Is GW a gaming Company or collector's item Company?

[Xenith]

Removing random bespoke models like the old starter kit mixed sprues etc makes sense from a business perspective. I appreciate it's a pain, and bad for those with the models, but GW has always done it, and will continue to do it for one reaso or another. They've already pivoted to largely putting normal sprues for model sets into their starter kits, so we see more of outriders and von ryans leapers, and less of obliterators and the first vanguard infiltrators. 

[Cenobite Terminator]

One Page Rules… we will add morale checks for money. They are all the same.

[phandaal]

18 minutes ago, Cenobite Terminator said:

One Page Rules… we will add morale checks for money.

 

Is this based on something that happened in reality or just in Black Blow Fly's imagination?

[Helias_Tancred]

Who does Games Workshop respect more? Their customers or their shareholders?

 

 

[Special Officer Doofy]

5 hours ago, Helias_Tancred said:

Who does Games Workshop respect more? Their customers or their shareholders?

 

 

 

I'm going to guess it's close but more on the shareholders side. There are things they could do that would make the game better (customers) but don't because it would make less money (shareholders). My opinion of course. Without one they wouldn't have the other. Similar to most larger publically traded corporations.

[Emperor Ming]

Shareholders absolutely, they are even renown for giving a higher dividend than usual. 

 

If I could buy gw shares I would

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 5/18/2024 at 3:14 AM, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

I'm going to guess it's close but more on the shareholders side. There are things they could do that would make the game better (customers) but don't because it would make less money (shareholders). My opinion of course. Without one they wouldn't have the other. Similar to most larger publically traded corporations.

Shareholders are 100% unnecessary for a company to have customers. Without customers they would have no shareholders.

If all their shareholders left, they would still have plenty of customers.

[Special Officer Doofy]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Shareholders are 100% unnecessary for a company to have customers. Without customers they would have no shareholders.

If all their shareholders left, they would still have plenty of customers.

 

First of all, the question was who does GW respect more, not who is more important. GW respects their shareholders more (my opinion), hence the constant price increases every year, 30%ish profits, the generous shareholder returns, and the slow codex churn that is a struggle for the game (customers) but a boon to their revenue (shareholders). 

 

Secondly, shareholders are more unnecessary for a private company, which GW is not. So the shareholders provided the capital for GW to invest in tooling and warehousing to make the toys for the customer. Again, without one the other doesn't exist. The main advantage public companies have over private companies is their ability to tap the financial markets for capital, by selling stock (equity) or bonds (debt). It's a public company. Shareholders HAVE to exist, and are therefore 100% necessary. 

Edited May 19 by Special Officer Doofy

[appiah4]

The short answer is that they are a crap company.

[appiah4]

15 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

Secondly, shareholders are more unnecessary for a private company, which GW is not. So the shareholders provided the capital for GW to invest in tooling and warehousing to make the toys for the customer. Again, without one the other doesn't exist. The main advantage public companies have over private companies is their ability to tap the financial markets for capital, by selling stock (equity) or bonds (debt). It's a public company. Shareholders HAVE to exist, and are therefore 100% necessary. 

 

Private companies can also sell equity, issue bonds and borrow from banks.  You don't need to be public to do ANY of these.

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Not a gaming company for sure as their rules tend to be bad.

 

I think miniatures 1st, limited stuff 2nd.

 

I am at a difficult point now with GW... Fan vs Shareholder.

[Special Officer Doofy]

1 hour ago, appiah4 said:

 

Private companies can also sell equity, issue bonds and borrow from banks.  You don't need to be public to do ANY of these.

 

Never said they couldn't? Private companies can issue stock and have shareholders, but their shares do not trade on public exchanges and they have less access to money, and there are more hoops to jump through to even be a shareholder.

 

I'm not a GW fan, I'm just saying I think they respect their shareholders more than the customer. Not like I want it that way.

Edited May 20 by Special Officer Doofy

[appiah4]

17 minutes ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

Never said they couldn't? Private companies can issue stock and have shareholders, but their shares do not trade on public exchanges and they have less access to money, and there are more hoops to jump through to even be a shareholder.

 

I'm not a GW fan, I'm just saying I think they respect their shareholders more than the customer. Not like I want it that way.

 

You basically said being public had the advantage of being able to do those things, which is wrong because you don't need to be public to do those things:

 

  

17 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

The main advantage public companies have over private companies is their ability to tap the financial markets for capital, by selling stock (equity) or bonds (debt). It's a public company. Shareholders HAVE to exist, and are therefore 100% necessary. 

 

Edited May 20 by appiah4

[Special Officer Doofy]

1 hour ago, appiah4 said:

 

You basically said being public had the advantage of being able to do those things, which is wrong because you don't need to be public to do those things:

 

 

 

Uhhh yes, publicly traded companies have access to more markets and more money. Buying and selling shares are completely different, and private stocks can come with conditions and contracts. The shares of private companies are less liquid, and their valuations are more difficult to determine. To act like they are the same is disingenuous. But this is getting off topic.

Edited May 20 by Special Officer Doofy

[phandaal]

19 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

First of all, the question was who does GW respect more, not who is more important. GW respects their shareholders more (my opinion), hence the constant price increases every year, 30%ish profits, the generous shareholder returns, and the slow codex churn that is a struggle for the game (customers) but a boon to their revenue (shareholders). 

 

Yeah, I would be very pleased to be a shareholder who bought into GW before the boom from everybody stuck at home. Even better to have bought in 10+ years ago. They treat their shareholders very well and make it a priority to provide a dividend whenever possible. Games Workshop is most certainly a shareholder-focused company.

 

That is probably a better takeaway than trying to draw a dividing line between what product type Games Workshop focuses on for their customers (although we know it is miniatures because of the company's own frequent assertions to their shareholders).

[Brother Captain Arkley]

11 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

Yeah, I would be very pleased to be a shareholder who bought into GW before the boom from everybody stuck at home. Even better to have bought in 10+ years ago. They treat their shareholders very well and make it a priority to provide a dividend whenever possible. Games Workshop is most certainly a shareholder-focused company.

 

That is probably a better takeaway than trying to draw a dividing line between what product type Games Workshop focuses on for their customers (although we know it is miniatures because of the company's own frequent assertions to their shareholders).

 

Its nice I can't deny... But I am so conflicted due to liking the lore etc.

Edited May 20 by Brother Captain Arkley

[Xenith]

On 5/20/2024 at 1:36 PM, phandaal said:

 

Yeah, I would be very pleased to be a shareholder who bought into GW before the boom from everybody stuck at home. Even better to have bought in 10+ years ago. They treat their shareholders very well and make it a priority to provide a dividend whenever possible. Games Workshop is most certainly a shareholder-focused company.

 

There's a few inaccuracies in there - the boom started in 2016 upon the replacement of the old CEO and release of 8th ed, and embracing of marketing/social media. Their stock price doubled yearly from there. GW pays a dividend, and while yes, the total amount has gone up significantly due to massive increased profit, they have actually been cutting the % paid out to shareholders, year on year, since 2016 (it was cut to virtually 0 during covid, and has only now returned to pre-covid levels-ish), GW also states that they only pay surplus cash to shareholders, cash they don't actively need for things. They have also invested in better manufacturing facilities to be able to give the customers what they want (and therefore make more money), including greater production runs, old games re-released, old model re-released etc.

 

GW's priorities I'd say are:

1. Long term existence of the company, so spending money on growth and repair, and new models, to be able to make money forever
2. What the customer wants, to be able to sell it to them (to make money)
3. Paying a dividend to shareholders (which doesn't make them money, but keeps larger investors happy)

Edited May 21 by Xenith

[Helias_Tancred]

7 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

I'm not a GW fan, I'm just saying I think they respect their shareholders more than the customer. Not like I want it that way.

 

To answer my own question, I agree with you. GW respects their shareholders tremendously. Like someone previously mentioned they are a company that is very conservative, very risk-adverse, and worships at the altar of the shareholder. No, they do not respect their customers much, if at all? The decision to gaslight their customers for confronting them about the female custodes lore retcon speaks volumes of the respect the company has for its customers. 

 

Let me rant a little bit here lol .... their rules overall have consistently been lukewarm crap at best going back several editions, their consistent and regular price increases have begun to turn people off, and 3D printers are becoming more numerous and popular. Their lore, which is what caused me to go from BL reader to model and game hobbyist in 2013, is stale, and has been stale. It just keeps grinding on with the same pattern of no new anything of real consequence. (see my comments about being very conservative, very  risk adverse, and worshipping at the altar of shareholders and profits greatly over everything else ... its gone too far when its affecting the quality of their lore, and it helps explain why they super duper slow-walk so much material)

 

Let me put it this way, 5 years ago I would scoff at using third party, 3D printed, or some Chinese Foregworld model knock-offs. I felt some loyalty to Games Workshop and I was on their side. Now? Not at all. I'm not the universal customer dipstick for evaluating the condition of the GW-to-customer relationship, but what I just described is growing and at some future point its going to be a problem for GW unless they take action to correct the path they're on?

 

When I was a Games Workshop store manager the whole emphasis was on bringing new people into the hobby. GW knew not all of their customers stuck around for the long haul. Thats a fair assumption for most hobbies. But with the continually raising prices it's going to be tougher to keep bringing new people into the hobby to replace those that leave it. And for those whose GW love is more defined by the rules, aka the game side of the hobby, times haven't been good.  It's become more obvious lately that they put the work into their models and the game side gets the crumbs of their effort. Over the last few years I've known several close friends that have all but walked away from GW products and games because of the poor rules and quickly increasing cost. 

 

Idk, I'm ranting at this point. I'm just a guy that is not happy with the company and the state of their 40k game, which besides some AoS dabbling (at best) is the only thing they do I'm interested in. I've actually entertained thoughts of selling off my 6k points 40k army (which used to be 22k between two armies) and closing the door on GW hobbies. Just tired of the company and their crap, their mediocre 40k game and it becomes an issue of whether I want to give them my dollar vote anymore? I'd say I could always just go back to reading the BL stuff, but it's become stale and repetitive too. 

 

 

Edited May 20 by Helias_Tancred

[phandaal]

39 minutes ago, Helias_Tancred said:

To answer my own question, I agree with you. GW respects their shareholders tremendously. Like someone previously mentioned they are a company that is very conservative, very risk-adverse, and worships at the altar of the shareholder.

 

Yep. Should not even be a controversial take, but I think some people see this as potentially a negative statement about Games Workshop and jump in to disagree or "clarify." Games Workshop cares a great deal about their shareholders, even more obviously than some other companies, and they make it plain when publishing their official reports. That is their prerogative, and it is not a bad thing in and of itself. The shareholders are the actual owners of the company, after all.

 

The rest of your post speaks to a separate issue, which is that a lot of people feel like Games Workshop does not extend the same level of respect towards their customers or lore. That is where the negative part comes in.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Wait this is even up for debate?

 

It's obvious it's their shareholders over their customer base. 

 

If they respected their customer base more than share holders, they wouldn't have thrown out Fantasy for 9 years. They also wouldn't have canned beastmen from AoS after promoting their sales in that system for the past 9 years. They wouldn't have thrown out all the 1st and 2nd edition stormcast stuff to resell it. They wouldn't have binner the support for the trueborn marine. They wouldn't have redesigned the mk3 with real different silhouettes. They wouldnt stick to a 3 year cycle per mainline edition. They wouldnt invalidate codex/book purchases with new editions like heresy 2nd or 10th. They wouldn't do early access boxes to encourage fomo before general release. They wouldn't have an incredibly staggered codex and model release cycle. They wouldn't have chopped all of legions imperialis stuff into 4 campaign books to divvy out within the first years launch. They wouldn't charge 22.5£ for a single character, back when "the more expensive metal" was like, 9£. 

 

There's no discussion about it. Publicly traded corporations' one goal is to generate profit. Thats their point, that's what gw is, and that's why they do all the things that frustrate so many customers. 

 

 

[Noserenda]

Yeah GW has like, a legal obligation to keep the shareholders happy unlike us :D PLCs have a bunch of caveats that essentially mean selling out but ill bet the big sums of money have underwritten a lot of things we have liked over the years.

[Helias_Tancred]

20 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

Wait this is even up for debate? .....

 

There's no discussion about it. Publicly traded corporations' one goal is to generate profit. Thats their point, that's what gw is, and that's why they do all the things that frustrate so many customers. 

 

 

 

Good post, sorry I snipped so much of it ... They've taken the profit part to the point where it's beginning to undercut the quality of their product and what has gotten them to this point they're at.  If they continue to remain on the path they're on, it's going to have eventual negative consequences, especially when they hit the price point where their sales decline. 

 

Edited May 21 by Helias_Tancred

[appiah4]

9 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

There's no discussion about it. Publicly traded corporations' one goal is to generate profit. Thats their point, that's what gw is, and that's why they do all the things that frustrate so many customers. 

Actually no, regardless of being public or not all corporations' goal is to maximize shareholder value.  This does not always equate making profits.  Profits are short term goals, and making short term profits can easily entail going bankrupt in the long run.  This is a pattern you will see end up getting discussed with regards to GW in the not so distant future, mark my words.

Edited May 21 by appiah4

[SkimaskMohawk]

5 hours ago, appiah4 said:

Actually no, regardless of being public or not all corporations' goal is to maximize shareholder value.  This does not always equate making profits.  Profits are short term goals, and making short term profits can easily entail going bankrupt in the long run.  This is a pattern you will see end up getting discussed with regards to GW in the not so distant future, mark my words.

 

Kinda? I agree that short term goal chasing is dangerous for a lot of people who interact with a corporation, but the unfortunate truth is most corporations focus on extremely short term goals; it's a rat race to better the previous year or quarter at all costs. It's why we saw Microsoft post 60%+ growth and close a bunch of studios right after, just so they can pad those numbers. 

 

Regardless, the philosophical differences between operating for value or profit doesn't change the actual point of my post, which is that GW does not respect it's customers more than it's controlling body. 

[Brother Captain Arkley]

9 hours ago, appiah4 said:

Actually no, regardless of being public or not all corporations' goal is to maximize shareholder value.  This does not always equate making profits.  Profits are short term goals, and making short term profits can easily entail going bankrupt in the long run.  This is a pattern you will see end up getting discussed with regards to GW in the not so distant future, mark my words.

I like that I profit, but I hate the price it comes at for fans.