Games Workshop Stock Plummets By 24 Percent

[major_chaos]

but then you have to spend hours and hours gluing and assembling them, then you are supposed to paint it. It just makes me angry as I think about it.

I understand its not for everyone, but that is literally the main draw to lots of people. I actually enjoy customizing and building more than I enjoy playing, although that is fun.

OT: urgh, I'm torn. On one hand, fuck GW sideways for all the bullshit they pull. On the other hand , anymore I enjoy 40K more than video games and have yet to find another mini war game I can enjoy instead,(fuck absolutely everything about warmachine) so I hope that the GW management can pull their heads out of their asses before its too late.

 

[conmag9]

Meanwhile, in the Games Workshop Office within the Most Hallowed Halls of Holy Terra:

"Man, maybe we shouldn't have spent all that money on the lifesize replica of the Golden Throne. I mean, yeah, the solid gold we used is nice and the designers really went the extra mile with the sacrifice of 1000 fan souls a day, but if we keep this up, we won't have enough money to genetically engineer our own chapter of power armored sales associates. And make the miniatures, I guess."

 

[Quazimofo]

but then you have to spend hours and hours gluing and assembling them, then you are supposed to paint it. It just makes me angry as I think about it.

I understand its not for everyone, but that is literally the main draw to lots of people. I actually enjoy customizing and building more than I enjoy playing, although that is fun.

OT: urgh, I'm torn. On one hand, fuck GW sideways for all the bullshit they pull. On the other hand , anymore I enjoy 40K more than video games and have yet to find another mini war game I can enjoy instead,(fuck absolutely everything about warmachine) so I hope that the GW management can pull their heads out of their asses before its too late.

I'm in a similar boat. Love the hobby even more than the game, but they price their shit based on the fact that people will buy the new super powerful stuff anyway.
I Love the universe, and I love most of the models, but I find it hard to scrounge together the cash, let alone justify the expense for most (I can only really justify basic infantry/cavalry because anything else is $20+ per mini and aren't so interesting on their own; they look SO MUCH BETTER in ranks.)
It'd be interesting though if FFG took over the IP if GW crashes. I have no idea how well Dust is doing, but the writers at FFG seem to know their shit at least. Also maybe they'd make special models for the RPGS!
Fun fact though: the first arguments saying GW was price gouging and would go out of business were in the early 90s. It's more true now for sure, though the prices are only a bit higher (adjusted for inflation) than they were. It's a massive ***** since they are trying oh so very hard to stay JUST ahead of the inflation curve (cant stand anything being any significantly less expensive can they?), but I don't know if it's the death sentence that will cause upper management to try reducing prices by more than 1%.

Yes that's right, they have reduced prices in the past, but never by any significant margins; a couple dollars here and there as they can justify it without fear of profit loss from *gasp* prices below the inflation curve! Apparently they also tried releasing models at *gasp* not increased prices! to test the theories that discounts would increase sales. They didn't of course, but not increasing prices isn't exactly a discount either. Frankly I'm shocked that the christmas deals were discounted at ALL this year, and I'm also shocked that they did things like 3 packs that are cheaper than individual purchases of units (like battlesuits for tau). Baby steps in the right direction, but it'll take more than a 1 year stock price loss to cause any real change. Kinda funny how GW is a (relatively) small-scale example of how incredibly resistant people are to change if one does not make a conscious choice to do so. Hopefully this shit won't lead us to the resource wars of the mid-late century, though again you (yes you) must make a conscious choice to change things like how environmentally friendly you are.



TLDR:
Okay, so my post wasn't the best organized series of points. Basically as follows:
This reduction isn't a death sentence, people have been crying for that for literal decades.
Prices are (roughly) where they have been (adjusted for inflation. Likely poorly)
They are starting to sort of take baby steps in the right direction in terms of how reasonable businesses price their shit.
Be environmentally friendly or you will doom our planet to wars over water and food. Good news is that if it does come to war humans will either wipe ourselves out or come out as a type 1 civilization who FINALLY realizes why it's important to not screw up the environment so badly climate patterns change globally.

 

[Amir Kondori]

You know this continues to happen and companies continue not to learn the lesson. They have clamped down on online sales, they have clamped down on what their retail partners can do, what stock they can order and keep, in the interest of profit margins. While they have certainly raised their per-unit profit margins these changes have cost them retail partners and ultimately volume, which has ultimately cost them money.
I don't know why think this trend will do anything other than continue. Either they reverse the trend or they will continue to shrink.

Keep in mind that they face pressure from 3d printers and third party sources for miniatures. The internet has already made pirating the books easy, if they don't work with retail partners and keep their prices and quality competitive than it is easy to see a much smaller Games Workshop five years from now.

 

[Scorpid]

well, gamer's workshop, perhaps if you didn't gouge the prices for your figurines as much as you do, people would be more likely to buy them. I dont' play the game, but I have a few friends who do. They tell me the prices keep going up to the point where they would rather find a cheaper miniature game then continue to invest in Warhammer.

Holy shit, I was going to say this exact thing. I recently got into it with some friends and I'm still angry about the situation. I bought two kits (Space Wolves Battle Force and Battle Pack) and dropped $125 on them which didn't net me a 500 point army. I wasn't familiar with it at the time, but then you have to spend hours and hours gluing and assembling them, then you are supposed to paint it. It just makes me angry as I think about it. Not only are they charging entirely too much for little pieces of plastic that require lots of work, but they put up this huge time barrier for the game on top of that. Can they make it any harder to play their damn game? Also, then you need your armies codex... which is less than 100 pages and costs $33. Then another $75 for the general rule book.

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

Edit: For everyone's reading pleasure - http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Games_Workshop

Don't worry, 3D printing might just ruin them, which will be both sad and exciting. The 40K fiction is a comparatively cheaper and more rewarding hobby if you know what you're looking for. I can't understand how a company makes one of the most interesting universes in modern fiction and then squanders and price gouges their loyal customers with glee and then get indigent when people ask "WTF?!"

 

[el derpenburgo]

I think the epitome of how little GW thinks of us is in the price of the Imperial Guard infantry set. 10 years ago, you got 20 figures for $50 AUD. It didn't exactly inspire people to go tripping over themselves and buy loads of them, but for GW standards it was mental. Nowadays, it's $48 AUD for 10 figures? I understand inflation and global economy troubles but no company in the fucking world has enough of an overhead that prices literally double in the space of 10 years, not even bloody Freddo Frogs, which apparently is made of liquid gold.

The funny thing is, I used to play 40K with mates when I was young, but now that I have money to actually afford the stuff I could not give a crap. There is something wrong if I can spend less money on Magic to build a competitive Standard deck, than I could to build a basic 1000 point tabletop army.

 

[JarinArenos]

So, any cuts in their legal team? No? Didn't think so... *sigh*
I think we all know what GW's priorities are these days.

 

[xaszatm]

You know, now I'm honestly curious. Is Forgeworld sales and Black Library sales included in this? I know they are sister compaines to Games-Workshop but I would think that the Black Library books would be selling much more than the models and rules.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, not so worried about the price, me...though, got lots of things back when they were cheap.

OTOH, 40k and WHFB now is just awful. There's no care put into them anymore. Sure, the models are technically great, but they are generally bad ideas to begin with. Like the Star Wars prequels, great CGI of things that shouldn't be in the movie anyway.

I miss the days when introducing Tau and C'tan were the problems. Though, GW was about to go about of business back then as well, apparently, and never stoppled, according to the rumour mill.

Really hate the one-man stores, which are closed 2 days a week anyway. Would have popped in on Monday when I was in the area as well.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Stock plummets by 24%? Don't worry guys, they'll just increase miniature prices by 24% to balance it out. Because goodness knows 40k fans are like beaten dogs who keep coming back to their abusive owner regardless. Although I suppose/hope that even they'll only take so much abuse before they start looking for cheaper alternatives for their tabletop fun.

 

[The Pink Pansy]

Wow, I've been out of 40K for a while now but it is ridiculous how things have gotten since I was gone. They really killed online retailers? Stuff I got 5 years ago for $30 (CAN) is now $50. So much for maybe getting back into it; a shame, really, I loved putting together and painting the miniatures, almost as much as I loved using them to paint the walls with my friends armies...

 

[zefichan]

Slightly different perspective: Girl here.

The reason I stopped playing this was, well... The GW store people were pretty, pretty terrible (on the scale of "did you get lost, this isn't the hair stylist, lol" terrible) on top of a)even me realizing that the army lists were borked and, despite having a lot of money, b)my poor skaven army just getting too expensive for me. I really like painting miniatures and even playing, just...

...not like this.

And yeah, stop screwing with Sororitas, you jerks :/ That was the one 40k group I liked playing. And it's apparently the one army GW utterly despises, for some reason.

 

[TimeLord]

I stopped playing tabletop a good 5-6 years ago now, it was too expensive then. I still read a ton of Black Library stuff though so I hope they don't get fucked over by GWs idiocy.

I remember a time when a Codex was £8. Those were the days

 

[Thaluikhain]

And yeah, stop screwing with Sororitas, you jerks :/ That was the one 40k group I liked playing. And it's apparently the one army GW utterly despises, for some reason.

Oh yeah...finally they get a codex...only it's one of those online things.

And they don't have any plastic models apart from vehicles, you have to get them in blister packs. So they are 140 AUD dollars for 10 of them.

You used to be able to get them in boxed sets much cheaper.

 

[Mangod]

Slightly different perspective: Girl here.

The reason I stopped playing this was, well... The GW store people were pretty, pretty terrible (on the scale of "did you get lost, this isn't the hair stylist, lol" terrible) on top of a)even me realizing that the army lists were borked and, despite having a lot of money, b)my poor skaven army just getting too expensive for me. I really like painting miniatures and even playing, just...

...not like this.

And yeah, stop screwing with Sororitas, you jerks :/ That was the one 40k group I liked playing. And it's apparently the one army GW utterly despises, for some reason.

This might be a bit inappropriate to ask, but have you encountered that sort of behavior from other groups/stores that deal with Miniatures? Mantic, Corvus Belli, Privateer Press? I ask because I'm trying to figure out if GW being thinly veiled misogynists is a quality exclusive to them and their fans or if it's prevalent throughout the entire industry.

 

[Seanfall]

well, gamer's workshop, perhaps if you didn't gouge the prices for your figurines as much as you do, people would be more likely to buy them. I dont' play the game, but I have a few friends who do. They tell me the prices keep going up to the point where they would rather find a cheaper miniature game then continue to invest in Warhammer.

Thank you for saying this. I used to play then the prices just got too high for me to cope.

 

[A-D.]

And yeah, stop screwing with Sororitas, you jerks :/ That was the one 40k group I liked playing. And it's apparently the one army GW utterly despises, for some reason.

Oh yeah...finally they get a codex...only it's one of those online things.

And they don't have any plastic models apart from vehicles, you have to get them in blister packs. So they are 140 AUD dollars for 10 of them.

You used to be able to get them in boxed sets much cheaper.

Didnt Sororitas have a codex since a while ago? In fact i think the last change which screwed them was that they were essentially rolled into the general Inquisition army or something, so you couldnt play a proper SoB Army without having to use the Inquisition because they had all the damn vehicles.

Course thanks to fluff i got around that by making Chaos Sororitas (Keepers of Secrets love corrupting the pure, there's at least 2 examples in the fluff that support this having happened before), so instead of tanks i just went with a Keeper of Secrets as a big unit and two reaver titans for any apocalypse setting, otherwise pure infantry with heavy focus on flamer and melta.

GW wouldnt let me play that in any official game but so what? Their official games suck ass to begin with, because they are too afraid to actually "lose" any players because one side wins over the other. For example the 3 Wars for Armageddon, or the latest Black Crusade which basicly all end in some kind of stalemate where no side wins or loses. Same is true for the factions, the Tau are able to hold their own against much more advanced and powerful enemies because as long as the units sell, they aint getting the axe. The Tyranids are only relevant as long as GW decides another Hivefleet has to appear and the Eldar are only..well Eldar. To be honest alot of the current races could be removed, who needs Dark Eldar? Tau? Tyranids? The Eldar are by default assholes even if they arent "evil", the Tau are too weak to actually be a proper threat to anyone and the Tyranids are just organic Necrons who eat you rather than just kill you.

And then you have the lore-rape, the imbalance of factions entirely like it took them years to make the IG actually viable and then overpowered them at the same time because reasons and the prices for units keep rising exponentially to drive out basicly anyone that isnt essentially rich.

 

[exobook]

Really Games Workshop is caught between a rock and a hard place. Its clear that brick and mortar stores are soon going to become economically unviable for stuff like this due to online sales and 3d printing, yet a physical location that offers a gaming space is also vital to maintaining the hobby and drawing new people into it.

But lets be honest the method their going is probably doing more harm than good for the franchise as A. the higher price is putting people off playing the hobby and B. the price hikes and set reductions (I remember when you got two sets of guardsmen in a box not just one) are putting off your existing player base.

If games workshop was smart it would convert its stores into more general game stores by bringing in things to diversify its customer base like pen and paper RPGs, MTG or hell even bring in the competition. Yes you will take a hit in Warhammer sales but if your stores are more profitable as stores then its less of an issue.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Didnt Sororitas have a codex since a while ago? In fact i think the last change which screwed them was that they were essentially rolled into the general Inquisition army or something, so you couldnt play a proper SoB Army without having to use the Inquisition because they had all the damn vehicles.

They were lumped in with the Witch Hunters, but you could use them without Inquisitors...not so much the other way around though. At the same time, the Grey Knights were lumped in with Daemon Hunters, so it wasn't unfair.

Course thanks to fluff i got around that by making Chaos Sororitas (Keepers of Secrets love corrupting the pure, there's at least 2 examples in the fluff that support this having happened before), so instead of tanks i just went with a Keeper of Secrets as a big unit and two reaver titans for any apocalypse setting, otherwise pure infantry with heavy focus on flamer and melta.

Hmmm...one example being Daemonifuge?

Their official games suck ass to begin with, because they are too afraid to actually "lose" any players because one side wins over the other. For example the 3 Wars for Armageddon, or the latest Black Crusade which basicly all end in some kind of stalemate where no side wins or loses.

Yup, I was complaining about that when they happened. I think the WFHB Storm of Chaos thing was worse, the fluff basically said "and the fate of the world was about to be decided, but everyone got broed at the last moment and went home". Also very annoying as there was mention of stuff happening in Cathay in the far east...no models for that so anything goes, but they didn't bother.

Before that, Albion was about to decide the fate of the...nup.

Real shame, because they had some quite decent fluff leading up to it.

Same is true for the factions, the Tau are able to hold their own against much more advanced and powerful enemies because as long as the units sell, they aint getting the axe. The Tyranids are only relevant as long as GW decides another Hivefleet has to appear and the Eldar are only..well Eldar. To be honest alot of the current races could be removed, who needs Dark Eldar? Tau? Tyranids? The Eldar are by default assholes even if they arent "evil", the Tau are too weak to actually be a proper threat to anyone and the Tyranids are just organic Necrons who eat you rather than just kill you.

Eh, I liked the way they did the Dark Eldar myself. They were only briefly hinted at before they came out, though there was mention of piratical and savage eldar before.

But, they are added to the fluff without changing much, they were a minor faction, the webway meant they could be anywhere in the galaxy. So you could care about them if you wanted to, or ignore them if you didn't. GW didn't ram them down your throat, thye didn't alter your armies fluff.

The Tau...they undermined two of the biggest parts of 40k, that progress is just impossible and everyone is a bastard. Now you've good hippy commies who build new stuff and aren't that nasty. And they only live in a tiny area of space, but GW kept blathering on about them over and over.

The Necrons...suddenly they are the most evilest thing evah! and everyone has always known this, just nobody said it out loud. Meh...and by the time they changed it to tone it own, the fluff had settled down again so it again didn't work.

Nids are quite reasonable if down well, only, like everything else, they usually aren't.