GW Half-year Report

[DanJ]

And Warmaster Ancients

[Matt J]

Games Workshop, what did they ever do for us?

... and Blood bowl! (Awesome game), Adeptus Titanicus, Epic 40K, Space Hulk, Man of War, Phil Lewis...

all things they discontinued 

but are still alive elsewhere  (and also in Wales)

[Leman]

What's a splitter, other than Abe Lincoln and his rails?

[Luddite]

And Necromunda, Mordheim, and Talisman. 


Uh...

So yeah, trawling about the investor and stock sites, the news has been taken as a bit of a warning, with advice being 'wait and see' on GW share prices.

The key figures are:

Turnover down 10.4% to £60.5m
Pre-tax profit down 30.6% to £7.7m
Basic EPS down 30.9% to 17.7p
Dividend - cancelled (was 18p last year)
Net cash £9.3m (£15.6m last year)

The reasons given for this poor performance are;

A continuation of the trend that developed in H2 of 2012/13
Disruption caused by rapid transition to one-man shops & reduced trading hours.
Decline in sales through independent stockists.

So basically GW are admitting they're on an extended downward slide at the moment.

As to the other causes, they are poor decisions by senior management, and frankly the chumps at the top have got to take responsibility for those decisions.

The switch to 1-staff stores inevitably hit sales as opening times are reduced, stores are now single points of failure for staff sickness absense, and frankly if you're the only boots on the ground, you're not going to be selling as much in a busy store.

The GW change in terms for independent stores (bricks and mortar requirement, limits to stock access etc.) inevitably hit sales as fewer stores will put up with that sort of toss from a supplier.

So, GW have hiked their prices to insane levels (ground-up buy in is now at, what £500?  What parent is going to shell out that sort of cash?), and cut down their two main sales channels reducing income.

GW used to have a diverse portfolio and the beancounters in charge have steadily shut down everything but their core lines, boxing themselves into an unsustainable niche-line wallet-gouging strategy.  The figures over the last couple of years have got to be alarm bells for the bosses and shareholders.

I'm no business guru but common sense tells you - bad, bad ideas.

Unless they've got a major genius move coming in the next 6 months? 
Oh yeah, that's right  - scrapping 35 years of WFB asset for a root and branch reboot.  It might work...when your facing competitor companies run by the people who made GW the massive success it was, well, good luck with that.

[petercooman]

Unless they've got a major genius move coming in the next 6 months? 
Oh yeah, that's right  - scrapping 35 years of WFB asset for a root and branch reboot.  It might work...when your facing competitor companies run by the people who made GW the massive success it was, well, good luck with that.

Especially this!!

As for the other games they cancelled, i think it was one of the baddest moves they could make! My last purchase i made with gw was an epic armageddon thunderhawk, a few weeks before they shut down specialist games.

I never understood that, it was just 'easy money'. it wasn't being supported so they didn't have to pay a designer to work on it, the models and moulds where existant and they just had to cast it up when they sold something. at least that's how i see it, maybe that's a wrong assumption;

[Maenoferren]

... and Blood bowl! (Awesome game), Adeptus Titanicus, Epic 40K, Space Hulk, Man of War, Phil Lewis...

all things they discontinued 

but are still alive elsewhere  (and also in Wales)

Not to mention Gorka Morka and mighty empires... Wish I still had my tiles

[Matt J]

Wish I still had my tiles Sad

still got mine and all the other stuff still in the box they came in 

[Maenoferren]

still got mine and all the other stuff still in the box they came in 

Meany 

[Raider4]

... Wish I still had my tiles

You can make your own. Search for 'memaptiles.pdf'

Cheers, Martyn

[Raider4]

Apart from Warmaster 

Well, that's how I got into 10mm, and ended up here.

Cheers, Martyn

[andys]

Question - If they do go bust in the next few years (oh dear, how sad, never mind lovely boy), would that mean the intellectual property, such as Warmaster, becomes "open source", for want of a better description. This would allow other miniature manufacturers to reproduce the original Warmaster minis perhaps?

[Maenoferren]

You can make your own. Search for 'memaptiles.pdf'

Cheers, Martyn

You da man!!!

[Leon]

Question - If they do go bust in the next few years (oh dear, how sad, never mind lovely boy), would that mean the intellectual property, such as Warmaster, becomes "open source", for want of a better description. This would allow other miniature manufacturers to reproduce the original Warmaster minis perhaps?

The rights to all the figures would still remain with the dissolved company until the assets were sold off to someone else.  Even if the company disappeared completely and no buyers were found, the IP would still exist.  There would be a lot more freedom for the other companies though, as GW would no longer be throwing court cases about at the slightest hint of a Spacey Marine.

[GordonY]

Naughty boy Leon, you said those two words, on behalf of GW I am slapping a cease and decist order on you, and demand that all your goods and chattels be impounded for an unspecified amount of time.

[Techno]

... and Blood bowl! (Awesome game), Adeptus Titanicus, Epic 40K, Space Hulk, Man of War, Phil Lewis...

Oi !! .
(Man of War must have come out after I left, 'cos I don't remember that one at all.)

Cheers - Phil