How do GW improve sales?

[Karhedron]

10 minutes ago, TwinOcted said:

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? 

 

GW's main market are teenage boys. They assume that by around 18, they will inevitably discover alcohol, women and other such diversions. The smaller percentage who persist with the hobby into adulthood tend to spend less because they already have armies. They may buy new units here and there, especially shiny new ones but they will be far less likely to drop the £100s needed to start from scratch.

 

GW could invest a lot in try to improve retention for relatively little gain in terms of extra sales.

[Griefbringer]

2 hours ago, appiah4 said:

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.

 

GW financial reports do not provide information about the sales of the different product lines (just sales channels and geographical areas). It would be even more unlikely to see any public data for individual product (Stock Keeping Units) sales.

 

However, the financial reports provide some information about their investments in manufacturing facilities and tooling/milling/moulding equipment. Their plastic manufacturing capacity is related to the number of injection moulding machines, which at the end of last financial year (May 2026) was 57, split over two manufacturing facilities. In the on-going financial year, they intend to install injection moulding machinery in a new manufacturing faciality.

 

Earlier financial report gives the number of injection moulding machines as 52 (May 2025), so there has been almost 10 % increase in the number of machines in a year. Admittedly, not all machines are identical, especially when it comes to the size of mould they can handle, but they all should be able to chuck out quite a number of plastic sprues every day. There is no information available as to how high the usage level of these production assets has been - but apparently it has been high enough to convince the people in charge to invest in increased manufacturing capacity.

 

As for price increases, the 2025/2026 financial report states the following about "price adjustments":

 

"We increase our product pricing every year. The average increase in RRPs on products this year was 3% in line with normal levels."

 

Which is fair bit less than the reported core revenue (not including lisencing) increase of almost 11 %.

 

TLDR  version: In the previous financial year (June 2025 - May 2026), according to annual financial report:

1.) Core revenue increased almost 11 % while prices increased circa 3 %.

2.) Number of injection moulding machines increased by almost 10 % (and is expected to increase in future).

 

[Edit: the price increases in annual report may only take into account items continuously in stock. They may not take into consideration cases where an individual model set has been discontinued and replaced with a new set with different product code and price point.]

Edited October 21 by Griefbringer
Additional comment

[Dark Shepherd]

3 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

GW's main market are teenage boys. They assume that by around 18, they will inevitably discover alcohol, women and other such diversions. The smaller percentage who persist with the hobby into adulthood tend to spend less because they already have armies. They may buy new units here and there, especially shiny new ones but they will be far less likely to drop the £100s needed to start from scratch.

 

GW could invest a lot in try to improve retention for relatively little gain in terms of extra sales.

As an Irish Space Wolves player Im going to assume if you discovered booze at 18 you were lost in the warp for 10 years :)

 

But you are right. And I'd ad GW then try/hope to nostalgia these peeps when theyre 30+ and have disposable income WHICH IS ANOTHER REASON TO GIVE US EPIC SCALE PRIMARCHS

 

 

Edited October 21 by Dark Shepherd

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Im gonna jump on the anti-tournament bandwagon here as well, because since coming back I’ve disliked the focus on the competitive circuit.

 

i don’t care about their reasoning for it.

 

catering the rules to them makes tournament style play the default.

 

i don’t care if the terrain is 100% even and balanced on the table. I want a table that looks good. I want to go back to the days when the recommendations for terrain was “fill a table quarter packed with terrain, then take turns placing pieces around the rest of the table.”

 

Dont come at me with that “you can just talk to your opponent about that before hand”

 

sure I could, but at that point I’m asking them to play a very different game from the one they bought rules for, and if they say no, either I spend 4+ hours engaging with a way to play that I find wholly unsatisfying, or I’m backing out of a game with someone who agreed to play with me, which can make it harder to find games in the future. 

 

make a game that’s actually fun for people who aren’t try hard sweats again.

 

even if the new warboss was in my pocket money price range I still don’t know if I would have bought it yesterday because why spend money on a model for a game I have no interest in playing?

 

lower prices noticeably, and make a better game that doesn’t cater to tournaments, or the lowest common denominator of intelligence.

 

[phandaal]

5 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

GW's main market are teenage boys. They assume that by around 18, they will inevitably discover alcohol, women and other such diversions. The smaller percentage who persist with the hobby into adulthood tend to spend less because they already have armies. They may buy new units here and there, especially shiny new ones but they will be far less likely to drop the £100s needed to start from scratch.

 

GW could invest a lot in try to improve retention for relatively little gain in terms of extra sales.

 

I do not doubt you have backing for saying this, or that teenagers are an important entry market for GW, but I am extremely skeptical that teenagers are GW's main financial supporters insofar as the miniatures side goes. GW themselves says that they sell to teenagers, adults, new customers, and existing customers. Was this GW store guidance or something like that?

 

My own experience is that men in their 20s and 30s are the ones doing the heavy purchasing, while teenagers simply lack the disposable income to match their enthusiasm. And even then, my experience says men in their 40s or later are still buying new collections that would be beyond the wildest dreams of any teenager.

[Grand Master Laertes]

32 minutes ago, phandaal said:

And even then, my experience says men in their 40s or later are still buying new collections that would be beyond the wildest dreams of any teenager.

 

Yeah, I don't think there are that many teenagers in the Titan Owners Club, for example!

[Griefbringer]

6 minutes ago, Grand Master Laertes said:

 

Yeah, I don't think there are that many teenagers in the Titan Owners Club, for example!

 

Maybe the Adeptus Titanicus could do with a bit of marketing towards the younger audience!

[TwinOcted]

6 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

GW's main market are teenage boys. They assume that by around 18, they will inevitably discover alcohol, women and other such diversions. The smaller percentage who persist with the hobby into adulthood tend to spend less because they already have armies. They may buy new units here and there, especially shiny new ones but they will be far less likely to drop the £100s needed to start from scratch.

 

GW could invest a lot in try to improve retention for relatively little gain in terms of extra sales.

This was definitely the attitude at GW back when I worked for them, between '02 and '13, but I can't help but feel it's a very outmoded way of thinking these days.  It was my experience that the main customer base was relatively shy, nerdy, possibly bullied kids, and more confident, nerdy, late teens/adults.  Most of whom were happy to have finally found a community they could fit in with.  The whole "once you're 18 you'll drop everything for booze and breasts" just didn't pan out that way for the vast majority that I remember.

 

We had people disappear, of course.  But it was usually graduating students who moved back to their hometown, or new parents who suddenly had a lot less time on their hands.

 

And honestly?  Even back then most of our teenage customers didn't have the money to drop on a completely new army in a short period of time.  You needed a full-time job for that.  I can't fathom the kind of teenager that has that kind of spending power now.

[Karhedron]

15 minutes ago, TwinOcted said:

This was definitely the attitude at GW back when I worked for them, between '02 and '13, but I can't help but feel it's a very outmoded way of thinking these days.

 

Perhaps my info on this is out of date then.

[Scribe]

18 minutes ago, TwinOcted said:

And honestly?  Even back then most of our teenage customers didn't have the money to drop on a completely new army in a short period of time.  You needed a full-time job for that.  I can't fathom the kind of teenager that has that kind of spending power now.

 

Yeah, I'm eternally shocked at people thinking teen's somehow grease the wheels of GW.

 

At any FLGS I've got remotely within driving distance, its been grown ass men buying the models, and playing in the tournaments (back when we did such things during 4th and 5th especially).

 

No kid has or had the money I was spending on GW, and any 'teen' that does these days? Lives at home with their parents and has a full time job and no real expenses.

 

My play group had a couple younger guys, but even they were in their early 20's, which is also when I started actually buying stuff, once I had a full time job.

 

Would love to see some numbers, but I just dont believe it based on the eye test.

[phandaal]

35 minutes ago, Scribe said:

Would love to see some numbers, but I just dont believe it based on the eye test.

 

Not exactly what you were asking for, because as far as I can tell GW has never explicitly disclosed how much customers spend by age group (if they have even determined that for themselves), but one guy did a survey with some interesting results many years ago:

 

https://icv2.com/articles/columns/view/34435/

 

The TL;DR (edit - after typing it, even this is pretty long ):

 

1,027 40k players:

• 54% were over 30 (about 555 people).

• 10% were under 21 (about 103 people).

• Over-30s reported spending $500–$1,000 annually, compared with $100–$200 for under-21s.

Using the midpoint of those spending ranges:

• Over 30: 555 × $750 = $416,250

• Under 21: 103 × $150 = $15,450

That is approximately 27 times as much spending by the over-30 group. Another way of looking at it - you would need about 2,775 under-21 customers to match the spending of those 555 older customers.

 

Obviously, this was a self-selected survey, not GW's actual customer revenue data, but the spending difference is substantial.

 

i.e., for the under-21 group to even match the over-30 group's spending, younger customers would have to be approximately 27 times more underrepresented in the survey than older customers, assuming similar average spending within each age group.

 

That is definitely possible, but it would require a very large sampling bias.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

5 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

I do not doubt you have backing for saying this, or that teenagers are an important entry market for GW, but I am extremely skeptical that teenagers are GW's main financial supporters insofar as the miniatures side goes. GW themselves says that they sell to teenagers, adults, new customers, and existing customers. Was this GW store guidance or something like that?

 

My own experience is that men in their 20s and 30s are the ones doing the heavy purchasing, while teenagers simply lack the disposable income to match their enthusiasm. And even then, my experience says men in their 40s or later are still buying new collections that would be beyond the wildest dreams of any teenager.

My parents and other family did the heavy purchasing of the product when I was younger.

me/my fiance and my brother have done all of the purchasing in my family. Does that mean the only people in my family with models/armies are 30+? No it means my niece and nephew haven’t been old enough to have enough money to buy anything.

just like when I was a kid I didn’t have enough money to buy much.

 

just because the majority of people making purchases are 20+ doesn’t mean that’s the ending point for the product.

 

 

 

has GW ever said who battle force boxes are actually targeted at?

 

a lot of them seem like bad buys for people who already have 1500 points or more of that faction, but the price tags don’t make them seem like they’d be particularly attractive to fairly new people to the hobby.

 

the only people that I could see viewing them as a good buy are veteran hobbyists looking to expand into a new army, this holiday season, and every year that seems like a small demographic particularly when you factor in the limited number of factions that get boxes.

on top of that, there’s the CP boxes and often other boxes in between BFBs and CPs in terms of cost and content for every faction, so if someone wants to start a new army, there are other options.

 

maybe one option, would be to build a CP+ style box, and include faction specific terrain.

 

so the CP box contents+ one light vehicle, or heavy infantry or something+ faction specific terrain, and price it roughly 10-15% more than the CP.

 

The faction specific terrain then releases the following holiday season as its own kit.

this covers multiple angles.

 

hits FOMO both for the terrain, get it now or wait a year, as well as a decently priced box full of plastic.

 

it’ll be cheap enough a new person might actually be willing to splurge on it.

 

it’s cheaper than the current BFBs, while providing more value than just a CP so veterans starting a new faction have reason to get it.

 

faction specific terrain gives veterans that already collect the faction a motivator to buy it, especially if the core CP and the bonus kit are solid.

 

edit

$200-215 seems reasonable 

Edited October 21 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, phandaal said:

That is approximately 27 times as much spending by the over-30 group. Another way of looking at it - you would need about 2,775 under-21 customers to match the spending of those 555 older customers.

 

Yup.

[Jukkiz]

Speaking of tournament situation, i feel like this picture matches current feelings well... 

Twitter been lovely place with eastern side of hobby, been a pleasure to share love and lore with them. 

[Adeptekon]

17 hours ago, techsoldaten said:

 
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.

One thing you left out are the shops. GW closed some, but they own the globle.

[Adeptekon]

On 10/20/2026 at 7:18 AM, Xenith said:

 

Fixed that for you. Apple and GW have very similar operating models and goals. Both are market leaders. Both are a high end luxury product. Both develop total cult followings with their customers. Both want enough products to lock you in to their buys - iphone, macbook, apple watch, air pods, flash charger; 40k, old world, kill team, GW brushes, GW paints.

 

10 seconds of Abominable Intelligence gave this:

 

And more funnily, this:

 

 

They tried that with Imperialis! 

At least it's not like fine art, had it were you might open a box with nothing in it.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Pocket money product got me. Warhammer heroes box at the target check out line got me.

 

so yeah, individual models at about $15 or less would probably be good for boosting sales numbers.

[Gillyfish]

In terms of boosting sales you want entry games which are cheap enough to get people in, and yet can still be played satisfyingly, but which might form the basis for a future collection. Boxed games like Warhammer Quest work well for that as do games like Warcry (if I am thinking of the right one - I don't play it!).

 

Back in the 90s, Space Crusade drew me in, but it was Epic that I really wanted to play because of the scale of the battles. 40K seemed to small a battle size (at the time it might have been about 5-6 units a side). I then carefully assembled an Epic army over several years using Christmas gifts and pocket money. In modern 40K terms that might be too difficult; the game changes too quickly and the armies are too large to make that feasible (at least, that's my perspective from any army now consisting almost entirely of Legends, many of which will now probably never be assembled).

 

The point is that those smaller scale games can draw people in, but you still need some consistency in the units to allow for retention of collectors like the kid I used to be. From speaking to other people, there often seems to be a point where people remain interested but drift away due to financial and life pressures and then return when those ease and they then tend to be able to afford the more rapid changes. Whether they wish to is another matter. However, they are still unlikely to have sufficient time to paint up fresh armies that frequently (although there are some amazing individuals out there who do just that and there are many impolite names available to describe them... ). The challenge is catering to an array of hobbyists because I can imagine that latter category getting fed up with the constant changes of edition, but perhaps less the balance updates (although I could be wrong).

 

And then there are games like Epic which could do with a rules refresh and hidden gems like Titanicus which could do with some Xenos expansions...

[Antarius]

Regarding the "people drift away at around 18-20ish", I think it does hold true for a lot of their customers.

Anecdotally speaking, pretty much all the people I know in the hobby, myself included, did at least have a "break" for a number of years in their twenties, before returning to spend more money on the hobby than ever before. I'd assume GW are aware of this and that's why they seem to be aiming for both "new and shiny!" as well as "nostalgic!", sometimes even at the same time.

[Griefbringer]

2 hours ago, Gillyfish said:

In terms of boosting sales you want entry games which are cheap enough to get people in, and yet can still be played satisfyingly, but which might form the basis for a future collection.

 

I think an ideal set-up would be multiple levels of games using the same models. So you could start with Kill Team by buying one of the numerous Tau boxes out there, and happily play a number of games with that. And then buy another Tau box for variety, and play with that. Eventually, you might have enough figures to play small games of WH40K, at which point you could start expanding by adding battlesuits, vehicles and other stuff that would have been too big to use in Kill Team, and you will be able to bigger games of WH40K. And a few years later, when the Tau collection has grown to a size that would be impractially large for an ordinary WH40K game, you could try moving to Apocalypse rules (which unfortunately have not been available for a while to my knowledge).

 

On the Epic scaled figures, Jervis Johnson once upon a time had a vision of three games sharing the same model range: air war game, titan bash game and a combined arms game (infantry and vehicles, supported by aircraft and titans). Technically, this situation is possible at the moment, with a trio of games (Aeronautica Imperialis, Adeptus Titanicus, Legions Imperialis), at least as long as you are happy to game the Horus Heresy civil war - though to locate the Aeronautica Imperialis rulebook on GW online store you really need to know whatyou are looking for.

 

 

[appiah4]

On 10/21/2026 at 11:29 AM, Stitch5000 said:

 

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.

 

1. Being debt free is not the same thing as being failproof.  Issues like cash insolvency (not relevant here), high expenses (partly relevant here) and lack of market demand (very relevant here) have in the past toppled companies that are completely debt free.  Actually, if you had any financial sense you would know that being debt free is not a flex - not taking debt when you actually can tap financing that is cheaper than equity is often a sign of poor management (or that you really have nothing to invest in, which again, means your growth prospects are not stellar).  

2. Long term success is not something you measure by how much money they make, or have in the bank; it is a strategic outlook issue that has a lot to do with market dynamics and adaptability.  GW are NOT adapting to market dynamics, they are milking their market to extinction, and are facing the backlash in the stock price.  The issue here is basically GW prioritizing value growth rather than volume growth, which is NOT a long term success strategy.

Edited October 22 by appiah4

[Lathe Biosas]

I've had another TERRIBLE IDEA!

 

Because everyone knows that GW revolves around tournament play they could borrow from MTG and release GT winning Tournament Boxes.

 

Yes, you can now buy the exact Custodes army that Folger Pyles went 7-0 with! 

[Gillyfish]

8 minutes ago, Lathe Biosas said:

I've had another TERRIBLE IDEA!

 

Because everyone knows that GW revolves around tournament play they could borrow from MTG and release GT winning Tournament Boxes.

 

Yes, you can now buy the exact Custodes army that Folger Pyles went 7-0 with! 

 

I will have to ask Brother Tyler to add a vomit emoji to the post reactions. Just for that idea... :D

[Dark Shepherd]

5 hours ago, Griefbringer said:

 

I think an ideal set-up would be multiple levels of games using the same models. So you could start with Kill Team by buying one of the numerous Tau boxes out there, and happily play a number of games with that. And then buy another Tau box for variety, and play with that. Eventually, you might have enough figures to play small games of WH40K, at which point you could start expanding by adding battlesuits, vehicles and other stuff that would have been too big to use in Kill Team, and you will be able to bigger games of WH40K. And a few years later, when the Tau collection has grown to a size that would be impractially large for an ordinary WH40K game, you could try moving to Apocalypse rules (which unfortunately have not been available for a while to my knowledge).

 

On the Epic scaled figures, Jervis Johnson once upon a time had a vision of three games sharing the same model range: air war game, titan bash game and a combined arms game (infantry and vehicles, supported by aircraft and titans). Technically, this situation is possible at the moment, with a trio of games (Aeronautica Imperialis, Adeptus Titanicus, Legions Imperialis), at least as long as you are happy to game the Horus Heresy civil war - though to locate the Aeronautica Imperialis rulebook on GW online store you really need to know whatyou are looking for.

 

 

This is where I think theyre making a mistake with Kill Teams limited lifespan for Teams, if they stuck around its easier to dip in and out, same with a lack of a Spearhead for 40k (game mode of Combat Patrol keeps changing)

 

If youre tooing and froing from school, college, uni, the USS Walter Mondale, travelling with work like me, have limited storage, etc its easier to stay hobby involved for a variety of reasons if you have a small model collection you can transport for a popular game mode

 

Even if people are semi involved thats still some sales but by a larger number

 

Many of my hobbies have already gone down the road of increase profits by leeching more money from a smaller fanbase

[Griefbringer]

Some of the other games have more troubles than Kill Team when it comes to transitioning your model collection from small games to big games.

 

1.) Blood Bowl to my knowledge does not have any (official) big game variant.

 

2.) Necromunda models in principle can find various uses in WH40K games, but the way the gangers are armed it may be difficulty to transfer a whole gang over into a sensible unit.

 

3.) Horus Heresy does not have a skirmish game variant.

 

4.) The Old World does not have a smirmish game variant, though there is a "Battle March" rules variant for smaller battles (with some changes to force building restrictions etc.).