Games Workshop vs Chapterhouse Document Dump

[White Tiger88]

Never thought i would say this.....

GO GAMES WORKSHOP GO CRUSH THOSE JUNK SELLING $#)(@(!S

[daboarder]

I see that as a good thing. The whole waves of releases was nucking futs anyway.

It may be a good thing long term but it was absolutely horrible for the CSM dex, instead of a swath of new units the book got stuck in between design philosophies again.

[Mr Mystery]

Dear Chapterhouse,

Bend over, grab your ankles and think of England.

At least that's how I think/hope it will turn out.

[Sean_OBrien]

Anywho...

More documents - bottom of the page, starting at 250:

[url]http://archive.recapthelaw.org/ilnd/250791/[/url]

Limine motions by GW and CHS - no huge surprises. GW wants to keep out everything that they objected to in the 249 documents - CHS wants to keep out the things they objected to. Have a quick read, fairly straight forward set of claims that don't need much explaining.

In document 253 - the Judge lets everyone know that he should be issuing his summary judgement ruling in the next 10-14 days and then the trial date will be set for after the first of the year (as opposed to December as was previously the goal).

Something which is important for the number crunchers can be found in this document:

[url]http://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.ilnd.250791/gov.uscourts.ilnd.250791.251.2.pdf[/url]

Starting on page 95 you can find a couple hundred pages of sales values for a whole host of 40K related products in the US (and other markets for the books and what not). The first section deals with 40K products and lists them as sales value (which would be retail sales prices - not wholesale or other prices...units x retail price). This is used to calculate the "value" of trademarks for the purposes of this case. Number crunchers can use it to look at units sold to see how prices might impact them. It is 7 full years of data (2004-2011 full years and an apparent partial year for 2012). It isn't a complete listing of all the SKUs GW offers - but it is a really good selection of items which are sold...many of which are core to various armies.

[Bigred]

Wow, that last pdf is the crown jewels. You can divide by MSRP to calculate unit sales year over year.

[Sean_OBrien]

Wow, that last pdf is the crown jewels. You can divide by MSRP to calculate unit sales year over year.

Yep - you will want to save a local copy of it though. Previously, those papers were filed under seal and I haven't seen any ruling by the judge to change that, so I am guessing the mistake will be corrected sooner rather than later.

Also, remember that there may be minor discrepancies in the actual numbers (sometimes you will not end up with a whole number of units sold). This is likely a factor of the constant currency accounting which GW uses. Depending on when the accounts are settled up and what the exchange rate is at any given point when the data is compiled it can cause the numbers to shift around a little bit.

Also, as an added benefit - pages 97-100 have the miniatures data in a selectable format which can be ripped into Excel (or similar program) and used to run comparisons quite quickly if you also get the price hikes for that year.

A quick example is from 2010 to 2011 the sales on Space Marine Assault Squads went from $245,035 to $203,422. There was also an 11% increase between those two years. So...roughly 8236 units sold in the 2010 FY and roughly 6164 units in 2011 FY.

FY2012 data only goes till March or April in the charts - so it isn't quite a full period of reporting.

[Mr Mystery]

Would that not bd a decrease, seeing as numbers went down?

[Sean_OBrien]

Would that not bd a decrease, seeing as numbers went down?

Increase in price year for year...HUGE decrease in volume year for year....

Reread what I wrote - year to year, the MSRP was increased by 11% on that item, I didn't make that clear that that was what the increase was that I was talking about.

Since much hay has been made over the years regarding us not having enough information regarding GW sales in order to actually determine whether or not the price increases which GW makes are counter productive to actual sales - this document provides a good insight into the sales and how they might be impacted by the price increases. Because of the long period of time which is covered, and a good sampling of core items for a number of armies (IG and Space Marines look to be the best candidates for analysis) - it provides a fair amount of data for analysis. Especially considering that both of those armies are more or less covered through more than one Codex release as well as having core units as well as important optional units in the list.

[Michael Adam Hockenbarger]

This had been a highly entertaining read. Thanks for that. There were a couple of points I thought got glossed over or ignored, or were flat misunderstood.

1) burden of proof means that chs has to prove nothing. The entire legal strategy of a defense team is to dance around the edges and poke holes in the case presented by the plaintiff. All proof must be presented by gws.

2) 3d printers are cool. I saw the same today show segment, and some are capable of working with metals. Is the system expensive? Yes. Very. However, given sufficient usage, it would pay itself off. It won't be cost effective any time soon, but if you field a hundred of the same unit, it would be.

3) The "mistake" mentioned early on concerning the pictures of their own products being presented as images of chs knock offs could have been deliberate. It would not be the first time unscrupulous lawyers have mispresented evidence as a way to stall out proceedings.

The devil is in the details. This is doubly true for law. Based on what I've read on this, gws has been doing nothing but pointing multi-meltas at their own feet the whole time. It has done a great job of highlighting the failings of the gws management and administration, validating many fan complaints.

[inquisitorsog]

Increase in price year for year...HUGE decrease in volume year for year....

Reread what I wrote - year to year, the MSRP was increased by 11% on that item, I didn't make that clear that that was what the increase was that I was talking about.

Color me "not surprised". I've been saying that's likely the case for quite a while by comparing just the price increases we know about against their public financials. They're masking declining volume by jacking up prices so their investors still see revenue. This will only work for so long before they pass the threshold where _any_ price increases will be met with more lost sales than the increases make up for. At some point, they will need to figure out how to increase volume or bring in a new product line that will let them sell at better prices. However, they seem to be trying to farm any of that out by licensing (E.g. to FFG) than doing it themselves. Their licensing income is substantial to their bottom line at little short term risk. However, long term, they may be making a very significant competitor in FFG.