I used to play warhammer when I was younger and am honestly astounded gamesworkshop is still in business let alone one of Britain's biggest companies. At least in the 00s and 2010s, they were the epitome of a greedy corporation squeezing blood from a stone.
Sales were down? Increase the prices of everything. Something not selling well? Change the game rules to make that it more powerful (or conversely, hype it up constantly so people only realize it sucks after they buy it). And of course constant changes so it was likely any models you bought would eventually become uncompetitive due to new, flashier, more overpowered things released.
Basically every bad business practice we see now was Games Workshop's wheelhouse. And while this may come across as bashing on them, I'm psyched to hear the company is thriving because their games are immensely fun and its impressive they've avoided stagnating or run out of ideas. It gives me hope for the software industry because if an in-person, expensive niche hobby could survive through social media and the pandemic, tech can bounce back from the current enshitification and short-term profit seeking.
If you have the money and enjoy lots of lore/worldbuilding and complex strategy games, Warhammer is a fantastic hobby I'd recommend checking out
True. I used to play warhammer when I was younger, too. I am not suprised they are still in business, because it's a very enjoyable hobby (And I don't mean just playing, also the painting part of it).
And yep, as far as I rememember, they were always horribly expensive.
They still kind of are that business imo. I'm pretty damn upset that they have pulled the card of invalidating people's armies with Primaris Space Marines. Context for those who are fortunate enough to not have a plastic addiction: about 6 years ago, Games Workshop introduced a whole host of new models for the most popular faction in 40k, complete with lore about how these are newer and better versions of the units. At the time people were concerned about their old models not being usable, and GW assured everyone that they weren't going to remove the old units from the game, and that you could still keep using the models you bought. Fast forward several years... and they have been removing the old units from the game. Just as they promised they wouldn't.
It's not surprising that they are invalidating people's armies. They are, after all, a miniatures company and they have a vested interest in getting people to buy the new models they are making. But it is really scummy imo, because these models are not cheap. If you have a decent size 40k army, you've spent thousands of dollars on miniatures, paint, and so on. For GW to start removing those units from the game leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.
They also aggressively went after fan-made variants and other content posted online, unlike almost any other miniatures/boardgame publisher. Lot of (ex-)fans upset about that.
I think that has in particular bothered older players, as traditionally, pre-GW, miniatures gaming was all very DIY, dominated by amateurs. GW turning it into big business and throwing lawyers around did not make many friends from that hobby old guard. There are still niches of the hobby where GW are not very popular, or just never talked about.
The article does not explain much about the “how”. Games Workshop was a small company that failed to grow for most of its history, then suddenly struck gold. Look at the stock quote: it fluctuated in the 400–800p band from 1996 to 2016, then soared for five years in a row, hitting 10'000p in 2020.
What happened in that crucial period? Did GW manage to spread its brand awareness to the mainstream public?
From someone who has been part of the hobby for a long time, I think a couple of reasons:
1) Total Warhammer, Space Marine, and an otherwise highly successful video game licensing program.
2) Being well positioned to ride the overall rise of nerdier hobbies being acceptable
3) A marked shift in the company towards being more open and...friendly? It's hard to overstate how much the "old GW" sort of viewed its customers with a vibe that sometimes came close to hostility. There's much better engagement now, and a business built on something other than "A mom will buy this for their 12 year old, and will lose them when they discover girls."
They have successfully pivoted from a hobbit focused solely on board games, which requires travelling to someone's house with your figurines, going to the shop, etc.
to something broader, selling video games, science fiction novels (of mediocre quality), miniature painting alone, etc.
Many of their adult customers only buy and paint the miniatures to relax, without ever actually playing with them, for example.
This has allowed them to significantly increase their prices.
They are also much less hostile towards fans. If my memory serves me correctly, in the 1990s they went after a fan who had tattooed one of their characters on himself...
Now they are hunting down 3D print models, but leaving fans relatively alone.
It don't mean to diminish Warhammer's success, but part of the reason why it's one of the "biggest companies" is because many of the other big companies have slowly disappeared. Britain used to have a viable ship building industry that employed huge amounts of people. It's gone. It can't compete. And the same story is repeated again and again. Companies like Morris Garage and Triumph used to compete on the world stage. No longer.
Again, I'm proud of the Warhammer folks. It's just the fact that it's one of the "biggest" makes me sad.
Somehow all this was done seemingly deliberately, as some MBA new hire project at a BigCo. Like how Google kills off half their useful services because nobody in the C suite knows what they're for.
Also, they (the Callahan government) had a plan to bring state of the art semiconductor manufacturing to the UK. Basically TSMC but in Wales. Thatcher killed it.
Yes. One advantage GW has, is that it has never outsourced manufacturing. The miniatures are still made locally, so they haven't lost their expertise, nor are they threatened by a former contractor turned competitor.
"We don't make anything" and "there are no large British companies" are memes that help people feel better about perceived decline. It's not really representative.
The top has "proper" global manufacturing companies: Astrazeneca, Unilever, Glaxo-SmithKline, BAE, Rolls-Royce. Along with the resource extraction companies, and Britain's major services export industry: banking.
(oddity: there are two Coca-cola companies on the FTSE, CCEP and CCH, which presumably exists for some weird tax reason)
Then you get into the question: what counts as a "British company"? There are plenty of overseas-owned UK success stories that are still significant UK employers and bringing money into the UK, such as ARM. Conversely, does a company which is listed on the FTSE but has most of its operations all over the world like RTZ count as "British"? Successful British startups quite often exit and vanish from discourse, while continuing to operate.
To my mind the important questions are "does this bring in valuable forex?" and "does this result in substantial UK employment?" Those don't necessarily have to be in the same company. The big employer list looks different: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1218430/largest-uk-based...
HSBC still up there (over 200k UK staff!), but there's a lot of food service (Compass), retail (Kingfisher you will know as B&Q) and so on.
I've not even got into the videogame industry (very good export industry, and seemingly responsible for the success of Warhammer). If you insist on making physical objects your perspective is going to be unnecessarily narrow.
The thing about Warhammer is there are so many ways to experience it and an unbelieveable amount of content. I've never set hands on the codex (guide books) nor the actual miniatures (too expensive) but I've read so many books from the dark library, and engaged most of its community through its lore. I've spent the last 3 years just within the circle of the Horus Heresy, I don't know anything about the Tau nor the Orks... The game has so much to offer its actually incredible.
1. In general I don't like their boardgames - but I like co-op Euro style board games while the majority of their games are pvp (apart from Warhammer Quest line and maybe 1-2 other ones).
2. In the early 2000s the CEO stated that they are a model company first rather than a boardgame company (and it shows in my view). They do have fantastic miniatures though.
3. Most of the cool lore was written in the 80s. Their lore is fantastic (if dated) and I do enjoy reading from the black library. To geek out, I'm not a fan of the lore change in Warhammer fantasy battle world to Age of Sigma around 2015- even if they did need to revise change the battle system the new lore sucks and come across as a money grab. I have no problem with them wanting to make money - but the new lore seems so lame (looking at you storm cast eternals). Still the AOS line seems to be doing well - I'd argue they could have had the same system in the old world.
4. The model building and painting is a healthy hobby and a nice hobby for an adult/child to do. I am about to have a child and I do want to introduce them to painting and modelling and playing boardgames - but I would be cautious about introducing them to a warhammer store - the models are very pricey, the staff are pushy, and I don't really rate the games. Maybe something like killzone or lord of the rings (but probably not).
5. Still I did pick up the new warhammer quest so they do have things in there even for me.
Mm. Part of GW's modern success is that roughly a decade ago they decided to push third parties to create a ton of Warhammer-branded experiences. There's even a Warhammer movie in the works, if I remember right. That would never have been possible before that "please use our IP" shift.
For me, over the last thirty years I've amassed and then sold a big Warhammer collection multiple times. It finally dawned on me a few years ago that I don't actually like playing the game (I'm really bad at it), but I loved the miniatures. No one else really made the same style of minis. About when we hit the "you can just 3D print an entire army" time period is when I stopped liking even that part of the hobby, and exited for good.
Isn't painting one of the most hazardous hobbies? You're working with questionable chemicals all the time. Even the official Citadel stuff (which I think is reasonably OK most of the time) needs to be treated with a healthy dose of respect, but it's so expensive youre constatly tempted to shop around.
Even then, there were cases of a certain hue disappearing from the lineup (much to the frustration of painters), due it it being banned, because it was too toxic.
There a handful of high-profile 40k and GW people who died in their 30s-40s with illnesses probably related to exposure to this stuff.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 52.2 ms ] threadSales were down? Increase the prices of everything. Something not selling well? Change the game rules to make that it more powerful (or conversely, hype it up constantly so people only realize it sucks after they buy it). And of course constant changes so it was likely any models you bought would eventually become uncompetitive due to new, flashier, more overpowered things released.
Basically every bad business practice we see now was Games Workshop's wheelhouse. And while this may come across as bashing on them, I'm psyched to hear the company is thriving because their games are immensely fun and its impressive they've avoided stagnating or run out of ideas. It gives me hope for the software industry because if an in-person, expensive niche hobby could survive through social media and the pandemic, tech can bounce back from the current enshitification and short-term profit seeking.
If you have the money and enjoy lots of lore/worldbuilding and complex strategy games, Warhammer is a fantastic hobby I'd recommend checking out
And yep, as far as I rememember, they were always horribly expensive.
It's not surprising that they are invalidating people's armies. They are, after all, a miniatures company and they have a vested interest in getting people to buy the new models they are making. But it is really scummy imo, because these models are not cheap. If you have a decent size 40k army, you've spent thousands of dollars on miniatures, paint, and so on. For GW to start removing those units from the game leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.
I think that has in particular bothered older players, as traditionally, pre-GW, miniatures gaming was all very DIY, dominated by amateurs. GW turning it into big business and throwing lawyers around did not make many friends from that hobby old guard. There are still niches of the hobby where GW are not very popular, or just never talked about.
What happened in that crucial period? Did GW manage to spread its brand awareness to the mainstream public?
1) Total Warhammer, Space Marine, and an otherwise highly successful video game licensing program.
2) Being well positioned to ride the overall rise of nerdier hobbies being acceptable
3) A marked shift in the company towards being more open and...friendly? It's hard to overstate how much the "old GW" sort of viewed its customers with a vibe that sometimes came close to hostility. There's much better engagement now, and a business built on something other than "A mom will buy this for their 12 year old, and will lose them when they discover girls."
to something broader, selling video games, science fiction novels (of mediocre quality), miniature painting alone, etc.
Many of their adult customers only buy and paint the miniatures to relax, without ever actually playing with them, for example. This has allowed them to significantly increase their prices.
They are also much less hostile towards fans. If my memory serves me correctly, in the 1990s they went after a fan who had tattooed one of their characters on himself...
Now they are hunting down 3D print models, but leaving fans relatively alone.
Which was what got me stuck in this expensive hobby
Again, I'm proud of the Warhammer folks. It's just the fact that it's one of the "biggest" makes me sad.
Also, they (the Callahan government) had a plan to bring state of the art semiconductor manufacturing to the UK. Basically TSMC but in Wales. Thatcher killed it.
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/indices/ftse-100/constit... ; you can easily sort by market cap. GW are on page 4. Perhaps remarkably close to the two supermarket chains, Sainsburys and M&S, but those are much lower margin.
The top has "proper" global manufacturing companies: Astrazeneca, Unilever, Glaxo-SmithKline, BAE, Rolls-Royce. Along with the resource extraction companies, and Britain's major services export industry: banking.
(oddity: there are two Coca-cola companies on the FTSE, CCEP and CCH, which presumably exists for some weird tax reason)
Then you get into the question: what counts as a "British company"? There are plenty of overseas-owned UK success stories that are still significant UK employers and bringing money into the UK, such as ARM. Conversely, does a company which is listed on the FTSE but has most of its operations all over the world like RTZ count as "British"? Successful British startups quite often exit and vanish from discourse, while continuing to operate.
To my mind the important questions are "does this bring in valuable forex?" and "does this result in substantial UK employment?" Those don't necessarily have to be in the same company. The big employer list looks different: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1218430/largest-uk-based...
HSBC still up there (over 200k UK staff!), but there's a lot of food service (Compass), retail (Kingfisher you will know as B&Q) and so on.
I've not even got into the videogame industry (very good export industry, and seemingly responsible for the success of Warhammer). If you insist on making physical objects your perspective is going to be unnecessarily narrow.
1. In general I don't like their boardgames - but I like co-op Euro style board games while the majority of their games are pvp (apart from Warhammer Quest line and maybe 1-2 other ones).
2. In the early 2000s the CEO stated that they are a model company first rather than a boardgame company (and it shows in my view). They do have fantastic miniatures though.
3. Most of the cool lore was written in the 80s. Their lore is fantastic (if dated) and I do enjoy reading from the black library. To geek out, I'm not a fan of the lore change in Warhammer fantasy battle world to Age of Sigma around 2015- even if they did need to revise change the battle system the new lore sucks and come across as a money grab. I have no problem with them wanting to make money - but the new lore seems so lame (looking at you storm cast eternals). Still the AOS line seems to be doing well - I'd argue they could have had the same system in the old world.
4. The model building and painting is a healthy hobby and a nice hobby for an adult/child to do. I am about to have a child and I do want to introduce them to painting and modelling and playing boardgames - but I would be cautious about introducing them to a warhammer store - the models are very pricey, the staff are pushy, and I don't really rate the games. Maybe something like killzone or lord of the rings (but probably not).
5. Still I did pick up the new warhammer quest so they do have things in there even for me.
For me, over the last thirty years I've amassed and then sold a big Warhammer collection multiple times. It finally dawned on me a few years ago that I don't actually like playing the game (I'm really bad at it), but I loved the miniatures. No one else really made the same style of minis. About when we hit the "you can just 3D print an entire army" time period is when I stopped liking even that part of the hobby, and exited for good.
Even then, there were cases of a certain hue disappearing from the lineup (much to the frustration of painters), due it it being banned, because it was too toxic.
There a handful of high-profile 40k and GW people who died in their 30s-40s with illnesses probably related to exposure to this stuff.