News article: How arrival of Pokemon changed GW

[Domhnall]

https://www.eurogamer.net/how-pokemons-arrival-in-the-uk-changed-games-workshop-forever

 

This popped up on my feed and thought id share here as a bit of interest. Basically, how Pokemon arriving in the UK in 1999 affected GW at the time and their future direction. 

[TrawlingCleaner]

=][= Moved to Amicus as it's a better fit here =][=

[apologist]

Interesting read – thanks for sharing, @Domhnall.

[Lysimachus]

Very interesting. This bit:

 

Quote

Still, though, Prentice faced division from within. There remained those among the Games Workshop higher-ups who believed a younger audience really was the way to go. "We certainly had one strong faction that would have argued that reducing the age profile was an entirely good thing," Prentice says, "capturing them earlier, keeping them longer,

producing Junior Warhammer, let's call it - an easy clip-together version with different colour armies playable right from the box. Rather than the more complicated building models, painting... The more sophisticated hobby. And that was a tension that was in the business certainly the whole time I was there."

 

got my attention. Seems like those guys have definitely had an influence over recent years.

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Lysimachus

[Xenith]

Interesting read, thanks for sharing!

 

Bit of Correlation/causation effect going on there in attributing increased revenue in 2000/2001 with marketing to older hobbyists rather than obtaining the LoTR licene and making the LoTR game at the same time...

 

Quote

 

There remained those among the Games Workshop higher-ups who believed a younger audience really was the way to go. "We certainly had one strong faction that would have argued that reducing the age profile was an entirely good thing," Prentice says, "capturing them earlier, keeping them longer, producing Junior Warhammer, let's call it - an easy clip-together version with different colour armies playable right from the box. Rather than the more complicated building models, painting... The more sophisticated hobby. And that was a tension that was in the business certainly the whole time I was there."

 

But Prentice's side got the upper hand and the company implemented a cross-business working party to refocus Games Workshop on who they believed the core customers really were: the older audience. And it worked. Within six months the company was apparently back in double-digit growth. "We recognised the problem, got together, came up with a plan to put it right and put it right," Prentice says.

 

 

The route they took saw profits fall after LoTR finished, followed by stagnation for over a decade, while the push-fit models and accessability of the hobby to others has seen profits skyrocket. 

Referring to the above, this ties in with rumours that GW never conducted market research. If they did,they might know exactly what was driving the boost in 2001. I also attribute the growth then to the hugely successful Eye of Terror campaign, that invigorated the world into the hobby, and is still talked about today. 

[RikuEru]

46 minutes ago, Xenith said:

Interesting read, thanks for sharing!

 

Bit of Correlation/causation effect going on there in attributing increased revenue in 2000/2001 with marketing to older hobbyists rather than obtaining the LoTR licene and making the LoTR game at the same time...

 

 

The route they took saw profits fall after LoTR finished, followed by stagnation for over a decade, while the push-fit models and accessability of the hobby to others has seen profits skyrocket. 

Referring to the above, this ties in with rumours that GW never conducted market research. If they did,they might know exactly what was driving the boost in 2001. I also attribute the growth then to the hugely successful Eye of Terror campaign, that invigorated the world into the hobby, and is still talked about today. 

 

Add to that, that this is absolutely contrary to what I myself experienced and have heard repeatedly on the Internet over the past two decades.

The LotR model range and the corresponding partworks Magazine (distributed by DeAgostini over here in Germany) was what brought in a bunch of new customers into actual brick & mortar GW shops - and many of them where merely in their early teens. I know that all 4-5 stores in my closest vicinity were filled with teens in the years of LotR 'high tide' - and many of those branched out into 40k & Fantasy to get a "new" fix as they collected more and more LotR. (Dawn of War 1 and 2 probably also causing an influx of teen customers)

[Noserenda]

Reading it over myself it does make some sense, when i was working in the stores during the LoTR boom it was absolutely bringing in the kids, but aiming at 12+ and essentially discouraging the younger market, we would sell them stuff but not directly promote to them. 

I think the fad comment also includes GW stuff, like, the younger market will get a fad for warhammer, or pokemon and go mad for it, before moving on and broadly forgetting about the thing until nostalgia comes around later, so it wasnt so much a slump in gw sales, as much as they were riding a fad rise the year before and then those kids moved on to pokemon, meaning sales growth dropped off, probably in line with the year before the fads growth, if that makes sense? 

Pokemon cards were still huge though, and we still had to tell kids to stow em lol.

[Lexington]

Heh, it feels strange to be old enough to remember these things that've been banished to the memory hole of ancient history. The Pokemon profit warning definitely caused some distinct chatter in the mailing lists and newly-hatched forums that comprised the community way back when. What a fun little trip down memory lane.

[Xenith]

53 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

I think the fad comment also includes GW stuff, like, the younger market will get a fad for warhammer, or pokemon and go mad for it, before moving on and broadly forgetting about the thing

 

Little did GW know, that they had a bunch of customers who purchased during the LoTR 'fad' and stopped playing when they stopped supporting the game in store, or so actively. Like, I don't know the full story, but the decisions made by the CEO do not seem like the right ones, driven by a lack of understanding. I do realise that data was harder to come by in 1999 also, but part of that was presumably GW's reticence to use computers, again, a decision from the top. 

[Noserenda]

56 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

Little did GW know, that they had a bunch of customers who purchased during the LoTR 'fad' and stopped playing when they stopped supporting the game in store, or so actively. Like, I don't know the full story, but the decisions made by the CEO do not seem like the right ones, driven by a lack of understanding. I do realise that data was harder to come by in 1999 also, but part of that was presumably GW's reticence to use computers, again, a decision from the top. 

The LoTR drop wasnt really to do with GW support, it certainly kept up whilst i was working with the company but nothing was ever as great as the surges under the three movies and partwork so the customers slowly dribbled away unfortunately, not sure there was anything GW could have done to stop that, it was on New Lines back.

Now arguably GW should have definitely planned better for that slump and done better when it hit, but then its the reason we have a much more diverse wargaming market these days too...

[Scribe]

Interesting.

 

Giving up ones core market for kids leads to a crash?

 

Interesting.

[Robbienw]

3 hours ago, Lexington said:

Heh, it feels strange to be old enough to remember these things that've been banished to the memory hole of ancient history. The Pokemon profit warning definitely caused some distinct chatter in the mailing lists and newly-hatched forums that comprised the community way back when. What a fun little trip down memory lane.

I remember it well, lots of talk on Portent and RGMW about it.  Was a good time in those days to be on the internet chatting about hobbies.
 

I seem to recall some of the outspoken types on the forums at the time confidently asserting it was going to lead to Hasbro buying GW! 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Robbienw

[MegaVolt87]

4 hours ago, Robbienw said:

I remember it well, lots of talk on Portent and RGMW about it.  Was a good time in those days to be on the internet chatting about hobbies.
 

I seem to recall some of the outspoken types on the forums at the time confidently asserting it was going to lead to Hasbro buying GW! 

 

Even if Hasbro bought GW, I think we would be still in the same place today, just the road would have been different. Hasbro would have largely let GW cook. 

[Orion]

I wonder what the other side of the coin was like for Pokemon. 

Like from what I lived through, Pokemon cards were much more of a "fad" than Warhammer was. Pokemon cards were way more wide spread though.
Everybody in school had them. But I don't know anyone involved with them today.
However, lots of my friends have dipped into Warhammer again, to various degrees.

 

I'm well aware we all live in our own bubbles, and not insinuating that Warhammer is even remotely as popular as pokemon or pokemon cards. 
Pokemon videogames have retained popularity at wide age brackets, but cards? Unsure.

[MegaVolt87]

Pokemon cards saw a resurgence with the app game release, you can buy physical cards and get a redeem code to get a digital booster pack online. I think the digital Pokemon TCG beat MTG and yugioh with the physical to digital connection. During the pandemic, Pokemon and TCG's had a spike in general. Compared to MTG, I found Pokemon ended up cheaper for standard format vs MTG, which I roped in my MTG buddies for about a year, though we are back to commander and modern. Pokemon cards always managed to stick around, I remember my younger cousin loved them as gifts in primary school, she is 20 now but still watches the shows I believe. 

 

Now, GW not doing real market research or properly understanding their customer base is no real suprise. They have been unable to strike the perfect balance of satisfying existing customers and gaining new ones to this day. Like that old Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob is walking and getting hot in the face with a rake at every step, that's how GW is. 

 

Edit- Also Pokemon has been very successful in not only gaining new/ younger audience, appeasing older fans, they also have successfully increased the female demographic/ participation, something GW is still failing to do, we are still very much a very male dominated fandom/ hobby in warhammer. 

Edited September 19, 2023 by MegaVolt87

[Noserenda]

Yeah Pokemon had a strong start, but it never really went away, they were still a LGS supporting concern when i was running my shop a decade later and even recently i was in an indie shop and there were kids playing it on a bunch of tables. Never got into it myself, gave it a try once and it just felt like a more complicated version of Magic, but kids do love them some complexity! :D 

[roryokane]

This is fascinating. That bit about push-fit miniatures really stuck around though, eh? Pretty sure we had push-fit plastic 2nd Ed minis, and then in AOBR, and now... they're everywhere! Which would be fine if the rest of the models were backwards compatible, but the Mk VIs certainly aren't, and I suspect neither will anything else be from here on out. :(

[alfred_the_great]

You had push fit models in space crusade and space hulk, so….

[Noserenda]

I suspect they would have been even simpler, like, not on a sprue simpler. They werent too far out of the era of all plastics being extremely simple in one or two bits and easily pushfit except for shields, so to be considered more beginner friendly than those is a bit of a shift, let alone the modern CAD nightmare push fits :D 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Seems like they still ended up going to for the younger audience eventually…seems like a lot of stuff they view as ‘intro sets’ are push fit just like they discussed all those years ago.

[gideon stargreave]

6 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Seems like they still ended up going to for the younger audience eventually…seems like a lot of stuff they view as ‘intro sets’ are push fit just like they discussed all those years ago.

I’m not sure they’re going after younger players anymore than they were in 1996. The promo pics from then had quote of lot Of adolescents in them, whereas nowadays most of the promo stuff is of adults 

[Bung]

23 hours ago, MegaVolt87 said:

Edit- Also Pokemon has been very successful in not only gaining new/ younger audience, appeasing older fans, they also have successfully increased the female demographic/ participation, something GW is still failing to do, we are still very much a very male dominated fandom/ hobby in warhammer. 

 

The problem with the female demographic is not GWs antics.

Its the antics of the old and young neckbeards in the Nerdstores that drive woman away.

I met alot of woman playing Boardgames, TT Card Games, TT Games and painting Miniatures.

When you talk with them there are a few reasons why they dont go to the stores and order online and only play in groups of people they know.

That starts with lack of hygiene (Most Woman a more sensible), lack of respect when talking to them to getting unwanted attention and being hit on.

 

So if you want to see more Woman at your store, Events, etc. you have to improve your behaviour and remove mysogonistic neckbeards.

 

 

[Petitioner's City]

You know I was recently in a major central Edinburgh gaming store and the manager was convinced (to the point of "you can't convince me otherwise") that GW's worlds and products were intended for "ten year olds". As someone who described themselves as a heresy collector I was surprised, since modern heresy of course originated not in child-focused black books and novel series. I think he would zero on the elements of this article that confirm his views and ignore the rest 

 

Wonderful read and great to find out what Prentice has done since!

[N1SB]

Thank you for this sharing, really appreciate this journalist, an Associate Editor at Eurogamer, for pointing us to resources even I didn't know we could get.

 

This clearly experienced journalist was looking at the right places, but he was more looking for A Story and less looking for The Truth.  Who did?  You did.

 

I'm not out to critique him, but it was clearly from how he described he's in some period drama play (wot the zog?) he wanted a story of Warhammer vs. Pokemon.  If I do seem critical, it's only because I made the same mistake, so that vitriol is directed at myself.  I recently made the same mistake thinking about Horus Heresy 2.0.  What he wanted here was a wrestling match, when all he needed to do was to put in the work...but that's much less dramatic, because The Truth IS boring.

 

 

+++ Not a Snapshot, but the Trend +++

 

 

"I'm a historian.  Don't give me a snapshot.  I want to see the trend."

     - ex-Senior McKinsey Consultant, now CEO of a conglomerate

 

I've always, ALWAYS wanted to do this, so I thank Purchese for pointing me to where they keep the old records.  Just recently I shared a YouTube of Rick Priestley describing the early years of GW up to its Management Buyout by Tom Kirby, who was already running GW at that point.  The format basically makes it a publicly listed company, so they have to disclose information; that's why we get to discuss the financial annual reports from GW.  It's like when you go to a public tournament, you have to disclose your full army list to the organisers, and then Goonhammer and Auspex Tactics can post their analyses.  The problem was I only had, from GW's investor site, ones going back about a decade from when I started reviewing GW ARs (omg sounds like GWAR) with you.  We're going to the UK government's Companies House, we're looking at the black & white scans of GW's oldest public records.

 

(I feel like an Inquisitor that finally managed to sneak into the Black Library.  Like I ran past the gossipy PDFs straight to the ones I needed.)

 

Behold, the unbroken records of GW, previously I only had stuff going back to 2006:

 

 

Key thing here, these records mark Late May/Early July (varies year to year) of those years, so that's what this graph would show, the results released in Late May/Early July.  So...Lord of the Rings: Return of the King came out in December 2003, but GW wouldn't mark down its impact until 2004 on these charts.

 

 

+++ You Guys Are Right, the Article, Less So +++

 

 

On 9/18/2023 at 9:52 PM, Xenith said:

Bit of Correlation/causation effect going on there in attributing increased revenue in 2000/2001 with marketing to older hobbyists rather than obtaining the LoTR licene and making the LoTR game at the same time...

 

The route they took saw profits fall after LoTR finished, followed by stagnation for over a decade, while the push-fit models and accessability of the hobby to others has seen profits skyrocket. 

 

Referring to the above, this ties in with rumours that GW never conducted market research. If they did,they might know exactly what was driving the boost in 2001. I also attribute the growth then to the hugely successful Eye of Terror campaign, that invigorated the world into the hobby, and is still talked about today. 

 

I read the article, THEN the Companies House records, THEN your posts.  So we formed our thoughts in parallel.  I just had 1 thing to (maybe) add.  I have this graphed out, but on my spreadsheet I got the actual growth figures and it totally tells a story.  It's correlation, not necessary causation, because earlier records don't break down numbers like I was used to showing you guys, like GW even stopped doing it, but I used to be able to show you Operating Expenditures of JUST the Studios + Factories?  GW didn't show that back then (and they stopped now lol).  But there were trends, plural:

 

• '92-'97: initial burst after GW "sold"; with this investment, a firm can do what it knew was right but couldn't afford before, 30% to 40% Revenue growth
• '98-'99: CJ Prentice, the CEO interviewed, takes over exec role from Tom Kirby.  Revenue growth slows, to 11%, 12%
• '00: the Pokemon year.  Revenue growth (yes, it's still growing, but impacted) slows further to 7%
• '01: CJ Prentice on the way out, Kirby would step back in.  Revenue growth recovers back to 19%
• '02-'04: ♫ Lord...of the Rings...is here ♫.  Revenue growth continues like 17%, 18%, 19%
• '05-'16: Decade of Stagnation, Decade of Decline, is right.  Negative Revenue Growth like -16%, some single digit growth

 

If I were to sum it up, it'd be like this.  There are 3 actual lines like wavelengths bumping into one another:

 

1st, Warhammer's growth is a curved line that grows to 2001 and then really just plateaus out...until GW's resurgence in 2017.  Burst in '93 after initial investment I reckon, and just so you know the 40k 2nd ed boxset came later in October '93 so would have been captured in the '94 report, but I remember it's like every month an exciting new Codex, the Chaos Space Marines one was so thick with Abaddon SCREAMING on the cover.  Then things did kinda quiet down by 3rd ed...even though I thought 3rd ed was more playable.

 

2nd, yes, Pokemon DID have an effect, started in the 2000 annual report where there was a greater dip in growth.  And I bet it did have a lingering effect beyond the year 2000, as in GW would have grown more had it not been for Pokemon...but it is ultimately a blip in the overall history of GW.  This article made it like the whole story.  GW was already slowing down a bit.  Now, for a guy working at GW, his performance really sucked that year, it hurt, but all this would pass.

 

3rd, the Lord of the Rings effect, REALLY just affected those 3 years the films came out.  Yes, it would have run into the downward effects of Pokemon.  You could literally see it propping up GW's performance like one of those uplifting bras, because as soon as that sugar high was over, it went back down to the plateau that would last until 2017.

 

 

+++ Not to Discount GW Employees' Experiences...Including the CEO +++

 

 

I know that Warhammer Store managers a.k.a. Redshirts felt the impact of Pokemon AND Lord of the Rings.  The former caused some of the kids they were used to see disappear.  The latter brought in a bunch of other people they never met before.  I heard the same stories I think you all did.  I say Blips, but Blips could have Genestealers in them.

 

Like the Joker said, all it takes is One.  Bad.  Day.  At work, just 1 bad year, or even quarter now.

 

They'd have been fired or laid off due to these Blips.  Trust me, that stays with you.  The business you're managing might naturally recover the next year, like a pandemic might go away, but unfortunately usually you don't just show back at work like nothing happened.  It's weird, it's like you can't really go back to how things were.

 

Btw, any time a company is in a downturn and you ask its leadership what it did/what it's doing to get out of it, "focusing on core customers" is what's always the party line.  It's not untrue, any person working in any sales capacity will tell you that means you keep on going back to your old customers and asking them to buy more, they'll say they went for "depth" not "breadth".  You don't have to take my word for it, just listen to any interview with a British company in the coming months.  It's the equivalent of telling people how you won your last Warhammer game "I focused on getting Victory Points on the most attainable Objectives."  In short, it's not just corporate speak, it's also obvious...but people love hearing it because it makes them feel like a core customer.

 

But looking closer at the Annual Report for 2000, it's not as simple as "Pokemon, Pokemon everywhere."  They even own up:

 

• GW's UK and European business was really slowing down, UK actually had negative growth...those are the Redshirts.  The biggest impact were probably the FLGS, which usually sells Warhammer, now they 're all selling Pokemon.  This must have stung
• GW's "The Americas" business was on the upswing.  Just as Pokemon was attacking the UK, GW was attacking US, Canada

 

 

+++ Things Were Already Going a Certain Way When Blips Hit +++

 

 

GW was already slowing down when Pokemon landed.  GW was already recovering when Lord of the Rings came up (btw, srsly, after I plotted the graph and just looked at the line, I literally googled when Return of the King came out).  It's very possible that Pokemon's lingering effect lasted longer than the boost Lord of the Rings came, too.

 

And just look at the overall history.  This Purchese was making it like Pokemon derailed GW forever, he asks what could have been.  In the long term, it didn't even matter!

 

I talked enough, let's get back to what roughly triggered CJ Prentice's departure.  It's not just Pokemon.

 

 

+++ Much Closer to the Real Problem +++

 

 

 

Pokemon hit.  That would have affected sales, a.k.a. Revenue a.k.a. Turnover.  Profits would dip both from lost sales and probably some competitive initiative to war them off, IF they even bothered which they honestly they didn't except to tell their Redshirts "sell more"...but they would NOT DROP ALMOST BY HALF.

 

You all know this because you all say, "Companies only care about maximising Profits."  They DO.  A hammer hammers.  Companies seek Profit (for shareholders).

 

Don't think about this as work.  Think of it as Warhammer.  You lent someone your army.  HALF YOUR ARMY COMES BACK BROKEN.  You're going to ask some very serious questions about what the guy did.  Part of it is because it's yours, but also you're also wondering what stupid thing he did so it never happens again.

 

And the explanation was there was some Restructuring, they said.  Seems to be something to do with their Supply Chains, the Internet Shop...isn't that what we're still hearing about today?  Yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same it seems.

 

The biggest problem seems to be the then CEO had bad timing, really bad timing, strategically bad timing...like rushing onto an Objective too early to get shot up.

 

GW's growth was seemingly genuinely slowing down to begin with.  The CEO has to do something, it's his job.  So you gotta spend money to make money, he wets the pump, for the sake of future Profits...and then right when he tries to do the right thing BOOM, huge downturn.  Comes at the worst possible time.

 

This Associate Editor of Eurogamer did the legwork.  He did find the Black Library.  He got the verboten tomes...but did he not read this?  This is on PAGE ONE.  THE FIRST PAGE.  See, I took a screenshot, you see in the corner, it says "1".  Is he allergic to numbers?

 

He had this whole story on Pokemon when it should have been about Profit.  Did he think Nintendo or Wizards of the Coast sent a Pokemon into GW's Nottingham manufacturing facility and it went "pi~ka CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM" and fry all the plastic mould injection machines so they had exceptional costs to replace them?

 

Okay, okay, let's say this Purchese guy likes his period costume dramas.  Then how about if the exceptional costs were related to securing The Lord of the Rings rights?  It's just so odd he didn't comment on any of this.  Even the then CEO CJ Prentice was mentioning it, almost expecting a follow-up.

 

And guess what.  Last time about Horus Heresy 2.0 I missed an obvious thing about the effects of currency fluctuations in the UK government's failed mini budget or wotnot.  So I understand what's going on.  I just can't believe he spent all that time tracking down the CEO...which tbh is kinda intrusive, it's not flattering, they do kinda call you like a telesales cold call...and not actually ask the real questions, get the relevant story.  Instead, he wanted to talk about Pokemon.  Even CJ Prentice was like Pokemon was "a contributing factor but not one I hold against it."

 

I actually understand this sentiment.  I left Big Tech due to the way we were pushing a new product...and I actually quite liked the product, I actually recommend it to friends and family even.  It's not time heals all wounds, it's more like, you're not even asking the right questions for me to have an emotional response, dude.

 

Bah, it's a holiday, I'm running to the Warhammer Store now, playing Triple C'tan in 1000 pts.  I'm going to do to my opponent what Pikachu did to GW, I guess.

[Domhnall]

3 hours ago, N1SB said:

Thank you for this sharing, really appreciate this journalist, an Associate Editor at Eurogamer, for pointing us to resources even I didn't know we could get.

 

This clearly experienced journalist was looking at the right places, but he was more looking for A Story and less looking for The Truth.  Who did?  You did.

 

I'm not out to critique him, but it was clearly from how he described he's in some period drama play (wot the zog?) he wanted a story of Warhammer vs. Pokemon.  If I do seem critical, it's only because I made the same mistake, so that vitriol is directed at myself.  I recently made the same mistake thinking about Horus Heresy 2.0.  What he wanted here was a wrestling match, when all he needed to do was to put in the work...but that's much less dramatic, because The Truth IS boring.

 

 

+++ Not a Snapshot, but the Trend +++

 

 

"I'm a historian.  Don't give me a snapshot.  I want to see the trend."

     - ex-Senior McKinsey Consultant, now CEO of a conglomerate

 

I've always, ALWAYS wanted to do this, so I thank Purchese for pointing me to where they keep the old records.  Just recently I shared a YouTube of Rick Priestley describing the early years of GW up to its Management Buyout by Tom Kirby, who was already running GW at that point.  The format basically makes it a publicly listed company, so they have to disclose information; that's why we get to discuss the financial annual reports from GW.  It's like when you go to a public tournament, you have to disclose your full army list to the organisers, and then Goonhammer and Auspex Tactics can post their analyses.  The problem was I only had, from GW's investor site, ones going back about a decade from when I started reviewing GW ARs (omg sounds like GWAR) with you.  We're going to the UK government's Companies House, we're looking at the black & white scans of GW's oldest public records.

 

(I feel like an Inquisitor that finally managed to sneak into the Black Library.  Like I ran past the gossipy PDFs straight to the ones I needed.)

 

Behold, the unbroken records of GW, previously I only had stuff going back to 2006:

 

 

Key thing here, these records mark Late May/Early July (varies year to year) of those years, so that's what this graph would show, the results released in Late May/Early July.  So...Lord of the Rings: Return of the King came out in December 2003, but GW wouldn't mark down its impact until 2004 on these charts.

 

 

+++ You Guys Are Right, the Article, Less So +++

 

 

 

I read the article, THEN the Companies House records, THEN your posts.  So we formed our thoughts in parallel.  I just had 1 thing to (maybe) add.  I have this graphed out, but on my spreadsheet I got the actual growth figures and it totally tells a story.  It's correlation, not necessary causation, because earlier records don't break down numbers like I was used to showing you guys, like GW even stopped doing it, but I used to be able to show you Operating Expenditures of JUST the Studios + Factories?  GW didn't show that back then (and they stopped now lol).  But there were trends, plural:

 

• '92-'97: initial burst after GW "sold"; with this investment, a firm can do what it knew was right but couldn't afford before, 30% to 40% Revenue growth
• '98-'99: CJ Prentice, the CEO interviewed, takes over exec role from Tom Kirby.  Revenue growth slows, to 11%, 12%
• '00: the Pokemon year.  Revenue growth (yes, it's still growing, but impacted) slows further to 7%
• '01: CJ Prentice on the way out, Kirby would step back in.  Revenue growth recovers back to 19%
• '02-'04: ♫ Lord...of the Rings...is here ♫.  Revenue growth continues like 17%, 18%, 19%
• '05-'16: Decade of Stagnation, Decade of Decline, is right.  Negative Revenue Growth like -16%, some single digit growth

 

If I were to sum it up, it'd be like this.  There are 3 actual lines like wavelengths bumping into one another:

 

1st, Warhammer's growth is a curved line that grows to 2001 and then really just plateaus out...until GW's resurgence in 2017.  Burst in '93 after initial investment I reckon, and just so you know the 40k 2nd ed boxset came later in October '93 so would have been captured in the '94 report, but I remember it's like every month an exciting new Codex, the Chaos Space Marines one was so thick with Abaddon SCREAMING on the cover.  Then things did kinda quiet down by 3rd ed...even though I thought 3rd ed was more playable.

 

2nd, yes, Pokemon DID have an effect, started in the 2000 annual report where there was a greater dip in growth.  And I bet it did have a lingering effect beyond the year 2000, as in GW would have grown more had it not been for Pokemon...but it is ultimately a blip in the overall history of GW.  This article made it like the whole story.  GW was already slowing down a bit.  Now, for a guy working at GW, his performance really sucked that year, it hurt, but all this would pass.

 

3rd, the Lord of the Rings effect, REALLY just affected those 3 years the films came out.  Yes, it would have run into the downward effects of Pokemon.  You could literally see it propping up GW's performance like one of those uplifting bras, because as soon as that sugar high was over, it went back down to the plateau that would last until 2017.

 

 

+++ Not to Discount GW Employees' Experiences...Including the CEO +++

 

 

I know that Warhammer Store managers a.k.a. Redshirts felt the impact of Pokemon AND Lord of the Rings.  The former caused some of the kids they were used to see disappear.  The latter brought in a bunch of other people they never met before.  I heard the same stories I think you all did.  I say Blips, but Blips could have Genestealers in them.

 

Like the Joker said, all it takes is One.  Bad.  Day.  At work, just 1 bad year, or even quarter now.

 

They'd have been fired or laid off due to these Blips.  Trust me, that stays with you.  The business you're managing might naturally recover the next year, like a pandemic might go away, but unfortunately usually you don't just show back at work like nothing happened.  It's weird, it's like you can't really go back to how things were.

 

Btw, any time a company is in a downturn and you ask its leadership what it did/what it's doing to get out of it, "focusing on core customers" is what's always the party line.  It's not untrue, any person working in any sales capacity will tell you that means you keep on going back to your old customers and asking them to buy more, they'll say they went for "depth" not "breadth".  You don't have to take my word for it, just listen to any interview with a British company in the coming months.  It's the equivalent of telling people how you won your last Warhammer game "I focused on getting Victory Points on the most attainable Objectives."  In short, it's not just corporate speak, it's also obvious...but people love hearing it because it makes them feel like a core customer.

 

But looking closer at the Annual Report for 2000, it's not as simple as "Pokemon, Pokemon everywhere."  They even own up:

 

• GW's UK and European business was really slowing down, UK actually had negative growth...those are the Redshirts.  The biggest impact were probably the FLGS, which usually sells Warhammer, now they 're all selling Pokemon.  This must have stung
• GW's "The Americas" business was on the upswing.  Just as Pokemon was attacking the UK, GW was attacking US, Canada

 

 

+++ Things Were Already Going a Certain Way When Blips Hit +++

 

 

GW was already slowing down when Pokemon landed.  GW was already recovering when Lord of the Rings came up (btw, srsly, after I plotted the graph and just looked at the line, I literally googled when Return of the King came out).  It's very possible that Pokemon's lingering effect lasted longer than the boost Lord of the Rings came, too.

 

And just look at the overall history.  This Purchese was making it like Pokemon derailed GW forever, he asks what could have been.  In the long term, it didn't even matter!

 

I talked enough, let's get back to what roughly triggered CJ Prentice's departure.  It's not just Pokemon.

 

 

+++ Much Closer to the Real Problem +++

 

 

 

Pokemon hit.  That would have affected sales, a.k.a. Revenue a.k.a. Turnover.  Profits would dip both from lost sales and probably some competitive initiative to war them off, IF they even bothered which they honestly they didn't except to tell their Redshirts "sell more"...but they would NOT DROP ALMOST BY HALF.

 

You all know this because you all say, "Companies only care about maximising Profits."  They DO.  A hammer hammers.  Companies seek Profit (for shareholders).

 

Don't think about this as work.  Think of it as Warhammer.  You lent someone your army.  HALF YOUR ARMY COMES BACK BROKEN.  You're going to ask some very serious questions about what the guy did.  Part of it is because it's yours, but also you're also wondering what stupid thing he did so it never happens again.

 

And the explanation was there was some Restructuring, they said.  Seems to be something to do with their Supply Chains, the Internet Shop...isn't that what we're still hearing about today?  Yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same it seems.

 

The biggest problem seems to be the then CEO had bad timing, really bad timing, strategically bad timing...like rushing onto an Objective too early to get shot up.

 

GW's growth was seemingly genuinely slowing down to begin with.  The CEO has to do something, it's his job.  So you gotta spend money to make money, he wets the pump, for the sake of future Profits...and then right when he tries to do the right thing BOOM, huge downturn.  Comes at the worst possible time.

 

This Associate Editor of Eurogamer did the legwork.  He did find the Black Library.  He got the verboten tomes...but did he not read this?  This is on PAGE ONE.  THE FIRST PAGE.  See, I took a screenshot, you see in the corner, it says "1".  Is he allergic to numbers?

 

He had this whole story on Pokemon when it should have been about Profit.  Did he think Nintendo or Wizards of the Coast sent a Pokemon into GW's Nottingham manufacturing facility and it went "pi~ka CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM" and fry all the plastic mould injection machines so they had exceptional costs to replace them?

 

Okay, okay, let's say this Purchese guy likes his period costume dramas.  Then how about if the exceptional costs were related to securing The Lord of the Rings rights?  It's just so odd he didn't comment on any of this.  Even the then CEO CJ Prentice was mentioning it, almost expecting a follow-up.

 

And guess what.  Last time about Horus Heresy 2.0 I missed an obvious thing about the effects of currency fluctuations in the UK government's failed mini budget or wotnot.  So I understand what's going on.  I just can't believe he spent all that time tracking down the CEO...which tbh is kinda intrusive, it's not flattering, they do kinda call you like a telesales cold call...and not actually ask the real questions, get the relevant story.  Instead, he wanted to talk about Pokemon.  Even CJ Prentice was like Pokemon was "a contributing factor but not one I hold against it."

 

I actually understand this sentiment.  I left Big Tech due to the way we were pushing a new product...and I actually quite liked the product, I actually recommend it to friends and family even.  It's not time heals all wounds, it's more like, you're not even asking the right questions for me to have an emotional response, dude.

 

Bah, it's a holiday, I'm running to the Warhammer Store now, playing Triple C'tan in 1000 pts.  I'm going to do to my opponent what Pikachu did to GW, I guess.

 

Another good read there, and getting past all the bumf to the root of the problem. 

 

Funnily enough, I had seen a little video on statistics and stories, which basically said we have a lot of 'facts' that are not actual facts but we believe them because they have a good story behind them, and we humans love a good story! 

Looking back at this article it is a perfect example of this! That GW was entering a period of stagnation anyway for reasons is just boring. But Pokemon taking it to the man?!? That's exciting and worth looking into!