Games Workshop Financial results

[Krug]

http://investor.games-workshop.com/press/260705 Approved Preliminary Results 2005.doc

 

[MacMathan]

Not unexpected given the fade of LoTR-mania.

What I find interesting is that the biggest portion of their sales comes from their own stores. It always makes me wonder why WoTC could not keep their own stores profitable/open. It seems like a guaranteed way to grow the hobby.

 

[Endur]

For GW stores, you really need to differentiate between their sales in the UK and their sales elsewhere.

In the UK, GW games are more dominant than D&D. GW does incredibly well with the minis business and really has turned it into a club hobby.

Their stores in the US try to emulate the UK success, but really can't hit that level of success. The club hobby has not taken off for GW here.

Conversely, the WOTC stores were never meant to be profitable. They picked high visiblity locations with lots of space (and high rent costs). Those stores were meant for publicity, not profits.

On the other hand, the Game Keeper chain of stores which were purchased by WOTC, were meant to be profitable and were highly profitable -- they picked rental space designed for customer purchases. A very small amount of their purchases were WOTC games; most were chess and other "family" games.

Hasbro Management never understood the retail business and closed both the WOTC stores and the Game Keeper stores, when the obvious solution was to close the WOTC stores and keep or sell the Game Keeper stores.

 

[Marchen]

I really do like GW, but they are starting to get out of reach for me. They pretty much did away with any support for my favorite of their games (Mordheim), and the prices for just basic regiments on both Fantasy and W40K is getting ridiculously high.

Luckily I already have three fantasy armies of decent size, so I could continue to play without buying hyper priced plastic minis.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Agreed, GW pricing went beyond what I am willing to pay about two or three years ago now, when their plastic regiments went through a 33% price increase. And frankly, the quality of their sculpts has diminished, except for their plastics for 40K - which look great, but are too pricey.

The Auld Grump

 

[Marchen]

And frankly, the quality of their sculpts has diminished, except for their plastics for 40K - which look great, but are too pricey.

I agree. When they first started pumping out multi-part plastic kits they were great. Most of the older ones require more assembly, but allow for much greater freedom in how you want the models to look as well as ease of conversions. The newer sets (Beastmen, SoC Chaos Warriors, new Wood Elves) don't have as many individual pieces. It's generally a body, a head, and arms. These scuplts don't allow for as much individuality in modelling.

They're still better than the "cloned" plastics from 5th edition I suppose. :\

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I agree. When they first started pumping out multi-part plastic kits they were great. Most of the older ones require more assembly, but allow for much greater freedom in how you want the models to look as well as ease of conversions. The newer sets (Beastmen, SoC Chaos Warriors, new Wood Elves) don't have as many individual pieces. It's generally a body, a head, and arms. These scuplts don't allow for as much individuality in modelling.

They're still better than the "cloned" plastics from 5th edition I suppose. :\

Heh, spoken as from my own heart! I loved the multiposed plastics, and bought sets of Soldiers of the Empire, Empire Militia, dwarfs, high elfs, skeletons, zombies, orcs, goblins, night goblins, and even the old Chaos Warriors all for RPG purposes. The new one pose wonders? Not one set (though I was given one set of Beastmen as a gift).

The Auld Grump.

 

[MonsterMash]

Out of the current stuff I like the Tomb Kings, which are pretty much the old skellies with some modifications and I quite like the Lizardmen, even though it requires a bit of work to get a decent range of posture variety in a unit.

 

[NewJeffCTHome]

Agreed, GW pricing went beyond what I am willing to pay about two or three years ago now, when their plastic regiments went through a 33% price increase. And frankly, the quality of their sculpts has diminished, except for their plastics for 40K - which look great, but are too pricey.

The Auld Grump

Part of the reason the price went up here in the US is due to the poor exchange rate for the dollar vs the Euroe the past few years - notice sales hardly went down at all in Continental Europe.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I'm not surprised, especially with WotC's plastic DDMs growing in popularity. It's kinda hard to compete when your product is WAY more expensive and requires a lot more work to get the finished product.

Just the other day I saw a couple kids comparing D&D minis with a box of Warhammer minis and they chose the former simply b/c it was cheaper and they didn't have to spend hours putting them together. Is the quality of the sculpts as good? Probably not. But there's other factors to consider.