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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2014 10:48 pm 
Elven Warrior
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I'm not sure anyone here is disputing that.

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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:13 pm 
Elven Warrior
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mertaal wrote:
I'm not sure anyone here is disputing that.

Understand that and you'll understand why GW has bungled the Hobbit so badly.
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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:29 am 
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kidterminal wrote:

They could do 2 things with the Hobbit that could save them;
Switch from their high margin approach with the Hobbit to a more modest margin. This is what they did with LOTR. When you and I were buying LOTR back in the day the models were cheaper than Warhammer or 40k models. By going for a smaller profit margin they were able to create the huge LOTR bubble that supported them in the 2000s.

Next they can create a marketing campaign for the Hobbit, taking out adds for it in computer gaming magazines and fantasy film publications, heck even in Wargames Illustrated. Do flyers in Fantasy Flight board games, etc... Remember the movies are all ready generating interest, its up to GW to capitalize on it.

Again they will need capital for ether or both actions.


Agree with this on both counts. GW has pathetic advertising and the high margin approach caused me to quit the hobby entirely, and now become an eBay buyer. I doubt GW will see any of my money in future.

However it's not their fault that the Hobbit has been bungled. Remember it was originally 2 films? So they had 2 films worth of rules and releases. This was then stretched to 3 films, December 2012, 2013 and June 2014. Then the final film got delayed so 1.5-2 years of releases have been stretched to 3 years of releases.
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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:58 pm 
Elven Warrior
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Its true that the Hobbit films have been poorly handled by the studio compared to the LOTR films, but GW could have still experienced a substantial of new customers with the Hobbit franchise.
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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 3:00 pm 
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There's just way less stuff to cover in the Hobbit.

We saw hundreds of troops in the LoTR films ripe for the making - High Elves, Numenoreans, Goblins, Uruk-Hai, Orcs just in Fellowship. In TTT we got the entire nations of Rohan and Gondor, more Elves, as well as expanded Uruk Hai forces and Easterlings. RoTK gave us more Gondor, more Mordor and added Harad to the mix. Those are all giant forces of multiple heroes and troop forces.

In 2 Hobbit films so far we've got new variants of Orcs (we have enough core Orcs from LoTR), Dwarves (also got loads of Dwarves already) and Mirkwood Elves (as if we don't have enough Elves.). Also the forces of Dale and Laketown which are hardly seen.

So yes, whilst there is mismanagement especially in regards to advertising by GW (I didn't know they'd updated SBG to The Hobbit until I looked on the internet) they're also having to spread a small model range over 3 years, having only planned for 2.

So it's tough. But yeah GW make an advertising budget please.
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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 5:17 pm 
Elven Warrior
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GW could have used the Tolkien interest created by the Hobbit films to revitalize the LOTR line instead they all but abandoned it.
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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 5:24 pm 
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People don't have a lot of disposable income to spend on plastic models so it's not entirely GWs fault. They've always been guilty of bad advertising.
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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 5:37 pm 
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kidterminal wrote:
GW could have used the Tolkien interest created by the Hobbit films to revitalize the LOTR line instead they all but abandoned it.


This was a major opportunity missed by Games Workshop.
I was hoping that GW would try to inject some life back into LOTR SBG. It almost seems they were about to too, when they released Warband rules.

They could have released another supplement with just scenarios not in the new source books. That could have reinvigorated the whole line.

For a company specializing in strategy games..., just saying... :?

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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:17 pm 
Elven Warrior
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Rangefinder wrote:
kidterminal wrote:
GW could have used the Tolkien interest created by the Hobbit films to revitalize the LOTR line instead they all but abandoned it.


This was a major opportunity missed by Games Workshop.
I was hoping that GW would try to inject some life back into LOTR SBG. It almost seems they were about to too, when they released Warband rules.

They could have released another supplement with just scenarios not in the new source books. That could have reinvigorated the whole line.

For a company specializing in strategy games..., just saying... :?

Sadly if they don't act by this summer to try to capitalize on the 3rd movie this opportunity will not come again.
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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:44 pm 
Elven Warrior
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Without a doubt they've decided to put reasonably minimal effort in to the SBG. I imagine this reflects another attempt of the management to direct you away from what you want to play, and towards what they want you to play. It probably is a better money spinner for them if every gamer plays 40k. However, the point that's missed there, is that by creating a richer atmosphere in general, you boost sales specifically.

GW stores look barren now. All pre-made scenery, 70% 40k, 20% WFB 5% hobby and 5% SBG. Even if you eventually end up playing 40k, having a whole lot of other things there to peak your interest secures custom. A homogeny of Grimdark Sci Fi (which I have nothing against) just doesn't appeal to everyone first time around.

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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 7:08 pm 
Ringwraith
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kidterminal wrote:
Sadly if they don't act by this summer to try to capitalize on the 3rd movie this opportunity will not come again.


Another company will pick up the rights, they always do

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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 7:24 pm 
Elven Warrior
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Harfoot wrote:
kidterminal wrote:
Sadly if they don't act by this summer to try to capitalize on the 3rd movie this opportunity will not come again.


Another company will pick up the rights, they always do

I'm not talking about the rights, I'm talking about the visibility in popular culture at large.
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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 8:22 pm 
Elven Warrior
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There's an interesting discussion of the GW situation, involving people with investment and business background, over on RPG.net

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?713 ... re-straits (towards the end of the thread, you can read more up to date analysis). A cogent set of remarks can be found here:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?713 ... st17561921

Quote:
GW wants to act like a utility company. Their business strategy makes the assumption that they provide to a small group of hobbyists, but, in any given population, there is a fixed percentage of people who want to spend their time painting little genocidal spacemen. In markets they already exist in, they don't believe that the audience for little plastic spacemen can shrink or grow significantly. Instead, they concentrate on building a moat, consisting of a well defended IP and a distribution network that makes life hard for competitors, to prevent anyone else from getting into the little unpainted plastic spaceman market. "Growth" comes from increasing margins and moving into new geographic areas. (Whether this is a viable mid-term strategy or [word deleted] nuts is a question still in the air.) GW knows that their sales fluctuate, but they believe that it'll all even out in the end. To protect against this, they keep a good-sized cash reserve so they can ride out the bad years. It's not like they have better things to spend the money on, since the demand for their product is fixed.


The thing is, however, the Hobbit has nothing to do with this. It's a sort of separate, but related, issue. It's the GW-method hitting the realities of licensed merchandise (which is what the Hobbit range is). GW was not the only company bidding for the Middle-earth license, back in the day, Wizards of the Coast were in there too, as were other companies. The saga of the LOTR SBG has been about the relationship and friction between New Line's licensing-merch department and GW and GW's particular ways. It was a gamble to bring in another market into their "utility" model. It's just that the water source (so to speak) wasn't entirely reliable or to their liking. Further, the customer base were not the sort of customer base GW normally goes after. Point being, though, that "we" Tolkien/film fans were an opportunity for them, not vice versa. The result has not been entirely comfortable. Their attitude has always sort of seemed to be: we have given you your precious merchandise! Now play ball with our way of doing things.

Whatever befalls GW in the next year probably will have little enough to do with the Hobbit. The core decisions will be made around WHFB (40k seems stable) and the Hobbit model will likely follow WHFB decisions. If WHFB starts getting cheaper starter kits, the Hobbit will do much the same (in the hope that they can replace in volume sales what they lose in elite sales). Whatever decisions made about finecast, pricing and so on will have nothing to do with us, but rather with core factors such as WHFB. The Hobbit is probably a stable, low volume collector base right now. The centre of gravity of Middle-earth merchandise has gone somewhere else, by now, to Lego, most likely. Merch companies will also be keenly aware of the half-life of Middle-earth as a commercial entity. Gollum exists in pop culture now, but no one is queing up to boy gollum dolls. As I tend to mention (a lot), I remember walking by the GW in Berlin, passing a crowd of Berlin hipsters ogling the Helm's Deep display. That's a once off phenomenon that's not going to happen again.

I don't honestly know what's going to happen with the line. It will likely carry on till about 2016, and then take a final bow. The SBG system may very likely be repurposed for some sort of Warhammer property. The miniatures will become collector's items. Not a bad end to an impressive range. Eventually someone else will make another miniatures game, but that will involve an entirely different license and business model.

In the meantime, a bit more actual line support and less price rises couldn't hurt.

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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 11:17 pm 
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In my opinion, GW need to hit the reset button and go back to how it was in 2001. Everything seemed healthy then, Hobby stores were booming, the LoTR bubble hadn't burst, and in general stuff was positive.

1. Bring the "hobby" back into "The hobby". Before I picked up even a single model I spent hours on GW website as a 11 year old boy. I was awed by the terrain articles for Weathertop, the Mines of Moria, Lothlorien and Amon Hen. It was so inspiring and cool. I made my first terrain board painting grass, roads and rivers onto a bit of wood before I even got my first models and was making loads of trees and stuff, even a little clay well. Then I saw the Helm's Deep board they had made. Wow. They need to bring stuff like this back. The Hobbit has tons of great locations, the Carrock, Goblin Town, the cliff where the fiery trees are etc. Erebor but none of this has been utilised. This would be interest in the hobby from young kids like me back in the day. Same for 40K and WHFB. Bring back the guides to the site and WD and inspire people rather than selling soulless boring terrain.

2. Commission 3 DeAgonstini magazines. One for each system. That'll serve to get the install base up. Start with Space Marines for 40K. Last Alliance for LoTR. Tell the entire story to get people interested. £5 for a biweekly issue should suffice. £10 a month isn't bad. Get rid of their Finecast stock too maybe. People will get led into the Hobby from subsidised magazines like this.

3. Freebies with WD too. Bring back better articles too.

4. Advertise. Advertise in "geek and nerd" magazines, film magazines, TV adverts during Sci-Fi shows on TV. Keep an active FB and Twitter feed. Youtube channel. Utilise the internet. At the moment I feel like GW is run by a bunch of politically correct Grannies who got some nasty spam email once so decided never to use a computer again.

5. Plastic command sprue in with the plastic warriors sprue so you feel like you're getting more for your money.

That's just my 4 points.
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 Post subject: Re: GW share prices down 24%
PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 2:02 am 
Elven Warrior
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LOTR/Hobbit is not part of GW's My IP rules management strategy which makes their choice to pay so much for it baffling in light of their refusal to make use of the franchise.
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