Let's have a look at what GW has done to increase the value of their stock recently:

Indies are scooping GW staff up user. I got hired on the spot, 10 minute interview. Now I get to sell more than one thing and actually believe in the products. Its like day and night.

>HEY YOU GUYS
>REMEMBER NECROMUNDA
>NO OF COURSE YOU DONT
>BUT YOU WANT TO PRETEND YOU PLAYED IT
>THEN YOULL LOOK COOL
>COME BUY THIS SHIT

So they're closing stores with minimal to no notice. Sure, that's not a good sign but that doesn't mean they're going downhill.

They could be shifting from more of their own stores to just supporting the FLGS. They're a game company, not a retail company. Why wouldn't they want to partner with someone like Amazon to distribute their product and just focus on making games?

And 3D printing is good, but not that good.

>le our current technology will never be replaced meme

this is standard pump and dump practice

you get rid of as much capital as you can before shit hits the fan

I really don't understand why so many autists sperg about stores closing. Why the fuck wouldn't you close the stores if everybody just orders shit online. Who fucking needs GW stores?

Closing stores doesn't spell doom for GW. They're removing their inflamed appendix.

>Le a machine with huge amounts of moving parts that can fail being more efficient than a simple machine using high pressure and two metal plates meme

Without a store to go into, theres no difference between GW products and everyone elses.

Actually, there's a lot of differences. GW products are worse in almost every way.

Without a store atmosphere, a store culture, there is literally no reason for anyone to buy GW products when alternatives exist.

They are slitting their own fucking throats.

you have no idea what makes GW successful

A couple of my FLGS have a seen a minimal delivery from local distributors, but that may be a local distribution issue. Supposedly the local GW has the good stuff on time though

told you so

Our store hasn't recieved a single delivery in 2 weeks, except for our POS box. People are cancelling their orders.

Sooo, where exactly is that quote wrong?

Our phones are handheld computers, sure. But we still, despite everything else they can do, as phones. And everybodys got at least one.

So there is (at least) one telephone in every town in america.

If 3D printing gets higher quality than casting, GW will acquire 3D printers that you culdn't afford and sell you the product like they do now.

the stores are the entire point, ironic that youd call people autistic when you dont seem to understand that HUMAN INTERACTION is a huge part of GW popularity

Sure but what shit to hit the fan? They're up in sales and making money again.

If anything, I'd like to see them sell off this capital while it is worth a lot and possibly start buying out some competition. Maybe a board game or even another miniature company.

3D printing will eventually become a thing and remove their ability to make cool models, but their core business is making games. You can't 3D print creativity and the ability to make, distribute, and sell games. If they can ride this wave now, get some decent cash and buy some other company, then they might have a good 5-8 year plan on their hands.

This is just fucking sad.

They've fired all their creativity. Diaz/Perry are gone user.

>ACKSHUALLY
>TECHNICALLY HE WAS RIGHT

>>Without a store atmosphere, a store culture, there is literally no reason for anyone to buy GW products when alternatives exist.

Yeah well that's just fucking bullshit.

You can play at conventions and in gaming clubs and in normal nerdy gaming stores and (unless you're a bum) in your own fucking home.

I regularly play with a group consisting of about 20 people. None of which ever see the need to visit one of the two stores we have in our city.

gw is a dying company, selling their organs before they kick the bucket

Are you so lacking in self awareness that you think everyone else on earth is just like you?

The thing about casting vs. printing is the upper limit on casting quality is only really set by the CNC mills you use to make molds.

CNC mill precision is set by the exact same advances in tech that would increase 3D print precision, except CNC mills don't have to deal with squeezing plastic through a small nozzle.

So in terms of detail levels, casting has a cost advantage for mass production, while 3D printing's only big advantage is prototyping.

>me and my "friends" are antisocial and dont like outsiders
>why would anyone go to GW when they could be like us?

fucking hell

>missing the point this hard

OK, I'll bite. What is the appeal to GW products, when they are way more expensive, shit quality and poorly supported compared to pretty much any of their major competitors?

No what I don't understand is the level of autism needed where you go into a STORE (i.e. a place that exists solely to sell you shit!) to interact with people in an age where you have a fuckton of social media to meet people with the same hobbies and choose where to fucking play.

And then somehow think everything is doomed because these stores aren't making enough money (despite GW selling shitloads) because they are just used as a gathering place.

Just go play somewhere fucking else... jeez, some people really need everything spelled out.

HAHAHAHAHAH

>human interaction is autistic
>just stay at home alone

I need a minute.

Dont we have thread every week?

>anyone capable of basic social behaviour unlike me is autistic
>im definitely not autistic

>games Workshop will be dead by next Tuesday

this is the most autistic post ive ever read on Veeky Forums

the fact you are given (assumedly) unmonitored access to an electronic device terrifies me

Don't you mean day.

Probably. Maybe.

Lets take a minute to really analyze this, because I think it tells us something very important.

>I don't understand why people like to interact with each other about things they mutually enjoy.
>I don't understand why they would want to do this in a place which sells products relating to their mutual interest.
>I don't understand why people would like to meet up in a central location, in a city, with amenities for group gatherings, tables, in a place which will be suitably placed for young people/young adults to socialize, like a town or city.
>Social media is a replacement for actual physical real life interaction.
>JEEZ
>YOU NEED EVERYTHING EXPLAINED TO YOU
>WHAT A BUNCH OF IDIOTS
>Now I feel superior for having explained to those "idiots" with their "social lives" and other things I am incapable of understanding, nor enjoying, why the way they lead their lives is wrong.

Now I'm not going to speculate about what kind of person would post something like this, I'll leave that to your imaginations.

>why do you need a real world place for this hobby
>why not just shitpost about it on the internet

oh for fucks sake user

>this is a real human being

So not singulary going to one fucking store to see the same neckbeards everyday but using different and or changing means/locations to meet with people is being antisocial...

yeah, sure.....

...

I played confrontation before it was necromunda

QUICK QUICK
DAMAGE CONTROL
MY SPAGHETTI IS SPRAYING EVERYWHERE

>I don't understand that there are other places that offer the same exact thing that aren't stores owned by a company

give up user, you've already sperged hard enough

>GW stores have the fucking products available
>dozens of people to play with new armies you havent played before
>staff can answer questions, give advice on modelling, painting, playing
>EVERYONE SHOULD STAY IN THEIR OWN LITTLE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS FOREVER

beep boop how can human function outside the internet

Yeah because you and your 3 friends can do everything a GW store can do. It's exactly the same.

Isn't games workshop selling their IP's now?
How's that working out for them?

No no guys you don't understand.

It's way better to play games with the same group of people forever, never ever straying outside of your comfort zone. Then the "house rules" eventually become the "accepted rules", and whoever can yell loud enough about their interpretation of the rules is correct.

If you want advice on your army then you're going to get it from them too! They'll tell you what they think you should do, because it's what they would do if they had your money.

It's way better guys! Trust me!

If we could distill this post down into a liquid, we might be able to actually weaponize autism.

how to spot the grognard who got bullied out of their local GW for trying to tell people what to do

They did none of this.

But user how do you get the first tight group of friends to play with for eternally?

ok, serious question. How did they manage this?

My LGS was packing up most of their GW product to ship back to them for 'credit'. They seemed pissed. What does this mean?

My local store’s solution to that was to sell off like 70% of their store. Now they have 2 tables, usually one is in play. There used to be around 8.

google pump and dump stock manipulation

pretty much what OP said

Dude genuinely sorry you posted this totally obvious statement here of all places, these motherfuckers literally cannot understand that times have changed.
>if i go into a store for my hobby, everyone else must! how will new people learn about the game????!!!

>bringing up GW's "competitors", none of which run an international chain of branded stores

tabletop wargames aren't going to die because some fucking GW shops close, and guess what, the market saturation on 40k et al at this point ensures that no way are people going to stop playing either. What you've got here is a bunch of yahoos in flyover land who think them and the four other people who drive 2 hours to their local GW every other week are major movers of business trends

Lol

A drawfag needs to make a gif of that

The solution should be to get people back into stores, but GW doesn't want that. Stores cost more money than they make now, because no one actually wants to come into our stores anymore, because HQ has been a fucking shitshow. I am seriously depressed about this shit, it's happening to every store I now.

>google pump and dump stock manipulation
Okay, sorry, but I don't understand what any of those mean.

Oh jeez, I wonder who posted this. As if it's not fucking obvious.

GW under Kirby basically hated money, they only wanted money their own way. They didn't want any sort of change, they didn't want any fan interaction, the internet is a passing fad.

As soon as he got the boot GW was able to modernize and take basic sensible actions that caused its true potential to come out

Brexit.

>one fucking employee
>3rd party models or parts get you ejected from the store
>only sell GW products
>no discounts

Pic related closed battle bunkers and stripped stores of all but one employee. Fuck him. The company needs toe work on their brick and mortar game.

Oh user... you weren't made for this world

I see you're being smug.
I will have you know I'm pretty smug myself.

you poor thing...

Hype up a worthless company you own shares in so suckers buy stock, thereby increasing its value. You sell your shares at the top after massively increasing their value through hype and manipulation rather than business fundamentals. The suckers are left holding the bag when the price collapses. Basically Veeky Forums in a nutshell.

Is this the nerdiest side of Veeky Forums?

For over a decade GW's idea of how to run their company was to essentially jam their fingers in their ears, scream "lalalalala I can't hear you, we don't make games we just make models" while completely ignoring what is going on in the miniatures wargaming market in general as well as what people are saying about their products specifically.

This resulted in some pretty fucking bad ideas, like them shitcanning all of their specialist games for no apparent reason (which opened up space for customers to get poached by other companies that made games like those specialist games), producing some of the worst editions of 40k ever seen and ultimately relaunching WHFB as AoS and discontinuing half of the miniatures range at the exact time an extremely competent games developer was about to release an entry in an incredibly popular computer game series based on WHFB.

Then they got a new CEO who apparently realizes the value of having an awareness of the world outside of your office building and allowing your company to actually communicate with its customers.

Whats that model in the first picture?

The old claim that 'GW is dying' used to have some truth to it, but now that they're the best performing company on the entire FTSE it sounds kind of retarded.

>but muh pump and dump

If the increase in share value from under £5 a share to more than £20 in not much more than a year is down to some kind of trickery then they should stop selling plastic crack and set up shop as management consultants, because they'd have every other company on earth queueing up to learn that trick.

The simple truth of the matter is that sales, proper sales of product, have increased enormously. They shifted as much in the last six months as they did in the whole of the last year, £108 million turnover I think it was. Profits are up from about £8 million per six months to £38 million. That's crazy good profitability, margins of over a third in a retail business is huge - the supermarkets only have a profit margin of about 2%.

>company is run like shit for decades
>suddenly someone who understands business takes over the company
>realizes if they just listen to what everyone wants, itll kill the product in the year, but in that year you can make a shit ton of money
>company wont survive 5 years anyway

A child could figure this out user.

Their company was being run badly, now it is being run well. It is not a surprise at all that their share value has increased.

Aren't the GW stores loss leaders anyway? It makes sense they'd close them if sales are up, they're not needed.

The one by me is in the most expensive part of town on the main drag, there is no way that store is profitable.

>nuh-uh, record sales and profits are just an even stronger sign that the company is dying

The absolute state of GW haters, this is even more desperate than shills claiming the company was going from strength to strength a few years ago.

Traditional gaming is a rapidly growing market. For years GW have been losing market share, meaning that their sales stood still. Now they're re-establishing dominance and have the potential to grow with the market as a whole.

>because 3D printing, GW is doomed.

Maybe? I initially thought we would see a much faster push of consumer 3D printers available in stores but so far it hasn't materialized.

Meanwhile there are two actual GW stores in my town within 30 minutes of each other and both are seeing unbelievably great sales numbers.

Headquarters are militant as fuck about closing down unprofitable stores, but they let them struggle on if they're only just paying the bills. It might have improved a bit recently, but a year or two ago they were only making an average profit of about £1000 per store. The vast bulk of their profits were from online and independent sales.

Not to mention whoring out their IP for years to whatever noname shit studio wants to make a game, including a ton of mobile garbage. That can't be good for their brand.

Seems they're still doing this though, still more garbage being made, getting a good game by a good, established studio was basically a fluke.

GW don't seem to understand how high street presence affects sales. An unprofitable store is still going to give your customers somewhere to enjoy their purchases. They can buy stuff off the website and use it in store, and you've still made money. Not only that, but its a way better advertisement to walk past a window and see people in your town having fun than some pop up ad on a website.

Sometimes I think GW has changed and sometimes I think they've learned fucking nothing in 20 years.

>Hype up a worthless company

Well. The companies financial reports are available for anyone in the public to see. The games workshop stock price is just about perfect in relation to how the company is performing.

You are either a baiting faggot, or criminally retarded.

3D printing will shake up the industry but anyone able to adapt and find a new model won't be doomed. Companies will still have a monopoly on good design, even if any joe can print up a batch of minis in his garage. The distribution model will just have to change, and they'll have to eat some losses from inevitable piracy. Prices will have to go down. They'll probably sell DRM protected instructions or something instead of actual models, possibly limited use. It could end up being similar to the film industry.

Still might kill them, it's not like it's a large industry like film. Most everyone wants movies, few have interest in tiny plastic models, and established companies might not survive the transition to whatever the new shape of the industry becomes.

We Bitcoin now

I think the reason this discussion is sorta polarized is because some british people who live in a country the size of a shoebox full of towns that have "high streets" where people "stroll" are posting, and some american people who live in a vast dusty wasteland of spent shell casings are posting

Good point. Weirdly, its UK stores being shut from what I've seen though.

>That can't be good for their brand.
Not really. People don't directly associate the quality of video and computer games with GW because it's common knowledge that GW is not the developer of those products. And regardless of the actual quality of those games a high volume of them being present on platforms like Steam increases awareness of the IP and basically constitutes free advertising that also generates royalties.

People give much less about a hundred shitty little games than they do about a single high profile game. For example how many videos are their criticizing Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon, Deathwatch and Regicide compared to Dawn of War 3?

The net effect on the value of their brand of whoring out their IP is basically nothing.

Figures, can't really market this kind of games to Pakistani and Arabs.

It is very unusual for a company's share price to escalate so very quickly in a short period of time.

But it is also unusual for a publically-traded company to be run by an arrogant narcissist who tried to eliminate competent people from upper managemt so nobody could compete with him and then turn the middle management into a cult of personality - at least without failing.

GW finally got its fucking shit together as a business, and as a result, the share price is now coming into line with the actual reality of its sales and distribution success, and into line with the potential for growth the dominant player in a small niche that it has filled (but with the potential to create new niches) has.

I mean fuck me I don't like what they're doing but I haven't liked shit for five plus years.If GW is shit but financially stable it's better than if GW is shit but financially doomed. If GW fails it will forever be shit, but if it does well it can at least change in future.

Look at theirlicensing thing. They license out small less-popular lines to literally anyone, see who isn't shit, and then studios who makes games that are finacially successful and that aren't turd get to work on their more important lines. It's a good business model in the medium term, and much more profitable than farming to AAA studios. Now long term I don't know if it holds up, but that's because this isn't really precedented in tabletop games company game licensing.

Meanwhile my local GW is set up in the shittiest part of town. Drug users and such nearby.

Not a single person comes in and buys things unless they were specifically looking to go to GW in the first place. The rest all go "Oh it's a tabletop gaming store" and leave immediately.

If they moved it around 20 minutes away they could make absolute bank because of all the new development going in. Like 4 schools right nearby (middle & upper class families), multiple churches, multiple shopping centers, and a mall that's always busy within a couple minutes of driving.

Instead were stuck with the current shithole in a horrible location.