TinBane here, first up the caveat – I’m not an accountant. However I am someone involved in management of a medium sized business, who has a pretty good eye for numbers.
The general news on the announcement of GW’s 2014 sales figures among the community seems to have been that it’s further news of GW’s continued failure. Declarations of the death of GW have existed since the late 80s, when GW “turned it’s back” on it’s existing core customers, to pursue younger markets. Despite that, it’s been (on the whole) making profit since then.
A little context is in order. In the 00’s, GW pushed a lot of product. The number of people playing 40k, Fantasy, and LOTR was increasing, and sales were up. Which was great, until GW ran the numbers, and found they were actually losing money. They were selling hundreds of millions of pounds of product but much of it was sold through the new cut-price online only stores, not to mention the number of new plastic kits being set up, and licensing fees to use the LOTR intellectual property.
This marks a turning point in GW’s history, where a lot of old faces leave the company, and a lot of great ideas fall by the wayside. I’m not telling you this to lament the loss, but when I tell you that from 2000 to 2007 both 40k and fantasy had world wide campaigns every 18 months, and that GW themselves had event managers running 40k tournaments across the globe you can see the difference. The shock of doing so well, and being so successful, and yet still losing money would have given GW a new focus on making sure that they maintain profitability. And this set in motion a lot of the changes that we’ve been seeing (and a lot of the focus of the company).
So, when you see so many numbers going down, why in GW’s annual report (link: http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/GW-2014-annual-report.pdf) is the departing interim CEO, Tom Kirby, so upbeat? Is it an attempt to save face? The band playing as the ship sinks? Evidence of a new outbreak of mad cow’s disease in the UK? Or is he actually achieving what he’s set out to achieve?
Tom knew that GW wasn’t going to grow this year, in fact, they haven’t focused on growth. Now that may seem a bit backwards, but if a company is making profit, it is a REALLY good idea to use that time to get your house in order, before you pursue growth. Growth, while massively important for business, is actually a risk. More precisely, it brings with it risks, and the losses in the 00s, are a good example of that. GW’s total revenue increased dramatically and yet their profitability dropped, because the rapid growth (from a burst in 40k adoption, plus LOTR’s success) meant that the company focused on acquiring customers and closing sales, without examining how much it cost to make those sales.
It’s the old joke of having a loss leader, and making up for it in volume.
During the 00s, GW set up headquarters all over the globe. They put on staff and resources across the globe to fuel what they hoped would be their meteoric and profitable growth. We are all familiar with the drop down to single man stores, the loss of local headquarters, the removal of games days. And while we might lament these changes, they might not be as crazy as the internet seems to think. Had GW continued on their course uncorrected, they might have gone the way of Borders: everything seemingly fine and business as usual until all of a sudden they can’t keep up the pretense.
In 2009 (after they recovered from the losses they were making earlier that decade) they had operating profit of 8.9M on 125.7M of gross revenue, which represents a proportion of 7%. When we go and look at more recent figures we see that in 2012 the equivalent measure was 14.5%, 2013 was 15.8%, and this years figure seems to be 9.95%. Wow, so Tom did a really bad job, right? At this rate, GW’s going to be losing money in two years! Steady, Tiger! I’ve just pulled some numbers from high level reports with no context, and context is KEY here.
GW’s actual figures for 2014 were at least 16.8%! Because among their costs were 4.5M pounds to cull middle management, and 4M invested in their website upgrade. That’s a lot of money, to spend firing people! But it can seriously pay off, typically you can recoup those savings (if you don’t have to rehire more middle managers later) in a couple of years. This means that all things considered, if GW have a flat trajectory, they’ll be more profitable (than the 16.8% figure!) next year.
That does actually put GW in a pretty good position. However there is room for concern on several fronts still, from Tom’s comments it appears that the existing executive of GW has failed to grasp one key point: GW doesn’t sell miniatures. Sure, they say they do. Sure, they make their money by selling models (and to a lesser extent books), but as anyone who’s taken up a new game system knows, most people buy into the whole package. Even collectors buy into the community of collectors and painters, but for gamers there is an even bigger impetus here. Without a community playing the game, would you still play 40k, and would you still spend your current spend on it?
GW’s total revenue dropped this year, we don’t have solid figures on where it dropped most, but if I had to pick I’d say that they key contributors is the reduction in service of GW stores and loss of players. Products like the Imperial Knight have been really successful, and the 6th ed release of some popular factions have anecdotally stimulated sales. However we didn’t see growth in response. Now that doesn’t mean a proportional loss, if the proportion of people buying through GW’s stores has dropped.
I’d also suggest that GW’s website upgrade was an expensive waste. The new website needs to stimulate > 20M pounds of sales, or 4 million pounds in internal savings when compared to the existing website to pay off just this lump sum investment. With their gross revenue around 120M including global third party sales, and their massive number of stores, that’s a huge uplift. Reintroducing some strong incentives to buy from GW would have more impact, than whether the site works nicely on mobile.
So did Tom succeed?
Absolutely, all things considered GW is getting better returns on their sales, however if the changes to gross revenue continue it will begin to put GW in a precipitous position. It does however set up Tom Kirby’s replacement to be in a good position to drive growth. It might sound crazy, but improving the profitability could pave the way for a reduction in prices. More likely this would take the form of more aggressive discounts on big boxed sets, and better incentives to buy from the GW site such as limited edition models available only to loyalty members through some kind of points redemption system.
If GW can turn the corner at this point they can grow the hobby, which means more customers and better products. The risk is that the new executive continues to focus on profitability above everything else, and continues to secure bigger and bigger slices of a diminishing pie. If they focus on growth, attracting people to the hobby, and making it a fantastic experience (while keeping a sideways eye on profitability, of course) then maybe we are in for a second (third?) golden age of GW.
Wow! This was a great article! Thanks for the actual facts and real-world analysis.
I agree good article with decent insight. Thanks!
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Slow down there partner. The interwebz says the company is going under and about to close. They would know because they have no clue what P&L or KOI mean.
Trust me sir. I’ve been over to dakka and all the CEO’s that go there tell me things are so bad that GW is going burn the place down and collect the insurance money. It’s the only way!!
Ignore the fact that GW has posted profit the last three annual reports and has little debt to speak of. Going under I tell you sirs!!
Yeah, I’m just amazed at how many CEOs of global companies post on Dakka and have time to offer their considerable insight. Truly, we are blessed by their knowledge.
Thanks for writing this TinBane! Very clear and analytical without being overly dramatic or heavy-handed. Its easy for someone to skim the report and see the numbers getting lower and think the worst. Like you’ve shown, the context is the most important part (haha…probably true in everything).
Great read. Seriously, a lot of good info there. I do hope the next Suit that comes along focus’ on growth. Your suggestions are a great “business” approach to growing dollars and customers but I think what GW really needs to do is become approachable themselves. In the first “golden age” GW was very passionate about their product and how we all were going to play with it. Nowadays it seems as if they don’t want to associate with the groups of people who are actually championing their product but want some guidance and support along the way for it.
Frequent FaQs and a Suggested Tournament rules pack would go a long way towards maintaining the interest and following of the people buying and playing with their “miniatures”.
An excellent more reasoned analysis then the others I have read from people with an axe to grind.
What GW is doing right:
-They have mastered being able to push out new releases at a relentless rate. There is no need to increase the pace. If anything these should slow down and analyze what releases worked. Instead they are just throwing things against the wall.
What GW is doing wrong:
-Almost every time Tom Kirby opens his mouth he becomes a laughing stock. He is a disaster on the PR front. Get rid of him and start fresh.
-There was no reason to close Facebook Digital Editions. It was generating good will, but that is gone.
-There is no forum or area for GW to directly engage the community online. So the community is fragmented and resentful. They flock to Dakka where they start a hate party. This is GW’s fault. It is better to have Community Managers that can deal with this negatively directly. Compare Blizzard’s community engagement with that of GW.
-People are buying their limited releases almost immediately on their website. It shows the demand is there. However, if they have increased production these would not have to be so limited. Lots of people want the product, but they can’t or won’t deliver. These are lost potential sales.
-Lack of market research. If they did more market research they could expand their customer base. Do a focus group on female players for example. Who are they and what armies do they play? How can we increase this group? Should we do a brand new full plastic release of Sisters of Battle or some other new female themed army? Should we release female space marine models? There are areas for growth, but they are not even exploring them.
-The entry point into the hobby is too high. Do market research on new players and potential new players. Why are they playing Warmachine, X-wing, or some other game instead of 40k?
-Additionally, why are veteran players leaving GW for other games? If they are willfully ignorant they will lose potential customers and fail to keep the ones they have.
This is great stuff and brings a little hope to the hobby. One thing I felt was more terrifying than any sales figure though were the words that came out of GW rep mouths when they were interviewed about what they think the market wants. They consistantly point in the opposite direction of the consumer and refuse to listen to or really acknowledge what small buisness owners are telling them about what people are interested in. The 7th Edition rule book set is a perfect example. A conference held by GW about the release of 7th Edition had everyone asking the same thing, why arent these books seperate? GW’s response was “this is what people want”. Every single hobby store I have visted with the exception of 1 in my city has marked 7th Edition down to $65 because no body wants to buy it. I live in a big city, this years head count was 787,033 sheeple. Lets say a quarter of a percent of people play 40k. Thats 1,967 people who have already shown to be willing to spend hundreds on your product but are unwilling to buy your must have book because they feel it’s a marketing scam. And they wouldn’t be far off. It doesn’t stop there though, formations are a rip as well. Look at the Dark Eldar one. You could buy that or 3 Battle Forces, but you would come out with 30 more Wyches and everything the formation offers with the Battle Force route. Point is GW might pull out of this low point OK, but they are losing people to their own business practices by not listening, and taking steps to make this hobby more personal and consistent. Lets face it, nobody plays these games because they are awesome to play at home by yourself. We play because of the people we meet doing it, forging the narrative and causing mayhem. GW did a good job with 7th Ed rules themselves, the game is fun and geared towards the players. If we can just get the marketing team on board instead of shoveling these B.S. Bundle deals that end up costing more money than deserved at us that would be great. I love this hobby but if it doesn’t know what people want how can it possibly stay alive? I think GW is starting to be influenced by new people on the inside who know what we want and I hope the trend continues.
Well written article. Very insightful and written with actual business understanding.
This article is overly optimistic. There are some that are overly pessimistic and this does the opposite. To ignore GW’s serious problems is disingenuous. It’s not too late for GW to pull out of its downward spiral, but I think it would take a new CEO with a clear vision and not one that is mired in GW’s well know “Yes Man” corporate attitude. They’re hemorrhaging customers and they don’t even know why because they don’t do any market research. If you don’t understand a problem, you can’t fix it.
Also, many of the veterans are leaving GW for other games. GW only gets advertising from word of mouth. If that word of mouth turns against GW because of their off-putting business practices, then the only advertising they get is negative.
I’m glad you feel that way. Given the overwhelming negative bias, which completely ignores some of the positives which most articles take, I would much rather err on the side of optimism.
I agree, and I don’t intend to gloss over their issues. GW’s been characterised by a weird, seemingly out of touch management, who refuse to look into what their customers actually want. This has opened up a huge area, which is filling with competitors in the “cool models made by companies that listen to customers” niche. 😛
Historically, GW’s made an effort to recruit internally. They are seemingly looking to bring someone else into the top role. I’m optimistic, that this means that GW will begin to act in a way that matches a more rational company, rather than GW’s past actions. We’ll have to see.
Personally, I think they are haemorrhaging customers, but selectively. Australia (where I’m from) is pretty bad in that regard, but then we got the one man stores before everyone else, we got the price rises before everyone else, and we have basically zero prize support. Most of GW’s efforts in Australia, have been attempting (and failing) to curb purchasing from other zones.
I’m from Oz too, and I agree. I buy most of my hobby product online from overseas. Store sticker price is too high.
I can get stuff delivered to my door usually at a 30-40% discount. Means I can stretch my hobby budget further. I buy more items but spend the same.
In fairness to GW though it’s the same with other systems too. I can get all my Star Wars minis online at a 25%+ discount and free shipping.
So, how do they change that? I don’t know. Maybe free shipping from the online store? More web exclusives as mentioned, maybe bundle model with dataslate rules?
Re new players, most hobby stores in my city that have gaming tables are dominated by Magic cards. There is little to no interest in 40k. For a start you need much bigger tables for 40k. So it’s harder to see the game being played and getting enticed in to try it.
I was very hopeful last year on the rumours of a 40k skirmish game, particularly with the persistence of the Blanchitsu articles in WD. Maybe that would be a cheaper way for new players to enter the 40k gaming system?
Spin it however you want. Top line revenue was down while more product, with higher prices, was pushed to the market.
Top Line Sales down 8.2%
Op Profit down 42.3% / 21.1% if you buy into the special exceptions
Op Margin down 5.8% / 2.2%
2013 to 2014 saw Space Marines, Tau, Tyranids, Dwarfs, IG, 7th edition, new more expensive WD, data slates and a lot of other new product which should appeal to a broader range of players. Yet GW saw a retraction in sales of 8%. While Kirby may not have focused on growth, he sure didn’t want to shrink, which is what he did. They are also not getting better return on sales because even their adjusted op margin is down 2.2% over last year, meaning they are making less margin per sale, pointing to high fixed costs.
Lastly, GW is going to have a hard time growing their business when they ” … do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants. These things are otiose in a niche.” (page 3, bottom half of the page in financial report)
I hope I’m not trying to bring too much spin in. But let’s be honest, any time you look at an article on this issue, and they tell you their profit dropped by X amount, they are basically lying.
While we saw all those releases, they were small releases. As in, the scale of a space marine launch in this new model is much lower than it would have been previously. Faster speed of launch, means less splash, but (one would hope) more sustained sales. GW launched a bunch of products in the past, that seemingly were profitable, but which dropped off to unsustainably low sales. That’s why we’ve been seeing them culling their range.
Where did you get their adjusted op margin from? I can’t see it in the report. Their operating figures in the report, still have items like the website rebuild baked in (and with good reason, from a purely financial perspective, but not so much for an argumentative standpoint).
I agree on the last point. However if you think GW replacing their CEO, and actively looking outside their business (something they haven’t done well in the past) doesn’t bode well for a change in their operating procedure, then I think you are being a little too pessimistic.
Good pick up re the market research/survey, or lack of.
It might sound crazy, but improving the profitability could pave the way for a reduction in prices
HAHAHA oh man, thanks for the laugh!
You laugh, but they didn’t increase prices this year and they have been offering bundle deals at reduced prices.
Exactly. Their bundles previous have been really light on, in terms of actual value. This year, they’ve pushed more value and kept prices (relatively) static. I’m hoping that GW is realising that FLGS are a pretty good way of de risking their operations. It’s quite possible they’ve actually run the numbers to measure how well the GW model of sales is working, and have worked out they want to dominate online sales, and push all retail to FLGS.
You give GW’s management far too much credit. Cost-cutting and rationalizing the expense base are good things (though they have overshot with the 1-man stores). However, you assume they will take the correct actions off the back of this.
Sadly, they won’t. Your article would be correct if their management was competent in navigating this situation. I suspect they are not.
Yep, the 1-man stores are not working:
http://www.torrentoffire.com/5408/hows-the-jingle-in-gws-pocket
23 stores closed in North America in 1 year.
That doesn’t mean that GW is wrong though. Blindly believing that you are best positioned as a premium, high rent paying, over staffing retailer, is what killed Borders.
It is quite feasible, that GW was losing cash through many of their outlets and hoping to make it up over acquisition of customers with good customer lifetime value. If that theory was in fact failing, then them moving to 1 man stores, and closing other stores, is in fact evidence of them using evidence in their decision making. Something we can all agree they need to improve on!
So, it could actually be a good sign.
I personally do not like the 1-man stores. I much prefer my FLGS where there are actual tables to play on and a community of gamers. I do not see the expansion of the 1-man stores being good for the hobby.
I would rather buy from their website than their 1-man stores that is how much I dislike like them. Really they need to add some discounts to make their website more of a draw. Right now most of what I buy is through ebay.
1 man stores, or bigger stores, a good FLGS is a better experience in my opinion. GW should prefer FLGS’ too, if the cost/benefit is similar or better than their own stores.
Why should GW pay rent, wages, etc and try and direct it from on high, when there’s suckers… errr…. entrepreneurs like frontline gaming to do it for you 😛
I think one of the big things GW’s failed at, and really hard, is not realising the value that FLGS’ can represent to them. And also the market reach they can bring. GW should have been taking the foot of their own stores for a while now, and reducing new rollouts, and lowering densities. I imagine that until the recent management culls, there were too many people involved whose livelihoods depended on GW still being in direct retail.
One man stores seem to be a strategy that works really well in the UK. In the USA, though, there’s a massive turnaround, they’re shutting down stores left and right while opening new stores, then doing it again. It looks to me like they’re just extending their UK strategy to the US, despite the very different market. They should be foisting off the physical stores to the flgs’s instead of wasting money trying to compete in such a saturated market. There are twenty or thirty stores that sell 40k stuff for every GW store within a hundred miles of where I live.
Nice article but the Telegraph’s finance reporters seem to think GWs figures do not look good at all and that Kirby is a laughing stock.
Yeah, I’m not enamoured with the Telegraph’s reporting. You’ll notice they are of the belief that there’s a 9 million dollar slump. If you don’t bother to take out 8.5M of investments out of it, or at least make note that half that amount of profit was spent on ensuring future profitability improvements, then you aren’t really doing a great job as a finance reporter.
I’m of the belief that no matter who, or how many take a particular view, the evidence should speak for itself.
There’s fair criticism to be had of GW and Kirby’s tenure, a 9M pound drop in profit is a moronic way to describe what’s actually happened.
Unless the telegraph has published a few articles, the one I read was mainly around deriding Kirby’s flowery language and quotes.
Although the £4.5 million restructuring will net £2 million savings a year according to the report and therefore will take over 2 years to pay itself off.
Also only £0.9 million of the webstore budget was for this period, the remaining £3.1 million was included in last years figures, so this year is down on last when they had £2.2 million extra costs.
Page 8 of the report for the webstore information.
2 Million pounds based on their current top line (admittedly currently on a downward trajectory, at 6.5% drop).
Hmm, good point on the web store!
Still, they are trimming costs. I’m optimistic that if they can refocus the business they will perform well.
There’s still a raft of cost cutting under the hood, and presumably given the numbers of new stores opening vs stores closing, they have a solid idea of how to reshuffle stores to improve their results.
In any event, a 6.5% drop (in real terms, ie adjusting for currency) in top line isn’t a catastrophe. When you implement changes, you expect a drop, even if those changes are long term improvements. And GW have made a lot of changes this year.
They are generating cash, and they have a relatively good base to build from, if they recognise that this could be a great point to change course.
The biggest risk, is that they consider this business as usual, and continue with more restructuring and cost savings. At this point, they’ve taken all the low hanging fruit out. The more they squeeze, the more it will start to impact sales. Now is the point they should be going for growth. Investment in making sure they know their customers, investment in testing the waters in terms of stimulus actions, and planning for what GW needs to look like to hit their goals in three years.
I’ve attempted to answer the comments I think need answering.
I will point out that this article will be (if anything) biased towards a positive outlook, simply on the back of the pervading community negativity. If anything, we should be asking if it’s biased enough.
There are some general assumptions about GW. Given the departure of the CEO from that role, and the fact they are looking outside the company (GW notoriously promotes in-house), I’ve made assumptions in my suggestions and outlook on the basis that GW starts acting like a rational, customer focused company.
If you focus only on the product you ship, and not on how people want to consume that product, how they actually use that product, and how much they value the features of that product vs the cost of it, then you are going to leave space for a competitor to scoop your customer base.
Great article- thanks! The historic context in particular I did not fully grasp previously.
Optimism and Pessimism aside, this will be a big year for GW. New organizational strategy, new leadership, new edition, and new release strategy. As a fan, I’m pulling for them!
A couple of observations- redundancies in the UK tend to be considerably more expensive than they are in the US; the support packages are simply better and extend for a longer period of time. Also, $4M seems an absurd price for a web-site upgrade given what was achieved. I wouldn’t invest that much against ROM $10M in sales unless I was changing my business paradigm considerably.
I am only concerned about the top line revenue decline. But I wonder if the rumors of a new edition (which launched right after the financials close if I’m right) may have had an adverse impact on sales? With the rumors of rules changes and bound/unbound/copious Lords of War, I would not be shocked to see sales retard.
Dear Reecius,
Please apply to be GW’s CEO. At worst it would be hilarious to see what your letter would be and how they would respond. Attitude not skills!
You are a successful business owner in your own right and have every right to apply for the position given the kinds of things you have done to expand the hobby such as the LVO and your new FAT mat product. They will probably higher some old man that doesn’t understand the hobby from like a retail sector though.
Dear Games Workshop Board,
I am applying for the advertised role of CEO – however, there are conditions attached. I’ve no interest in becoming the head of a company convinced that they know what is best. Games Workshop might like to think they are the Apple of the miniatures world, but even Apple knows when it’s best to eat crow (quietly) and pivot.
For years, you’v laboured to make GW profitable. It seems that the lessons learned, were unfortunately misinterpretations of what’s really going on. Giving customers what they want, doesn’t necessarily correlate with losing profitability. And completely ignoring customer sentiment, is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
When you say you are a miniatures company, it’s like Apple saying they are a computer company in the 90s. Would they have ever launched the iPod if they thought their job was to sell computers? Miniatures are a passion, absolutely, but they are a mechanism with which you generate revenue from the customers who consume your stories, your game systems, your artwork, and the ideal of your painted, perfect, studio armies.
Your customers feel like they are in an abusive relationship. When you launch beautiful models, they love you, and when you drive up prices they curse your name. Eventually though, abusive spouses wear down their partners until they leave or take more drastic action.
If you really believe that you are a miniatures company, then put your money where your mouth is. Open up development of your game systems, reduce the prices of printed copies down towards cost price, and allow them to be downloaded for free. If you aren’t a miniatures company, then work hard on understanding where value lies for your consumer, and how you can “meet them half way” in rewarding loyalty.
Should the digital edition of 7th ed, cost the same for someone who had the 6th edition, as for a new member of the hobby? Do some user testing, and model uptake on the iOS version of the rule book in those kind of scenarios. Then get your accountants to tell you how much money you make from digital editions vs physical ones… you are welcome.
Embrace the FLGS for what they are. Most of them aren’t mercenaries, they are the irregulars, bolstering your force and proudly bearing your banner across the gaps between GW stores. Well, they used to be.
And stop picking on Australia, they already have to contend with some of the deadliest animals in the world, but they also have to pay crazy mark-up on digital products which cost you nothing extra to distribute to them?
Cheers,
TinBane
PS: Buff chaos marines, they really shouldn’t be scared of crimson slaughter cultists.
Lol, awesome!
Many people have said this already, but great article!
Very nicely written article. thank you for your insight.
Great article. The one issue though you failed to point out GW’s bipolar disorder in its approach to management. I to have helped manage a business change and we were able to simultaneously focus on both profitability and growth.
GW spent 5+ years driving growth to the exclusion of all other concerns. Now they have spent 5 years driving for profitability to the exclusion of all other concerns. Either way would you want to seriously invest in a company that spent over 10 years demonstrating sub par managment.
Thankfully for my share value senior management gets asked “to find other opportunities” before they get to do that much damage.
Either way they still treat their rules system like an after thought & are waging war on FLGS
Interesting insider point of view from a commission painter / former FLG owner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovBkR1YtzbI
Part 2 coming later.