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Kirby Stepping Down As GW CEO With Interesting Preamble?
July 28, 2014 by warzan
Update: Today, Games Workshop announces the release of the 2014 annual report for the year ended 1 June 2014. The press release can be downloaded as a pdf here.
Tom Kirby, the current Chairman and Acting CEO of Games Workshop is stepping down from his position as announced in a Chairman's Preamble that was issued today. And it wouldn't be Tom Kirby if he didn't do it with his usual shoot from the hip style of 'no bullsh1t' corporate reporting. See what you think of it HERE...
The preamble seems to paint a rather bleak picture as the annual report is coming up soon. It does however go on to address some of the issues we know Games Workshop are having with protecting Intellectual Property from other businesses in this new age (a Golden Age?) and on top of that we get what their insight is on future technology such as 3D printers etc.
Above is a little snippet of the report and should give you a taster of what we should expect over the next few days. It will be interesting to see what the numbers are like come the full report and while I'm sure it will be reported that there is a sense of bitterness in the preamble, I'm not so sure...
Tom has worked very hard, and built quite an outstanding company at a time, but that takes a toll, and I think he's just ready to hang up his hat. He was never one for mincing his words so I'm not surprised by the 'almost reckless' tone of the preamble... Tom was very much his own man.
But times change and people change, and it's clear that for all their success in turning around the technical and operational aspects of the business, under Tom's current leadership, they still haven't really grasped what needs to change.
We will have to wait for the report now, but Tom if your reading thanks for everything you have accomplished, and if I may pay a little tribute to your own no nonsense communications approach... Good Riddance! 😉
Joking aside, we'd like to wish Tom and his family the best and may he have a long and happy retirement.
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I’m with ya there, I don’t see ‘bitter’….the man’s a rude asshat, but I don’t see bitter.
Well hopefully way is only up now when Mr Kirby has stepped down.
Well, this is now the second time he’s stepped down as CEO, but he’s still going to be there ss Chairman, so any new broom will still have to dance to his tune. Expect no changes (for the better) any time soon. After all, I can’ t think of much good that came out of Mark Wells’ tenure. Does n ‘t sound like the numbers are good this year. No surprise.
Oh well. I quess it sounded too good to be true then.
Ah, I did wonder if he’s hold on as Chairman thus maintaining his power-base. Wouldn’t expect to see any change in course at all then. We of course never found out why Mark Wells departed, but I would guess he tried to force some changes Kirby disapproved of and was handed the boot.
Oh great. Now I have image in my head about Tom Kirby being power behind scenes like Victor Donovan from Dead or Alive games.
First he bash against 3d-printers and after that he say “It is possible that one day we will sell them direct via 3-D printers to grateful hobbyists around the world.”….
Man we all know that production will die, and HAS TO DIE, pretty soon. There is no need for paying manufacture when people can do it at a local level, on demand and no shipping/customs and other burdens included.
Quality is improving and soon there will be no need for miniatures production companies, only great games, IP’s and sculptures will remain in the long run, and that is a great thing because anyone that is an artist and has a great idea can make it happen ( kickstarter already helped a lot into that regard… but all that money that goes into production and shipping will be redistribute to the creators of the games and sculptures that we love ).
Plus, miniatures games will accessible worldwide as videogames are now thanks to digital downloads.
I agree. The moment that all gamers have access to high quality 3D printers will be a great day for our hobby, if not for the companies who can’t adapt to it.
I still think affordable 3D home printing is 5-10 years away at the moment. Still not sure why it will make figures cheaper though. At the moment even highly qualified CAD operators take 5 or 6 goes to get a model right before they finally get the design right ( this from a friend who works in the 3D printing industry). All that will happen is that the price of the CAD designs will go through the roof as 99% probably wont have the skills or the patience to create the designs themselves
Well said. At the moment a sculpture can spend a long time designing a miniature knowing that they can sell many copies of the finished sculpt. Once 3D printing enables people to print as many copies as they like from a purchased file, the cost of buying that file will sky rocket. It will have to to make designing the miniatures cost effective.
I think you’ll see DRM protected miniature templates that will allow you to print a limited number of copies before the license must be renewed. I don’t like everything GW does but I do believe Tom when he says that they know what they’re talking about when it comes to 3D printing and I suspect as a company they know more about that technology, the direction of its development and the trends of cost, quality and speed of personal 3D printing because its a potential threat to their current business model; a threat that I can bet they are looking to turn into an opportunity.
yeah 4 or 5 passes is pretty common for some minis, some are a lot quicker,
… there is a certain company out there that made me do over 250 versions …
… for a 10 man unit (@ , @)
errrr, I had to have discussions about that one 😛 ha ha
… there’s only one problem I can see with selling minis kind of…
“direct to home 3d printers”, and it’s that the prices per mini will probably double at least…
and even then, I don’t see mini companies jumping to be the first to offer that service : /
I know that sounds a bit weird, but think of it this way …
would you… as a company, spend years developing a game, paying concept artists, sculptors, etc, to design a range of minis, ( which is a Ridonculous amount work )
and then sell the raw files to some random dude with a 3d printer, who can then print out 1 copy,
and then sell a load of bootleg resin casts on ebay for 5 bucks a piece ? : /
… it’s gonna take decades for them to try and figure out a business model that could work for that,
I can’t see it happening any time soon…
and anyway, the best printers normally print out in wax, so you’d have to cast them all anyway 😛 ha ha
It doesn’t work like that, here there was tons of illegal copies of videogames being seld everywhere and they didn’t have success thanks to internet and cheaper online retailers like Steam, Humble Bundle and GoG.
I can completely image Humble Bundles of miniatures wargames, what they need to find is some type of DRM that will limit the amount of copies you can do and give user access to really good tools for posing and tweaking parts of the miniatures. Everyone will love to be able to print them in one go or with the exact bits you want and the pose you like for that mini, conversions will be as easy as making a character in a MMO game or the long gone Spore game…
And that 3d artist, game devs and creators get better money for the work is always a good thing. Anyone has access to free tools like Blender that let you make high quality 3D models for free ( and you don’t need a expensive computer for run it and render ).
” free tools like Blender that let you make high quality 3D models for free ”
Well I just shoved a load of Greenstuff in the kitchen blender and it didn’t work!
No free models. 🙁
Do you think I should have taken the tomatoes out first?
“Free tools like Blender that let you make high quality 3D models for free”
A pencil and a piece of paper is cheap, but how many of us have the talent or skill to draw an amazing picture? This idea that one day we’ll all be making our own miniatures at home is pie in the sky. I have a laptop and a printer but I don’t sit at home writing my own books to read.
Besides, I already spend a lot of time posing and tweaking and converting my miniatures the way I want them.
The cheapest way to make models is probably to pay a sculptor and cast it in metal
You’re totally right.
I work in the video games industry/software development. I studied 3D modelling at university and have been doing it ever since but I don’t specialise in it. Despite being a very proficient modeler I would struggle to make a top-notch humanoid character like some of these artists do.
There’s some serious skill in todays digital sculpters and it’d be a mistake to think anyone with a copy of Blender could bash something out that looked as good as a pro model!
errr, I see what your trying to get at,
… but there’s no way to limit how many copies people can make,
anyone could just cast multiple copies afterwards in resin or metal,
… because it’s how they’ve always been made, and thats what the printers are for, to make masters 😛
… and even in 3d, one size does not fit all, so it would be really hard to make parts swap like that,
… also, posing a 3d sculpt is a biaatch 😛 probably the hardest part to make look right 😛 ha ha
it’s not a simple thing to do 😛 sculpting minis takes years of practice, even for the basics 😛
… I know, it’s my job 😉 ha ha
and lets face it, the sculptors wages wouldn’t change, even if the profits went up…
… unless it’s a smaller, “self release” company of course 😉
… I’m not saying home printing won’t ever happen, but it’s at least 15years away from happening
Printing companies were worried about home printers destroying the book trade… It didn’t… Ebooks did…
If I wanted to, I could download a movie or tv show to my laptop right now and watch it, download an album and listen to it, or download a book and read it. If/when the day comes that 3D printers are good enough to produce home-printed high quality minis and affordable enough that the average household can own one, no-one will be able to download a CAD file and wargame with it. It *has* to be printed out. This means the bulk of the cost is taken on by the consumer whether they pirate the mini or purchase it.
Right now, production and distribution are a big barrier to entry for anyone sculptor wanting to release their own minis. A rules writer can release rules easily. A sculptor has to pay for mould-making, manufacture, and distribution if they want to see their minis on the market. For most it either means they have to sculpt for a company or not bother at all. Come the day of high quality home 3D printing, all they have to do is make a CAD sculpt and release it. All the cost is transferred from them to the consumer and the actual amount of money they need to raise from sales of the CAD sculpt is minimal compared to the money needed to be raised from selling a mini currently.
Right now, despite pirating of movies, TV shows, albums, and books essentially offering the prospective pirate those products for free, enough people continue to buy them to make those industries viable. Some people will decide to pirate a CAD sculpt for the minimal cost saving it’ll give them, some people will always pay regardless of the cost saving, and some people who would be tempted to pirate will figure paying an extra 50p on top of the printing cost is minimal enough not to make piracy worth the bother.
The result will be the doors to the industry for talented sculptors will be blown off. No longer will someone like Dave Lewis have to raise a load of finance to realise his vision and bring it to market. For a minimal outlay he can CAD sculpt a bunch of minis and if the product is good, like DzC is, then more than enough people will pay the small licensing fee for each mini to make the business very viable. All of the David Lewis’ out there who won’t or can’t bring their vision to market in the current model, will be able to in the 3D printing era. We’ll see an explosion of creativity and a democratisation of the industry based on talent rather than control of the industry based on finance. A great is coming and I for one cannot wait.
@redben what you describe is a very long way off, if indeed it ever comes. It is still far far more expensive to print a book out on my affordable home printer than it is to buy a copy in a book shop. The reason I have stopped buying so many physical books isn’t because I could print them myself, but rather because I can now read a novel on my ipad.
At present 3D printing technology is way off being able to print out high quality miniatures at home. There are cheap 3D printers available but they just don’t have the quality needed to print a miniature. Even when the professionals use expensive, high quality printing services, they often have to do more work on the 3D print to get it ready for casting.
As the cost of 3D printing comes down I would imagine it will reduce the production cost of minis, making small companies more profitable, but us all sitting at home printing our own miniatures? I just can’t see it happening. Ever.
I was referring to reading a book digitally, not to printing it out. It is an option with a book that isn’t there with a mini. I never put a timescale on this. I am engaging with the idea that home-printed minis will kill the industry because of piracy and stating that I think the opposite is true.
Until the day comes that we’re printing out our own minis, then the piracy thing isn’t an issue anyway. Even if someone can invest in a really expensive one and pirate them that way, that’s just the same as the recasting industry now.
(@ , @) … again, I just can’t see it working as a business right now 😛 ha ha
… it’s just soooo risky 😛
… although I understand what you mean about trying to make things more easy to release for new companies,
… but that’s what kickstarter’s for 😉 ha ha
… now on the subject of affordable home printing for small mini companies,
… I’m literally counting the days 😛 ha ha
the moment I see an affordable printer that meets the right standards I need
I’m gonna be all over that like a vulcher circling a dead buffalo 😛 ha ha
not just for my own projects, but that would be so amazing just for work in general 🙂
… imagine sculptors being able to sculpt minis and print masters themselves, to send to clients 🙂
it would make things so much more easy for me 😛 sometimes I end up sculpting by hand over 3d prints already, to improve certain details, so it would be perfect for me 😉
To reiterate, as I fear my previous comments may not have been clear, I am not setting a timescale nor suggesting it is possible now. I am engaging with the idea that if/when they arrive, they will destroy the industry. I disagree and think if/when it happens, they will liberate the industry.
Everyone predicted that the videotape, and subsequently, the DVD, would destroy the movie industry, but that has not been the case. It has simply augmented the industry. Sooner or later pirated 3D models will show up, and we will print them on 3D printers, but I think we will have the same result. People will get into the hobby cheaply (currently not a GW option) and will subsequently look for better figures.
Well there is a saying Mr Kirby and it goes like this “If your not doing it someone else will a whole lot better” as we have seen from many companies. I would like to say on this note, thank you very much for pricing me out of the GW products your price hikes were my favourite of all time(Sarcasm intended). And the fury you have left some of your life long customers in is just amazing go on do it again I love to feel like a pauper amongst my friends. Mr Kirby you have been found “Wanting”. And last but not least thank you so much for setting the price standard from your price hikes on to so many other companies that I really did look forward to. You probably wont but I hope you hold your head in shame. GW once was the best company on the market and the most fare company regarding prices, now the models are Hasbro lookalikes just what were you thinking. Right Rant over have fun Kirby I wish I could write your next reference.
Amen
I look forward to seeing what the future brings!
So GW has spent a small fortune in the short term to cut running cost, so potentially saving in the long term. Of course this means this year’s profits are likely to be down. Cue the prophets of doom predicting the demise of GW 😉
GW feels like a company struggling to stay top dog in the face of increased competition. So far they are still the market leader, but it would appear that their market share is falling. I don’t think this is the beginning of the end personally. They are still the biggest game in town by a long margin, but I think the future holds a smaller, leaner GW.
As long as Forgeworld survives I’m happy. FW are getting my hobby money from now on.
Regarding 3D printing; I can’t see it making a huge difference to the hobby. How long have we had the ability Torino words on paper at hone, but nobody is printing out novels. The significant change to publishing had been ereaders, not home printing. Regardless of how cheap and easy 3D printing becomes, I cannot see a day coming when it is not still cheaper to mass produce products in a factory.
I would like to see the end of the Kirkby show and the beginning of a GW that actually gives a damn about its customers.
It’s always a nice preamble if you are one of the trust funds that have invested in GW
For everyone else it a pint that is all froth and no body.
You can have as efficient, lean company as you like. But while the prices keep rising and value ever reduced it means nothing.
Now you will tell me that there is a lot of value. But when my LFGS owner holds up a box with three minis costing nearly £50 when his shop is full of other goodies with much bigger bang per buck, I will have to disagree.
“Of course this means this year’s profits are likely to be down. Cue the prophets of doom predicting the demise of GW”
That really depends on how much they fall. There’s no doubt that the six-monthly report reflected a drop in sales. We’ve also been given figures in that statement on what they’ve invested. If this report is no better than the previous one even accounting for this investment, and especially given the release schedule since then, that would be a concern.
It’d be nice to see them being less-litigious! I doubt it’ll happen though. Its a shame they are such ass-hats because the models do look amazing but I just can’t support a company so at odds with its consumer base. I think they think kids still buy miniature games in toy stores. Welcome to the future GW!
‘Long-term survivability’?
B1tch please, that’s what has been killed off in favour of boosting the profits in the short term- if they’re now falling too I’m seriously worried for GW.
Cutting back stores is NOT a move for long-term survivability. It IS a way to encourage people to go out there and find new stores where people can play whatever game they want and see that there’s more to ‘The Hobby’, as GW likes to refer to themselves, than just their Hobby.
I does not read like a CEO happy with life, or the position of his company. The GW report reads like a company with a serious decline issue. They have cut all the fat off the lamb, so the only option for the future will be slaughter. I don’t see either document showing a stable or confident company. Revenue down about 10%, operating profit down about 43% and earnings on shares down by half. Cannot see anyone happy with this, either the customer or the investors.
A wonderful mixture of arrogance and technical ignorance. Sail on Ahab
About time. The bitterness is there. He’d like to be a non executive board member, if they’ll have him! Smacks of being pushed to me.
hes a wanna be
For a wannbe he’s been around a hell of a long time.
I like the bit where he talked about people stealing their ideas…
… heaven forbid anyone copies those elves, orcs, tree people, xenomorphs, rat men, trolls, ogres, dinosaurs, dwarves, genetically engineered space soldiers, hobbits, satyrs, wizards, cyborgs, gargoyles, goblins, knights on horseback, dragons, “imperial guard”, the concept of the gods of chaos, giant robots, regular giants, dragons, judge “arbites”, vampires, priests with hammers, giant spiders, zombies, “dark” elves, haemonculi, “insert fantasy race” in space, skeletons, mummies, winged demons, the green goblins glider, harlequins, griffons, unicorns, hydras, actual bane, terminators …
… because… you know… that would be plagiarism 😛
So pleased Kirby’s steady hand will continue to grip the tiller
Please feel free to interpret that as a double entendre
I’m struggling to understand how they spent £4,000,000 on their new webstore…
Let’s hope they bring in someone who can stir things up – Kirby’s preambles make me think he doesn’t live in the same reality as the rest of us.
“All this has significantly de-risked the business. We have far fewer key personnel to replace if need be, and a much lower cost base
(£2 million p.a. less). It has cost, in total, around £4.5 million to accomplish. The new web store allows us to sell online more efficiently. It cost around £4 million. ”
Looks like a total of £8.5million has been spent to save £2mill per annum.
4 years to get that back so long as all things remain equal.
Which they rarely do.
De-risked. What the hell does that even mean? They chucked out a load of old Waddington board games?
I’ve just de-spilled a cup of tea. Most refreshing
indeed…I just de-boned myself,
and I’ve found far more practical to fit into small spaces now 😛
And i’m gonna de-eat my lunch, excuse me… XD
chibi your killing me lol lol 🙂
I believe Tom Kirbys wife is a consultant for the company on IT related stuff.
oh @warzan I would love to answer that with a very funny joke but I think it would be too rude.
Has she tried turning him off and back on again?
Ohhhhh so that’s where the 4mil went! LOL
Sounds like the kind of thing you read about in Private Eye a lot of the time..
Lol, the site is not even responsive ( resize the screen and the elements won’t adjust ), you can’t browse it in a smartphone O.o . Plus it seems they use Ember.js and they have a few file that are not even compress for faster download… They also use Angular.js O.o
Some overcharge them pretty hard or they redesign and redo things hundreds of times ( literally! ), even at that point is just freaking silly.
i study graphic design and i have never heard of a website costing that much to design and implement, i have heard of a company pay 1 million to update all of there brand, this is just a website
There is a huge SAP backend system driving the whole thing, so don’t be surprised 🙂
They should have spent that money on a new soul instead
ha ha 😀 almost mad me breath in my soda 😛
Can you do that after you selling the original one?
yes chibi GW released a codex about the devil and how to sell your soul its on page 665 the page before summoning the Greater Greed Demon and lesser legal demons.
Among lots of other things, It went out with White dwarf being nothing but a shallow GW catalogue with no community contents whatsoever. Specialist games could have stayed around as well, to enrich their existing universes of 40k and fantasy .. why didnt GW actively support and encourage campaign gaming spanning over a range of different systems? Fear of loosing customers from the main IPs of course, but all it did was making it too clear the company had lost perspective on their precious game worlds and the respect for their customers. Isolating themselves in their own reality took off that last snippet of soul. Reading about Jervises good old days is tragicomical. Reclaiming that soul may not be possible with money, unless its spent in a way that can resurface GW as a company that has a love for their games and customers.
I know Kirby is not going to lose a wink of sleep over all the good people he threw out of work just to grease the shareholders and make the spreadsheets look good. There were some good GW store staff, I knew, who gave GW and the hobby much more than the pittance they were paid and then got treated like toilet paper for all their years of service and loyalty they gave GW. Shame on you Kirby.
Its probably the inability to feel shame doing things to others that put him there in the first place. This sub species usually do good in the corporate world.
Sadly, you are absolutely right the amoral user/abuser types are everywhere and flourishing and Kirby is a prime example.
This is hypothetical.
If GW’s web sales increase significantly due to having exclusive products only available on their webstore and not through any other internet seller or external store there’s the possibility they might start closing their own brick and mortar stores to make further savings.
If this was the case they might start supporting local gaming stores slightly as that would be an entrance point for new customers. By support I mean a few posters and starter kits with ‘now you’ve started look at our exclusive online range you can only buy direct’.
This could be good (although still not easy) for local non-GW stores as long as they can offer things a internet store can’t, like a boardgame cafe (i.e a place to game that sells food and a diverse range of products).
After ever increasing restrictions and pressures on my LFGS from GW, at a time of ever diminishing sales of ever more expensive goodies, the owner has had enough and this week announced he has ceased dealing with GW.
While this is purely anecdotal, and not necessarily indicative of the overall trend with independents, I assume that trading practices are uniform throughout the UK.
All things being equal, I only see the independents getting squeezed out.
In a small isolated town in the land of Oz, there was a new GW store, in which a pin could be heard to drop. Strangely, the town also had a small independent store, in which all other games are represented, except one notable company. You cannot hear the trucks braking outside for the sound of rolling dice. Independent stores are doing well here. GW is not.
They can’t close their bricks and mortar stores. They’d be in breach of their own trade agreement. That must be why they no longer sell random bits.
Restructuring costs can explain decreasing profits but it will be interesting to see if a sales figure drop is also responsible for the loss of profit. Half year results were not very encouraging on that matter.
They reported a revenue shortfall last year. That’s a sales drop. They’re restructuring because their revenues no longer support their old cost structure.
Sales
Reported sales fell by 8.2% to £123.5 million for the year. On a constant currency basis, sales were down by 6.5% from £134.6
million
to £125.9 million; progress was achieved in Other sales businesses (+
20.9%) and Export (+2.7%) while sales in UK (
–
7.1%), Continental
Europe (
–
10.6%), North America (
–
7.5%), Australia (
–
9.4%) and Asia (
–
3.3%) were in decline.
Okay, BoW community, the time has come for a serious question. I really have to ask this because everything I know about Kirby or GW or 40K is what I get here on BoW. So here it goes.
Where . . . oh, where . . . oh, for the love of all that’s holy, please tell me where . . . did this guy learn to write? Here on these sites we all admittedly tap out posts and blogs and articles and whatever, no one really checks our material to any kind of standard because frankly we’re no longer in high school. But this guy is a CEO? This is external corporate communication? This went out to shareholders? Channel partners? Customers? The market at large?
I do this kind of writing for a living (corporate communication for a tech company). If I sent this out I’m sure I would be fired, or at least looking forward to a “level-setting” conversation with my supervisors.
It’s a rushed e-mail written by a pissed-off seventh grader.
he sacked his secretary to save money he thought in all his arrogance he could do a better job.
Probably GW’s single biggest failing point is their inability to communicate. They have got to have some of the worst PR I’ve ever seen. It does incalculable damage to their brand. I would guess that a significant portion of the GW hate you see in this hobby would dissipate if they would just learn how to write a press release or talk to their customers at all. They communicate like a company in the 1980s would (back when the term “layoffs” was seen as a positive without having hide behind words like “restructuring”). I don’t know from what archaeological dig they found the fossils that operate their PR department, but it must have been an interesting set of interviews.
Hey, they recruit for attitude, not skill don’t you know. It makes you great!
He de-scripted the document
From my experience as a committed regular player of the Strategy Battle game, despite a really well organised player base all I have seen is a complete neglect of my favorite game, and souring prices for miniature manufactured in some of the cheapest materials used in manufacturing. I am happy with plastics, though still appalled by the complete failure of fine cast that simply does not deserve the name. Under this mans leadership the company has pretty much priced out its majority fan base, perhaps crucially the teenagers some of which stay on with the hobby and become pretty much long term loyal hobbyists who will spend serious money, over time and with big hits on pay day. By pricing out the vast majority of their market they are damaging their longevity not attracting the new blood. I only know one person (who frankly I see as an idiot!) in my gaming circle who is happy with the present prices! I used to spend £1,200 a year on G.W. LOTR/Hobbit miniatures. Over the last year I have bought Azog in fine cast that I have had to have replaced twice due to his shoddy manufacture in finecast, two metal blister packs and a can of black spray paint. My spending has not ceased on the hobby as I have begun collecting and playing Flames of War. If you cut of the majority of your market they will simply go elsewhere, often this will be to those directly competing with very similar products and those producing illegal copies. A lot of us are keen to see a happy and healthy G.W, but they need a serious reality check. If you want to test this out, show a couple of people one of their products in the box, then unbox it and ask them how much they think it would cost to buy? I have yet to encounter anything but appalled surprise at the expense!
I have met a lot of gamers that simply do not buy from G.W. anymore due to what we feel are ridiculously high prices! My former spending and now not spending at G.W. is replicated amongst the majority of my gaming companions.
does anyone here feel that because of the price hikes GW made many miniature companies have followed suit in the prices thinking well they buy GW at that price?
Absolutely…Thankfully prices for historical 28mm is still reasonable enough
Nope.
New site is shit comapred to the old one
Stores only open half the bloody week and close when the staff need the Loo
The models are now obnoxiosly expensive and i havn’t bought new for almost a year
the poor handling of the game led me to play other games as it was dull and unbalanced
Yep glad to see the back of Kirby, man was an idiot
Working a shop on your own is always a loser for all concerned.
Have been in such a position (not GW) and yes at times you need to go for a pee.
No lunch break, having to shut up the shop to take cash to the bank, go an get stock from the storeroom etc and worse of all it pisses off the customers
Not good.
So please spare a thought for any poor sap who has to operate a one man store.
The only positive is for the board when they show how much money they have saved by axing jobs.
Gw is going the same way as all other big companies in this country. The bean counters have squeezed as much money out of its customer base as they can and are now beginning to bail.
The hack and slash policy is to make sure the board members qualify for their bonuses each year. GW has tried and failed to be the Microsoft of the gaming world. It is shedding loyal customers like rats leaving a sinking ship. GW used to give a damn about what its fans thought about its products and even used to state this on occasion in White Dwarf ( when it was a magazine and not just a set of adverts disguised as articles). I have always felt sorry for those at GW who care about their products and fan base as money seems to matter more than content. I’m not daft , I know its a business . Surely there should be a balance though. Instead of chasing after every penny they can get , maybe they should remember that its the gaming community that made them and if they keep trying to rip us off we’ll go elsewhere ! There are smaller companies out there that have better quality products , good gaming systems and the pricing is much fairer. The last time I went into a GW store , it was a Saturday morning and I was the only one in there. In the past I would of been trampled by eager gamers. I also wonder, how many of us are still buying GW stuff out of habit ? Not wanting to let go of that part of our lives that has been with us for so long. I really hope GW wake up and smell the coffee. They must remember : we can do without them, but they can’t do without us!
Shedding loyal customers…. money matters more than content…. smaller companies have better quality products…. That sounds exactly like Microsoft to me 😀
I expect their numbers to have worsened further (sales down 20% or more), even though they brutally cut staff and costs wherever possible.
Their numbers will have worsened even though they desperately threw a new 40k Edition onto the market ( which really didnt tackle any of the games bigger issues and out of date designs, but just appears to be primarly designed to enable and officialy sanction their customers to be able to field EVERY single (40k) model (Fantasy is dead) they release and therefore enable them buy every Model they release no matter what faction one actually plays or collects )
The numbers will have worsened even though they had back to back releases of their biggest sellers for 40k ( Space Marines, Orks, Imperial Guard )
I see some bitterness and even more pride in Kirbys statement ( he knows the numbers and he knows he has to take a big chunk of resonsiblity). I think he is stepping down because the company is in trouble and in short term, he could do nothing to stop the heavy downwards trend and they went all in trying to save themselves.
They invested heavily and for years in alienating large parts of their consumer base (which took them decades to builld) by acting hostile against their very own and most passionate fans and customers. They wont be able stop this in short therm at least.
It may even have worked out for them to be jerks, but with the rise of Crowdfunding and the incredible pace new exiting games are released and the wonderfull community work these companies do ( Infinity Week at BoW anyone ?) GW is loosing ground fast.
I only buy GW models, to be able to use my great chapterhiouse and kromlech bits on something not the other way round.
Let’s not forget that he has said before they expect the new CEO to be from within. So really don’t expect any changes on how the company has been run recently.
I’d be interested to see how much money Forgeworld make because as a customer it feels like FW do so many things so much better than GW. They release products that I don’t mind paying a lot of money for because they feel like quality (I often get an overwhelming urge to just sit a stroke my Horus Heresy books 🙂 ). They communicate well with customers, showing us what they are working on in their blogs and previewing upcoming models at their events. Whereas GW feels like a corporate machine that has some artists chained to their desks in a bid to take my money, FW feels like it is run by artists who want to make the best product they can for customers they regard as part of a vast family.
Yet, bizarrely it’s the same company.
I think GW’s main problem has been a loss of gaming spirit within its core management. How can they give their customers what they want when they have no understanding of the typical hobbyist, or how raising prices during a recession might not have been the best of ideas?
They’ve cut stores, staff, product (in the form of Specialist Games), quality in both White Dwarf and Finecast, Games Day, as well as nigh on all social networking presence with 0 PR skills along the way. How is any of that ‘de-risking’ the business Mr. Kirby?
The games have also suffered greatly, with many people branching out into new games from other companies or jumping ship altogether. The fact that points costs have dropped by about 40% on average (in 40k at any rate from 2nd Ed til now) and prices have gone up between 50-200% in the same time frame has crippled many people’s capacity to collect, not to mention how some units become worse in game terms, even if they were too good to begin with, which leads to frustration for the average gamer. They need to really think about their game design from a fresh perspective if the games are going to improve. They’ll always be fun, sure, but they need to think that good games design is as important as the quality of their plastic kits, no matter what you think of their design, the quality is always superb IMHO. I’m not blaming the design team here, who are probably given mere weeks to write up a Codex or Army book, but more GW’s attitude towards it.
I respect that the core of their business remains in the UK, companies like Mantic get cheaper product from China, which goes a long way into keeping costs down. I don’t feel they need a presence in every town however. If they were more reasonable in helping other stores sell their product then they would save money by not opening and maintaining all these ‘one man’ stores. Their lack of understanding internet retail also hasn’t helped. The new store isn’t great, does nothing to explain what on earth their products are, or are about and how on earth did it cost 4 million?
I’ll leave it there but GW need to think of themselves both as a business and purveyor of wargaming fun and creativity, and if they focused more on the latter, it would go a long way to take care of the former. Oh and a sale wouldn’t hurt either, you know like how you used to do all the time, starter deals and what not. It’s almost as if GW think their product is too good for people at times. I spent £65 on Warhammer stuff at my local toy store because it was 50% off, money I wouldn’t have spent otherwise and now I’m likely to buy a Skaven army because of it. Imagine if they did a random 25-50% off a random plastic kit once a week?
I don’t want GW to fold, it would hurt all fantasy based wargaming a great deal, but they continuously need to be slapped round the face by a wet squig until they realise that their actions over the last 5 years or so are as demented as an Ork Madboy on Speed, and just as dangerous.
Agree. I’m still sad about the loss of specialist games. GW keep saying they are a model company first, they seem to regard the rules as just giving people something to do with their miniatures. Well, if that’s the case, what’s wrong with giving people more things to do with their miniatures? I know of people who still play nothing but Inquisitor, Necromunda or Mordheim despite the fact that they are no longer officially supported. I say officially because the vast majority of the cool minis you see in the “Blanchitsu” column are made by members of the Inq28 community.
The beauty of these games is that they are played with the same miniatures as 40k and WHFB. I really wish GW was still producing and supporting them. Many people love GW’s fluff, many people like their minis but gave no intention of ever buying a whole 40k or WHFB army (hence Deadzone40k). Skirmish is king these days it seems and GW are missing out on that market. It’s a play style which they used to support, but now the closest they get is Kill Team for 40k.
How much of the anti GW feeling is down to people feeling like GW is not making the style of game they want to play?
agreed, I wish they would bring back Necromunda, Gorkamorka, Mordheim, and the rest 🙂
I would love to see those come back. Those are still being played and near by gaming store in here even has Blood Bowl league going on. Official support from GW would surely be great but so far it has not fit into GW’s strategy because those don’t require so many purchases for single side like 40k and WHF do. But it does mean that people would likely get several sides instead.
I think GW are a bit behind the times. I suppose in the past they were thinking “if people are playing Necromunda, that means they’re not playing 40k”. These days they need to be thinking “if people are playing Necromunda, that means they are not playing Deadzone or Infinity or Malifaux etc.”
yeah, not only that, but it would help encourage people to try armies / races that they wouldn’t normally buy 🙂
and of course, everything would be cross compatible with other games 😉
… half the fun of the hobby is converting stuff, so people would go nuts for extra bits 🙂
plus they make great character minis 😉
… they could probably even use the same format as these new campaign boxes,
and thow in enough for a couple of starter warbands, like sigmar and skaven,
quick start rules guide for mordhiem, maybe couple of character minis,
£35, it would fly off the shelves 😉
gorkamorka, even more easy ;P ha ha
there’s a reason skirmish games are so popular these days 🙂
it’s much more easy to collect more than 1 faction at a time, and I always prefer variety 😉
Very interesting read. I really hope that GW can turn around the obviouse bad year they are having. Reading I between the lines could the CEO be stepping down as he has seen the ice berg. I hope it is more to do with the board not like the negative on line feed back. One thing that will improve GW is a greater online presence.
The YouTube site is working well. The painting guide by Duncan (poor Duncan I hope he can keep his job) are rather popular. Social Media is an amazing tool and GW surprisingly have never truly harnessed it!
I hope the future holds well for them. But not really for them, for the fans. We have invested a lot in GW it would be a shame to see them fold.
Numbers are in. Looks pretty dire.
Profity down almost 50% Year over Year and all this despite GW talking desperate measures to raise their numbers. Guess by tomorrow thei will burn another 50+ Million ound in stock worth.
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2013-14-Press-statement-final-website.pdf
Anyone else catch the “What will not change is the eternal desire for some always to want yet more of the small, jewellike objects of magic and wonder that we call Citadel miniatures.” on the final page before all the financial charts? Paraphrased this would read: “There will always be some idiot willing to pay our prices, no matter how high.”
And
“Our market is a niche market made up of people who want to collect our miniatures. They tend to be male, middle-class, discerning
teenagers and adults. We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants. These things are otiose in a niche.”
Which I read as “Our market is us and us alone, and we don’t care what our customers want because no-one cares what they’re buying in a niche market. But they are discerning” ??!!??
Seriously, all things aside there’s so many contradictions and idiotic statements in this report that it’s laughable. My gaming life is richer now the money I would have spent on GW stuff has instead been invested in Flames of War, Deadzone, Kings of War, Bolt Action, Malifaux and Dreadball. Incidentally my Malifaux buy in was 2 starters with the rulebook free at Salute, making it cheaper than a single new ork walker thing.
To me the Highlight is :
“Games Workshop has had a really good year.
If your measure of ‘good’ is the current financial year’s numbers, you may not agree.”
This reads like :
“Games Workshop has had a really good year.
If your measure of ‘good’ is the weather was good during company Picknick.”
Profit down 27% in Australia, a lot more in UK. The only place you can see growth is in the US. This explains the business model in use here. It is designed to suit the American market. I think the UK might have to prepare for losing GW to the US. It also explains the preoccupation with tournament rules over everything else for the last few years, it is where the money has been, but the overall picture is not a good one for the GW brand.
Not sure I see a tournament bias over the last few years. Abandonment of support/prizes has been widely reported and the latest rule-set is very much not geared for tournament play, practically requiring tournaments to conjure house rules to be usable. If they’re targeting tournament play, they’re doing a remarkably piss-poor job of it!
Having said that, I think it’s only natural for GW to focus on the states, it’s a bigger potential market after all.
Go back 5 years or so and you will see it beginning, and all the arguments of balance etc…
I have watched sites such as the BOLS and every third article is about tournament play, winning lists, how to max/min a character etc., with little discussion of the themed games or general scorn of it in the comments section. I agree with latest rules set they have now made them very unhappy, but they do persist with it.
From my personal experience BoLS is not really best site to be. Some times there might be some interesting article but never ever should anyone look at comment section because comments that you will see there are really low quality.
I couldn’t agree more @mecha82, that’s is why I moved to BOW as soon as I discovered it, but I do like to laugh occasionally at the BOLS comments, they are good for cheap laughs and trollish insults.
I think there’s patterns being looked for that simply don’t exist. The company becoming slightly more communicative via Facebook a bit ago was indicative with a new engagement with the internet. It wasn’t and they didn’t.
The Kirby bits of the report as they have every year I’ve been reading it (might be 10 years now) show only that the man is delusional and genuinely doesn’t understand his business on any level. It’s usually similar stuff.
“Explain what we’ve been doing this year (sacking people usually) insist that the few who are left are great people and insist the company is healthy regardless of the black and white figures showing a steady decline. Add what passes for some homespun northern witticism”
The insistence he knows his audience while asserting that they do no research whatsoever is a particular highlight this year though.
Australian sales should just be added to the US ones. That’s where I order most my stuff from :).
I will admit though that GW is pricing their product in Australia a lot closer to the US these days. I have started ordering more from the local stores now.
I can only assume no one here is buying anything from GW then, given their disgraceful behavior and constant disappointment?
Because if not, good job, you’re enabling the same behaviour you are so disgusted with.
It’s always the same whenever a report is published- a laundry list of pains and woes that go back over a decade now…and the same people. If you hate the company, stop enabling them with your money, it’s as simple as that. Can’t live without GW? Find a therapist, it’s called an addiction.
wow, first fan boy. That took a while. welcome to the discussion.
No. I haven’t touched GW product (beyond paints) in 10 years. I just find the bleating of the cash-cows tiresome and pointless. If you’re dissatisfied then man up and find a better product/company, not endlessly write how dissatisfied you feel.
Well then you should man up, cause I replaced my GW paints 6 years ago, replaced with another suitable brand. But I do like an adult discussion of the company and the their outlook, as they hold a significant market share and their actions affect the entire industry. If you find it tiresome and pointless I suggest you go to another thread, there seems to be plenty on the site alternate to this one.
People have been saying that for years
And for years now I can say I haven’t had the spare cash to throw at an arrogant company tht treats people with complete disdain .
So I gives my money to hobby companies that welcome and value my custom.
I am a name not a number branded on the arse of a cash cow
oh for an edit button
Apologies for the typos
Jeez kirb…no one likes a smartass ! ;p
You can cut costs to a shoe string budget, but the real test of the health of the business is profit from sales! You can produce a strategy by where you sell a LOT less miniatures for a higher price, but there comes a point where most reasonable people will be priced out and new people will be put off! You can close shops and cut opening hours to patch this hole, but if the client base is not buying at the prices this will be a short time saving in costs that may well have long term effects.
First, I feel I need to say that GW’s biggest mistake was going public. I know that the valid argument can be made that without this capitol they would not have been able to do all they have done. I put it to you that all that has been accomplished could have happened privately, but would have taken longer. GW has become known by the term PROFIT,which I get is part of being in business. Although, should it come at the cost of loosing the respect and loyalty of your customers. I’m not saying that GW should forgo profit but when it becomes the only measure of success, to the frustration of the customer has it gone to far?
As far as the CEO goes, I do not feel that under his leadership the company has headed in the right direction. It remains to be seen whether the damage done is irrevocable but at this point I have little confidence in the course that he has set!
Atmosphere…
“Risks and uncertainties
That we are ex-growth is a big risk seen by some. As I said above I do not believe it. But if it is true we have built a wonderfully efficient cash-generating machine.
The bigger risk is the same one I repeat each year, and that is management. So long
as we have great people we will be fine. ***Problems will arise if the board allows egos and private agendas to rule.***
(…)
The future :
Next year, internally, there will be some disruption remaining from the big reorganisation we have just made and from the one man store programme.
(…)
Beyond next year, the business ought to be able to increase sales (single digit growth, not more) for many years and to provide owners with a steady flow of dividends. I say ‘ought to’ because no plan survives contact with the enemy and we will not promise what we
cannot deliver—in particular our policy of only returning surplus cash as dividends will remain. ***We will not borrow (nor engage in fancy financial engineering) to pay a coupon***.”
*** Private agendas? Egos?
***(pression from big private investors and pension funds?)
“Risks and uncertainties That we are ex-growth is a big risk seen by some. – See more at: http://www.beastsofwar.com/games-workshop/kirby-stepping-gw-ceo-interesting-preamble/comment-page-2/#comments”
Ex-growth.
Am I the only one rolling on the floor with aching sides. Well okay, that is exaggerating but it is hilarious.
Spit it out man. Stagnant at best or in decline.
Ex-growth. lol
As for the private agendas/egos
No, everything is fine, no arguments in the board room here, just one big happy family.
It is starting to sound more like a soap opera than an annual report! lol
I don’t understand how such an “advice” (or dubious understatement about internal personnal conflicts) can make it to an official business document aimed at shareholders… That’s rather ex-professional ^^
It looks like I need to sell my 40k on ebay sooner rather than later or I might not have anyone to sell to…
GW lost me in 6th edition, but I was buying mostly 2nd hand in 5th (Ozzie gamer). thanks GW for showing me the wonders of eBay.
Now imagine how those numbers would look now if they hadn’t released a new edition of 40k …
I love how people think 3d printers are expensive, or can’t do high detail. The cost of 3d printers are always going down, and the best detail you’ll get is from a stereolithography 3d printer, but any good 3d printer can do great detail if you practice with the settings and speed.
Also, you don’t need a sculptor to do any work first, you can take a hand scanner and scan in any miniature you want, use one of the many 3d printer programs out there and slice the miniature into workable pieces. Hell, you can print your miniatures in wood if you wanted to make it easier to paint them. You can pick your favorite plastic too.
I have no understanding of economics or how to run a business so I’m probably way off with this but I’ll throw it out there for the more business minded to rip apart at their leisure.
GW current business plan seems to be cut staff and raise prices, which leads to reduced sales, meaning reduced profits. To counter the fall in profits they raise prices and cut staff, which leads to a fall in sales and a drop in profits. I may have this wrong but surely the final outcome of this business plan can only be one guy makes, markets, distributes and sells one model to one guy who buys it, GW sells one mini a year for £1000000000. Unless Roman Abramovich is looking to get into ‘the hobby’ I can’t see the long term benefits.
Surely you can only streamline a business so much before it becomes incapable of sustaining itself. Price hikes, no matter how justified, will put customers off, they might not leave completely but they’ll buy less and less as the price goes up and up.
I’ve probably missed lots of valid points here, as I said, I’m no expert. Just my take on things.
Nah, it’s probably about right.
Just throw in a few other random bits of nonsense that only GW management consider to be good business practice and you are good to go lol
That’ OK then.
It just seems odd, I know they are completely different markets but Tesco just announced a drop in profits, to counter it, along with other companies like Walmart and Morrisons, they cut their prices in an attempt to drive up footfall.
I understand why this doesn’t work in the same way for GW, they’re not engaged in a price war and have no need to be. But, and its a BIG one, if they dropped prices a little, in response to customer ill will, surely a good few of the rage quiters would come back? Surely a few more mums and dads wouldn’t wince quite so hard when little Johnny drags them into the store to look at the cool toy soldiers, they’d pick something up for little Johnny instead of trying to be polite to the salesman and making a speedy exit.
A small drop in prices could make a massive positive difference to their sales and their profits but they seem more interested in presenting themselves as the Aston Martin or Ferrari of the hobby world.
I think the Tesco analogy is a good one to a degree. Both companies are loosing customers to competition which is offering ostensibly the same product at a cheaper price.
GW’s greatest asset is not that it makes good miniatures. Lots of companies make good miniatures these days, many of them much better than GW’s miniatures. No, GW’s greatest asset is its IP. Selling more miniatures is one way they could increase profits, but it’s just one way. I think they should be looking at how to make more money out of their IP. If one revenue stream is shrinking then it’s time to find new ones.
Agreed – while I rather like many of GW’s minis, to my mind there is no question that their fluff and broader IP is GW’s strongest asset. The game universe is so intricate and well established, and has had so much of a headstart in terms of time available to refine and develop the setting, that is stands head and shoulders above most of its competition. It is not for nothing that so many people like to use alternate models or even rulesets, but still set their games within the Warhammer or 40K fictional universes. The success of Black Library shows how much allure the GW universes have even in the absence of actual wargaming.
It might serve GW well to focus more of their effort on leaveraging that IP more effectively.
Once you’ve been working long enough you’ll have seen this almost everywhere. The simplistic way to increase profit margin (ie make more without spending more) is cut costs. The easiest ‘cost’ to cut is staff, and staff at the bottom. Now most companies have excess staff, that is more staff than they really need so some cutting is beneficial.
But as you point out there will come a time when the cutting goes beyond the ability to produce what you did previously so production (or sales) drops so income reduces and the profit margin shrinks. Sensible reaction would then be investment to reverse the trend. Many companies will go through this expand/shrink/expand/shrink cycle it just seems that GW is being managed in a shrink/shrink/shrink cycle instead.
Overall I think there needs to be some investment but I doubt that will happen now they have spent all their money on a new webstore instead.
First and foremost, regardless of what Kirby did or didn’t do the GW mantra of “anything for more money” is in the end what will be their swan song. I don’t feel the Kirby is the only one to be blamed for GW’s condition. The Public Holding is the biggest part of the problem.
I think that Kirby is seeing the writing on the wall and has decided to bale when the getting is good and get out while GW is still a viable company.
I have more time for GW than many people here, and I would consider the company’s collapse to be very unfortunate for wargaming as a hobby (an opinion that I know is not perhaps as widely shared as I would like, especially among some of the more gleefull GW doomsayers), but even someone like me who for the most part enjoys GW’s games systems and likes their models can see that things need to change markedly.
In particular, the core game mechanics need to be updated to adopt more of the best practice from the wider industry. I go/you feels increasingly anachronistic when other initiative and alternative activation and action systems offer so much more tactical nuance, I don’t see why such an approach couldn’t be adapted to 40K, even if the basic unit of action is a squad or vehicle rather than an individual model.
I would also definitely like to see a return to supporting a wider range of game systems. Apocalypse can be great fun, but it would only be enhanced if the scale of engagements could continue to increase up to Epic and Battlefleet Gothic games, and equally if it were possible to focus down to Inquisitor and Necromunda scale clashes. Warhammer would similarly benefit by a revivication of Warmaster, Man ‘O War, and the still hugely popular Mordheim (there is after all still so much interest in that system that a computer game of it is in development).
Hopefully, new blood will at least provide an opportunity for some of this much needed change to come to pass.
Hey, they re-added the ex-overwatch rule to 6th edition (overwatch by name, “charge me with an axe i only carry a heavy bolter” in practice), keeping up with the times yo! 😉
“With the sole, and rapidly declining, exception of products from Tolkien’s books we use only our own imaginary worlds.”
Seems like LoTR/Hobbit SBG wont be around much longer then. How come the ‘Hobbit’ trilogy tie-in did so badly? Was it the lack of popularity of the films, or the way GW handled the licensed product?
I suspect it was both. I suspect GW probably reckoned that they needed to buy the Hobbit license if only to stop a competitor setting themselves up as a viable mass-market alternative, and because it would look as if they’d totally lost the plot if they failed to keep it.
Reckoning that it wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful as the LotR, I think they decided to do pretty much the minimum they could with the game. Minimal promotion, virtually no support, publicity or presence in White Dwarf or shops. No clever ideas about how to use what is actually a very good game system with beautiful miniatures to either get in new players or tempt existing customers to try something else.
One of the main ways in which I think it shows that they’d given up on the Hobbit before they’d even started was with the pricing. The models were (are) so expensive that only the die hard fans are likely to have bought any. Some of the factions are clearly designed for you to have ‘one of each because you’re a collector’ rather than an army, as no one would pay for a full army. I can’t imagine anyone new to the hobby getting into the games with such high prices. Contrast this with the LotR which was priced, marketed and designed so as to tempt in new players.
That said, I don’t think the potential for success was anything like the same as with the LotR simply because the world has moved on. The Hobbit films may look good, but they don’t have the wow factor that the LotR films had in their time. It would be interesting to know how one of GW’s competitors would have used the license.
I would say without a doubt the major factor was price.
I bought my son the LotR sets as they came out (all four of them ?) and whilst the cost was going up they still seemed value for money, the rules were good and there was enough other players around.
Then once the films finished and the stores simply didn’t promote anymore the number of players dropped. Then out comes the Hobbit, the rules are rewritten (not as good I don’t think as they became more complex), the price is a premium (even for GW) and again little to no promotion to try and get new or returning players in. My son’s box still sits unbuilt and is not likely to be expanded on.
Result is only the few hard-core players remain, no new players and most of my figures are looking at becoming SAGA models instead.
Its the price they are asking for the models .. more often than not they look like turd but are priced as if gold.
Am I the only one who thinks its strange to wish Tom Kirby “a long and happy retirement”? He was the chairman, then he became the chairman and acting CEO, now he’s becoming the chairman again. He’s no more retiring than I am. What gives?
As for the figures, only the authentic “GW FANBOIS” are going to be surprised. Some of us have been talking about these problems for over a decade. There’s lots of problems to talk about but two of them are BIG:
1) Failure to grow the hobby. Something that nobody in GW has realised in a long time is that forty hobbyists in an area do not spend twice as much on the hobby as twenty hobbyists in the same area; being a part of such a more thriving and enjoyable gaming scene (having more and more varied opponents in the simplest terms) will lead the members of that forty hobbyist gaming circle to spend more AS INDIVIDUALS as well. The difference in hobbyist numbers in the given example is +100%. The difference in sales would likely be considerably more than that. To give a relatively recent example I know lots of people discussed at the time; the Space Hulk release should not have been some limited edition, it should have been available at the lowest possible price point, in the supermarkets, with “life-size” terminator and genestealer standees greeting shoppers as they entered the store. Grow your hobby! Make money and secure its future!
2) Repeated and calamitous PR own goals. I’m not even going to try to list these in detail, that would be an article (at least) in itself, but everybody here must know what I’m talking about. Whether it was the great fansite cull of some years back (when GW claimed they wanted to direct discussion to their own forums and then proceded to close their own forums), claiming they own the term “Space Marine” when it pre-dates their company by decades, claiming they own the concept of the lamassu when it pre-dates their company by THOUSANDS OF YEARS, or even their openly antagonistic attitude towards the BeastsofWar guys’ attempts to run a business, GW’s track record when it comes to dealing with their own customers is not so much that of a man repeatedly shooting himself in his own foot, as it is a man repeatedly shooting himself in this own head.
Put those together and you’re left with an ever shrinking customer base, lot’s of whom already don’t like you.
What could go wrong Tom, what could go wrong?
I just thought I reply to myself for a moment to address a point in a comment posted while I was typing. Just in case the accusation gets thrown at me I would like to say that I am in no way a “gleeful GW doomsayer”. I’ve been engaged by their product for just over twenty years and a strong and healthy GW would be great to see. Seeing the ineptness of some of their personnel drive them from the strength they had as a brand in the mid nineties to where they are now however, has been extremely dispiriting. They could have been really huge and now they’re never going to be.
I was not directing the ‘gleeful GW doomsayer’ remark toward you specifically, nor anyone else on this thread in particular. That said, I think it would be hard to contest that there does exist no shortage of people who seem to eagerly await the long predicted downfall of GW, regularly opining that the clompany won’t last out the year (each and every year that passes), stating that all its employees should be ‘flipping burgers where they belong’ (a direct quote from an old thread on another site, and a rather harsh and unneccessary jab at minimum wage workers) or words to that effect, and insulting the intelligence and often – in gross displays of offensive ableism – the mental health of anyone who doesn’t share their obsessive hatred of the company.
Whatever the source of their anger, and however justified they may think it to be, people like that only ever serve to poison the discourse. Nothing I have seen you post would lead me to categorise you amongst their number.
There is a trend. Not saying my observation is scientific in any way, and there may be other causes but, every time these topics about GW pop up, the voice of support for them grows ever quieter.
GW are alienating more and more people
We might still like the idea of playing the games, but the company practices and all that entails is making it ever harder for fans to justify continuing to support GW. .
I couldn’t agree more, I love GW’s IP and I have since I first found out about it back in the days of Rogue Trader, I would never wish ill on them for the simple fact that I like what they make but its getting increasingly difficult to defend them. GW seem to have taken the attitude of “Haters gonna hate!” which means they discount all criticism, whether its constructive or not.
GW doesn’t make games anymore man. It is so tragic. All GW does mainly now days is repackage Space Marines. So sad.
I mean a few months ago I finally got around to getting my gaming board and wanted to populate it with terrain. My first point of call being Games Workshop. They don’t produce hills no more, no more fences, no more watch towers, ruins or crucial scenery pieces that define a wargames table. They’re slowly getting rid of all their generic/fantasy terrain. Its all just 40K buildings!!! So they’re no longer the leading games manufacturer then??
And then you look at the games, its just 40K they mostly promote. And mostly Space Marines at that. Its so tragic. No more Specialist games. The Hobbit was useless as was Lord of the Rings. Fantasy is great, and Wood Elves and Dwarfs have come out this year (I like them both) but the game is so expensive now! And they’ve stopped selling the battalion sets for Wood Elves!
Meanwhile Fantasy Flight Games now sell more Games Workshop licensed games than GW now. And Mantic are slowly releasing variations of all the specialist games that Games Workshop used to sell.
How can the company continue to be called ‘Games’ Workshop if it only cares about the one game? Imagine Nintendo or Sony just releasing the one game over and over again. It does nothing but damage the company’s reputation, not enhance it.
Well I’ve read through the comments made here – and there are some excellent ones- but I doubt Mr Kirby has or will. Or any similar ones on countless sites across the Internet. So why not PRINT these as letters and send them as part of the job application which is mentioned? After all they’re after attitude – and there seems to be a fair amount of that evident here. Sure it’s a hassle, Snail Mail , but think of the benefits. You might get an interview to take on the CEO position at GW. You might get the job! OK that’s unlikely but IF you actually send them a letter they will have to read it to sort out the potential candidates. And that’s where all of the great critiques of GW that you have mentioned will
have to be read by someone. Sure it probably won’t be Mr Kirby. But if a mountain of mail has to be read through GW will have to take notice, maybe to a small extent. Remember Mr Kirby ISN’T reading this post or any of the others written here either………so even with the great points raised GW won’t take any notice unless they have to
People who are talking about how the third party mom and pop’s have hurt GW are thinking wishfully. Sure those small cuts are bleeding GW at a very bad time, but they have been in real trouble for the better part of seven or eight years now and it isn’t little resin bitz guys who are hurting them … it is their crappy business model that worked great in the pre-internet 90s but is woefully outmoded for the 2010s!!!
No in reality what is killing GW is what has been killing GW for a long, long time now. The internet, cell phones, video games, and the reality that just ten years ago people were willing to spend 4 hours playing a tabletop game. People aren’t these days in large numbers. Old players for 1000s of reasons have soured on GW and new players are taking a pass as the buy in is insane and the time sink is just silly when people have less and less time (lets be hones thanks to youtube, facebook, phone games and free porn).
I’m an old school GW fan, they were the company that brought me to tabletop gaming. I do not hate them and do not want to see them die. I don’t gleefully hope for their demise. I’m sad I can’t play GW games the way I used to be able to due to lack of time (of course in large part for the aforementioned reasons but also just because now I’m older with work, kids, a mortgage to pay, etc. so while I might have the money I don’t have the time anymore).
Kirby doesn’t address this at all. GW has not stayed with the times. Both 40K and fantasy should be fully playable at a small skirmish level in a 100% balanced, fun and very cool way. No shitty unbalanced “kill team” crap, no crappy escalation “warbands” nonsense. Clean, fun, fast 5-10 fig games that can use any models people want to play with. A huge mistake GW made was also nuking all the specialist/fanatic stuff as those were precisely the kinds of games that new players might pick up and even busy old guys could find time to fit into their schedules. Alas GW has farmed out or discontinued anything that has long term revenue potential. GW will continue to slide until it completely revamps its business model.
Lets hope whoever they bring in to replace Tom sees this and moves in that direction. Tom is right on one regard here and that is GW is and always has been a company with a longer view. They need to develop a new sensible long term strategy and then have the balls to stick to it. What they have now is really a reactionary quarter to quarter death spiral that is not going to do anything for them. They need to get the ship back on some sort of a cohesive course … fast … otherwise they are going to run aground >:(
Actually Warhammer Battle is loosing ground… But imagine : warhammer battle with LOTR system… Allowing for interesting small to medium skirmishes and larger battles thanks to optionnal rules…
Or a Mordheim like game with a similar system…
A Sci fi variant…
Woooow…, Old time GW reborn…
Don’t worry guys!
Whatever happens, Tom Kirby won’t have to work another day in his life.
Unlike, say, Rick Priestley.
We all can take pride in making that possible.
This is the way the world works, unfortunately.
There are thinkers and creators, and then there are those who are ready to capitalise on those efforts.
Wow just wow.
I have never read any thing in the public domain that shows how incredibly arrogant and ignorant Tom Kirby really is.
Here is what Kirby is actually saying…
I have had a good year, I collected £450,000 as chairman, and £150,000 as acting C.E.O.
AND I managed to pay myself £280,000 share dividend.(And got to pay my wife over £100,000 in consultancy fees for the new web site!)
Yes if you ignore the dwindling customer base, negative word of mouth, incompetent legal battles fought on ignorance and arrogance.And just blame everyone/everything else but me for the fall from greatness of GW .It is a really good year.
However,it is obvious to most people the only way I know to run this company, (into the ground.)Has reached the tipping point.
I have cut costs as much as possible.I have raised prices as high as possible.
As I do not think customers are worth talking to, they just line up to buy what we decide to make.I really do not see any other viable approach.
Now there are no more costs to cut, and room to increase prices.
Ill just bullsh!t the investors with the ‘long term future gak’, drop back to my humble £450,000 salary, and let some other poor smuck carry the can as C.E.O when it all implodes in the next year or so.
I will be able to tell who is gullible enough to take the fall for my incompetence when I open the application letter.The first one written in crayon wins!
Everything wrong with the way GW plc is run is down to Tom Kirby.
Everything GW does right and has positive impact on people, is down to the hard working staff, Kirby likes to blame/sack.
I had a conversation recently with a friend (an ex-GW staff member) about the end of Specialist Games. He claimed it was ended because it wasn’t making any money. I found this difficult to believe (and still do) as the costs for SG had already been paid. The design work had been done. The models existed and could be cast to order. The only costs incurred would have been the ones associated with the promotion of the game.
Given the success of the skirmish games market, I don’t see how a sensibly updated version of Necromunda (better than Underhive!), Gorkamorka or Mordheim couldn’t turn a profit. The margin may not have been earth-shattering but it would have kept a lot of old fans on GW’s side and the smaller buy in makes those games perfect for attracting new players to the IP. Which in turn boosts sales of the other games.
The fact that the Company embraced the reduction of their gaming portfolio rather than using that diversity to ensure growth is the ultimate sign of their Ivory Tower Syndrome.
I’m not gleefully cheering on their demise either. I used to love Games Workshop. 40K Workshop I’m not a fan of! I wish they could return to the greatness of the past but I fear that time is done. The market has moved on. There are cheaper, prettier, better alternatives these days. GW needs to adapt or die and no amount of flagrant fanboyism will save them.
just read through the full yearly financial report,
… one sentence by mr kirby really stood out
” We don’t ask the market what it wants, these things are otiose”
… so apparently our opinions are irrelevant, good to know 😛
Mr Kirkby doesn’t give a shit what we think.
This is why we think Mr Kirkby is a shit.
… who knows, maybe if he had “asked the market”
he’d have realized that people really like skirmish games 😛
and would continue to buy them if they still made new products for them 😛 ha ha
… like Gorkamorka and Mordheim only had about 1 year of product releases,
and then they thought ” hmmm, sales have decreased a bit since we stopped making minis for these games… maybe nobody plays them anymore? ” (@ , @)
…. it confuses me to this day
Some more qualified voices too think Kirby sucks :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/10997611/Fantasy-figures-Games-Workshops-CEO-takes-alternative-view-of-good.html
Dripping with arrogance and self-importance, as you would expect.
Not just Kirby, the upper echelons of GW are crewed by yes-men and sociopaths employed for ‘attitude’, rather than ability. Unfortunately, eventually these things start to count, and even with a ridiculously dominant market position they are managing to reduce the level of this dominance and call into question the long-term viability of the company.
I think most of us are lucky that the wargaming hobby is diverse and there are many other options out there. But, I feel sorry for people who are unwilling or perhaps unable to make the jump to other systems, and are therefore stood like poor timmy at Xmas, waiting for whatever lumps of gristly get thrown out of the window by fat, scoffing Mr Kirby 🙂