I do find it funny that of all the companies that get hate, GW is one of the few that is never defended. Even EA gets a apologist now and then.

I easily would have given Games Workshop hundreds more dollars in the past years if the prices had been the least bit reasonable. Alternatively, I would have still given them large quantities of money through a middleman if only they would allow others to produce 40k stuff.

I know it probably won't mean much in the long run, but it still feels damn good to see them lose some money.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

If you weren't pricing people out of the hobby and continually downsizing until all that's left are Ultramarine models, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

 

[NSGrendel]

I guess this is all down to the down trend in retail sales, though.

Because few people order from Games Workshop via mail order (I'm so old I still have to remember to not call them Citadel Miniatures).

On the positive side, cheap 3D printing will end the company, since they don't appear to have much to add in recent years except for trying to Copyright "Space Marine" and suing anyone who creates a figure who has so much as a hint of a pauldron.

 

[Gorrath]

I own somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-4 grand worth of WH40K stuff and despite now making more money than I ever have, I am priced out of the hobby. When you have a two working adult household with no children that can't afford your product, I have to wonder who the hell you are targeting your product at. I could collect Picasos for less than what GW now charges.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

The miniatures have always been expensive. The roblem I have is with each new edition of the rules, they require more and more miniatures for a game.
My friend and I still play sometimes but we use old rules.

They've never been cheap, but back in ye glorious olden days they were at least affordable, even if you were a kid.

Spoiler

This model costs 7.20 from GW. I bought the exact same model in 1991 for 1 pound (well, a blister pack of 3 different warlocks for 2.99)

You can play a small game with the new rules, it's just GW seem to have convinced people that "by the book" is the only way to do it and that the local GW is the only place to play.

OT: Yeah ,I don't think I've bought anything directly from GW for a few years. The vast majority of it you can get much cheaper on ebay, the novels are cheaper on Amazon and they don't do their specialist games line anymore. Twats.

 

[Tiamat666]

If nothing else, 3D printers would be putting them out of business in the next decade anyway.

That's a sound assumption. Then again, maybe 3D printing will cause Games Workshop to lower the prices of their miniatures to reasonable levels, which might cause them to gain new customers and expand the franchise. It will always be cheaper for a specialized company to create miniatures than for a home user with expensive 3D printer and materials.

I could be one of those new customers. I have been a fan of the WH40K franchise since I got the "Space Crusade" boardgame when I was a young kid. But I have never bought even a single WH40K miniature from GW because there is just no way I will pay those unjustified prices.

 

[Starke]

If nothing else, 3D printers would be putting them out of business in the next decade anyway.

That's a sound assumption. Then again, maybe 3D printing will cause Games Workshop to lower the prices of their miniatures to reasonable levels, which might cause them to gain new customers and expand the franchise. It will always be cheaper for a specialized company to create miniatures than for a home user with expensive 3D printer and materials.

I could be one of those new customers. I have been a fan of the WH40K franchise since I got the "Space Crusade" boardgame when I was a young kid. But I have never bought even a single WH40K miniature from GW because there is just no way I will pay those unjustified prices.

I want to believe that, I really do. But, history has shown, time and again, all they'll do is sue the shit out of anyone that gets too close to riffing 40k's material, while continuing to demand insane prices for their stuff.

I'll buy the reasonably priced stuff. The Invasion LCG was one thing, and if the next LCG from FFG is 40k themed, I'll be grabbing that. But, the main line? You know, the stuff all the tie in fiction and licensed material is supposed to drive sales to? No, I'm not touching that.

 

[xaszatm]

The miniatures have always been expensive. The roblem I have is with each new edition of the rules, they require more and more miniatures for a game.
My friend and I still play sometimes but we use old rules.

Not defending them, as it still costs freaking money, but they recently released kill team, which works with 200 points or less. So you can play smaller games with them now. However...

OT: Well who would of guessed? Overpricing your models + having a no sense of balance or fun unbalance within the game itself causes customers to lose faith? Who'd of thunk?

 

[SecondPrize]

Wait till 3d printing takes off and they're completely fucked. The whole overcharging for the figures may have been fun for them while it lasted but that's going to die out and never come back when people can print their own armies for a fraction of the price.

 

[Genocidicles]

I hope the eventual widespread access to 3D printing drives these fuckers out of business.

 

[LordMonty]

Pretty sure a shareholder posed to the board many moons ago the compony is currently run by asshats and its insane price policy and other moronic tactics in recent years of stoping the hobby centers being that and making them hard selling shops is killing people's love of the hobby in the UK.

Can't be bothered to put it all down but to put it simply they're going to crash and burn and although it'll break my heart its what needs to happen so some fresh blood can reinvent the whole thing again.

 

[AldUK]

As another person who used to own a lot of Warhammer as a kid, I couldn't possibly even dream of buying it now. I remember buying an entire unit of Wood Elf archers for £5. All you had to do was slot them into their stands and paint them. You had to buy the command group (standard, musician, champ) seperately in a booster and that was about £3. I built an entire army, with all the supplements I needed to play for £150 and I treasured it for years. A couple of years ago I wandered into a GW and I was floored by the prices. For less models, which you have to assemble yourself, you're looking at 4x the price it was 15 years ago. And army books that once cost about £10 are now £20+

It's a pricing issue. So incredibly simple to fix, lower your damn prices and you'll make more money.

 

[llubtoille]

Y'know, saying British Pounds is a far clunkier way of saying, like, £. Plus it is, to be pedantic, British Pounds Sterling. Still, your word choices baffle me.

Truth be told it has astounded me how a money sink of this capacity seemingly survived the economic apocalypse so well, and only now appears to be suffering. I sunk a portion of my teen years into it and came out the other side smelling of glue and disappointment.

heh 900 American cents

 

[Lightspeaker]

I could be one of those new customers. I have been a fan of the WH40K franchise since I got the "Space Crusade" boardgame when I was a young kid. But I have never bought even a single WH40K miniature from GW because there is just no way I will pay those unjustified prices.

Pretty much the same. I own every DoW game, have ploughed through numerous W40K novels and from time to time when I'm bored on the internet I'll idly browse the Lexicanum. I even occasionally browse through the Games Workshop website. As a kid I used to go into Games Workshop and look at all the cool models and want to play it. But the simple fact was that I had neither the time nor the inclination to sit and build and paint all of the models I would have to; nor did I have the apparently unlimited supply of money required to actually buy what I needed. With prices seeming to go up whenever I looked.

The closest I've ever got to Games Workshop models and tabletop stuff, however, was from a series of magazines that we subscribed to for a while back around ten years ago. When Lord of the Rings came out and they started doing models for it there was a Games Workshop magazine with LotR figures on them. Both me and my sister were nuts about the films (and me about the novel) so we subscribed for a while ending up with a bunch of minatures and I bought the rules book I think. But as I mentioned above, having the time and energy to build and paint all of it AND the sheer cost I never actually really got into it so in the end we just cancelled. I think I have one built and painted model somewhere, a bunch built (so I could try a game) and a handful with the underlayer painted on.


The closest I ever got to tabletop W40K itself was looking in shops wanting the models and friends talking about it and their armies. These days I have significantly more money than I did then; but absolutely zero desire to invest in any of it. I really, really am not prepared to sit for hours building and painting models that are vastly overpriced. If I wanted to do that I could just buy Airfix kits and do it way cheaper.

The one I always miss was Havok. I still have the starter box a a few additional models from that. Keep wondering if I should track down some more, they come up on ebay from time to time.