I've figured out why Wells etal are driving GW into the ground!

[iamfanboy]

So there I was, replying to a PM about my posts in the 'new strategy to replace b&m stores' thread, when I had a realization, an epiphany if you will (though it may have been brought on by the ephedrine in this asthma medication I've been taking):

Wells and Kirby think tabletop gaming is dead or dying.

Just as FASA's top dogs came to the conclusion that computer games were killing the RPG industry, so to have the top dogs at GW decided the same.

Rather than try to go out with dignity like FASA tried (and failed!) to do, though, they've decided to ride out GW's decline in as spectacular a fashion as possible, attempting to keep up GW's financials for as long as they can to make their CV look better when they ride a golden parachute to their next jobs.

"We did all we could, and still the company went under," they can say.


...and am I the only one who would welcome it? I mean, seriously, the sooner GW gets purchased by a white knight who actually CARES about their IP and forces some serious changes, the better.

[loveless]

With the rise of so many tabletop games recently (I don't recall Dropzone Commander, Bushido, Relics, Warpath, Dystopian Wars, and Dust existing a few years ago), I can't see how that assumption could be made.

That said, for some reason my initial response to this was going to be "Start a Kickstarter to gather enough money to buy GW"

[Night Bearer]

I also can't imagine the continued investment in bigger and more complex kits, more overall kits, more investment in hobby tools and their paint lines, etc. etc.

I honestly think the real issue with GW is that it's a very insular, incestuous company. They don't consider themselves an equal, or even part of, the general tabletop hobby, and thus don't price or strategize in accordance to what their competitors are doing. It'd be like if Ford or Toyota bought Auto-Zone, Meineke, and Sonic's Drive-In and then decided that because they sell so many cars and service all aspects of the auto hobby that they can decide what works for them and dictate that to the customer, regardless of how Chrysler, Honda, or BMW do things.

[iamfanboy]

With the rise of so many tabletop games recently (I don't recall Dropzone Commander, Bushido, Relics, Warpath, Dystopian Wars, and Dust existing a few years ago), I can't see how that assumption could be made.

That said, for some reason my initial response to this was going to be "Start a Kickstarter to gather enough money to buy GW"

I never understood why FASA made the assumption that TTG was dead either, but they still did it - and that was over ten years ago now.

...Wow, ten years.

Anyway, they're only looking at their own numbers to do so (and not the massaged ones they put in their reports!), which show a decline in volume of sales that increases each year. Rather than interpret that as THEIR mistake in constantly raising prices and failing to give value for money, instead they see it as people are abandoning wargames altogether.

[Kijamon]

I have no counter to your claim but to suggest that riding them in to the ground and hoping someone buys them is the best outcome is ludicrious.

I realise a games workshop fan and a football fan don't tend to go hand in hand, lessons can be learnt from the way that Rangers football club have gone into trouble. A huge football establishment doomed to liquidation.

Someone picking apart the bones will not make as good a deal as we have now.

[semper_fi]

i just wonder,, whats gw worth at the moment ?? any clues??

[Scammel]

Considering general is already filled with various topics (rightly) criticising GW for some of their more inane policies, did this rather pointless one really need creating?

[Omniassiah]

I have no counter to your claim but to suggest that riding them in to the ground and hoping someone buys them is the best outcome is ludicrious.

I realise a games workshop fan and a football fan don't tend to go hand in hand, lessons can be learnt from the way that Rangers football club have gone into trouble. A huge football establishment doomed to liquidation.

Someone picking apart the bones will not make as good a deal as we have now.

Realize that unlike, a football team, the management of a Company often have extremely large severance packages that are given to them pretty much barring any Illegal wrong doing. Wells could probably run GW out of business and still walk away with 4-5m GBP, and go straight to a new job. Once you get to executive level sadly the normal rules for hiring and getting fired go right out the window. So while it may not be their opinion that is know through out the company but it can be what they are thinking in their heads.

[lbecks]

Papa Kirby is riding it to retirement.

[Thénon]

i just wonder,, whats gw worth at the moment ?? any clues??

Last estimate was around the £130 million mark. But it wouldn't cost that much too effectively "own" the company.

The Nomad Investment Partnership LP holds the largest amount of stock atm, 6,800,000 shares which is 21% of the total stock. Depending on the stock value you would need about 50 million to hold enough stock to devaluate current holders enough to weild major decision power at share meetings.

Not that I've researched buying the company

Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2

[infinite_array]

Papa Kirby is riding it to retirement.

Right here, that's the reason why.

With the last dividend, Kirby managed to add an additional, what, 300,000 pounds to his already modest paycheck?

[Hendarion]

Wells and Kirby think tabletop gaming is dead or dying.

Just as FASA's top dogs came to the conclusion that computer games were killing the RPG industry, so to have the top dogs at GW decided the same.

Rather than try to go out with dignity like FASA tried (and failed!) to do, though, they've decided to ride out GW's decline in as spectacular a fashion as possible, attempting to keep up GW's financials for as long as they can to make their CV look better when they ride a golden parachute to their next jobs.

"We did all we could, and still the company went under," they can say.

There is one big flaw in that idea: Kirby and Wells keep buying GW shares. Wells bought shares in a value of nearly 1.000.000 GBP just 1-2 months ago. Why wouldn't he just burn the money if he think the company will crash in a spectacular fashion?
Also there's a difference between GW and the RPG industry: GW sells toys, not rules. They produce miniatures, physical existing things that people attract and which had been bought even before GW wrote a single line of rules and probably still will in the future.

[iamfanboy]

Well, like I said Hendarion, I've been riding the ephedrine dragon and it might just be an odd, paranoid thought driven by the drug. Oh, and lack of sleep too, I've only been getting three-four hours a night for the last week and a half thanks to allergy-induced asthma. It's either breathe and be forced awake, or go to sleep and wake up needing to take a pill... and then being awake again for X hours.

I do NOT know how meth addicts handle this crap. Wait, I do know, I had one for a roommate for a while, they handle it one way: badly.



Still, why not buy the shares now? It isn't as though Wells and friends are expecting an imminent collapse, and neither is anyone with a lick of sense. What might be interesting is to watch for when they offload their shares, probably a little at a time to avoid depressing the market (and avoid accusations of stock manipulation). When that happens, the End Days are near! Run for the hills! Or the nearest indie gaming store to grab a copy of another company's game that nets your fancy!

[Ebon]

...and suddenly, so much becomes clear.

[selfconstrukt]

One other theory, one that I believe is likely, is that as the company does worse some staff at GW will continue to buy shares so they have a larger interest in the company when the other shareholders bow out after the Hobbit revenue drops off.

I know that many at GW want the company to "go private" again, sure it was great the last 10+ years using all that money to buy new equipment, facilities and expand but when the Hobbit revenue drops off some of those shareholders may not see GW as a good investment anymore and get out.

It wouldn't surprise me if some of the staff at GW might be actively "sabotaging" things at GW in some ways to facilitate this. It's happened before at other companies, GW is not immune to the agendas of greedy power hungry staff.

[The bearded one]

Certain actions and inactions * cough * unwillingness to advertise or use the internet * cough * are so extraordinarily hard to understand, that it is hard for us outside the company to understand what is going on in the heads of the likes of Wells and Kirby and what logic they are following. This makes any kind of speculation difficult. It's a bit like trying to look into the mind of a madman and find reason.

[RevEv]

Your hypothesis seems to run contrary to the latest financial report, courtesy of The Times on 16Nov11 (only 6 months ago)!

"Royalties help Games Workshop to soar with the Winged Nazgûls

An endangered species was spotted in the City yesterday: a retailer flying high with good news to deliver.
Royalties at Games Workshop, purveyor of fantasy and sci-fi miniatures for war gamers, rolled in faster than forecast during the six months to June 3.
“Significantly higher” than this time last year, the unexpected increase came thanks to the success of the Space Marine computer game, published by THQ and based on Games Workshop’s figures.
Each of the 1.2 million copies that THQ sold for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or PC between July and September delivered Games Workshop a respectable royalty payment.
Though the precise sum is undisclosed, Charles Hall, head of research at Peel Hunt, the company’s broker, increased his estimate for royalties across 2011 as a whole from £2 million to north of £3 million. More than half of that is likely to be derived from Space Marine.
Games Workshop shares have recovered steadily from their 188¾p nadir in summer 2008 and closed 25p higher at 430p yesterday.
Their resurgence began not long after Mark Wells, a solicitor by training whose retail experience was garnered at Boots and Next, became chief executive in 2007.
Royalties aside, Games Workshop reassured the City that its core business was living up to expectations as well.
That consists of supplying Winged Nazgûls for £36, Tau Crisis Battlesuit Commanders for £18.50 and battalions of other high-margin, recession-resistant metal and plastic figurines to war gamers around the world.

[Iron Puritan]

That isn't much more than a puff news piece, a bit of "good" news in amongst stories of economic uncertainties in the EU. Games Workshops's intellectual property is arguably their biggest asset and they have done a much better job at licensing it than they have in the past. The success of Black Library and their deals with THQ are a testimony to the success of this part of their business. The means Games Workshop have used to help their core business live "up to expectations" has been glossed over here because it is not the actual focus of the article.

[RunepriestRidcully]

Realize that unlike, a football team, the management of a Company often have extremely large severance packages that are given to them pretty much barring any Illegal wrong doing. Wells could probably run GW out of business and still walk away with 4-5m GBP, and go straight to a new job. Once you get to executive level sadly the normal rules for hiring and getting fired go right out the window. So while it may not be their opinion that is know through out the company but it can be what they are thinking in their heads.

It's things like this when you see Marx had a point, the fact you get the rich just abusing the system to get richer at everyone else's expense, How many companies have gone under (and thus mow many of dozens to hundreds of ordinary people lost their jobs) due to the rich CEO's just wanting more and more money for themselves, and not getting punished, but getting rewarded for running said companies into the ground?

[Vos]

Shock Horror! Short term profit. Take the money and run revelations!

Anyone would think this is a company which is run along the same lines as most other capitalist companies with directors who have self interest at heart?

Vos