# GW in the newspapers!



## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

On my way to work recently, i was browsing the London Lite, when lo and behold, GW was mentioned in their economics section. GW apprently posted a 580% rise in profits!

Then, on my way home, reading The Times, i read the same piece of news in their business round up, and also that they had reduced their debt to £1m from £10m!

So there you go.


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

Thats pretty good news there for GW, and so also good for us gamers, as at least this makes it less likly they are going to keel over.


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## TerranRaida (Jul 28, 2009)

less debt = more chances of GW not folding, good news tbh


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Great news... probably means none of us have any money left though


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## Col. Schafer (Apr 15, 2008)

Yet more evidence that GW overcharges. But hopefully it will stave off price jumps so I guess its good news.


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## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

Col. Schafer said:


> Yet more evidence that GW overcharges. But hopefully it will stave off price jumps so I guess its good news.


When you are 10mil down then I think its called "getting out of the shit" not overcharging, I would expect that they can be a little more inventive once they are clear of the red


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## Stella Cadente (Dec 25, 2006)

will they lower prices for us now?


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## Inquisitor Einar (Mar 6, 2009)

Probably not lower them.. but once they're clear of their debts, we'll probably see more diversity and interesting stuff in their model line since they'll have more money to invest in new stuff.


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## Imperial Dragon (Dec 22, 2007)

Very interesting stuff, i guess it's good to know cause GW might just have a heart after all and stop us from being in debt


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## Stella Cadente (Dec 25, 2006)

Inquisitor Einar said:


> we'll probably see more diversity and interesting stuff in their model line since they'll have more money to invest in new stuff.


so thats more space marines then :cray:


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## Concrete Hero (Jun 9, 2008)

Stella Cadente said:


> will they lower prices for us now?


:laugh:

I could honestly believe that they'll never lower their prices again


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## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

It is likely they will however up the number of promotions and events, also they can start the growth again in products/stores/stock it just depends on what the finance plannning people decide - as the last thing they need is to once again plow heavily into debt.


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## Franko1111 (Jun 25, 2008)

Stella Cadente said:


> so thats more space marines then :cray:


yay black templars, but really people need to think about it and stop just putting down space marines if everone wanted to play dark elder they would jump on it in a blink they do need a profit you know.


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## Spot The Grot (Jul 15, 2008)

i can only hope that that it means prices will not rise and even better the prices may go down slightly as they won't need as much money.


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## CoNnZ (Mar 28, 2009)

Hopefully no more price rises


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## Blue Liger (Apr 25, 2008)

It will more than likely mean 2 things price wise:

1. No more price hikes within quick sucession and hopefully no more at all

2. Investing in making all but special characters and IC's into plastic kits and therefore lowering prices. Notice how in fanatsy this occured Cold ones went from metal at the AUS price of $70 odd dollars to the price of $35 AUS dollars.


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## NerdyOgre254 (Jul 16, 2008)

Spot The Grot said:


> i can only hope that that it means prices will not rise and even better the prices may go down slightly as they won't need as much money.


If you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you...



> Probably not lower them.. but once they're clear of their debts, we'll probably see more diversity and interesting stuff in their model line since they'll have more money to invest in new stuff.


Yeah, but I'll bet you the aforementioned bridge that DE are still a long way off. And by that, I mean I probably won't see the DE stuff in my lifetime.


I heard that the top chairpeople of GW took down their own pay grades to that of a manager, meaning that they only get a maximum of $1000 pay bonus for a successful year. Not sure about the actual values there, but it's good to hear that they are taking active steps to be more economical and intelligent about it.


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## Holmstrom (Dec 3, 2008)

Dawn of War II had to of helped out a lot too this year. I've been playing the demo like crazy even though my video card can hardly handle it. It's beautiful at max graphic settings and the combat is...*drools & twitches*.

I do doubt they would drop their prices on any products but it does increase the odds of them releasing some new stuff with their 'profits' but as said before it's good to see they're not drowning out. As much as I like Space Marines it would be nice to see some other stuff. The problem is that everything with the Gamers Workshop logo on it, 95% of the time there is a space marine somewhere killing a thousand orks with just a spoon.


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## KarlFranz40k (Jan 30, 2009)

Blue Liger said:


> 2. Investing in making all but special characters and IC's into plastic kits and therefore lowering prices. Notice how in fanatsy this occured Cold ones went from metal at the AUS price of $70 odd dollars to the price of $35 AUS dollars.


Aye, but notice how they did that with greatswords and the price was £25 for 10! A year ago it was £27 for 10 IN METAL!!! So I don't know what they were thinking there.


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## Lash Machine (Nov 28, 2008)

In the finacial times article it raised the point that GW have been trying out new, smaller stores run by one person, but only open 5 days a week as a more cost effective way of running a store. One of the huge costs to GW is the mould making which has been a problem for takara tomy in trying to re release lold transformers toys from 25 years ago. Moulds lost and broken cost a fortune to replace or recast versus potetial sales


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## Lash Machine (Nov 28, 2008)

where was I before I finally got through to Scottish power, ah yes.

I think part of GW problem which lead to large levels of debt was investing in new casting facilities and the large and diverse number of models they produce, and the ones which sell. They have become more structured over the past few years on when and how many armies/codex books are realeased and the models that acompany them. I think now that finacial reasons over ride gaming reasons over which codexes and model ranges get revamped.

Dark Eldar are a good example as the whole range is being re done yet they have to decide as a company when is going to be a good time to invest the capital in the moulds and production of a race that was not so popular.


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## Wusword77 (Aug 11, 2008)

Hopefully this means we'll see some of the products that's currently being worked on get to the shelves faster. That's about all we can really hope for in this.

As far as dropping prices goes however, I keep forgetting that GW is a non-profit business, and they should get on that.

oh wait...


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## DavC8855 (Oct 14, 2008)

well it's good to see games workshop moving forward then. Maybe they can open a small store in my area again. Hey since they are so profitable maybe they can make more large scale model (titans, thuderhawks, and so on....) I'l be more than happy to contribute to their profits :biggrin:


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## TerranRaida (Jul 28, 2009)

i bet most of the debt came from that deal with New Line Cinemas about the LOTR figures (a game which i have never seen anyone ever play, nor have i seen any models sold)


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## Lash Machine (Nov 28, 2008)

I reckon the new deal with new line did hurt them and that maybe the Lord of the Rings stuff has not proved the great cash cow they were hoping for. I feel that they would be better off lumping more time and effort into re developing epic and warmaster as a 'third system' like in the old days. It's directly linked to the other systems and the lord of the rings range probably has a finite life span before its shipped to specialist games.

Once the debt is cleared then it will open up more options.


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## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

From what I understand the biggest problem GW had was that it was run by hobbyists and not business people. This lead to the huge expansion we saw in the late 90's, the stores were very much run as a "play here and maybe buy some models" basis - and staff were recruited as hobbyists, this coupled with some random regional organisation lead to them not having enough control.

Then the financial people were pulled in to sort it out, and going by this news report it has all paid off.

The big hope will be that GW can claw back to its roots as a hobbyist organisation and find a way to stay profitable.


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## tony161 (Jan 27, 2009)

hang on, in southampton there is a strong lotr gaming community, and nearly all the new kids (10-12 year olds) start with lotr before moving onto wfb/40k (like i did).


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## TheKingElessar (Mar 31, 2009)

WotR saw a huge rise in LotR interest in my area. Going onto the main topic though, I can only see prices holding, not going down. Having given it some thought, the cost of redoing the entire DE range, the new sprues for the Wolves, the upcoming Necrons, the Daemons second wave, the projected Chaos Dwarves, and (eventual) plastic Aspect Warriors, the new Skaven and BoC ranges, the next set of WotR releases...

Fantastic as this news is, it certainly isn't a time for GW to think of reducing prices, with the upcoming huge overheads. 

Also, Special Characters have a better than 50% chance of never being plastic.


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## Lord of Rebirth (Jun 7, 2008)

Well a 580% profit bump is HUGE especially for a largish company like GW but a large debt can be the difference between a company making a good profit and having a great day at the end and banks getting ready to lock accounts.

I'd say recent price bumps and other stuff that has in generally pissed off us customers has done a lot to help them cut down the debt so it would be nice to see them finish it off then build a bit of a surplus and then give us some price cuts.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

Price cuts are never going to happen,the profits will benefit investors and share holders and debtors for the most part,it might filter down to you and i in the form of less popular products getting new kits or some investment in new technology to aid production like upgrades to the new cad system.
Its good news though,typical GW to buck the recession trend.


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## Lash Machine (Nov 28, 2008)

Wotr was nessecary to boost interest in LOTR as the sales of it were waning. They have tied up alot of investment in it and will be hoping new line make The Hobbit as that will bring a further rise in interest and possible spin off game. 

In some ways it shows how badly GW were run as a buisness if that they are turning a 580% profit in the worst recession in 80 years. One of the companies I worked for recently admitted that they were a bit complacent in the good times and should have reaped a higher turn over and profit than they did. I think Games workshop are the same.

I think that having turned the company around business wise the future should be quite good when they start producing an actual profit once debts are cleared. It will leave a fair amount of capital to re invest.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

I still think this news won't overly affect gamers although hopefully their greed will make them produce more flashy looking models for the top armies to attract more new gamers. However other than that GW has a bad history of thinking of the average gamer their a big business hence they only really see amorphous blocks of gamers who can be suckered into spending more.


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## The Sullen One (Nov 9, 2008)

Clearly what ever GW's management are doing, their doing right. On my way to work this morning in Wigan, a dream came true (sad git alert!) when lo and behold I saw Wigan's very own Games Workshop store open for business, Hooray!


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## jigplums (Dec 15, 2006)

LukeValantine said:


> I still think this news won't overly affect gamers although hopefully their greed will make them produce more flashy looking models for the top armies to attract more new gamers. However other than that GW has a bad history of thinking of the average gamer their a big business hence they only really see amorphous blocks of gamers who can be suckered into spending more.


in what way? can you give an example, because i hear this rubbish all the time and its complete crap as far as im concerned?

Also who the hell gets suckered into spending more on toy soldiers. Its a hobby and people buy stuff because they enjoy the hobby, not because they think they may get a time share and a bottle of champaign.

also to take 580% and use it as proof is ever so slighty naive at best. guess what if gw Made £1 profit last year then its not hard to be 580% up this year.

ANother point i'd like to address is that when someone said GW used to be run by hobbyists and now by business men and thats turned things round. Its actually the opposite, and Gw now want all senior roles right the way up filled internally, so that even the company exec's will have seen the business from the ground up, and you don't get to work in the stores unless your a hobbyist. Obviously these guys don't get this position.


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