Games Workshop Financials - 2012 Preliminary Final

[LostInTheDark]

While they may be bad reasons for the pricing discrepancy you have to take in to context that every single thing in Australia is ridiculously expensive when compared to UK prices. Everything from electronic goods to clothing to food.

Demonising GW alone for price gouging in the Australian market isn't entirely fair. Where they appear to have suffered is in the loss of sales over the last couple of years and the damage that seems to have caused to the player base. From memory GW had a 10% drop in sales the previous year and then restricted direct sales from the UK, but no annual price increase in response. For this to then translate to only a
marginal increase in local sales would seem to me to indicate stagnation in sales and/or player numbers.

However unless you have access to the actual data it is impossible to tell.

[Racalniog]

They made a Revenue at £131.0m and Operating profit at £19.1m, so they made £131.0m/ £19.1m=
6.85863874 % win?

That's not very much for their prices :-S.

[daboarder]

While they may be bad reasons for the pricing discrepancy you have to take in to context that every single thing in Australia is ridiculously expensive when compared to UK prices. Everything from electronic goods to clothing to food.

Demonising GW alone for price gouging in the Australian market isn't entirely fair. Where they appear to have suffered is in the loss of sales over the last couple of years and the damage that seems to have caused to the player base. From memory GW had a 10% drop in sales the previous year and then restricted direct sales from the UK, but no annual price increase in response. For this to then translate to only a
marginal increase in local sales would seem to me to indicate stagnation in sales and/or player numbers.

However unless you have access to the actual data it is impossible to tell.

Easy mate, I'm just pointing out that the corporate excuses posted by bitzbarn are fallacies for global production companies and are the same ones used by pretty much every international company to gouge the auzzy market.

Your right about the indications of the health of GW in Auz, but its not entirely the whole story, they aren't just down 10% they were from 2010-2011, they are actually down 20% from what they were in 2009.

Their response to the loss of a full 5th of their market in Australia was to instigate the embargo of the European market's. They would have taken this action hoping to see a growth in the sales in Australia and other similar market.

Instead the markets have merely stabilized. While to the uneducated this may seem like a good thing (and it is to an extent) investors will recognize that they have still suffered a catastrophic loss of sales in the Australian market and have been unable to rectify the problem.

This fact more than anything is the likely reason for no price increase in Australia occurring this year and is why I suggested that GW now know what their ceiling is. They have the proof of how far they can push their prices before people stop buying in a market. GW therefore has 2 options, they can either reduce the prices in Australia to bring them in line with those available internationally. OR they can increase the prices in their other markets to bring them in line with the effective ceiling evident from the Australian market.

GW for their own reasons has decided to take the later option and time will tell if this will cause damage on their global sales figures with customers electing to cease spending on the hobby or maximise their profits by selling their product for the maximum customers are willing to pay for it.

[Psychosplodge]

They made a Revenue at £131.0m and Operating profit at £19.1m, so they made £131.0m/ £19.1m=
6.85863874 % win?

That's not very much for their prices :-S.

I would assume there are quite large one off costs in there, a re-launch can't be cheap, for example. They're still re-tooling for "finecast" as evidenced by the recent new wave of models...

It's probably not quite as clear cut as you're making it.

[Wildeybeast]

These are actually really terrible excuses. GW is a GLOBAL company as such they should be spreading these costs around so that no one market is adversely affected, to claim otherwise is to attempt to use stupidity as justification for increased pricing. Furthermore the price discrepancies of the Digital media prove that this is corporate BS!

This is a HUGE problem for imports in Australia at the moment and is the subject of a Federal inquiry that will likely result in a change of legislation to prevent such international price gauging.

Nonsense. Propping up a poorly performing area of your business with a successful is a sure fire way to run your business into the ground and negate all the profits you are making. GW has to treat it's different international markets separately and make the Australian market financially viable on it's own or to withdraw form that market altogether. To suggest that the British or American arms should prop it is ludicrous.

[Psychosplodge]

Maybe they'd be better withdrawing, support 3rd parties and lift the embargo?



Also can you have a preliminary final report? surely it's one or the other?

[Wildeybeast]

Maybe they'd be better withdrawing, support 3rd parties and lift the embargo?

They might well be, but that would lose the customer base they have already invested in building up, not to mention the infrastructure they have. If they have reached a point where sales are steady enough for them to support the Australian market, then they might as well carry on. If sales dipped to the point where they were making a loss down under, then they would have to seriously consider withdrawing as I don't think the market would handle another price rise.

On another note, it is interesting to see that despite all the whining people have done about the lack of advance news diluting enthusiasm and spending on the hobby, it has actually resulted in increased sales of new products. Looks like GW do know what they are doing after all.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

Winter is coming, and so are the price rises.

You win!


I think that this speaks volumes, clearly people ARE getting more excited about the new releases. I am happy that GW are thriving in this time of hardship, clearly a hobby is keeping people going.

[Wildeybeast]

You win!


I think that this speaks volumes, clearly people ARE getting more excited about the new releases. I am happy that GW are thriving in this time of hardship, clearly a hobby is keeping people going.

Absolutely agree, and judging by the all the kickstarter projects that are cropping up down on the fantasy forum, it looks like other companies are doing pretty well too. So much for GW strangling the competition.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

Maybe they are strangling the sci-fi competition?

I wouldn't know, I don't particularly track other companies.