How do GW improve sales?

[techsoldaten]

1 hour ago, Pacific81 said:

I think with the global economy & other factors GW was a bubble waiting to burst from a share value perspective.

That being said I think the price elasticity was reaching its limit - the prices for a full army of 40k/AoS are frankly borderline obscene. 

I worry how this will affect getting young people (or especially from non-wealthy backgrounds) getting into the hobby.

Skirmish games are available but these are often inaccessible to newbies or are not the deals they once were (Necromunda gangs etc).

 

I really hope GW takes the warning signs as an opportunity to at least pause price rises, perhaps even make the game development & rules a bigger part of the process (I think at present they are very negligible), for the sake of the industry. Otherwise we might have another late 00s era of the company flying in tighter circles, cancelling games, and otherwise nasty period of waging war on their fanbase.

 

 

The more likely read from executives: short sellers are amplifying a valuation correction. Reported aggregate short positions reached 1.23% of shares on October 6 and there are likely smaller, unregulated short positions elsewhere. The fact that licensing revenue declined is a red flag, Space Marine 2 buoyed revenue in this area and was more a cyclical occurrence that will happen again one DOW IV and Total War Warhammer 40k are released. Growth per retail establishment has levelled off to the point where we need to act dramatically to re-inflate the stock price. Our bulkhead against further declines is the increased revenue from miniature sales. The Annual Price Increase must be revised on all SKUs to demonstrate increased revenue per outlet by an additional 0.5%. Inform the Creative Director the partial redesign of the Eldar range and Chaos Biker models shall proceed as planned. Send a gift of thanks to DeepSilver for delaying the release of their game to meet next year's targets.

[Robbienw]

10 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

You really cannot say that apple users are not "many and varied". Apple users are literally like 20% of the worlds population - they're for sure a lot more diverse than GW customers. 

 

Apple Customers: Everyone

GW Customers: 99% white middle class male aged 12 - 60. 

 

Re-read what i said.  Totally missed the context.  It is obviously nothing to do with physical or cultural characteristics 

 

Rather it is engagement with the hobby types.  It is possible to engage with the hobby and enjoy warhammer without spending much.  Unlike apple, it can still be enjoyed and used without updates and upgrades.

Edited 21 hours ago by Robbienw

[Firedrake Cordova]

1 hour ago, techsoldaten said:

Sprue tooling costs less for a company like Games Workshop because of a) volume and b) specialization. They don't pay retail.

I thought GW made the injection moulds in-house? (I remember reading that they used to be done by Renedra, and then moved them in-house)

 

I remember hearing (reading) that short-production moulds weren't made from steel but aluminium as it was cheaper, although that might be incorrect.

 

1 hour ago, techsoldaten said:

Games Workshop is an established brand and I question whether people would be willing to accept decreased quality at a lower price point.

It's an interesting problem. I could see them pushing cheaper skirmish games (or Crusade mode), which would lessen or spread the cost for consumers (I'm biased insofar as I prefer those games ). In theory they could introduce half-size boxes like they did with the 5-man Intercessor and Hellblaster boxes a few years ago (which would again allow cost-spreading), but obviously that introduces SKU bloat and logistics costs that I doubt GW would want.

 

48 minutes ago, Xenith said:

8 hours ago, Adeptekon said:

I'm surprised the scale hasn't gone back down to 28mm with shrinkflation.

 

They tried that with Imperialis! 

Thanks both - the laugh was welcome

[appiah4]

GW and Apple do share market leader advantage, planned obsolescence, whales first strategy, aggressive pricing.

 

That is as far as the similarities go though.  Where they diverge is:

 

Toy soldiers are a thing consumers can actually live without, unlike phones (and they are clearly opting to do so)

Games Workshop have no walled garden to fence their consumers in, only consumer loyalty (which is waning)

Apple products (generally) add value and increase quality over product cycles (while 40K has become utter :cuss:)

 

You can clearly see how much more vulnareble GW's sinking ship is compared to Apple.  And mind you, it IS sinking.  It has been leaking since 3D printing went mainstream, but people simply refused to acknowledge because it had momentum.  It is now slowing down considerably, and will soon find itself in serious trouble unless they are saved by a third unexpected divine intervention (the first two being Lord of the Rings and COVID pandemic).

Edited 20 hours ago by appiah4

[MoriyaSchism]

2 hours ago, techsoldaten said:

Games Workshop is an established brand and I question whether people would be willing to accept decreased quality at a lower price point. What I think they would do (and may already be doing) is something like what the Gap did in the late 90s - set up an alternative line of clothing to sell at outlet stores. What you buy there has the label but none of the quality, same with Old Navy and a lot of other retailers. 

The quality is already worse with no change in price point. I bought Death Guard, Space Wolf and Khorne Berserker kits when they were brand new and they had mold split and plastic spill over issues. I can take photos of the offending bits if you like. I feel that the way GW prices their items is entirely arbitrary. Even now you get less for more money compared to older kits. Look at any character, 3 man Veteran unit or the current pricing for Aspect Warriors. 

[Robbienw]

GW is a sinking ship - every doomster on the internet since 1999.  Sinking even though it keeps getting bigger, keeps floating and more and more money appears on it 

[appiah4]

5 minutes ago, Robbienw said:

GW is a sinking ship - every doomster on the internet since 1999.  Sinking even though it keeps getting bigger, keeps floating and more and more money appears on it 

Funny how Lehman Brothers posted their fifth consecutive record breaking revenue growth and fourth consecutive record breaking net income in 2007 before going bankrupt in 2008.  It is almost as if short term financial success is not a great indicator of corporate longevity.  But who am I to know, only an academic in the field of finance and a financial executive with 25 years of experience.  Don't mind me.  Go buy GW stock, you know you are right.

Edited 20 hours ago by appiah4

[Robbienw]

13 minutes ago, appiah4 said:

Funny how Lehman Brothers posted their fifth consecutive record breaking revenue growth and fourth consecutive record breaking net income in 2007 before going bankrupt in 2008.  It is almost as if short term financial success is not a great indicator of corporate longevity.  But who am I to know, only an academic in the field of finance and a financial executive with 25 years of experience.  Don't mind me.  Go buy GW stock, you know you are right.

 

Yes because GW now are really similar to a massive bank that was over exposed to unrepayable mortgages and had an insane level of debt aren't they.  Totally the same thing 

 

"Short term financial success" 

 

I think you are letting your own personal feelings of negativity towards the company cloud your views here chap. 

[Dark Shepherd]

5 hours ago, StraightSilver said:

Controversial opinion (not intended to be rage bait). Also slightly tongue in cheek (although it does grind my gears).

 

Take the ITC out of 40K. It's killing the game.

 

Make 40K fun again. Down with L-Shaped terrain and boring tables.

There, I said it. :)

Im with you

Focus should be on beerhammer and timmyhammer, not tournaments

[Scribe]

38 minutes ago, Robbienw said:

Yes because GW now are really similar to a massive bank that was over exposed to unrepayable mortgages and had an insane level of debt aren't they.  Totally the same thing

 

About as similar as one of the biggest tech companies in the world compared to a plastic toy company.

[Griefbringer]

2 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

I thought GW made the injection moulds in-house? (I remember reading that they used to be done by Renedra, and then moved them in-house)

 

GW has been doing the mould tooling for their plastic kits in-house for quite a while. Which in practice roughly means that they get fixed mould making capacity for pretty much fixed expenses (or they can invest in machinery and personnel to increase the mould tooling capacity).

 

However, to my knowledge GW have never used services of Renedra (which was established in 2007). The relationship is rather the other way around: from what I have heard Renedra was established by former GW employees, who had been tooling moulds for plastics in the old-fashioned way from physical three-ups. At the time, GW was transitioning from physical masters for the plastic kits to all-digital design, and there was no need anymore for the old-school mould makers, so these skilled persons decided to establish their own company (which has proved quite succesful). As I recall, the first all-digital designed plastic figures started coming out from GW around 2005-2006.

[techsoldaten]

1 hour ago, MoriyaSchism said:

The quality is already worse with no change in price point. I bought Death Guard, Space Wolf and Khorne Berserker kits when they were brand new and they had mold split and plastic spill over issues. I can take photos of the offending bits if you like. I feel that the way GW prices their items is entirely arbitrary. Even now you get less for more money compared to older kits. Look at any character, 3 man Veteran unit or the current pricing for Aspect Warriors. 

Quality and quantity are separate characteristics for any product. 

GW could start selling Space Marine Singles for $15 a model. As long as it's sufficiently detailed, there are people that would pay. GW could probably wrap it in a foil liner that hides the identity of the model and control the rarity of the models to get twice as much from consumers.

GW could also start selling Space Marine Armies with an assortment of 100 Marines for $75. If the molding looks like Little Green Army Men, most people would pass.

I get your point - in your mind, getting less equates to a lower quality product - but think about Doritos. The large bags you see at the grocery store contain 30% less than they did in 2017. People pay nearly twice as much for them now. Pretty sure there's a point when people would abandon the brand, not sure how far away it is from one chip per bag. 

[Griefbringer]

In case of GW plastic models, how would you define quality and how does in affect production expenses?

 

There is of course the technical moulding quality, with the proper filling of the mould and minimal flash. But the actual cost of running the mould is not really dependent on the observed quality. However, if you want to ensure that every sprue that goes to end customer is properly moulded, then there is the quality control expense: monitoring the product coming out of the injection moulding line, and if necessary pausing production to fix problems (plus recycling any poorly moulded sprues).

 

Then there is the design quality, which depending on perspective may mean one or more of the following:

 

- general visual look and style

- amount of detail

- amount of equipment options

- freedom of assembly/posing

- ease of assembly (number and fitting of parts)

- ease of painting

- practicality once assembled (transportation, durability, physical balance)

 

Design is essentially a one-time expense, with limited effect on the mould tooling and production expenses beyond the size of the sprue needed to fit all the parts (larger sprues require more tooling resources and are more expensive to muld).

[Halandaar]

32 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

It's an interesting problem. I could see them pushing cheaper skirmish games (or Crusade mode), which would lessen or spread the cost for consumers (I'm biased insofar as I prefer those games ).

 

I think the popularity of the Battle March mode for Old World (the book has been regularly out of stock since they launched it), and Spearhead for AoS speak to a desire in the community for a lower entry cost, smaller scale game. I was very surprised GW didn't rework Combat Patrol to be more in line with Spearhead given how successful the latter has been. Also surprised we haven't seen a more dedicated version of this for Heresy, although I guess Zone Mortalis kind of covers it.

 

As for skirmish games, it's really a mixed bag. Warcry hasn't even been mentioned for a year and basically all the products have been pulled or reintegrated into the main AoS range, and Underworlds has also been silent for months and a lot of it's teams have become mainline AoS units too; both suggest that GW isn't willing to keep supporting those games despite the fact they offer a significantly lower cost of entry than the mainline wargames. Sure Kill Team and Necromunda are still going, but I personally feel a lot of Kill Team's success (in terms of it's product sales) is deceptive because they keep hiding units that people want for their 40K armies in that system. Newly invented units like Sororitas Novitiates is one thing, but units like Kasrkin, Kommandos, Raptors were/are all locked behind Kill Team SKUs despite being mainline 40K units. Exodites and Legion of the Damned will be the same, once they get their standalone releases. I think if you stripped out all of that cross-purchasing, Kill Team probably wouldn't be as well supported as it is.

[Firedrake Cordova]

5 hours ago, Griefbringer said:

However, to my knowledge GW have never used services of Renedra (which was established in 2007). The relationship is rather the other way around: from what I have heard Renedra was established by former GW employees

Yup, you're right - my memory is playing tricks on me.  Annoying, as my memory was insisting it was right  Maybe I saw it in relation to Perry Miniatures and mis-filed it  

 

I checked, and apparently, it was Triple K Injection Moulding and TJA Tooling that GW used in the 1980's and 1990's (and they went on to buy them in the late 1990's)

 

1 hour ago, Halandaar said:

As for skirmish games, it's really a mixed bag. 

Yes. I get a feeling they're either not a priority, or there's not enough resources for them. Which is unfortunate, as they represent a lower-cost entry route for when the larger games are impractical.  

Edited 13 hours ago by Firedrake Cordova

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Back to the pocket money thing.

my gf was delayed in finishing her training, so I went to the FLGS. Originally I was going to get an AOS codex, but it wasn’t in stock, so I looked at 40K stuff.

new warboss was $40+ and nazdreg was $60+
like wut?

$35 I had available for random spending wasn’t enough to get me anything I was remotely interested in.

[Dark Shepherd]

Maybe the illfated Roleplaying games are an attempt to lure people into GW

 

Underworlds was unique as they were trying to capture the fantasy card game community a bit. Warcry was a great game/system by all accounts but they erred perhaps by only having Chaos warbands for a long time

[Adeptekon]

 

12 hours ago, Dark Shepherd said:

Im with you

Focus should be on beerhammer and timmyhammer, not tournaments

Thing is competitive is their business model. Take that away and we own 40k.

Edited 7 hours ago by Adeptekon

[appiah4]

9 hours ago, Dark Shepherd said:

Maybe the illfated Roleplaying games are an attempt to lure people into GW

 

Underworlds was unique as they were trying to capture the fantasy card game community a bit. Warcry was a great game/system by all accounts but they erred perhaps by only having Chaos warbands for a long time

Not sure if this is working.  The Rogue Trader RPG, for example, does not seem to have reached the general RPG market.  I believe it sold about 2 million copies as of 2026.  While not exactly a plop, that doesn't seem to be the kind of numbers that brought in non-40K audience into the fold.  For comparison, Kingdom Come 2 sold 6 million copies and Avowed sold 5.9 million copies, both releasing in the same year as Rogue Trader.

 

(EDIT: If you were referencing the tabletop RPGs, that is an entirely different can of worms.. As a 40K "fan" I was not able to find and purchase the licensed 40K RPGs; availability appears to be a big issue, I don't know what exactly is going on there but the FFG era of games were difficult to buy and the Crucible 7 situation does not seem any better to me.. It's almost as if GW is licensing these products begrudgingly or something, I would love to learn about what the deal is..)

 

If anything, the only licensed game that seems to have reached a sales number that one could convincingly argue is high enough to grow the market was Space Marine 2 at around 7 million copies.  That was a 2024 release though and probably had no impact in 2025/26 sales and market growth.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, GW's revenue growth is not market growth.  I have not seen, anywhere, growth in number of SKU sold particularly with regards to things like Starter/Battleforce/Combat Patrol etc. boxes that would actually show that the market is growing.  The 2025 revenue growth, discounting licensing, appears to be mostly pricing driven.  If anything, I would put money on SKUs sold shrinking.

Edited 2 hours ago by appiah4

[techsoldaten]

4 hours ago, Adeptekon said:

 

Thing is competitive is their business model. Take that away and we own 40k.

 
The vast majority of people still play in small groups of friends of random pick up games. Tournaments worldwide attract well under 50k people annually, the number of people with armies is measured in the millions.

GW is writing it's rules around tournaments because tournaments are the best source of balance metrics they have. Plus tournaments are organized, they can actually communicate about issues affecting the game in a unified manner. Plus they generate earned media, livestreams from tournaments are a big deal right now given the number of tournaments that are happening.

This is immeasurably better than 6th edition, where I was stuck with a Chaos army that sucked because the rules were so terrible. But it does mean almost everything you hear about the game will seem connected to tournaments. 

So you can have the numbers and not own 40k, which is the case currently.

[appiah4]

(Double Post sorry)

Edited 2 hours ago by appiah4

[Stitch5000]

19 hours ago, Robbienw said:

With GW though the customers are many and varied.  A vast amount just collect the models, some are even just into the lore.  Its very easy to still be into and continue painting a large accumulated pile and read old lore you like without spending much money at all.  

 

Not the case with Apple products.

Not quite sure what point you are trying to make here, but Apple is essentially a commodity, GW is niche. 
 

18 hours ago, appiah4 said:

Funny how Lehman Brothers posted their fifth consecutive record breaking revenue growth and fourth consecutive record breaking net income in 2007 before going bankrupt in 2008.  It is almost as if short term financial success is not a great indicator of corporate longevity.  But who am I to know, only an academic in the field of finance and a financial executive with 25 years of experience.  Don't mind me.  Go buy GW stock, you know you are right.

As a self-professed academic and professional in this field, I'm not quite sure how you managed to get this so wrong?

GW have no debt. They are incredibly conservative and therefore resilient. 

GW hasn't been posting short term success. They have been gradually building for a decade now. They make no moves to cash in in the short term.

[RWJP]

23 hours ago, appiah4 said:

They could, and probably should, start by making a game that doessn't have rules behind a monthly subscription paywall. 

There are no 40k rules behind a monthly paywall...

The 40k app is free to use. The core rules are available for free in the app. All rules updates are added to the app for free. Once you've purchased your Codex, the facility to use the code in it to unlock the rules in your app is free. 

If you subscribe to Warhammer+ you do get the ability to save more than one army list at a time, but that is the ONLY app feature that is part of the subscription. Browsing the rules, and saving one army list at a time is FREE. You do not need to subscribe to Warhammer+ to access any rules in the app and never have done.

Again, to state categorically because this misinformation needed to die yesterday, there are no 40k rules behind a monthly paywall.

At best you could argue that rules are behind a triannual paywall of one Codex roughly every 3 years, but there is categorically no monthly paywall.

Edited 1 hour ago by RWJP

[RWJP]

Double post deleted

Edited 1 hour ago by RWJP

[TwinOcted]

I wonder if, rather than improve sales, GW needs to work on improving customer retention.  This idea that a customer will only last 2-3 years and then they'll drop the hobby and move on, and that's fine, seems such a weird thing for a company to accept.  

Surely GW wants us to stay in the hobby (and keep spending money on it) for as long as possible, but they seem very geared towards constant rotation of customers.

 

Don't get me wrong, of course they want a constant flow of new customers.  But surely once you've got them, you want to keep them?