How do GW improve sales?

[techsoldaten]

7 hours ago, appiah4 said:

 

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.

I realize the drop is share price is concerning, but the sky is not falling. 

This is recognizably a short seller play. People are depressing the stock to buy in at a lower price. Dragoneye is one of the UK's many versions of Egan Jones.

The quoted text puts forth a thesis about markets and long term trajectory leading to a terminal state for poor GW. Remarkable for it's certainty about market dynamics, future events as well as the claims made about the uselessness of cash on hand and a clean balance sheet for a public company.

Just wanted to call that post out. Not sure if appiah4 is being serious or not, but it is funny.

Edited Thursday at 08:27 PM by techsoldaten

[Dark Shepherd]

accidentally theyve built up hype for a future Necromunda Roleplay release :)

[techsoldaten]

6 minutes ago, Dark Shepherd said:

accidentally theyve built up hype for a future Necromunda Roleplay release :)

Yeah, I suddenly feel this irresistible urge for Necromunda Roleplay. They better adapt to those changing market conditions and long term trends. 

[Lord Marshal]

On 10/22/2026 at 6:33 PM, techsoldaten said:

I realize the drop is share price is concerning, but the sky is not falling. 

This is recognizably a short seller play. People are depressing the stock to buy in at a lower price. Dragoneye is one of the UK's many versions of Egan Jones.

The quoted text puts forth a thesis about markets and long term trajectory leading to a terminal state for poor GW. Remarkable for it's certainty about market dynamics, future events as well as the claims made about the uselessness of cash on hand and a clean balance sheet for a public company.

Just wanted to call that post out. Not sure if appiah4 is being serious or not, but it is funny.

 

The demand for GW failing vastly outstrips supply. 

[Evil Eye]

2 hours ago, Lord Marshal said:

 

The demand for GW failing vastly outstrips supply. 

As funny as that is (and believe me, it is funny, hence the react!) I think it says something a little depressing about the world that companies like (but by no means limited to) GW can gain as much ire from their own multitudinous former customers as they do and yet still be successful enough that they have zero incentive to actually treat their consumer base better.

[Adeptekon]

25 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

As funny as that is (and believe me, it is funny, hence the react!) I think it says something a little depressing about the world that companies like (but by no means limited to) GW can gain as much ire from their own multitudinous former customers as they do and yet still be successful enough that they have zero incentive to actually treat their consumer base better.

it's their captive market.

[Griefbringer]

4 hours ago, Dark Shepherd said:

accidentally theyve built up hype for a future Necromunda Roleplay release :)

 

I am wondering if the Cubicle 7 crew might decide to catch the idea now that GW has shown (and dropped) it. Though they might be busy enough with other products that they are working on.

 

To me, it certainly sounds a lot easier to work out an interesting role-playing game set in the Necromundan underhive than in the 30K (Great Crusade / Horus Heresy) environment. Something about the very human level of depiction in the existing material would make it easy to identify with Necromundan characters, and they do not need to have any epically grand plot lines for a campaign - in the Underhive, just managing to survive in the never ending low level conflict, plotting and the odd plague zombie outbreak is a good starting point. Even better if you are left with some cash to get a meal of barbequed rats and slime cobs plus a bottle of Wildsnake (or at least Second Best).

Edited Sunday at 03:40 PM by Griefbringer

[Adeptekon]

29 minutes ago, Griefbringer said:

 

I am wondering if the Cubicle 7 crew might decide to catch the idea now that GW has shown (and dropped) it. Though they might be busy enough with other products that they are working on.

 

To me, it certainly sounds a lot easier to work out an interesting role-playing game set in the Necromundan underhive than in the 30K (Great Crusade / Horus Heresy) environment. Something about the very human level of depiction in the existing material would make it easy to identify with Necromundan characters, and they do not need to have any epically grand plot lines for a campaign - in the Underhive, just managing to survive in the never ending low level conflict, plotting and the odd plague zombie outbreak is a good starting point. Even better if you are left with some cash to get a meal of barbequed rats and slime cobs plus a bottle of Wildsnake (or at least Second Best).

We have the answer the *other* AOS, wait no. Let's not ruin that beauty of a sandbox.

[Gamiel]

17 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

As funny as that is (and believe me, it is funny, hence the react!) I think it says something a little depressing about the world that companies like (but by no means limited to) GW can gain as much ire from their own multitudinous former customers as they do and yet still be successful enough that they have zero incentive to actually treat their consumer base better.

I think it can also say something about fandoms, since at least some people in them seems to only be there to complain or troll others. And/or have som idolised version of how it was back when.

 

Just yesterday on Facebook I saw a guy that complain about that GW don't allow/show kitbashes nowadays and when I said that i guessed that he did not read White Dwarf since they often show kitbashes there and he answered by saying  that I was right since he did not read "trash". And he is just an example of a group within our fandom that I have noticed that complain that GW don't do this or that when GW have done it, and it's complainers that have just not taken it in or been uninterested to actually look around to see if it is there. 

[techsoldaten]

4 hours ago, Gamiel said:

I think it can also say something about fandoms, since at least some people in them seems to only be there to complain or troll others. And/or have som idolised version of how it was back when.

 

Just yesterday on Facebook I saw a guy that complain about that GW don't allow/show kitbashes nowadays and when I said that i guessed that he did not read White Dwarf since they often show kitbashes there and he answered by saying  that I was right since he did not read "trash". And he is just an example of a group within our fandom that I have noticed that complain that GW don't do this or that when GW have done it, and it's complainers that have just not taken it in or been uninterested to actually look around to see if it is there. 

It's just the times. 

"Fans" don't seem to have an accurate understanding of finance or how markets work. Most of the criticism on this front relates to top line market share numbers / share price, no analysis of the fundamentals or recognition of external factors that explain a price drop. There's a tendency to blow things out of proportion that seems to be driven by a need for clicks. Would not be surprised to learn a supply side seller pays influencers to incorporate content into their videos.

OTOH, White Dwarf is not what it used to be. Not easy to read unless you buy a copy, does read like an extended advertisement for GW. Not surprised to learn people are generally unaware of what's going on in there. This direction began with Warhammer Visions, not long before they stopped publishing annual catalogs. 

It's kind of hard to sort between real content / marketing / some influencer's hyperbolic take. I don't hold it against anyone who's just repeating something they heard online, because the information we get is mostly not there to inform and does present a confusing picture. 

[Griefbringer]

23 minutes ago, techsoldaten said:

There's a tendency to blow things out of proportion that seems to be driven by a need for clicks.

 

The present online environment certainly tends to get criticised for "attention economy", where the media actors putting out the most outrageous claims can find themselves rewarded with audience, instead of those who try to represent an accurate picture.

 

That said, outrageous headlines in tabloid press were a known phenomena well before in Tim Berners-Lee came up with his World Wide Web -concept in the early 1990's.

[darkhorse0607]

I have a new, revolutionary idea of how to generate consumer excitement.

 

For your yearly big branded celebratory day, only let them have the opportunity to get a mousepad for an exorbitant amount of money

 

Don't do anything else in stores to generate interest in coming in and buying product

 

Don't have a big celebratory reveal show/thing at Warhammer World like they used to

 

Just

 

Mousepad

 

I swear, for a company that just had a downturn (even if it's short lived) and now is focused on climbing the ladder as a corporation they put in the absolute least amount of effort sometimes to generate excitement in the consumer base for their products. 

[phandaal]

1 hour ago, techsoldaten said:

Would not be surprised to learn a supply side seller pays influencers to incorporate content into their videos.

 

What would be the causal chain from short sellers paying hobby influencers to criticize GW?

 

Presumably the objective would be to drive down GW's share price enough to profit from a short position. But how would criticism from Warhammer influencers translate into enough selling activity among investors to materially affect the share price?

 

The timeframe is important. Put options have expiration dates, and even conventional short positions have ongoing costs and risks. Hobby criticism might eventually influence purchasing behavior, but that seems like a very indirect and unpredictable way to produce a sufficiently large stock price movement within a useful trading window.

 

I can understand how negative financial research directed at investors might accomplish that, but am I missing something here?

[Evil Eye]

I've said it before but if GW embraced in-house 3D printing (not STL sales before anyone asks- still selling physical models but printing them rather than casting them) as a means of selling more niche/risky products that would absolutely sell, but not enough to justify a steel mould, I think that would be a winner. Being produced to order with no actual mould production being necessary would drastically lower costs (no warehouse space or moulds to make and maintain), enable far superior QC than cast resin (once the model is properly supported, they can produce as many as they want with no mould degradation or risk of miscast) and even if they charged sensible prices, the actual production cost would be so microscopic they could absolutely rake in profit. As a successor to the Forge World glory days it'd be ideal; obscure vehicles, character models, detail upgrade kits, new options etc. Call it Warhammer STC or something.

[techsoldaten]

2 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

What would be the causal chain from short sellers paying hobby influencers to criticize GW?

 

Presumably the objective would be to drive down GW's share price enough to profit from a short position. But how would criticism from Warhammer influencers translate into enough selling activity among investors to materially affect the share price?

 

The timeframe is important. Put options have expiration dates, and even conventional short positions have ongoing costs and risks. Hobby criticism might eventually influence purchasing behavior, but that seems like a very indirect and unpredictable way to produce a sufficiently large stock price movement within a useful trading window.

 

I can understand how negative financial research directed at investors might accomplish that, but am I missing something here?

There's enough research around influencer marketing with financial products to make a case for why someone might want to do it.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504851.2025.2546061?src=
 

This paper documents an average swing of ~8% within a DAY (increasing over 5) for stocks promoted by financial influencers from 2022 - 2024. It's one of the ones I like to point at when people say social media doesn't matter to Wall Street, it does and it's influence seems to get more insipid by the year. SEC enforcement has been increasing around securities fraud, market manipulation, and unauthorized financial promotion related to social media promotions. You can look at the cases against Kim Kardashian, Zack Morris, PJ Matlock and others to get an appreciation for how bad things can get.

Reported aggregate short positions reached 1.23% of total shares on October 6. While I don't know the target price, I'm sure there was consensus on how much it was overvalued at 10 - 20% mostly because the dip is in that range and short sellers like round numbers. 

AFAIK GWPLC is one of the best performing LSE stocks and questions about it's trajectory would be challenging for an analyst to push against since the fundamentals are so unorthodox. Analysts can and do look at social media to inform their opinions, and if the most popular content happens to be a YouTube video from someone who otherwise just focuses on painting...

... that might represent a casual chain if not an outright incentive to whisper in someone's ear while offering to sponsor a video or two.

This is all speculation and I have no specific knowledge of anyone actually engaging in such behavior. All I am saying is the incentives line up and enough short positions exist to represent a windfall for funds motivated to pursue it. The documented effect of social influencer marketing on a stock is real and this is a strategy one could pursue.

[Griefbringer]

13 minutes ago, techsoldaten said:

This paper documents an average swing of ~8% within a DAY (increasing over 5) for stocks promoted by financial influencers from 2022 - 2024. It's one of the ones I like to point at when people say social media doesn't matter to Wall Street, it does and it's influence seems to get more insipid by the year. SEC enforcement has been increasing around securities fraud, market manipulation, and unauthorized financial promotion related to social media promotions.

 

Regarding short term share price manipulation by (social) media attention, I would like to add that:

 

1.) It is easier to pump the demand and price up due to wider target audience (anybody technically able to purchase the stock), than to reduce it. The later requires that you manage to i.) reach people who would have otherwise purchased the stock and convince them not to buy (or to reduce their bids) AND/OR ii.) reach people who actually own the stock and convince them to sell their stock at reduced price (before the prices drop further).

 

2.) The smaller the company and the lower the normal the trading volumes, the larger the impact of a sudden increase in demand on the price.

[techsoldaten]

17 minutes ago, Griefbringer said:

 

Regarding short term share price manipulation by (social) media attention, I would like to add that:

 

1.) It is easier to pump the demand and price up due to wider target audience (anybody technically able to purchase the stock), than to reduce it. The later requires that you manage to i.) reach people who would have otherwise purchased the stock and convince them not to buy (or to reduce their bids) AND/OR ii.) reach people who actually own the stock and convince them to sell their stock at reduced price (before the prices drop further).

 

2.) The smaller the company and the lower the normal the trading volumes, the larger the impact of a sudden increase in demand on the price.

Perhaps that's true, or at least was at some point. 

You may want to read https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2782/ for details on how negative price pressure has been accomplished through social media. You may wish to consider some of the literature around how negative social media tone correlates with reduced stock prices, You may wish to consider some of the SEC actions against Lemelson Capital Management and Citron for amplifying reports on social media that were misleading if not outright lying.

I posit there's an incentive to apply constant negative price pressure against targets anytime a short position is taken, based on the ubiquity of social media and the fact the cost to launch a campaign is vanishingly small compared to maintenance fees on a short. A $100M fine against a $500M gain is manageable, but an astute investor would still seek meaningful ways of disguising their actions as normal commentary instead of the crass efforts detailed above. Non-attribution is one of the keys to avoiding scrutiny, that can come through anonymous accounts or by having influencers do the work for you.

But this is probably not the right place to discuss the particulars of how to deflate stock prices. 

[Lathe Biosas]

My brain hurts.

[Gamiel]

9 hours ago, techsoldaten said:

OTOH, White Dwarf is not what it used to be. Not easy to read unless you buy a copy, does read like an extended advertisement for GW. Not surprised to learn people are generally unaware of what's going on in there. This direction began with Warhammer Visions, not long before they stopped publishing annual catalogs. 

"Not easy to read unless you buy a copy,"? Is not that the normal way to get your hands on one to read it?

 

Also, when was the last time you read WD? Because it has since the time it stoped having other stuff than GW's in it constantly been an extended advertisement, one way or another. And personally did i found it most boring in the year/s before Warhammer Visions. Nowadays it has presentations of warzones, new rules, new games, different realms, different planet types, painting and modelling tips, showings of people's forces, stories with the chapters spread over issues, many of the battle reports really tells us a narrative with miniatures given nams  like "Castellan D'Auillam" instead of just "Cadian Castellan", etc.

 

 

 

[techsoldaten]

5 minutes ago, Gamiel said:

"Not easy to read unless you buy a copy,"? Is not that the normal way to get your hands on one to read it?

 

Also, when was the last time you read WD? Because it has since the time it stoped having other stuff than GW's in it constantly been an extended advertisement, one way or another. And personally did i found it most boring in the year/s before Warhammer Visions. Nowadays it has presentations of warzones, new rules, new games, different realms, different planet types, painting and modelling tips, showings of people's forces, stories with the chapters spread over issues, many of the battle reports really tells us a narrative with miniatures given nams  like "Castellan D'Auillam" instead of just "Cadian Castellan", etc.

I used to purchase it at a hobby store off a rack, then subscribed until they switched my subscription to Warhammer Visions. Can't find it in any of my FLGSes and am not subscribing. Last time I did see it on a rack, each issue was shrink wrapped.

Good to hear they're returning to form, it's just not a priority for me these days.
 

[Adeptekon]

Is this why Valrak warms up so quickly after he goes cold?

[kabaakaba]

was in flgs last weekend with a kid. His pocket money is $40 a month. While I was talking on the phone, the manager looked sourly at the child walking along the shelves. When I approached the seller, he immediately perked up, and after my "death to the corpse on the throne" he was completely enthusiastic and found some kind of discount that he could give me. In general, the attitude towards adult buyers is clearly different.  In the end, after doing the math, my son decided he didn't want a Warhammer and took a 1/32 Spitfire and few characters for DnD. because "there's no point in just one unit, and here's a full-fledged large model and heroes I could play tomorrow". and I took a few boxes of TOW for myself.

I then asked the child again why he didn’t take 40k or AoS, and he said that he simply doesn't have the patience to buy one box every 1-2 months to build an army. It would take too much time. and there are other things he would like to spend money on.  

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

20 hours ago, Gamiel said:

I think it can also say something about fandoms, since at least some people in them seems to only be there to complain or troll others. And/or have som idolised version of how it was back when.

 

Just yesterday on Facebook I saw a guy that complain about that GW don't allow/show kitbashes nowadays and when I said that i guessed that he did not read White Dwarf since they often show kitbashes there and he answered by saying  that I was right since he did not read "trash". And he is just an example of a group within our fandom that I have noticed that complain that GW don't do this or that when GW have done it, and it's complainers that have just not taken it in or been uninterested to actually look around to see if it is there. 

Why relegate kitbashes to a niche magazine instead of highlighting them in a hobby section of the codex or rule book like they used to?

 

 

5 hours ago, techsoldaten said:

I used to purchase it at a hobby store off a rack, then subscribed until they switched my subscription to Warhammer Visions. Can't find it in any of my FLGSes and am not subscribing. Last time I did see it on a rack, each issue was shrink wrapped.

Good to hear they're returning to form, it's just not a priority for me these days.
 

If you’re in CT there’s a store that has it on the rack.

 

of course the wrapped in plastic, they don’t want you reading it for free in the store 

 

2 hours ago, kabaakaba said:

was in flgs last weekend with a kid. His pocket money is $40 a month. While I was talking on the phone, the manager looked sourly at the child walking along the shelves. When I approached the seller, he immediately perked up, and after my "death to the corpse on the throne" he was completely enthusiastic and found some kind of discount that he could give me. In general, the attitude towards adult buyers is clearly different.  In the end, after doing the math, my son decided he didn't want a Warhammer and took a 1/32 Spitfire and few characters for DnD. because "there's no point in just one unit, and here's a full-fledged large model and heroes I could play tomorrow". and I took a few boxes of TOW for myself.

I then asked the child again why he didn’t take 40k or AoS, and he said that he simply doesn't have the patience to buy one box every 1-2 months to build an army. It would take too much time. and there are other things he would like to spend money on.  

Bruh, a unit every 1-2 months? Man I was lucky to get 3 units a year.

 

1 for Christmas 

1 for birthday

1 because i saved up nickels and dimes.(maybe not even a unit but just a blister pack )

 

kids really don’t have any patience or attention span these days 

Edited 3 hours ago by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[kabaakaba]

4 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

kids really don’t have any patience or attention span these days 

well, they've many other things to do and where put their(our) money, and lets be honest, GW prices skyrocketed but many other nerdy hobbies ain't. my scale model pail of shame waaay bigger then any of GW ranges. spitfire was $7 and now it's $10. blister hero $7 earlier and not it's $40.