WFB 9th Edition Rumor Roundup

[Mr Mystery]

You then also have issues of availability.

Me, I had to hunt down a non-insanely priced Millenium Falcon which still had all the cards. Took me a long old while, but got there in the end.

Yes there are advantages to that system, including distinct financial ones - but GW has done what GW has done, and it's turned out pretty well so far. Main bonus about GW stuff? Buy one book - all the stuff needed to play your army is in there. Sure there's additional spangles out there if you want them, but none of it is necessary to keep your hand in. X-Wing is a different story.

[Erik Setzer]

I'll skim over personal insults, because now they're just boring. Geez, if you're going to try to insult or troll someone, be entertaining about it. Is that too much to ask? Yeah, guess so.

Eh... for X-Wing's approach, I'll just say a couple of things. First of all, I haven't really come across much in the way of cards that are unique that cause some humongous advantage, certainly not in friendly games. And those cards are generic upgrade cards, not necessarily rules just for that unit. Also, if you chose to overpay for a model rather than wait, that's on you. At one point I could have paid $100 for a Slave 1, but the one I got was brand new for something like $20-$25.

And you know what, let's go ahead and throw this out there: GW's come out with limited run models, and formations you can only get by buying formation bundles through them, spending hundreds of dollars on models you likely already own, with the advantages running up to the point the latest one is designed to ignore many of the balancing limitations put into the game. These aren't things you can wait until later to get. And if your response is, "Well, you can get a copy from someone else," well... you can do the same with X-Wing cards! Only they're not limited run and/or requiring you to spend hundreds of dollars direct with FFG. So yeah, we can kill those complaints.

The concept I outlined wouldn't include upgrade cards and stuff for other units. Or partial rules like have come before. It'd be like a "dataslate" (or "battlescroll"?) for that particular unit, with the necessary info to run it printed, and that's it. Keep books around, too, for those of us who love our books (and hey, I like books myself). But with the rules also in the boxes, someone can skip on buying a book of units they might not want. Even better (from GW's and gamers' perspective, I'd think), they could release new stuff that isn't in a book, throw a write-up in WD (huzzah, page filler!), and also have the rules in the box. Then they can release stuff out-of-sequence with a book. End of the year, do an AoS Annual with all the new rules (including any new scenarios, special rules, fun stuff like that) thrown in, like the old Warhammer Chronicles compendiums. Convenient for gamers, lets the company keep an accelerated pace, thwarts potential copyright issues... covers a lot of bases, and wouldn't add much in the way of expense to production costs (do it like those card flyers that come in the mail, and it'd be reasonably durable, while still being quite cheap to print, especially if you work a deal with the printer, as should be done when you're doing a bulk project).

Kind of wishful thinking (tempered by matching it to GW's style), but heck, some of the rumors already mentioned something like that.

[Path Walker]

Its nice that you ignore what people who actually play X Wing say about X Wing but, to be competitive, and after all thats the only way to make this an issue for either, then with X Wing you need to buy models of a different faction that you won't use with your chosen faction. And while not Limited Edition, they're printed in waves, so you might have to wait 6-8 months for a model to be available, I wanted A Wings and if I wanted to pay near RRP, i had to wait over a year for reprints.

The facts is, GW make Formtations in bundles to incentivise sales of new kits, saying they're "models you probably already own" is ignoring the fact that no, most people do not already own those brand new kits. This is the first time I can think of where it effected units that previously existed and even then, these are impressive new kits that they want people to buy. But at least the bonus you get is for the models you bought, thats simply not always the case with X Wing

[odinsgrandson]

GW doesn't need Age of Sigmar to outsell 40k in order for it to be worth it to GW financially.

If FF is making $40m profits, and GW is making $160m profit, that still doesn't mean that using the X-Wing model is bad for GW. It is only bad if they're giving up on supporting the game that gave them $150m profit... and it isn't Warhammer Fantasy Battle.


Here's the information we have on the market- these numbers are from ICv2:

- 40k is the biggest non-collectible miniatures game on the market, and has consistently been in that slot for many years.

- Below it are X-Wing, Warmachine, Hordes, and Attack Wing. They currently shuffle the order around- especially Warmachine and Hordes often switch spots (and they're always counted separately).

- Warhammer Fantasy Battle used to be a staple in the top 5, but it hasn't shown up on the chart for a good number of years. Before the X-Wing games, Malifaux and Reaper's Dark Heaven Legends have all been outselling WFB. Oh, and I never saw LotR on the list at all, but that one's not been a hot seller for a good long time.


Some people are basically saying that GW can't justify a marketing model that produces as little profit as X-Wing or some other game, but the truth is, they've been supporting those for a long time.

In order to be successful, GW doesn't need something that outsells 40k, they just need it to outsell Warhammer Fantasy Battle- and there are a lot of smaller companies that are currently doing that.

And in the best circumstances, they can create a game that sells better than WFB that does not cut into their 40k profits (ie, if the Age of Sigmar crowd isn't all people who are putting their 40k forces on hold to build an AoS force).

So it makes a lot of sense not to use the same business model that they already use for 40k.

- GW has been releasing statements that their sales and profits have been dropping ever since Mark Wells left. [URL="http://icv2.com/articles/news/view/31808/games-workshop-says-sales-down"]Here's the latest statement,[/URL] although we'll have to wait until the end of July to see a full financial statement.

For all the time I've seen GW report that their market share is dropping, I've never felt like they've tried anything new. Age of Sigmar might actually be them trying to do something that will actually alter the decline, and that can be a very good thing for them.

[Mr Mystery]

If that's based on the run down of sellers and that - I was under the impression that didn't include GW's direct sales, on account they told the compiler to bog off and mind their own business?

[Erik Setzer]

If that's based on the run down of sellers and that - I was under the impression that didn't include GW's direct sales, on account they told the compiler to bog off and mind their own business?

I wasn't going to use that for any kind of "evidence" myself because, as I understand it, they basically survey retailers and distributors... and GW is doing its best to keep people from using non-GW means to purchase GW products. But then, it'd also be a little off given that X-Wing and D&D Attack Wing are sold in non-game-stores, like large book store chains. So the information is a rough estimation based on the best available knowledge.

That report from GW isn't very good, though. The whole End Times series, all those new expensive models, all the new stuff for their flagship game 40K, and they still saw a drop of 5%? At that point, a radical new scheme to sell Warhammer stuff might not seem like a bad idea, and they can try out different things without it causing problems for their top selling line. I'm not going to say "The End is Nigh!" (the end of the [Warhammer] world already happened), but there's not really any way to spin revenue drops as a good thing.

[grimmas]

What I was actually saying was that the sales model for x-wing doesn't make enough money for it to be worth while for GW to follow because it simply isn't pulling enough money. Of course GW may make more from doing the same thing but there's no evidence that will be the case.

We don't know if FFG makes any profit at all or what proportion of there revenue is x-wing, however it was $20m before they released it and $40m 2 years later so we could make a reasonably educated guess at $20m (£12m) assuming none of their other products lncreased as well.

That ain't a lot of money compared to what GW pulls in (10%). Is it believable that WFB makes up more than 10% of GWs sale, historically yes but believe what you like.

Yes sales have been dropping, probably by more than that. GW needs to make more money than that.

My objection to "they should do what X is doing" is because what X is doing ain't enough there needs to be something else. It's also comparing the particises of a much smaller company which operate in very different ways.

WFB needs to make big money it doesn't need to out sell 40K but it needs to sell more than £12m

Of course the survey data is flawed it's only for the U.S. and doesn't cover direct sales (something GW does quite a lot of) at the very least of its issues but it does give us some context.

As I've said before though I'm will to be proved wrong but I'm going to need to see some evidence.

Oh and could this years drop be due to may be people easing up on WFB buys knowing that things are likely to be changing, I don't know but it would have an effect?

[Erik Setzer]

It was never "They should do exactly what X-Wing does." It was more of "A modification of that system fitting GW's ability to produce a wider ranger of products in greater quantities could be handy."

You argue that the X-Wing model, in any way or variation, can't make enough, pointing to what you estimate it's earning... and then you later note it's by a company that produces less stuff, meaning you know why using those (estimated) sales numbers doesn't work. You're assuming that if GW did a similar concept of "release models usable by one of two or three core factions with the rules to play them included" means "Reduce production capabilities, only put out two or three waves with a limited number of products each year, and price them much lower than current GW products, while also having them assembled and pre-painted to a decent quality."

I'm not sure how you think anyone would even suggest that.

Oh and could this years drop be due to may be people easing up on WFB buys knowing that things are likely to be changing, I don't know but it would have an effect?

No. Certainly not a drop that big. They released the "exciting" (not saying it wasn't, just that's the top buzzword people used for it) End Times series of books and models, which were not cheap at all, and likely would have drawn in more money for WFB in the past year than it'd been bringing in. While the End Times sales did peter off toward the end, itself a condemnation of how well GW can handle even something that should have been a "sure thing," the only way sales for WFB drop so hard that it results in a 5% net drop for the whole company is if the lack of info coming out about what's next is scaring people off. I know there are some people who recently stopped making purchases (but average that with their earlier purchases of End Times stuff, and they still spent what they would have in a usual year, if not more), but that'd have to be a serious drop-off. And if anything would argue against Games Workshop's over-the-top secrecy recently, that would be the best argument.

The more likely explanation is that people are skimming dollars away from their GW purchases to start checking out more games, and GW's actually positioned themselves to be vulnerable to competition siphoning off sales like that. I don't think it's coincidence that other companies are growing in revenue as GW shrinks.

Oh, and here's something else to consider: 40K 7th edition - you know, the rushed new edition of their flagship game - came out in late May last year, meaning most of its sales would have been on this fiscal year. So you have 40K7, End Times, lots of new expensive kits for both systems, two campaigns, multiple codex redo's, three entire new armies for 40K, an expensive board game (that, despite being limited quantities, is still available pretty much everywhere), a full year of the White Dwarf and Visions remake... With that lineup, they should have customers excitedly rushing to throw money at them.

Meh, that's depressing talk. I want to try to get excited over something.

I'm going to hope for an AoS that, even with nonsense background to explain how this works, has open-ended factions that will let me throw whatever madness I want on the table for cinematic battles between heroes and their entourages.

[odinsgrandson]

What I'm saying is that GW's business model has been the definition of insanity for a while: Keep doing what you've been doing and expect different results.

Age of Sigmar, if any of the rumors are true, might represent a departure from their previous business practices.

I mean, like an actual attempt to turn it around, rather than pad the books and stall (like re-releasing Space Hulk again).

And honestly, I hope it rocks.

[Erik Setzer]

Okay, this is confusing...

[url]http://natfka.blogspot.com/2015/06/an-introduction-to-age-of-sigmar.html[/url]

That makes it sound like everything is pretty much the same, a few minor tweaks, but people can use different formations, and the way those work make it sound like round bases would not be a good idea, because some armies would want to rank up all the time, which is much easier on square bases.

I'm not sure which one I consider more "salty." I may not be keen on Warhammer being swept away completely, but if it's just minor edits and a rules system that really favors a different type of base than the one they're using, why go through all this major effort?

And then tack on the comments here:

[url]http://natfka.blogspot.com/2015/06/age-of-sigmar-box-and-brb-topic-of.html[/url]

So if the point is to bring in new players, I get the idea of going with even smaller battles (at least "core") and going in a new direction with the rules and all.

Three weeks out, and I'm more confused than ever...