Yup.

Of course absolutely nothing GW has done has contributed to that rapid decline.

At all.

/roll eyes.

TSR's story is something that should be taught at business schools and hammered home to anyone running a "hobby" company. There are all sorts of lessons to be had here. I am not sure GW's experience maps onto TSRs - though both are products of the same era. But I think most hobby companies start from day one on some sort of death spiral. Like a Hollywood production house, they are only as good as their last hit, but with the added complication of really having one key product/brand which generates that "last hit." Imagine if 20th Century Fox only had Star Wars as their driving product/brand?

I am not sure what this will all mean for the Hobbit range. Probably not. I suspect the range has been not-good for GW this time around. Not entire GW's fault - the skip from two to three movies, with the middle movie having a rather mediocre collection of imagery (which can be modelled and sold) could not have helped. The old LOTR merchandising market just fell off a cliff a few months after the ROTK EE came out.

So whatever happens after the Hobbit will likely to be not much. We all fantasise about a final "one rulebook" but that may not happen.

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I for one don't think GW will release anything after their contractual round of 3rd film releases.

I agree. I think at this stage their goal will be to finish their contractual obligations and wash their hands. I would assume that the final film will be met with a slightly bigger selection of releases than we saw for DoS, another "journey book", and that will be all. I would also assume that they'll keep the home fires burning till their licence expires in 2017, and then discontinue the range.

I for one don't care. There are more models floating around on eBay than i could paint in a lifetime, and endless armies I could choose to collect. I think the independent scene is vibrant, and that the community will keep the game alive in the same way that has happened with Bloodbowl, Mordhiem and Necromunda, and even Battlefleet Gothic and Epic to a degree.

Never been a better time to get in to the game.

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Maybe they missed the boat on Game of Thrones, but what about a Star Wars Strategy Battle Game? Episode 7 is coming in 2015.

Dollars to donuts, someone - likely Fantasy Flight Games - has that one already.

Granted, I do see a potential future for the SBG - as a Warhammer fantasy skirmish system. Small warband groups in the Old World. GW tends to default to its core aesthetic - the 1980s 2000AD inspired world, which would make most licenses an uncomfortable fit.

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It would also help save WFB from it's own death spiral it seems to be on. Considering the amount of minis needed to start, and the even more minis needed to be competitive, being able to just buy a single plastic kit, getting a Leader, Standard Bearer and a handful of troops, and being able to play with that, would open up GW to people put off by the current state of WFB. Hell, I might even go back to it if they did that.

Now I'm sad, because it's not going to happen.

Once SBG is dropped though, I think the chances are good that some other enterprising miniatures company is going to laugh Middle Earth all the way to the bank and snap up that license. And who knows, maybe they'll do an even better job with it than GW.

The numbers and the words are deceiving. They are still making more money than 15 years ago. LOTr they admittedly only bought to keep away from Competitors using it against WHF. So any money they made of LOTR is just bank since it was never the plan. As a IP bought just to keep away from competition it has done very well for them. And with it's decline in sales which is GW's own fault, well why should they care, they are still keeping it away from affecting WHF and 40K. They lost money in a time when most companies are struggling and most of the world has been struggling, so many economies are in turmoil. You mix bad economic times with bad price moves and you will see problems.

Kirby regularly talks about how he is not trying to make money for the share holders. This is the best thing he can state. He is working on the Long time stability and profitability of GW and so far GW is still making money and turning cash, even breaking even all the employees got paid right? These statements may scare the investors who want quick cash, and Kirby is right to not think in small terms. They made price hikes that would remain stable for a while (they hope) and when metal prices went down they turned a nice profit on it.

I think the long run they should give up the LOTR and Hobbit, but I don't think anyone will ever do near as complete a job with it. A smart company would focus on models and characters not yet made, and making troops based on art depictions instead of film so they can carve into us for collecting. but that is all a topic for a time after we know what GW will do with it. But they should be focusing on fixing the two core systems to making money again. Buying another LOTR IP like Star Wars or Game of Thrones will only do the same thing as LOTR, it will make initial interest money and then dive hard and fast.

My advice would be to go back to roots of how they get customers. Pocket money. 14-16 year olds are the starters, after that age they already are into what they are into and less likely to change up. So you need more 14-16 year olds, and they have $20 a week average pocket money. So you have to sell models to that price range. They use to have plastic sets of 24 models for $20, they use to have blisters of 3 models for $9. If they could get costs under control and get prices back to this range they will see not only a profit and huge sales leap, they will see new customers that become long time customers when they grow up and get more money on those pockets. Never forget the concept of pocket spending cash... It is how drug dealers make thousands on the streets.

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FFG is the company games workshop /should/ have become, at least in terms of verity of game output and support. They've hugely damaged their customer base in a reductive strategy of minimising their outgoings to the cost of their success.

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No they will give up the license, Kirby thinks the Warhammer IPs fantasy and 40k are all he needs when you license other peoples IPs you have to pay them. He wants people to license the Warhammer IPs but for unknown reasons this hasn't happened.

Aelfwine is saying that the SBG rules (and rules only) might be integrated into the Warhammer Fantasy setting.

I think it would be a smart move, but I can't really see it happening.

He's right- their own IP is all GW needs. What they need more of, is not IP's, but games. If they keep going the way they've been going they'll have to change their name to Game Workshop.

He thinks it's more profitable to sell FFG board game licences, Cyanide and others computer game licences, etc.

The point he misses, in my humble opinion, is that what I loved about GW was that I could play Epic, Fantasy, 40k, Man O'War, Space Hulk, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic... the list goes on.

Now I'm sure they didn't make the decision to drop all of those games because they were hugely profitable- I'm sure the cost of launching new games is considerable, and some of them flop and don't make their money back.
The mistake they've made I think, is assuming that a kid is going to spend the same money in GW no matter what you have on the shelves
Why support 1/5 of the kids playing 40k while another 1/5 like Bloodbowl, and the rest are divided up between fantasy, Necromunda and Mordheim? It'd be much cheaper to cut five games down to two, and force the kids to buy what YOU want them to buy. (that sort of backwards thinking is considered sacrilege in business- always do what the customer wants, not what you want them to want).

Well, I'll tell you why- because you keep ALL the kids interested. They get bored of one game and move on to another. In the current GW model a kid gets bored of 40k, considers fantasy but it's too expensive, and so that's it, he buys a playstation game. Customer gone.

Abundance might be expensive to maintain, but it's the way you keep customers involved in the hobby, because guess what- after they get bored of Bloodbowl they go back to 40k because you just released a shiny codex for an army they've always wanted to collect...

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Thats the opposite to what Kirby says. He's long boasted that miniature wargames, and GW's miniature wargames in particular, are a luxury hobby that survive through recessions, and as such GW is recession proof.

And yet, GW is a shrinking company in a growing market. Miniature wargaming has never been so diverse, popular and growing so strong as it is now. Lots of GW's competitors are seeing explosions in their popularity. Kickstarter is being flooded with new startups.

GW losing money is not due to the recession, its due to mismanagement. Just like TSR.

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He can boast them making money but the numbers don't say that. Like you said, they are reducing support, cutting games, and raising prices at a time when their competition has never been better equipped to challenge them. There are may indie sculptors and companies doing pretty well and making great stuff.
So GW would need to completely switch gears if they want to real back customers. Stop suing people and make a great product they can't top and at a price they can't match. They are big enough that they should have no trouble making everything better, and more affordable than anyone else, or at worst competitive.

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Yes that correct, but they haven't and they won't because Kirby doesn't want to he equates GW customers with drug addicts GW fans will pay whatever he wants them to pay or so he thinks.

I do actually think they are wilfully ignorant of the independent scene as well. Look at how long it took them to come around to the internet, and digital media- I suspect that the board of directors is still living in 2005 and thinks that the small companies are no threat whatsoever, and they only really need to worry about Reaper (inferior quality) Mantic Games (inferior quality) and Privateer Press (a threat they probably take seriously).

For my money, it's the plethora of VERY high quality small scale producers that are sucking GW's market share of "mature" gamers. You know, people adult enough to realise that 40k is a sucky game.

Nobody in the Wargaming scene can rival their plastics except for Wyrd Miniatures, who's game is flawed. Just about everyone rivals their rules quality- Warhammer really hasn't moved on from 1991. So many companies like Infinity, Warlord Games, Privateer Press and many more are making bang up to date, modern and dynamic rules sets which embrace the improvements in game design that have been made over the last 20 and particularly the last 8-10 years.

But nowadays, despite turning over in excess of £60m a year, they can't afford Allesio Salvatore any more, so he designs games for the competition.

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Theres particular posters on here who have never said a good word about GW, why do you collect their models or even post on the forum in the SBG section? It makes no sense at all. When 7th WF came out, I played 1 game and didnt touch it again. I didnt endlessly drone on about it on forums and take it personally! I just got other interests.

I think the issue is they expanded too quickly and thought it would just get bigger, when its still a niche market in reality. Remember, companies going through a recession feel the effects 4/5 years after the crash, and this is what they're coming out of/through. They've made some mistakes, but its unknown territory. If they'd have stayed the same as 10-15 years ago, they'd be buried by now. You need to evolve and hypothetical situations are just that. We can all sit at our keyboard saying they should have done this or that in hindsight.

The pricing is a little skewed though, I completely agree with mertaals point that it prices 'pocket money' people out of the hobby. Personally Im happy to pay £20 for 10 miniatures when theyre as good as mirkwood rangers/dale etc. If it was that much for inferior models, maybe not. Most people dont have the disposable income I do, I understand that.

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There are SBG fans, there are Warhammer fans, there are 40k fans. There aren't really many GW fans, these days. It's not a simple "decision x by gw sucks, so I'll quit", it's more "decision x by gw sucks, but I still love all this stuff they've not buggered up yet, so I'll stick around and complain whenever they do make a mess of something, because god help me, I really like LotR/40k/wfb when they do it well."

Foolish, perhaps, but people who get invested emotionally with something as demanding of it as this hobby will often try to stick with what they like through thick and thin.

I can't drop LotR/Hobbit now, even with all GW's nonesense. It wont be here in a decades time, and I actually like everything about SBG but it's treatment - so I'll work towards making sure that in a decade or two when SBG is a memory, I have a collection of middle earth miniatures that I'm massively proud of, rather than a half collection because I quit over a principle.

But this is starting to sound a bit like beating a dead horse, so I'll leave it there before I get into trouble.

Yes that is true. And yes the current quality of the Hobbit plastics can't be matched by anyone and that I think is the rub. GW is the dominant company in the industry even with its massively plummeting sales so GW could price it's figures the same as Mantic they just choose not to. Before anyone goes crazy GW pays more for better/more complex injections molds than Mantic, mostly likely pays their sculptors more and pays for the license. Ah but they do have the license so they are the only ones who can produce figures for the movie. The combination of Hobbit license, better quality and a network of stores should have guaranteed them boom sales at least during the years the movies are out but GW's actions have screwed up that winning combination. That' why people are angry.