[Updated] GW Annual Financial Report 2025 (Space Marine II bump, Factory 4, & sry TARIFFS)

[Marshal Rohr]

There is a major reckoning coming with NA Market next year. Several non-board appropriate topics will occur in rapid succession and it’s increasingly difficult for the dollar to maintain its value. If the dollar craters, and GW doesn’t recoup US buyers from another market buying less of everything they’re going to hurt. 

[Dark Shepherd]

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

There is a major reckoning coming with NA Market next year. Several non-board appropriate topics will occur in rapid succession and it’s increasingly difficult for the dollar to maintain its value. If the dollar craters, and GW doesn’t recoup US buyers from another market buying less of everything they’re going to hurt. 

Age of Sigmar?

 

 

[Marshal Rohr]

3 hours ago, Dark Shepherd said:

Age of Sigmar?

 

 

FED chair appointment

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

I wonder which releases sold below planned levels? It can't be HH 3.0 because that was after this report. Emperor's Children or Space Wolves seem unlikely as Marines usually fly off the shelves. 

 

Not surprised by the decline in online sales. Aside from the website being trash it seems like every faction for every game has at least half its range out of stock at any time. 

 

So if it hit them for 5.5 million for just two months, then this is going to be a huge cost for them going forward isn't it?

[Dark Shepherd]

11 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

FED chair appointment

Think its called a throne

And its made of bones

 

Re stock piling up, mustve been Sigmar starter sets again?

 

For 40k stuff fomo seems to be working well for them

[Sky Potato]

6 hours ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

I wonder which releases sold below planned levels?

I’d guess Skaventide, that was last summers big release.

[N1SB]

Success needs no explanation, failure allows for none, so please treat my Original Post as my Full Report.

 

I read everything you say, and it's a huge benefit because we are many minds, like Cawl Inferior but Superior.

 

(I reserve the right to reply to all your points, they're all great, and to speculate on fun stuff, as Replies here.)

 

On 7/23/2025 at 10:56 AM, Felix Antipodes said:

I think there is also a reverse effect wrt SM2.  From what I’ve seen personally in my circle, the game has renewed interest in lapsed gamers (of the TT variety) rather than attracting gamers (of the screen type) to the tabletop.  Don’t know if this will escalate into a return to the fold though.  The negativity around the HHv3 rules has dampened the enthusiasm of some.

 

And if I'm playing Space Marine II, I'm not painting.  Unlike Inquisitor: Martyr, where I'll play 40 mins, then paint.

 

So even as I described the Space Marine II bump, I totally agree with you and was thinking about that.  Plus, both of us know friends who might've been playing that video game instead of 10th ed!  I was playing weekly early 10th ed as part of the Crusade campaign, it was Pariah Nexus and I was Necrons.  Then at some point I stopped getting games in because no one bothered, it was around the end of the Crusade campaign AND when Space Marine II came out.

 

It's new players joining, lapsed players returning AND current players dropping out, which makes the bump very impressive.

 

The current CEO impressed me by introducing the concept of lapsed Hobbyists, exactly as you say, so I love your point.

 

I also loved the point Brother Skyler Boodie made, but what I do NOT love...

 

 

+++ I remembered something about Tariffs +++

 

I added a section to the Original Post.  I want to keep it as "Just the Facts," just translating financial jargon really.

 

A Tariff, which is worse than a Sales Tax because it's paid right at the start, can ripple out of the country of origin.

 

The way it happens to be accounted for would directly a Pricing Update that actually would go worldwide.

 

I'm so depressed, I'm going to finish reading my paperback copy of End & Death II oh like that'll cheer me up.

[N1SB]

Keeping the original post "Just the Facts," I get to talk about fun stuff now!

 

At this point, no one can deny the success of Space Marine II.  Let's talk about the Warhammer license.

 

 

+++ What is the Warhammer license worth +++

 

There's this Ridley Scott film where, during the Crusades, Legolas asks, "What is Jerusalem worth?"

 

"Nothing!" replied Saladin before he strolled off.  Then he turned around, adding, "Everything."

 

So what is the Warhammer license worth?  I'm sharing only what was reported, but this leaked sales data:

 

 

This chart shows actual sales number from Sega...yes, THAT Sega (to this day, I think the Dreamcast was the console that was most ahead of its time, even though I didn't own one).  It WAS part of a presentation for investors behind closed doors back in March, their Financial Year end, and then posted online.  Whoever posted it was SUPPOSED to [REDACT] this bit like an Inquisitorial Acolyte, but they must've forgotten, and people copied it before they did.

 

What a story it tells.  It's in thousand units (so Sonic Frontiers sold 3 million in its 1st year), how does it compare?

 

• 1 million in its 1st year is what Total War: Warhammer III sold.  It's its own franchise now
  • On par with even other famous Sega properties, like Yakuza, Shin Megami Tensei, Persona
• 3 million is like a popular Sonic game.  I respect Sonic and my friends who owned a Megadrive
• 5 million in its 1st year is a halo game, literally like Halo.  Ppl buy a console JUST for that game
  • Like during Xbox/Playstation wars, a lot of popular exclusive titles only hit 5 mil
  • Street Fighter 6, released 2 years ago, only reached 5 million a few back
• 7 million is what Space Marine II sold so far, its royalties included in GW's annual report
• 10+ million (like teens million) is a Skyrim.  That's when you don't see a friend for months
• Once a game reaches that, they start doing remakes, remasters, VR, the count gets inflated
• Nintendo is crazy successful, they can sell 30 to 70 million copies of Pokemon: Anything

 

For us, Total War: Warhammer III sold about 1 million, and the story is we have these other Sega games to direct compare to.

 

In terms of sheer popularity, it stands toe-to-toe with Sega's own IP: Yakuza, Shin Megami Tensei (like Cyberpunk, but with Chaos), Persona (this is what all them kids cosplay as, when you hear your kids dressing up as Joker and he suddenly looks like a Japanese schoolboy instead of the Clown Prince of Crime, it's THIS game).  It's very much of Sega's adopted family, just as GW has adopted it, I think; GW's 1st major jump in Licensing Revenue was when the 1st Total War:hammer launched.

 

What's most interesting is AFTER the initial launch.  Other games drop off.  Warhammer games seem to Hold the Line.

 

Most of these other games had remakes by the 4th year, when you see a bump in like a Persona game, it's because they made a remake.  Total War:hammer III still holds out by itself.  I know it has had many DLCs and wotnot to sustain it, but it's almost like a horse-cart issue; it got those DLCs because they found people still bought the game, that it's worth developing a new DLC for.  That longevity is very interesting...maybe Warhammer players are used to looong projects.

 

I'm still working on a Horus Heresy army that I bought stuff for LAST edition.  I did a 10th ed army, but y'know.

 

Now, I was thinking, "Well, it's a Total War game," like any Civilization/4X game has a long playtime...but no.  At the bottom you see Total War: Three Kingdoms.  Still follows the formula, very, very deep gameplay because I had friends asking me about Chinese history (my father and I debate on whether we count as a faction, 南蛮/Nanman, the Southern Vermin, but he says no.)  Look at the drop-off; after 4 years, it's like only 10% of initial sales.  Three Kingdoms is the ultimate IP, too.

 

So what is the Warhammer license worth?  I had previously estimated GW received about 5% of a game's gross, so for a US$60 game, GW would take $3.  To compare, a retailer where that game is sold would take $10, Microsoft or Sony would take $10 for licensing it on their Xbox or Playstation.  I don't know if that's true, I just remembered doing some back-of-napkins maths during the half-year report.  There might be an upfront fee, I don't want to interfere with GW's Licensing team, I dunno anything.

 

But what I do find interesting is the longevity of a Warhammer game, to attach DLCs, for future sales.

 

It's part of how investors don't want Spikes & Valleys, they want a Steady Line Up, the Warhammer license is steadier.

[DemonGSides]

17 minutes ago, N1SB said:

There's this Ridley Scott film where, during the Crusades, Legolas asks, "What is Jerusalem worth?"

 

"Nothing!" replied Saladin before he strolled off.  Then he turned around, adding, "Everything."

 

Kingdom of Heaven is an excellent film, and Scott's directors cut is legitimately awesome.

That's all I've got to add.  Thanks for your thoughts otherwise!

[N1SB]

Actually, anyone still playing Total War:hammer III or Space Marine II, pls share your thoughts.

 

What I noticed was Helldivers II was really popular, then suddenly disappeared.  Dunno what's up.

[DemonGSides]

30 minutes ago, N1SB said:

Actually, anyone still playing Total War:hammer III or Space Marine II, pls share your thoughts.

 

What I noticed was Helldivers II was really popular, then suddenly disappeared.  Dunno what's up.

 

Playing an Elspeth campaign right now on TW WH3.  They've done a lot over the past year to make the game better and there's a huge Siege rework coming including some massive changes to how the battles even work.

 

I don't play SM2 as much any more.  The cadence of cooperative stuff changed and then they shifted their co-op focus to the horde mode Siege, and I am less interested in that until they make it truly endless.  Currently there's a time limit to stop rampant memory leaks, but once they get that fixed up I'll go back.

Also they did the BA dirty and gave the Assault class champion skin to the White Scars, which is fine, but also it's a jump pack unit and you gave it to the motorcycle subfaction.  C'mon Saber.  I guess they were just following in GW's footsteps there.

Edited 23 hours ago by DemonGSides

[Focslain]

23 minutes ago, N1SB said:

Actually, anyone still playing Total War:hammer III or Space Marine II, pls share your thoughts.

 

What I noticed was Helldivers II was really popular, then suddenly disappeared.  Dunno what's up.

Well Helldivers 2 is still going strong, infact we're receiving new recruits in the form of XBox players on Aug 26th. 

 

I can only comment on Space Marine 2, but outside of the long loading times I don't have to wait for players in the Operations or Siege modes and I have yet to see the same player twice.

 

Personally I enjoy SM2, but I only have about 50 hrs in the game. Granted it's all Ops/Siege time cause I'm not doing the main story until I can stream it properly. 

[darkhorse0607]

2 hours ago, N1SB said:

Actually, anyone still playing Total War:hammer III or Space Marine II, pls share your thoughts.

 

What I noticed was Helldivers II was really popular, then suddenly disappeared.  Dunno what's up.

 

I'm still playing both TW:W3 and Space Marine 2. Probably more than I should be. This is going to be long, sorry. 

 

Total War is going through a hard phase right now, and there are some background things with Creative Assembly (I'll talk Space Marine in a second) that are starting to cause some issues.

 

For one, Creative Assembly doesn't have a new release planned, or at least announced in the next year or so. According to that same financial report, their next three titles aren't due until FY26/27 I believe. Total War, particularly in the Warhammer franchise has survived off of its DLC and the pace for that DLC release has dropped dramatically, particularly this year. Additionally, there was an issue a few DLCs ago, where they released a pack at a higher price and basically faced a community revolt which caused them to have to restructure how they're releasing the packs (i.e. releasing Lords/factions individually, increase the amount of content, etc). The only DLC that has been announced for this year has been routinely delayed and there's been a lot of radio silence about it in general, at the same time it's doubtful that the Lords included will bring a lot of folks back that have dropped off. They're already starting to hype what is rumored to be the End Times which would be their last DLC and then the game is done probably early next year. 

 

At the same time, Three Kingdoms was promised a similar level of support, but then had it's famous "future of Three Kingdoms" article, where, even though the game was pretty well received, in some cases more so than Warhammer, they announced that article and it's content was "there is no future of Three Kingdoms" and killed it. Pharoh didn't do nearly as well as it needed to, and then lastly, they cancelled their still in-development shooter (Hyena, Sega pulled the plug) which means while they might have projects in development, they haven't actually announced anything. 

 

This year is the 25th anniversary of Total War, and they had been hyping that for most of the spring (fueling the rumors that they were announcing something big soon), only to say a month or two ago there won't be any kind of actual celebration or announcement until December. So all in all, while Warhammer 3 will still probably do well during sales and might see a small bump with the next DLC launches, it's won't be a surprise if we just don't see bigger numbers as we move towards the end of the year. Creative Assembly has a lot riding on the next projects, and the rumor is (through TW creators) that they're having to move up the other projects because they just don't have anything else and TW:W3 is dying for a number of different reasons (lack of content, fatigue, etc) all while Sega is running out of patience. 

 

Now for SM2

 

(for Helldivers, at least when I last checked Steamcharts, it was still beating SM2 by roughly 3:1 but obviously that doesn't account for consoles and that will fluctuate). Peak players for Helldivers was 458k versus 186k for SM2, and Helldivers averaged 37k for the last month while SM2 had ~9300, and that was for the launch of Siege mode

 

I've been with SM2 since launch. I was there for the stealth difficulty changes last fall, to the Great Spore Mine invasion of the Spring, all the way through now. It's undeniable that it was a hugely successful game for the studio and for GW. I'm going to try and hit the structural issues rather than my personal opinions but who knows if I'll balance it well enough

 

There have been some substantial issues during the last year and I'm not surprised that it's seen that much of a dropoff, with some people going to non-GW properties, some going back to Darktide, etc. I truly thing that if there was a different Space Marine themed game on the market that SM2 would have substantially lower numbers than it does now

 

-I dont know what they're aim for this game is to be honest. It's not really billed as a live-service and that's the common defense you see when people complain at the lack of content. On the other hand, they have content based patches/season passes and really if you look at the initial offering of a short campaign, extremely limited PVP (still not fixed btw) and 6 operations then it didn't offer a bunch at launch either so if people didn't want to wait for future content then they'd jump off. 

 

-The. Servers. Are. Terrible. Apparently that was an issue with previous Sabre games and it's an issue here. They've been a problem with massive connectivity issues since launch, then with almost every patch they break something else. For example, with the Trygon update, they bonked perfect parries triggering gunstrikes which is part of the core of the combat loop (they just didn't trigger a noticeable amount of times), the servers were even worse than they were prior to May, and some other stuff. The response from the Devs were "after Siege comes out we will fix it." For those not still playing, there was two months between those updates. Yes the Warhammer community will probably stick around because it's a Space Marine game (Emperor knows I even had to take some multi-week breaks because I got so frustrated with the server issues/game issues/bugs/etc), but everyone else? 

 

-The lack of content in between updates. Decent sized patches come every few months, typically with a new operation or something. In other games, they'd run community events to keep folks coming back in between. Space Marine doesn't really do that. They do have some (some) community events, for example when the Trygon update dropped it was "kill x number of Trygons and you get this cosmetic," but normally it's double XP weekend, which doesn't offer a lot to keep the community engaged. For example, Siege launched early July, they aren't doing double XP (only for Siege mode btw) until August, rather than tying it into each other to get more people into the mode, which already had significant issues due to servers crashing, particularly an hour or so into the game. So there isn't a lot to keep you coming back after you spend a day or so in whatever the new offering is. They did launch the PTS server to help try to lock down issues and involve the community more, but then don't actually make changes to the game for launch, so that has also been a frustration with a part of the community

 

-Balance is still an issue. It's gotten far better, but it's still a common complaint. So are the perk trees

 

Etc.

 

So while yes, they are still revenue streams for GW, I wouldn't expect that much for the next fiscal year (which they already alluded to in the report). Total War will see a bump for the End Times, whenever that releases next year. SM2 will probably still bring in some. But neither one is going to give GW the boost they probably want them to. And then really, there aren't any other major releases that have been announced other than Dawn of War remastered (which, after how SM1 Remastered went I think people are skeptical about), and that mobile game they showed during Skulls. Unless Valrak's foil is correct and they announce something (he said Dawn of War 4) soon, there won't be much licensing revenue at least near to the levels they've had for the next year or so, especially as we move into a release heavy season (Metal Gear Solid, Battlefield, Call of Duty, etc) which will continue to draw people away

Edited 21 hours ago by darkhorse0607
I rechecked steamcharts and edited the number

[NovemberIX]

HDII feels like it spikes in popularity whenever there's some big change or event (e.g. the Squids, the attack on Super Earth) I'd say it's sorta the same with SM2, but I strictly play that Co-op with a buddy of mine, so I can't speak for it's wider play. I will say they did get me on the DLC trap by sticking the beakie behind a paywall, and if I wanted to make "my" assault marines I'd need it, and you know, once you've taken that first hit... SM2 has become a standard part of my gaming rotation, sometimes it's play a game or two once a week, or more recently with the release of horde mode, playing on a nearly daily basis. That said, another game in the same cycle is Darktide, as it matures we find new reason to go back and play some more, it does seem like it's got a healthy player base as well, with regular new players, a good amount of veterans and a few whales. It's monetization is much more predatory by nature, real money to a premium currency that never quite zeroes out or gives you the right amount you need to buy that one outfit or skin. That said, it has good game play loops, and really encapsulates the feel of 40K. I can't say how much it's license brings in, but I could see it being not insignificant. 

Honestly though, I'm waiting for a proper Guard game to scratch that strange itch that exists between Darktide and Space Marine 2, or a dreadnought game, or a tank game, .. . ..... .... 

[Viridia]

3 hours ago, N1SB said:

Actually, anyone still playing Total War:hammer III or Space Marine II, pls share your thoughts.

 

What I noticed was Helldivers II was really popular, then suddenly disappeared.  Dunno what's up.

Regarding Helldivers; I think it's still popular, but we're now a year and a half in. There's loads of people who bought into it initially and then seemed to put it down (either the galactic war being static, the end of community events like the invasion of Malevelon Creek), but people will get back into it as and when AH update the galactic war, especially with the upcoming release for Xbox players. AH have built a core playerbase that will stick around (there's currently 20k players on a single world as we try to seize it from the insidious Tyranids Terminids 

 

SM2 has the same issues I think, there will be a huge initial surge at the start, then it'll drop off to a steadier consistency. I picked it up a couple of months back and my thoughts as someone who is predominantly a single-player user is that once I've exhausted the campaign, my interest will drop off. The same can also be said for the multiplayer crowd as they wait for updates to equipment, new classes etc.

 

I think you're bang on the money with your comments regarding the licensed games. For every mobile HH game or Civ knock-off like Gladius, GW gets a Mechanicus/Space Marine/Total War/Battlesector, so they do bring in new players, but at some point they won't be building/painting, they'll be gaming. Quicker, easier, cheaper.