GW Annual Financial Report dropping this week

[CoffeeGrunt]

I have yet to meet someone that didn't break their Skullcandies. The funniest part is that they answer it by immediately buying another pair and breaking them again a few months later. :/

That said, I save up for headphones for a while and hold onto them for at least a year. Since I use mine constantly, I aim to pay a little more to make it worthwhile. Sadly my Bose OE2s recently died in one ear after two years, though, so I'm debating the next pair now.

[40kGamer]

Indeed.

There's also quite a lot of 'possible cause myopia' at play here. Without figures on their competitors, who knows what shape the general wargaming hobby is in? All we've got is a collection of loose anecdotes about who seems to be playing what, based entirely on tournament and in store gaming, which misses the home market.

Is it all GW's fault? Are there things beyond the control of a single company at play? Frankly, none of us have anything like enough knowledge or info to draw any kind of conclusion.

All we know is that profits are down, but still there, and they have been working on their infrastructure to ensure they run as efficiently as possible.

To add to the anecdotal evidence I work with several independent FLGS as their CPA and they have seen record growth and sales over the last 2 years. Card Games now make up 33%+ of their business.

[Defenestratus]

Yes, we have a cultural aversion to toxic bull**** which encourages the bullying of retail workers by customers who know they will get away with it because the company values the pittance they will spend over the welfare of their workers.

Way to totally miss the point.

I wasn't even *talking* about retail workers.

So here's a good response to the report from a gamer-finance-business perspective.
[url]http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2014/07/gw-financials-rains-of-cash-still-here.html[/url]

[eldargal]

Well we were discussing retail workers and how the 'the customer is always right' is a toxic idea that facilitates workplace bullying, and you quotes my comment about that so...

[Defenestratus]

Well we were discussing retail workers and how the 'the customer is always right' is a toxic idea that facilitates workplace bullying, and you quotes my comment about that so...

But my post was about how what you guys were talking about (How people are ****ty to retail workers) isn't what "The customer is always right" is *actually about*.

But nevermind.

I don't want to get banned for another week just for trying to explain another off topic post in the thread.

[Psychosplodge]

oh is that what you meant by self imposed ban?

[eldargal]

Except it is, that is what the culture creates. You have a culture that says the customer is right you end up with companies prioritising placating morons over the wellfare of their staff.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup. Undermines the staff something rotten.

'What's that consumer? You got what you actually ordered, but managed to order the wrong thing? Well, that's clearly this spotty little herbert's fault entirely, and not yours'.

Encourages people to be utter, utter arses to employees in shops.

[Caitsidhe]

I suspect that some of you are reading way too much into the my comment on the notion about customers. What I said (had anyone read closely) was "the customer, on the whole, is always right." What that means is you, as a business, give your customers what they ask for. If you don't, someone else will. I am not talking about catering to mouth breathers having a fit in the store. This could be a cultural thing, and if so, there is no way around it and Games Workshop is doomed in the United States. That will be quite a loss for their stock in time as the United States a huge market. But let me put it into perspective for you:

1. Games Workshop stores in their present form in the United States are a non-starter. They cannot compete with the local gaming stores that provide more gaming space, more selection, and cater to players. Customers in the United States, right or wrong, are used to that level of pampering and someone else offering less will continue to lose out.

2. Americans are bargain hunters. We feel that we do Merchants a favor by giving them custom, not the other way around. Right or wrong, we view the world as a buyer's market and no amount of trying to suggest otherwise will change that fact. Why? Because in America, merchants understand that and fight for our custom. The fact that Games Workshop doesn't want to do that will simply lead to more other people stepping in to provide the option.

3. Americans don't see the hobby as being Games Workshop. There is no patriotism in this for us. War gaming has been huge off/on in the United States for well over a Century. Games Workshop seems to think they reinvented the wheel, but in the United States we have cycles of war gaming that come and go. Games Workshop just started back up at the top of a new cycle. Fantasy/Sci Fi are hip now but war gaming itself is the hobby to us and we have no brand loyalty.

So when I say "the customer, on the whole, is always right," I am referring to the American market in a very specific way. If Games Workshop wants to dominate the American market they have to deal with the American sensibility. It is just business. If they don't intend to do what it takes to dominate this market, they are better off writing it off entirely as they are just going to end up throwing good money after bad. They aren't going to convert the American mindset. All they are going to do is spend a lot of money to create a market in the United States (which they have already done) which other merchants and vendors will flock to take advantage of of because they, unlike Games Workshop, understand Americans.

[Psychosplodge]

Did they have Americans running the US arm to your Knowledge? Or was it done from Nottingham?