>>21815304
Yeeeeaaaaaaaaah! GW Manager thread!

Um... OK... I've got to think of a question now. OK... why did you leave?

So while I wait for you guys to ask your questions (if i don't reply to you, just ask it again with a link to the first time you asked it as I've probably just missed it accidentally) I will start with a bit of history for you guys as I imagine that there are lot of you who don't really know how GW started.

All of this is true to my knowledge, I may get the odd bit of info wrong, but the general gist is spot on.

Back in the 70's GW was started by three friends who initially started the store up as a mail order business which they operated part from their homes and from their van. It was essentially an independent retailer selling rpg books, miniatures, board games and even shitty toy guns.

They opened up their first store in Hammersmith and from there opened up a few more around England and were fairly successful. This success was due to three main factors, firstly there were almost no other stores of it's kind around, secondly computer games were not as common or loved and thirdly and in my opinion my importantly they were the first and main distributors in the UK of DND.

>>21815358
Oh, and can you say whether sales in your shop went up or down longterm? There's always that one guy saying 'GW's selling less and less, it's doomed'.

>>21815358

Short version, it's a terrible terrible job and retail is not something I wish to be my career.

Long Version, stick with the thread I'm going to explain in depth.

So as i was saying, GW sucess (in my oppinion ofc) was down to these three factors and i would say that 2 out of the 3 was basically pure luck. They had no idea that DND would come out and be such a success and no idea that if they waited a while longer video games would begin to get huge and their target market would begin to shrink.

What I'm saying is that their great foot hold on the gaming market was mostly luck.

Their next move was to create warhammer and begin to remove other company's product from their store (starting with shitty toy guns). Warhammer came around from the demand of customers who had started to amass large quanities of models (for use in their rpgs) and wanted a system to be able to use them all like an actual army. This is why warhammer was created and this is why to begin with warhammer was far more akin to an RPG than a wargame as we know it now.

This also coincided with Citadel Minitures (a company independent of GW initally) buying out GW.

Citadel Minitures was not a power hungry animal like GW is now, but a company who was run by gamers and geeks. There are stories I've heard about entire ranges of models being created after the owners spent a weekend smoking weed.

They saw that GW was having great success selling their models and decided that the two companies should merge.

>>21815479

>shitty toy guns

Wha?

>>21815502
They later replaced them with expensive, tiny finecast toy guns.

>>21815479
GW history question: how many independent LGSs did they kill when they started selling only their own stuff? And once selling only their own stuff was the plan, did they continue buying up LGSs and Warhammifying them?

Laptop just died, had to move to iPad, so I might be a bit slower until the laptop comes back to life.

>>21815402
I made a hell of a lot more money than the previous manager did last year, but even still our customer count was lower
>>21815502
Yup, shitty toy guns, like the kind that make a plastic snapping sound when you pull the trigger and are mainly for 5 year olds

Why not do more threads?

How long til GW goes under?

>>21815508
but still shitty guns

How official is the 'sell mainly to new customers' policy?

Also, how many times higher is the turnover of the Fantasy and 40k starters compared to similarly priced mini sets?

>>21815533
I can't give a solid answer to that as I'm not sure tbh. I can give you what I think was the case, but I could be wrong. If im correct at that early point, they didn't try to kill off Indy stores, not until the late 80s

Now you'll have to forgive me as my time line at this early point is not great, there are holes in it and I may have gotten things the wrong way round, but this doesn't impact the point of this quirky history lesson.

So as I said, gw and citadel come together, but they are still not even close to what we recognise as gw now. They are still run at this point my hobbyists, whose goal is to make toy soldiers and games whilst at the same time being able to give themselves a pay cheque. In essence they are making money to make models, which is important as the focus is on the product not the paycheque.

The company plods along. Making models, white dwarf, games, board games etc, during this time they cull a fair few of the head up guys, mostly the smoke pot and order a line of models whose backstory is they rape women to reproduce (good old famirs). As we towards the end of the 80s the company starts to change, 40k comes out and they start making more money and expanding the number of stores.

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>>21815661
>a line of models whose backstory is they rape women to reproduce
If /tg/ was creating a fantasy race, as soon as it reached this point the thread would disintegrate into mutual accusations of That Guyism and political correctness.

I guess this proves that geedubya were ALL That Guys. Also, good work on the history.

>>21815568
Not for a long time, thats not to say things are rosy, but GW will be around for a while (ill expand on that later)
>>21815558
Not a GW manager anymore, after this thread Ill most likely have fuck all else interesting to tell.
>>21815612
The sell mainly to new customers policy is a bit more complicated and I wanted to talk about that after my little history lesson, so bare with me. In terms of turnover of whfb and 40k starters to similarly prices mini sets, are you referring to Battleforces? Im not 100% sure what you are asking me, perhaps i'm being retarded, but could you expand that question.

In the late 80s you have one of the most important store openings and one of the first (if im correct) attempts by GW to purposely screw over and end an indipendant retailer.

In 1987 (might be out by a year or two) the London flagship store opens on Oxford street in the Plaza Mall, which was and still is perhaps 15mins from one of the main indy stores in London, Orc's Nest.

They coincided the store opening with two things, firstly a new release (dont know what that was) and secondly with the totally unrelated 3 week screw up of Orc's Nest's GW delivery. Leaving Orc's Nest with little to no stock of GW's and obviously fuck and all of the new release.

This gave plaza a great start, but ended Orc's Nest's relationship with GW, which is why they haven't from that point sold a single GW item (excluding Fantasy Flight GW stuff) since then.

>>21815763
Is there one story you always wanted to tell us, but nobody ever asked the right question?

If yes, then tell us that story

>>21815763
>could you expand that question
It's just that I imagine the starter sets have a much higher turnover than basically all the other products, and I was wondering if that was true.

>>21815785
Are you trying to activate OP's trap card?

>>21815763

Please go on. What happened after that?

What happened to Andy chambers? Why isn't Ian Miller a big influence stylistically anymore? Same with Wayne England.

>>21815787
I think he's talking about Dark Vengence and Battle for Black Reach and Isle of Blood and Battle for Blackrock Pass and what the fuck ever.

Do you have any GW staff instruction sheets or anything we can laugh at?

Now by the by, Oxford street is one of their most succesfull stores, firstly its in fucking Oxford street and secondly the Plaza Mall charges them next to fuck all rent, in fact their rent in Plaza is significantly cheaper than the rent they pay for the store in Wood Green (which makes like 1/5 of the money)

Now this is just speculation, but I would put money on Tom Kirby having joined the company before the Plaza Orc Nest situation. Can't say he had anything to do with it, but I wouldn't fucking put it past him.

I don't like Kirby, he's a cunt, I once peed next to him and he talked to me, whilst we were peeing. Wtf who does that...seriously, what kind of man thinks, hey my hand is on my dick, his hand is on his dick, we don't know eachother at all, lets fucking ask him about how he likes working for GW. Cunt...

Anywho, in the early 90's we see the birth of GW as it is today, due to Tom Kirby. You see this is when GW was floated on the stock market, which was done by Tom Kirby and a few others approaching a bank and (in my eyes) scamming them into giving them the money to buy out the other owners and float the company. This scam was nice and simple, they held a huge fuck off sale across the country and then used those sales figures to say that if they had control this is the kind of money they would be making every weekend.

It worked and bob's your fucking uncle, GW is floated a load more people at the top are told to jog on and Kirby is king.

This all happens just before the start or just as GW starts to create 40k 2nd edition.

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>Ian Livingstone dreamed that the company he founded could become the number one RPG company in the world

Why are there a multitude of Space Marine Codexes for all sorts of chapters, not no similar thing for other factions - there not even being a proper Sisters of Battle Codex.

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>>21815873
>his company becomes the biggest in the world
>by ditching RPGs altogether and selling more Spess Mehreens

>>21815875
The answer will be money. Space Marines sell. Even better, they sell and they're cheaper to produce, because they share a lot of the same designs and even the exact same models.

>>21815875
Marines sell. That's the only reason.

>>21815934
>>21815905
>>21815875

Sisters don't sell, so they get melted and no codex

>>21815905
This.
Why the hell are you asking what is literally the most no brainer question possible for 40k?

>>21815943
Maybe they'd sell a little better if they weren't man jawed bull dykes,

>>21815787
This is pretty much it, there are a few others i might tell (although they're more like, how funny was this situation rather than interesting insights into GW)
>>21815816
Ill try to remember to get to that one as it requires a bit longer time to fully explain.
>>21815787
Starter sets do sell okay, but not as much as they used to, due mostly do the stupid cost that they charge for them. Three years ago, the start sets were 40quid, hobby paint set was 25 and spray was 8. Now they are 61.5 (which is 100% going to be 75 in June, if they're charging 75 for the hobbit, the rest will follow) 35 for the paint set and 10 for spray. Who spends that kind of money on something they've never done before? As an example though, most stores in the Uk are expected to sell 2 core boxes, 2 hobby start sets per week, with between 8-12 intro games and intro paint lessons and around 20 beginners.

>>21815861
I might, ill go check in a bit when i have a smoke

So 40k 2nd edition is out, this was 'New' GW's first baby and you can really tell. They had started to grasp the idea that people wanted bigger armies and of course bigger armies meant more money and that rogue trader was far too complicated for younger kids who were starting to be a large source of money to them. My first experience of the hobby was 2nd ed 40k and 5th ed fantasy (loved that lizardmen bret box, such a perfect starter box, i mean honestly what is more iconic for fantasy than knights and dragon looking mother fuckers) anyway. What always stood out for me about 2nd ed and what still does is that it doesn't quite know what it is yet, is it a role playing game or a table top wargame. Much like a gay man coming to terms with who he is, it would jump in and out of both styles at random.

This is why 3rd edition was such a shock btw. They needed to cut away everything rpg like and start afresh.

>>21816021
>Much like a gay man coming to terms with who he is
You, sir, have a way with analogies.

do you know how talent for the black library is picked?

But i degress into the origins of the games rather than the company, during this time the company was trying to work out what it wanted from their stores. They wanted a place for people to play with their shit and they wanted to encourage new people to come in. They did this through a constant shit storm of changing policies, what the staff could and could not do, what they had to do, what the customers could do. Staff turn over was crazy high and managers and staff were moved from store to store depending on the roll of a dice.

Anyway, this basically continues for a fair while until they introduce the 10 commandments.

Now those 10 commandements have changed, but they were and still are pretty damn good for anyone in retail. I can remember them in part, so here goes

1. Be clean, don't smell, shave, have clean clothes
2. Be energetic, don't bring customers, yourself and your team down.
3. Acknowledge everyone that comes in
4. Ask open questions (questions that can't be answered with yes or no)
5. Actually listen to what is said
6. Be polite

(thats all i can remember)

Anyway these are the cornerstones of good customer service, now of course this was taken different ways by different staff, managers, cell managers etc which is why some times you met a staff member that was like 'hey buddy, shit weather huh, btw nice parrot on your shoulder, is that a macaw? It is? Sick mate, I love the colours, so btw what brings you here today? Oh you like eldar, well have you seen this new eldar tank? You haven't? well shit, look at this one? etc etc etc' or by this staff member 'HEYA PALL, BUDDY, FRIEND, AMIGO BUY THIS ORC HEEEEE'''SS GREAT, please be my friend, I LOVE SPACE MARINES, GIRLS ARE WEIRD LOL LOL"

But still it did well and the company continued grow at a good rate, until The Lord of The Ring Era.

(i'm going to have a quick smoke and then be right back)

>>21816115
>until The Lord of The Ring Era
[OMINOUS MUSIC]

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>>21816149

SAURON UP IN THIS BITCH

>>21816149
>lightning strikes in the distant

File: 1354251444333.jpg-(16 KB, 256x242, NO.jpg)

EXPLAIN

>>21816162
That's a seriously thick ring. Looks like an onion ring, in fact. Which would also explain the glowing.

>>21816174
second this
captcha:eyesore foursall

File: 1354251608881.jpg-(33 KB, 400x231, gandalf1.jpg)

Is there any hope competent management may take over or buy them out? Some old blood or white knight riding with the sun to his back saving the hobby and IP?

>>21816178
Somehow looks like caramel. Mhh.
Also like a bad shoop.

>>21816178

You never did that at burger king/your fast food place as a kid?

Get onion rings, put them on fingers, end up grabbing kids in the play-zone with your greased up onion mitts.

>>21816174
>>21816185
(a) GW hates Australia
(b) Somehow, there are enough people willing to pay that much to make it worthwhile

I can't explain (b), though.

>>21816250
I can. Autism.

And I'm Back

So just quickly before I got into Lotr, im gonna mention Mark Wells the current CEO (Kirby is the current Chairman). I dont know when he arrives, nor does it make a difference, the guy is a worm and i dont believe he's had a single positive affect on the company. He was brought it from Boots which is primarly a chemist that sells lots of other crap, think walgreens for you yanks out there. He was head of Uk sales i believe for Boots, anyway i'll get back to LotR.

So, GW gets the LOTR licence, and things go fucking amazing. They produce one of those weekly magazines which is basically their first ever real marketing and from what I've been told by managers who ran stores at the time, you litterally couldn't stop making money. Kids would come in and you would be like this is a dice, thats an elf, give me 70 quid and people would be like "SURE MATE, CAN I ALSO SUCK YOUR DICK???"

And with all this cash, GW made sure that they're best people worked on the most sensible investment and growth plan for the company. And by best people i mean whoever the fuck was at the top at that point and by whoever the fuck was at the top at that point i mean the people who had survived the culls and changes through being quiet and through being mates with Kirby. This top plan they worked on was hire more staff and open more stores, because by doing that they could earn more money as the LotR train was never going to end, because it's not like there were only going to be 3 movies and ...oh wait.

Shit hit the fan and no one expected it...except, perhaps Kirby. Again, this is just my assumption, but Kirby, whilst being a pathetic excuse for a human, is an incredibly smart person, he lead the charge to float GW and made a LOT of money from that venture. So i find it hard to believe that he didn't know the bubble wouldn't burst and this is backed up by what he did next.

(i seem to really like ending on a sort of cliff hanger)

>>21816272
I am literally stuffing popcorn into my mouth.

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>>21816272

Kirby sold

He sold all his shares at the height of the LotR bubble and made a lot of money, like a LOT of money.

The bubble burst and stores closed, releases got smaller, staff got fired, managers got fired, entire levels of management got removed in order to keep things going. They streamlined like a bitch and throughout this their share price dropped.

And Kirby bought all his shares back

Yup he took some of the money he made by selling his shares and bought them all back and a much lower price than he had sold them for.

I'll pause here and go back and try to answer anything small that I've missed question wise, if I dont answer your question it means I'm going to answer it in length after i finish my history lesson.

Goddamnit I need to sleep and do schoolwork why do you make me wait

>>21816340
Sometimes, when the BBEG pulls off something that impressively evil, you don't even WANT to run in and slay him. You just have to stand back and applaud.

>>21816340

As a stockholder since GW's initial IPO in the British market this doesn't hold water - Kirby has NEVER not been the largest single entity share holder since its IPO.

He has never relinquished his individual majority share. I'd need some actual documentation noting this movement of shares (and how he maintained a controlling interest on the board during the process).

File: 1354252561194.gif-(2.56 MB, 317x238, congrats.gif)

>>21816364
Like this

>>21816373
A CHALLENGER APPEARS

(I'll just keep shovelling popcorn if it's cool with you guys)

>>21815875
Space Marines sell, they are the most iconic thing about 40k. The 40k universe is in my opinion the dog's bollocks. I love the shit out of it, it's dark, realistic, funny, it's just...yeah i'm a fan and Space Marines epitomize all of that. So yeah, people love them, so GW makes them... a lot.
>>21816043
Thank you :D, i do try.
>>21816083
I do in fact, visit a forum called black library bolthole. It's where everyone went to after the BL got rid of their forum. The BL team interact a lot with that forum, a lot of the writers have a ask a thread there and it's a great place to get good critics for your work. As well as this, submit to their open contests that they run for some of their anthologies and some of the content of the web series Bolter & Chainsword.
>>21816149
That is literally what i was hearing as I typed that :P

>>21816174
Two things, firstly Australia is a bitch to import to, so part of the blame is your taxation on foreign imports. Secondly your currency used to be worth fuck and all and because GW lack good businessmen they're mentality is 'well they've always paid this much, so why would be not continue to sell it at this price, the fact that the currency is worth more has nothing to do with things' I was literally told that by management up at Nottingham btw...

>>21816206

Good question, will get to that in a bit

>>21816440
Thats bullshit. Australia is not a bitch to import. We have like no taxes on things coming in.

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>>21816340
you know, I always clung to the belief that Kirby was some sort of retard, a man who didn't intend to do these awful things to my hopes and dreams. Much like how one of the autistic kids in my elementary school broke everyone's clay sculptures because he liked the sound of shattering ceramic, not because he wanted to make people cry.

But now I know that jack kirby is a diabolical genius, like some sort of tzeenechian wizard hellbent on summoning tentacle daemons into our bedrooms.

I no longer have faith in humanity. I just don't know, man. At the very least, i'll need to get some 3rd party greenstuff and convert my dreadnoughts into warjacks. Maybe I'll move to Alaska, removing myself from human contact. fuck, I don't even know if i should talk to people anymore.

>>21816467
See >>21816373

>>21816467

Bad people who are also smart run the world - deal with it.

>>21816373
He has never been the largest single entity share holder, i've never said he was. He was one of a few, but not the biggest. And secondly, yes he has, go find your own proof if you must, but he has. It's something I was told by head office, so I find it hard to understand why they would inform me of this.

Also, as a stockholder, let me give you this tit bit, from one of the bigger shareholders in GW "If Kirby sells in the next 5 years, I'll take him to court"

Regardless my story continues.

So between, the Lotr bubble bursting, Kirby's return and 5th ed 40k things grow in a steady pace. GW gets back on track, doing it's usual thing of moving people around, never firing the top execs just making them move office.

This is where I appear and my knowledge of things gets better and clearer. When I arrived the following was true in GW UK.

Mark Wells is CEO
John Lockland is head of Sales for GW
John Gillard is head of UK Sales for GW
Chris Colsten is head of UK Retail
There are a number of Regional Managers (less than 12, not sure on numbers)

But the brightest star of these Regional managers was Ken Mcgloclan.

>>21816440
through some sort of chaos socery, 6th editon made sisters of battle half-way playable. I even saw a dude bring 'em into my FLGS the other day. is it possible that this was intentional, and if so, Does that mean we'll get a SOB codex eventually?

>>21816544

He is currently listed as per the investor relations as the single largest stock holder. He is not the largest because there are 3 investment firms that own the majority control. He currently owns 6.7% of the company and has never dropped below a 6% ownership. This means that as for single share holders he has always had the largest share.

I hate to call bullshit - but you are wrong. He has NEVER dropped below a 6% ownership nor has he has lost his controlling interest in the business as a result.

I don't have to find facts, I have my minutes as are required to be legally delivered to me as a share holder. Your claim of speaking to one of the "bigger shareholders" holds little weight seeing as outside Kirby himself there is no other single entity holder who owns even 1 full percent of the business.

>>21816544
This story has me on the edge of my seat. i want more sir.

>>21816544
That guy actually said "he has never NOT been the largest single entitiy share holder". Don't know what the truth of it is, just sayin.

>>21816461
I've been told this a few times, so thats all I can say, could be wrong, if so, ignore that and take the second thing I said as the only reason. Regardless you've been dealt a shitty hand, get stuff off Ebay.

So onto Ken.

Ken was regional manager of London and was the most successful regional out of the bunch. This was down to the fact that he was a) good at his job, he was a good judge of character, he trusted his managers to get shit done and if shit wasn't done he would come down, try and get them to succeed and if not fire your ass. Now there were many that hated him, i didn't, but hey perhaps I was lucky. But he had a savvy business mind and was easy to respect (ex British military officer who served in Bosnia. You could see in his eyes the souls of those he took to Hell's doors.

He eventually becomes head Regional, along with another man called Prince. Prince was a small itialian man called Princepe something, so people called him Prince. Nice guy, but i was so disapointed when i met him because i had expected him to be some badass black dude who would swan into my store singing Purple Rain.

Anyway Ken ruled the South, Prince the North and for a little while, all was good.

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>>21816618

>>21816632
>small man called Prince
Gentlemen, Slaanesh is explained.

>>21816611
Look mate, all I know is that I've been told by multiple people that he sold his shares and bought them back at a significantly lower price. Also less than 1% of GW is still a lot of money, which assuming the figures you mention are spot on, means that other than the 3 investment firms and kirby everyone else has less than 3%, which would make the next 5 people on that list (even though they have less than 1%) the biggest shareholders.

I'm sure you are not trolling, so shall we just say that in your mind I'm wrong about Kirby selling at that point in time and let me carry on with the rest of the information. In the end, it doesn't impact the rest of what I've said.

I want to believe you are legit. I'm just not buying it.

Fake.

>>21816461
This guy has never tried to buy a car in Australia.

>>21816730

He's done it like three times before. No fake.

>>21816730
Yes, yes, because everything on the internet is fake, without exception, all the time.
If you don't like it, close the thread up and roll on.

GW Manager, I too managed a GW on the opposite side of the pond and I can say with all confidence that if your management told you things about import/export tariffs, shareholder affairs or anything else outside of their very narrow area of responsibility, they either willfully mislead you or simply didn't know what the fuck they were talking about. Maybe it's just because the American business just got all the rejects, but you only had to spend get Ed Spettigue moderately drunk before the truth started leaking out of him like so much piss and vinegar.

>>21816632
>Ex military
>Expects underlings to get shit done
>Ken
>Khen
>Khene
>Khorne
Ladies and gentlemen, Khorne explained

>>21816765

Confirmed - I worked for Ed in his last days here in Memphis. He was my boss until the day he retired. One night of hard drinking and the meat and potatoes of it came out.

I'm gonna pause, to sort out this issue with this guy, once we've gotten past that I'll continue.

But i can tell you a quick story about Ken whilst I wait for this guy to respond to my suggestion.

One of Ken's first duties as Regional Manager for London was to investigate the complaints about the Romford store and they're fairly lax staff.

So he turned up to the store on a thursday night, wearing a jumper over his GW shirt, walked around the store seeing people pissing about, the staff busy playing games with random vets and no one welcoming him or doing any of the 10 commandments. He then proceeds to walk right past the staff and into the staff back area where the toilets are (if you were a customer and had to use the toilet, you were meant to go outside to the Mall toilets). No one said anything, they just let him go in the back, with all the stock and the safe.

He comes back outside without the jumped, informs all the customers that they needed to leave and proceeded to fire every single staff member there, I'm not clear on what happened to the manager, whether he was there and got fired, or fired the next day. But Ken cleared house.

Man Ken was a legend

>>21816713
>all I know is that I've been told by multiple people that he sold his shares
(not that anon) When was this? The investors chronicle website lists director dealings for the last 10 years, and no sales by Kirby are shown.

Also, holy shit, in March he bought nearly a million pounds worth...

>>21816765

Do you have anything you chan share as well?

>>21816771
Chuckl'd.

>>21816713

I find this to be acceptable. Assuming the information has no bearing on the rest of the tale - do continue.

>>21816765
was pretty much the same thing here, go out for a beer or two after a regional meeting and bam information. This is where i got my information from, along with several of my co-workers who had stayed and survived through the LOTR years.

The things is and i mean this was no disrespect, but the american business is woefully neglected, although you were sent Kirby a few years back to watch over you. The people in HQ you dealt with never had the access to the information we had.

Anyway, have we decided that I can continue? Or do we need to continue to go over small facts and debate them?

>>21816846
Please do continue.

>>21816846

That's an interesting bit - seeing as US Trade outpaces UK retail for income by division. That said I'm not debating small facts, just pointing out that you know less than you think you do.

>>21816846
Carry on!

(also in investor news: GW share price went up by 53.99% in the last year. I may have misunderstood as I cannot into stocks, but... wut)

>>21816806
Nothing really recent or exciting. I haven't been with the company since Games Workshop US relocated its headquarters from Glen Burnie, Maryland to Memphis, Tennessee.

There are one or two people who came up through the redshirt ranks who are still with the company (those that were offered the very exclusive opportunity to relocate to Memphis, for instance), but the vast majority are long gone, scattered to the winds and doing their own thing.

I can say, though, that >>21816787's anecdote isn't exclusive to former SAS badasses; we had a short, bespectacled fellow by the name of Forbes who did the exact same thing to the White Marsh hobby center in the early 2000s - so either it's an apocryphal tale or it just doesn't take that much brass to fire a whole shop full of incompetent goobers.

>>21816885
(also, current share price is 666 pence. Make of that what you will)

>>21816829
Sweet
>>21816788
Well i must admit that with you stating this and with the adament information provided by the above poster. I must be wrong. I have no idea why i was told this, perhaps i misunderstood? Perhaps it was the bonus's he was given during that period that they were referring to when they talked about the money he made during that time and I just put 2+2 got 5 and then forgot that it was me that said he sold his shares?

Anyway, regardless we will continue our tale of GW, but with a much less evil Kirby (although his pee talking antics clearly reveal his black soulless heart)

Next post I will continue with the story (promise)

>>21816913
I don't really know, I was just randomly reaching for the Investors Chronicle. I neither stock nor share.

>>21816895
Tom?

>>21816895

That's Sean Forbes - devil rot his misbegotten soul - cancer got him before any one of the other's he was due did.

>>21816962
Or Jerry?

>>21816979
Heart attack followed shortly thereafter by a stroke, actually. It was a tragic dodgeball accident. Speak not ill of the dead, those that came after were much, much worse.

>>21816895
>doesn't take that much brass to fire a whole shop full of incompetent goobers
Or that short bespectacled fellow was far more ballsy than you assume. My grandfather stood about 5'4", wore these Mister Magoo glasses, and had this soft, quiet voice. He was a Marine Raider in WWII. No, I don't have stories, hell I didn't even know until I came across his name when reading about them. I knew he was a Marine, but never that he was a Raider. He just... never mentioned it.

>>21816883
-_-

US trade outpaces Uk retail, but the US business itself hasn't been handled well, GW has changed it's plans there more than with every other country and like I said, they even went so far as to send Kirby there to babysit.

ANYWAY.

Ken is in the South and Prince is in the North, things go okay and then they decided to recreate the 10 commandments and at the same time create the 10 doctrines of a hobby center and the 10 values of a manager.

This was a big thing and they brought every manager from the UK up to Nottingham to create this.

All the managers were explained that they wanted to take all their ideas and experiences and use them to create these new rules that would solve Retail's constant decline in growth (until last year, i believe UK retail hadn't hit financial growth in 10ish years)

They were split up into groups, wrote out their ideas, store rules, principles onto sticky notes and then they were put up onto a wall.

These yellow notes were then grouped and sorted and the managers were told that they had successfully completed the rules that would change GW stores forever.

What they didn't realize is that they had (for a significant number) signed away their careers in GW.

>>21817001

No one was worse than Forbes. I've been around/with the company for near 7 years now. Sans perhaps Wimberly, maybe Ash Barker - Forbes tops the list.

>>21817023

because the US distribution and manufacturing center is in Memphis TN. Its not a pretty city but its a cheap city where FedEx is headquartered.

>>21817031
I won't try to disabuse you of your notions, but of the two of them, Ash is still with the company and Sean isn't so who's really doing that much more damage? And considering that he kicked it in 2007, Forbes has been dead for almost as long as you've been in, around and with the company.

Regardless, >>21817029 isn't wrong to say that the US business has been mismanaged. I won't pretend to understand why certain decisions were made, but I resent the implication that Kirby was sent to save the US business from itself when those repeated changes of direction were predicated on direction from Nottingham on how we ought to have been doing things.

>>21817029
>They were split up into groups, wrote out their ideas, store rules, principles onto sticky notes and then they were put up onto a wall.
This sounds awfully like a way to pretend you have some kind of consensus for decisions which people aren't going to like...

Also
>The Prince in the North!
Heh, those crazy Starks.

>>21817107
>nothing special.
GRACELAND MOTHERFUCKER!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzxWbURBRRc

>>21817163
Oh Memphis IS a pisshole, that's why I picked that song. But it's still got Graceland.

Soon after this meeting, the brand new commandments were released in lovely little folders and sent to all the stores, along with an operations codex (yes they called it a codex, in fairness it was useful though) and a standard training codex (or STC...) for use in training these new commandments, some lovely assessment forms that needed to be completed by every staff member once per day, every shift on their performance of the 10C's with a random customer of their manager's choosing and finally a lovely little bit of paper crediting every single manager in attendance at that meeting as the real creators of the STC, new 10coms and the assessments sheets.

That bit of paper was my and still is my favorite thing Head Office ever did, as you couldn't argue against these sudden changes, i mean how could you, you helped create it didn't you? Your name is on this paper and it tell us you and over 130 other managers all signed off on this.

>>21817179

Is it ever - but atleast our GW store is pretty nice!

>>21817029
>UK retail hadn't hit financial growth in 10ish years
Where did the money come from? Internet sales?

(sorry, I cannot into business)

>>21817016

'Brass' doesn't refer to balls, it refers to Rank.

>>21817112
Kirby was sent to save you and you are 100% right to resent that. He was sent to save the US business from doing things it was told to do by Nottingham. They still don't understand the US and they still refuse to admit it. I've always felt bad for the guys in the US, a close friend of mine worked for GW in the US as a manager and the stories he told were not pretty. I have no idea how things are going there now at the US hq. I can see the 1 man store has arrived and taken over, no idea if you have the new 10cs, doctrines or whatever. If you haven't, fuck I pity what you're about to experiance

Anyway, let me continue

These new 10cs were not the same and had a very different adjenda. Including such gems as 'always conduct positive conversations about GW and GW product with customers and staff' meaning that any negative opinions you had could legitimately get you a disciplinary as you had been told you couldn't be negative about GW with anyone, not your co workers, not your staff, not your manager.

We were then invited to Hobby Skills Camps, which we thought were camps to teach us new hobby skills, like painting and shit, but turned out to be camps on how to use the new 10cs correctly. These were basically excersises in sitting in a room, cheering about GW repeating the phrase 'BIG CASH' and then doggedly repeating everything the trainers told us. An example of this was lining up 15 people who pretended to be customers, getting 15 other people to be staff and repeat to the customer, 'would you like to buy that today'. If anyone said something different, they were shouted at and belittled.

The next 6 months saw a LOT of people either leave or get fired. Good times indeed...

>>21817243
>>21817130 here. Called it.

>>21817130
Man, I was just thinking that.

Prince in the North

And Ken is fairly close to King.

Change the setting and the names and this could make for a pretty good political intrigue novel.

>>21817230

Its does pretty well as a destination location. The current management and team there are working hard to get people to want to travel in. They put up alot of cool banners, maps of the empire, big campaign maps, got some decent swag (mugs and caps and such).

No clue regarding their business (I'm just a customer there) but the store always seems busy so...

I knew Sean Forbes AND Ash Barker... neither of them wrote me up for taking a day off because my dad had a heart attack like Brad Deicas did.

>>21817303
Orwellian.

Also, what's up my Springfield peeps? I am going to assume that Mike Hanson is on and probably Chewie. Anybody else want to step forward?

>>21817291
So your dad had a heart attack three separate times?

>>21817303
>cheering about GW repeating the phrase 'BIG CASH'
>on a retail salary
Ouch.

>>21817268
You're right. It's all there. Earnest begginings, shady motives, betreyal, power struggles, corruption, flawed characters.

I'd watch it.

>>21817268
if could work decently well within a cyberpunk universe. you wouldn't even need to stand in politics for business there. GW could also be selling brain DLC to allow people to measure inches better, and the minis could move on their own.

>>21817291

Deicas was a HUGE dick. Still though Wimberly rates number one in GW dicks of all time.

>>21817303

Welcome to retail.

>>21817339
Also, I might be wrong here but I think there's very few GWs beyond The Wall, i.e. in Scotland.

>>21817331
That's kind of a dick comment.

>>21817337

Maybe come up for one of the big events they run from time to time to justify the commute? I know they're doing a big game in march.

File: 1354256939140.png-(237 KB, 790x1700, Imperial Creed.png)

>>21815304
I have a couple important questions.

Where did that picture come from, are there more, and if it's from SFM or Garrys Mod, where can I get those models to make more pictures as such?

>>21817243

Its no different than any of the hundreds of "team training" exercises other big box retailers engage in...

>>21817303
HOW MANY STEAK KNIVES DO I HAVE TO SELL?

I NEED THESE KNIVES TO CUT MY HAM...MY WARHAM.

>>21817224
a few years back, we were shown a graph of where all of GW UK's sales came from, 40ish % from retail, a larger 40ish% from trade accounts (that is them selling to indy stores) and something like 7% from direct sales (the net).

The common misconception about GW Retail is that it works like any other retail store (this even confuses head office as well) really Retail is there primarly (or it fucking used to be and still should be) as the marketing arm of the company. Retail is there to say, 'hey check this shit out, its fun' and to say 'hey here is a place you can do your hobby in' This then feeds trade and direct sales.

Continuing on with the 10cs

Now aparantly this all actually came from the Australian business which aparantly (never checked this) was doing good or at least better than it used to and was the brain child of Grant Peacey.

His other brain child was the one man store, which soon after the release of the 10cs was unveiled to the UK business. To explain how this worked, let me quickly explain to you how the stores are split up.

They are split into space marine companies (at the time just 6, now there are fully 10) Depending on how much money you took per year, placed you in different a battle company and depending on which battle company you were in, you would have less or more pay and less or more staff.

So when they unveiled the new 1 man stores, they did this by effectively making something close to 70 staff members redundant. Happy Days right? This we found out through Warseer and then finally head office told us.

>>21817397

Cool, if you can make it you should. The manager is kind of dickish (guy named James) but the 2 other staff (Price and Chris) are really nice. Helpful and knowledgeable without the classic "DO YOU LIKE SPACE MARINES" shit GW retail is known for.

>>21817396

I thought they had been using the 1 man store environment in the UK since around 2009? Or does that fit in your time frame?

side note here

If you think shouting "Big Cash' was bad, you need to understand that we had a visual que as to when we had to shout 'Big Cash', during the slide show training presentations, after a big important thing was explained like 'don't tell someone that they're army suck balls' they would flash up this enlarged picture of a 50 pound note with the Queens head removed and replaced with a picture of the current head of UK Retail.

Oh and Christmas was called 'Cashmas'

Anyway

I've missed something here, sorry, i need to go back slightly, about 6 months before the crazy head office meeting where people signed their own doom, Chris Colsten the head of UK retail was moved sideways back into the training departments and was replaced by John something (think it began with a c) anyway so yeah. John Gilard, is clearly told at this time that he will go the same was as Colsten if he doesn't deliver in the next year, he was at the time Head of UK Sales.

Like I said before, the big boys in Nottingham don't get fired, they fail sideways into different jobs roles.

The reason I bring this all up is that John Gilard I imagine was worried and jelous about the 1 man stores and new 10coms. He was having to implement changes to his area that he had nothing to do with, so he decided to create a pet project for himself to gain GW fame.

These were the residential 1 man stores and they were a cunt hole.

Since there seem to be a lot of people here who remember the salad days of Glen Burnie and the Baltimore-Washington metro area, does anyone remember John Thissel? I heard he got sacked... like, literally, they put him in a sack and dragged him away because one day he was there and the next he was just gone.

>Shouting "BIG CASH!"
Least they could have done was had a sense of humor about it and made you shout "LOADSAMONEY!".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON-7v4qnHP8

>>21817243
Is your friend, by any chance, Matt Baxter? If so, I think I may have an idea of who you are.

Anyway, didn't mean to derail your thread. Please, continue on continuing on as it is way past my bedtime, anyway.

>>21817478
Yes it does...i think, might have been 2010 they brought them in, but 2009 sounds right.

So residential 1 man stores, were rolled out only in London. John's idea was that when he was kid, if he had a gw next to his house, he would have been inside every day. His thinking was that a kid that goes to gw every day rather than just on a Saturday would spend more money.

He was wrong, the stores tanked and i'm fairly sure that they're both going to be closed or relocated. Either way they ate through some managers who just burned out due to the stress and lonelyness.

This was just before warhammer 8th ed.

The hobby camps continued under a new name, sales skills camps, or as we called them, SS camps. Managers and staff were leaving in droves and both John Gilard and John Carter, that was his name, Carter, they got moved sideways Gilard into licensing and Carter into something else i couldn't give a fuck about. They were replaced by shock horror. Grant Peacey.

It was at this time lost Ken. Ken had at some point in this beautifully hectic time moved sideways in an attempt to avoid the coming shit storm and was working for BL. He was manager of international sales or something like that, he was eventually fired for 2 fairly awesome yet solid reasons. He attended a convention in Las Vegas and got shit faced and drunk in front of everyone and he got into an argument with one of the larger shareholders who proceeded to ask Ken if he knew who the fuck he was shouting at, to which Ken replied 'Yes, do you know who the Fuck I am?"

Legend

Anyway, before I move onto the era of Grant, i need another fag.

brb

>>21817598

Its either Baxter or Dave Swan. I can't think of too many other Brits who've run stores in the US. There was one in Houston for awhile.

Baxter is still with the company (as is Swan for that matter).

>>21817621
Fantastic storytime dude.

>>21817626
And if US GW Manager knows Baxter, then I have a pretty good idea of who HE is.

File: 1354258496516.png-(16 KB, 225x225, 1352187161232.png)

Jesus Christ OP, how horrifying.
Please, continue.

Everybody in the company knew Baxter, >>21817684. He was a floater, sent from one troubled store to another. When I knew him, he was running one of the Virginia stores because their manager had been promoted above his level of competence and run shit into the ground.

>>21817684

You've done some masterful deduction. Baxter has been state side for awhile now and run into more than few managers (and has moved departments ALOT). But I guess when you're sticking ole Linda Rosario (or Baxter now) you've got some longevity since wifey doesn't want you losing your job.

>>21817702
And THAT would be Pete Underwood, if I recall correctly.

Carmina Burana O Fortuna fits well with GW history.

>>21817730

Nah Pete is a new guy. Baxter hasn't been in retail since 2010. I would suggest its Don McInturff but sadly he's still with the business.

>>21817031
>Ash Barker
ASH BARKER? motherfucker, I knew that guy when he was a lowly redshirt at the Games Workshop in the Eaton's Center! Fuck, I have a White Dwarf SIGNED by him, with his first battle report. I'm sure of it.

Goddamn. there's someone I'd forgotten about.

wow, ok, so this talk of "one man stores" and "residential stores"...i thought this was some kind of opaque gw nomenclature that meant something else...are you saying there are/were corporate gw stores with one employee...with living quarters?!

that sounds like a recipe for suicide.

>>21817761

He's a mega douche. Fucker is like 40 and wears eyeliner! What the fuck? He's a 40 year old hipster.

>>21817763

Residential stores meaning in residential areas.

One man stores does mean one employee, though.

>>21817763

No - the locations were in residential area rather than retail. That said the bulk of UK and US retail stores are staffed by 1 person.

>>21817621

I've got a question (sorry to derail you from your GREAT story), but what's GW's relationship with FFG like?

If you don't know that's cool but ive always been curious.

>>21817788

Really fucking satisfactory for both. FFG makes a shit load of money off the IP and pays GW handsomely for it.

Both sides are happy as pie with each other.

>>21817337
Arkanfag here. I apologize for our roads being utter shit and always under construction

>>21817796
Are you the OP?

(Is confused!)

>>Captcha - syperfo consecreted
Damn right it's consecrated!

>>21817383
Most large organizations do this. I work for a non-profit and we have to do this shit only it's about love and caring which in a way is even worse.

Grant Peacy

He came into John Gillard's role and never replaced John Carter's, he is still the current Head of UK Retail.

Now he did some good things, he changed the SS camps back into Hobby camps, i imagine because someone finnally realised that they were being reffered to as SS camps and made also changed them from being a tool to smack you in the face if you didn't jump high enough or at the right time, but into something half decent.

The doctrines were fully introduced, which is why all intro tables had to be made entirely with GW scenery and no foam or card and the 10com assessment sheets were reduced from 1 a day to a suggested 1 a week.

Things looked good, he had 12 regional managers and totally wasn't going to fire them, until he got rid of 2. They there was 10 and he definatly wasn't going to fire any of them, he even had asked them to all move to Nottingham so that they could be closer and so when they had all sold their homes or in the cases of poorly paid GW staff not renued their contract for their flat he definatly wasn't going to fire any of them. Until he fired one and changed one regional into a different role, but at least still based in Nottingham.

Stand up guy, real classy.

Now all through this time and for the last 3 years really, GW had been going ape shit for cost reductions, they had managed to reduce the cost of opening a store from something like just over 150k to around 70k and with the one man stores reducing their staffing levels their profit and loss accounts looked good. The price rises were also helping and so what if sales had been constantly dropping, all the efficiency and price rising were making things fucking fantastic.

>>21817770
at the time, I was like 11 and thought he was the coolest guy in the world. I mean, he was in WHITE DWARF!

But looking back, he was a bit of a fuck. Can definately see him being a hipster.

>>21817796
what about GW and Privateer Press?

>>21817749
Pete is most certainly not a new guy, he was shitcanned when Sean Forbes was still alive. His reign of apathy marked the beginning slow, painful slide of the Potomac Mills store into its inevitable demise.

Don wasn't quite a contemporary, but he managed to ride Mark Bolger's coattails when he was promoted to regional (he installed all of his old Stony Point employees in whatever vacancies were available), and successfully segued into a retail operations position before hobby center management became completely untenable.

Nobody else, not even Bolger himself, is left from Stony Point. Just Don McInturff.

Now this is where we get to crux of the matter, and where I imagine I'll have some swift opposition.

GW has been window dressing their end of year accounts like a boss. Things look pretty alright, comp game licenses are doing well, fantasy flight is paying them good, effeciancy is at an all time high and people (less people than before though) at buying product reguardless of the price increases.

But this is all temporary gain, in my eyes this can't be maintained.

They are trying though, for the last 5-6 months they have been cutting staff in the UK business, but in a very clever way. Until this last month, there hasn't been any redundancies, what has happened is that staff aren't being replaced, when people have left their positions haven't been refilled. This has coincided with the transition to all stores being 5 day stores, with the idea that if a store with 1 manager and 1 staff member is open 7 days a week there are 4 days where only 1 member of staff is in. If it is open 5 days, then every day has 2 staff members which means more training and coaching time for managers and more staff to help with customers.

But this is changing as well, currently staff are being made redundant and stores that had previously had 1-2 staff are becoming 1 man stores. Now i dont now how common this is atm. But i can tell you that in London, Romford just lost 2 staff members this week, taking it down to a one man store and Uxbridge has over the summer gone from a 2 staff 1 manager store to a 1 man store.

Something is afoot in my eyes

>>21817878
I would like to hear more shit on the hobbit and what effect you think it will have

There are a few more pieces of the puzzle that i want to lay out before i declare my own deduction.

Firstly, lets go back and look at LOTR. Internally it is stated that it almost killed GW, they over extended themselves and the staff lost their selling skills because life was so easy you had to work to fail at selling LOTR.

So what about the Hobbit?

Well externally, we've been telling everyone how much money the Hobbit will make us, i mean hey look at LOTR right? That shit was tight!

But it also slapped us in the face after the movies ended, also the LOTR was a LONG time ago, like almost 10 years ago, the world is very different from back then. We're all still dealing with the global recession, people are more frugal with their money. Also since that point the movie industry has changed, back then the kind of epic tale that was told with these film's was relatively new to mainstream audiences. Now? Batman was a 3 part epic, Marvel have spent years building to the Avengers and look how quickly interest left those films after they came out of the cinema. With the LOTR for months you see gandalf chilling in stores, if he even left. Now? The avengers stuff fucked off out of stores within weeks of it leaving the cinema. Will people really react to Hobbit toys/product in the same way they did with LOTR? I personally think not.

Also there isn't the magazine this time around, which was a huge gain for GW. Mainstream adverts for free and all they had to do was give some of the profit to that magazine company.

Hobbit, in my mind, won't bring the kind of money LOTR did, but no one is saying that, in fact they're saying very much the opposite and if they are right, what about when the bubble bursts?

>>21817878
Is it true that GW's business focus is on short-term growth (the method of get in kids, get 'em for initial buy/one birthday/one Christmas, and then churn 'em whilst you net the next kid) rather than long-term viability.

>>21817949
That would explain why all the hobbit releases have such super high prices. Make as much as they can before everything comes crashing down on their headss

>>21817949
So how does the hobbit doing fuck all affect everything else?

>>21817955
I can't speak for the UK, but that's been the US model for years. A new hobbyist is good for over $700 in sales their first year, regardless of whether or not they stick with it, a veteran less than $300; ergo, you should have more new hobbyists than veterans.

It's absolutely toxic to maintaining a decent community in a Hobby Center.

John Lockland is another piece of the puzzle.

Now this is of course second hand, but I was told by someone i trust a significant amount that John confided in him that he's been told to not spend a single penny this year. That in fact his job as head of Sales for the WORLD (GW world anyway) is to not spend money unless he can guarantee a return on this investment THIS year. He went so far as to say his Job is potentially on the line should he fail to understand exactly what this means. So he's just that, no matter how sensible or good an idea is, he is saying no to it unless it can bring money this financial year.

Effectively he's been told short term gain only, don't look ahead.

again I find that odd. Very very odd considering that we were always told by GW at meetings that they play the long game, that its about steady slow growth.

So we come to my conclusion.

>>21817988

Because GW might have built up a huge stockpile of stuff expecting to empty shelves with it. Plus as has been previously stated GW is on the decline, so if they don't make good profits off Hobbit they are looking at a slow decline and need to dump the newline cinema contract ASAP.

>>21818011
Well what I meant is if the hobbit flops what does this mean for whfb and 40k?

I realise that in many ways this history storytime has been more of a way for me to lay the groundwork to what I'm about to say.

I could be wrong, I'm probably just a fucked off ex employee who would like to be proved right about how stupid and fucking wankery all these people are.

But i will go ahead and tell you what I think.

I think Kirby and Wells are going to sell. I think that they've been making decisions with this in mind and they've been window dressing and cost cutting and price rising for short term gain and long term loss. I think that the hobbit is being hyped and that just before the realization dawns that it's not going to make the money that said it would. When sales continue to decline, their sudden departure will destabilize the company's share price and it will drop.

This won't kill the company, the IP and their size will prevent that, but it will push them back.

I think that bringing out the heresy this year is an interesting choice, that perhaps forgeworld sales will temporarily make up for lackluster retail performances.

I think that there is malus in these varied incompetent decisions, and that by forcing out a lot of the old guard of managers, they've removed any dissenting voices.

If i had shares, I'd buy some more (kirby apparently has just bought a million's worth i think someone in this thread said) and then sell when the next end of year report hits.

>>21818071

Releases will be pushed back I would assume as GW attempts to stabilize it's finances and project a sustainable budget to get money flowing again. But if things are as bad as OP says it sounds as if GW is about to be sold, have a major re-haul in structure and values, or worse, they're going to tank in the next year or two.

So now that i've put that out there, im curious as to what US GW Manager thinks and what shareholder anon thinks.

Am i crazy? Or does this sound at least plausible?

>>21818101
Ever hung out in the Bromley branch? Used to play there as a lad, that'd be about 6 years ago.

>>21818101
Christ, I wish my DM could spin a tale of political intrigue this well.

>>21818102
Wonderful to have just gotten into 40k this edition

>>21818129
I've been there once or twice.

Current manager can go suck a dick or 1000.

>>21818144
Like I said, this won't kill the company or the hobby, as a hobbyist you might see a reduction in the number of releases and a big reduction in stores, but other than that...should be fine. It'll be the investors and mostly the staff that get shafted.

>>21817482
>after a big important thing was explained like 'don't tell someone that they're army suck balls' they would flash up this enlarged picture of a 50 pound note with the Queens head removed and replaced with a picture of the current head of UK Retail.
Now, I'm starting to doubt your tale OP. This cannot be true. I've been to some bullshit retreats but this is just to much.

>>21818116

As previously stated in >>21818102

That seems the logical conclusion for anyone given the facts if things are as dire as they sound. I don't understand Kirby buying more shares though if he intends to sell after this year, that's the only fact that doesn't work with the rest.

But as someone trying to wean the corporation for every dollar before you bail, it makes sense to hype up Hobbit as much as you can. Generate a few good Quarters then quickly sell all your shares and announce a sale afterwards.

Not sure if it's legal to sell your shares first, but at this point it seems either GW can only get better or it can only die in the next 5-10 years.

>>21818116

To my point of view it's highly plausible.

But if they sell GW, who is going to buy, FFGs ?
What will happen to GW ?

>>21818167
I swear on everything i hold dear, my mother, my wife, my dogs, everything.

I was horrified, but the others in the room...they loved it. I've honestly never despised myself as much as i did having to pretend to agree with these people and laugh along with their jokes.

>>21818145
That's a pity.

I know GW has spun some right shit about their pricing and whatnot, but I'll probably always reminisce fondly on the fun I had there during holidays during their campaigns and whatnot.

Did you ever visit Croydon? They had a vast table called 'Croydonia' with a river dammed with corpses, shit was cash.

>>21818187
Just disappear, probably. WH is pretty niche and unimportant in the grand scheme of things. At best, it'd get bought out by Electronic Arts.

>>21818163
So long as Dark Angels get there's after the first of the year I won't mind then.

>>21818116
It sounds more than plausible. I would go so far as to say that it sounds probable. I have never met Wells, but Kirby's a known quantity to me and I know that he knows well enough how to run a successful business. All of these decisions, these past few years, have nothing to do with the long-term viability of the brand, they're all short-sighted cash grabs intended to artificially inflate sales numbers.

Simply, you do not do these things unless you're trying to prop up the share price.

It will hurt the company, but I think that the company needs to hurt so that they'll be forced to seriously reevaluate just what the hell they're doing. The sooner that the bandage is torn off, the sooner the real healing can begin.

Games Workshop is a strong brand and its fans, for the most part, are loyal despite the abuse they've endured as a result of these actions. It will recover and it will invariably be better off for it.

But now I really do have to call it a night, as engaging as your tale has been.

Riveting tale, OP.

honestly selling GW could be best or worst thing for the game.

hopefully somebody smart would come in and A: ditch the retail chain B: generalize the retail chain, GW is not McDonalds they can't afford to cater to niche with in a niche. I'm fairly certain that there are more GW's then any other chain of gaming stores if they sold a larger variety of product, they could make profit of there competition.

>>21818185
You misunderstand, they're not selling the company. They are selling their shares in the company. There are still many shareholders out there.

Most likely, head office will re shuffle, fire a load of people, re organise and try again, hopefully with a better head.

Or perhaps Lego? I mean GW did a load of R&D for them in injection molding and Lego have just started to make lego boardgames. You never know :P (this is more a joky possibility)

>>21818102

>GW goes on sale
>Blizzard/Activision buys it
>fires everyone
>milks the 40k series like they planned to do so many years ago

I can't wait

Allow me to ask a brief question.

I live in Memphis and play in, what others will recognize as, the only really decent shop in town.

That said, the Battle Bunker is the only GW store I've been near, what is this one man store business, anyone care to explain?

>>21818221
>WH is pretty niche
OP, is this right? /tg/ always seems to give that impression, but /tg/ is also heavily American. How do 40k and Fantasy sales compare?

i used to play at the Harrow GW, near Uxbridge. it closed down about sixish years back, but i can't actually remember why it closed down. you wouldnt have heard anything about that/visited there?

Wow, i had no idea how late it was or how long it would take to tell this tale.

Perhaps there is one more thread left in me, but not for quite a while longer.

I'm gonna go for another smoke, then I'll try and answer any questions left and then I will likewise call it a night.

>>21818224

It won't matter though if the company tanks, all of my recent building will have been for naught. Forgeworld will either go with it or try to collect as much of it's assets as possible and downgrade to a very niche order based site with perhaps a few warehouses, but that even sounds over optimistic.

I foresee >>21818221
happening, someone, most likely a gaming company or another miniature company like Privateer Press may buy the writes to it just to shut it down or keep the IP around to make games that will attempt to fill the void.

It's a gloom future indeed if this happens.

>>21818267

Not sure if it was you who replied originally, but what's GW's relationship like with FFG? Is it one they want to keep going?

One last thing before I go and then I really have to go go.

It is highly unlikely that the company will actually go out of business. Majority shareholders pulling their money out of a company can have a disastrous effect on a business, but the fundamentals of what makes Games Workshop profitable haven't changed.

It will, however, require a major change in management in order to truly restore its long-term viability and for that reason the sooner Kirby loots the coffers, the better.

>>21818279
There will still be people who play though, and models still somewhat available that are on the net and local stores for a while.

>>21818244
oh god yes, please yes, sweet jesus the very IDEA of this gives me hope in the hams. lego is a VERY healthy, well-run company that has proved totally SHREWED with its licensing of IP. if anyone could pull off the big switch, it'd be them (the big switch being to steal back what blizzard hijacked with the Warcraft franchise and convince the fantasy gamer audience that "WE WOZ 'ERE FIRST")

>>21818101
http://www.lse.co.uk/DirectorsDeals.asp?shareprice=GAW&share=games_workshop

Check that out. Recent dealings in shares.

I'd the stock is publicly traded then the sales and movement of stocks has a paper trail. I'm shit faced right now, but if this problem with Kerby is really a problem I can look up gw's history on Bloomberg tomorrow morning and add pictures supporting either answer. (assuming the thread is still up)

>>21818388
>>21818375
I think it's based more on what he's going to do than on what he has done.

>>21818363

>mfw lego minatures game like Brickwars but with rules and dice.

But OP you haven't told us any GW horror stories about customers or things that this this whole thread.

>>21815358
I never really gotten around to actually explaining that. So ignoring everything ive told you about how fucked up things are. The reason was that a) GW nor retail was never a long term career choice and i needed to move on a get a real job.
b) Targets are insane, you hit one, they want two you hit 20 they want 25. You can never do enough and you're never rewarded or properly thanked.
c) Pay is shit
d) most of my colleagues should have been put down at birth
e) A lot of gw customers should have likewise been put down at birth.

>>21815816
Andy Chambers left after his ideas were refused, he has come up with a way to push the story forward using the 13th black crusade, introducing back some of the primarchs etc. They said no and then took chunks to make the 13th black crusade, pretty much the 13th great company was all that was left of his original idea.

>>21815861
Couldn't find any, must have thrown it away. We are given a black book which is pretty much a book of propaganda, shit like be open and honest, have courage not to question us etc etc.

>>21816571
You will get sisters, i heard that one of the reasons its been so long is that they've had issues with the plastic sisters and their hair

>>21817381
Not a clue where i got this pic from, sorry mate

>>21818416
glueless. poseable. spacemarines.

>>21818375
Holy shit.

It's like watching a child with matches sitting next to a TNT storage warehouse.

Shit's gon' blow, one way or the other.

>>21818429
Release date on Dark Angels?

>>21817788

Honestly don't know, probably pretty good though. I do know that they're not allowed to create any proper models based on GW concepts, which is why any and all models made for their boardgames are either busts or card or crazy tiny
>>21817869
GW doesn't think about them or any other companies as long as they don't try to blatantly steal IP or beat GW to the punch on making a model. I.e Chapterhouse Studios
>>21817937
Advertising wouldn't really work, to understand from a new person's point of view, they can only really get the hobby by being introed
>>21818215
Nope but I know they've moved the shop now, it was in a completely out of the way area, almost no passing trade.
>>21818256
If i'm correct 40k outsells fantasy 4:1 and fantasy outsells LOTR 2:1
>>21818258
never went to Harrow, but they were closed as part of the LOTR bubble bursting. Didn't make enough money, so they closed. Uxbridge was good until every staff member left and the new manager that arrived decided to be a dick to every vet.

>>21818456
I personally quite like this part:

>25-Apr-12 Buy Mark Wells 569.94 GBX 4,490

Mark Wells buys 4490 shares.

>25-Apr-12 Sell Mark Wells 570 GBX 1,982

The price goes up by 0.06 and he then sells 1982 of those shares.
On the same day.

>>21818505
>or beat GW to the punch on making a model
To be fair, that's not hard. How long without jetbike Farseers and Warlocks now?

Alright, before I go, I would ask a favour.

Can someone archive this on Sup Tg, I would like this to go along with my previous threads.

>>21818486
>>21818559

>>21818559
Awesome OP, thanks. Would archive but I don't know how...

>>21818586
If you read my first post, you'll see i said how I know nothing concrete only speculation.

The internet seems to think January, and seeing as how they're in the starter set it makes sense that they need an update soon.

Alrighty,

Well i will bid you all a good night.

Thank you for bearing with me, I always enjoy these threads, perhaps I will return with the last few stories I hold, but if not thanks for listening.

>>21818548
That might be some sort of automation. Computer programs are now primarily what decide when to buy and sell.

>>21818659
Good night and great work.

Archivin' still needed, /tg/.

>>21817427

Oh God. James Bell. Fucker used to run the LA Battle Bunker. Hated that guy.

>>21818668
Except for Kirby purchasing $1,000,000 worth.

That's sketchy as all fuck, given the circumstances.

>>21818668
Surely not if you're one of the company heads?

"Yeah, sorry I sold 2 million worth and caused our share price to crash yesterday, guys. That shit was automated."

>>21818791
I assume it's a way to encourage investment. Shows that he's SUPER CONFIDENT. Doesn't necessarily = sketchy.

The Story of GW: The Thread. Totally needs archiving.

>>21817561
10/10

>>21817621
>He attended a convention in Las Vegas and got shit faced and drunk in front of everyone and he got into an argument with one of the larger shareholders who proceeded to ask Ken if he knew who the fuck he was shouting at, to which Ken replied 'Yes, do you know who the Fuck I am?"

I'd share a pint with him, hitler too because why not

>>21819542
>sharing a pint with Hitler
Just be careful. He was one of those guys who, when they get drunk, start going on long obnoxious rants. Like Corporal Person, but not funny, and with booze instead of Rip Fuel.

>>21819567
Didn't Hitler go on long obnoxious rants while sober too? That was sort of his thing.

>>21819576
That was actually a joke about the Beer Hall Putsch.

>>21819587
Ah, those crazy Germans. Beer halls are for carousing and good times, not overthrowing the legitimate government!

>>21819598
(for the record, revolutionary activity should be carried out in coffee shops)

>>21819606
Coffee shops are just a shitty hipster version of beer halls. With less fighting. And less pussy. And less everything awesome about beer halls.

>>21819618
But you don't get drunk in them, and that might turn out crucial to your revolution/putsch.

>>21819633
But all the best revolutions have booze! I mean look at the Whiskey Rebellion!

>>21819618
What about libraries?

>>21819644
Well, librarians ARE fuckin' hot, so the lack of pussy issue is fixed. But still no booze or fighting.

>>21819644
You can't talk in them. Deathly to your chances of successful revolution.

Australian Freight Forwarder here(I import a lot of shit, especially AOG(Aircraft of Ground) parts for airlines).

Our country is actually not hard to import to, as long as you aren't importing biological matter which AQIS(Australian Quarentine Inspection Service) will then rort the shit out of you for if you fuck it up even slightly.

Sounds like GW doesn't know how to maintain inventory levels. Bringing in an FCL Container, at 40ft is roughly 28 pallet spaces that can be double stacks. With Models weight mostly nothing, I fail to see how they can't double stack the pallets with appropriate padding. An FCL container charge wise is about 4 grand or so in freight including port service charges and clearance, add 10% GST onto the cost of goods and really, AU prices at the moment should be at roughly 80% of what they are now.

Yes I am accounting for store overheads.

>>21817865
I got to work for him for a while. A douchebag, but at least a sociable one.

He went ballistic when Head Office "fired" him. Mind, it was actually worse he got sent to oversee the US stores

>>21819653
See the second point

"They've always paid this much, they won't stop"

This thread makes me love Corvus Belli and Infinity so much.

Just to add my two cents...

This is, from what i can remember all accurate. I used to be a GW staff member in a few of the London stores and actually attended that Managers Meeting where they all fucked their careers. My manager was away on holiday so instead i was sent in his place.

Its interesting the divide between staff and managers though. My managers were absolute great guys but didnt really tell us what was going on about them - ive a feeling because they probably didnt know a huge amount about it themselves.

>>21819692
Can't say I love them that much after the Paradiso debacle.

Those books were not ready to ship.

>>21819682
Mmmm I'm aware of that, many business's currently use that model. Apple is in deep shit over it with the senate at the moment due to price gouging.

I'm sort of lucky, the Brisbane store manager is a wonder of customer service. Granted I've bought probably 9000 points off of him of imperial fists. But I've only met him probably 7 times? Yet knows me by name, understands they don't sell certain models and competitors do.

This was pretty awesome when my Scibor dreadnought and "eagle knights"(custodian guard) were arrayed with my full companies for an apoc game with kids and the Mt Gravatt staff member Goku went ape shit, the Brisbane manager stepped in, tapped him on the shoulder and basically made him back off when point out that 98% of the army was GW, so shut up.

>>21819703
>that Managers Meeting where they all fucked their careers
They didn't really though, surely? I assume the bosses just took their written input, said 'yes, a wonderful, productive consultation' while eating it, and then did exactly what it had already planned to do.

>>21819716
I never bought the rule books, just put all my money in miniatures. But you're right of course.

>>21818145

>Current manager can go suck a dick or 1000.
THIS,

I was a bromley regular. I left after "that guy" steve make life hell there.

When I returned a few weeks ago, the current manager was a true dick, not even in the slightest misunderstanding. Rude, moaned when lost, I made a minor mistake in the rules and has a "listen to me or I will kick you out" attitude

Never seen a worst manager since the asshole at Bluewater.

I'm currently a weekly regular at Oxford Street, which is much... much better (at least for games workshop standards)

>still no archiving

>>21819787

I work round the corner from the plaza store and often pick up supplies from there. I used to be a staff member at Brent Cross - ever swing by there?

This thread is a perfect example of why I don't play 40K and just stick to the novels. No way in the Nine Hells would I ever want to be subjected to the fuckery that is GW Sales. Shit, it's hard enough just finding places that sell the damn books.

>>21815763
>Orc's Nest
I shop there. Bought some (read as: a lot of) Warlord ECW miniatures just the other day.

But I bought all my paints and glue from GW, but it was GW Kensington so it's okay I hope :'(

>>21816913
>I have no idea why i was told this
Hard to say, but there's a decent chance that the GW managers hate Tom Kirby at least as much as the internet does.

>>21820054

I just order shit through the website. mainly because it's kind of a bitch to get to the "bunker" which shouldn't take as long as it does to get to, and then you get the try-hard upsell shenanigans unless the one cool employee is there (in which case you get it with the unspoken acknowledgment that we both know what a shitty company GW is, and little to no pressure)

File: 1354277087936.jpg-(502 KB, 1680x1050, Winter assualy.jpg)

Rolled 9

I got into 40K with Dawn of war. I think they focus on more RTS games.

Also, vote for archive.

Well I'm late to the show as usual, but I figured I might ask in case GW Manger comes back, or someone else knows.

Back when I was about 15-16, GW had the grand total of one store in Stockholm, Sweden. It was a pretty cool time for us all, and loads of veterans played in their store, with weekly games. Went there a lot of times, made a lot of friends.

Then out of the blue, they drove away the veterans completely. They closed the game nights and said it was focused only on the kids, learning them the game(they had several newbiew nights as well before).

Not sure what happened exactly. My guess is that the veteran nights hurt sales, the stores were cramped and I guess it wasnt exactly the best examples of humankind there. Still, it's incredibly shitty to throw out your veteran userbase, telling them to go to other FLGS in the area(of which there were not many, I might add)

Has GW had similar policies across the globe, or was this an isolated incident?

>>21816364
that's not evil.
that's inspired.

He may well be morally bankrupt, but he's certainly not financially bankrupt now.......

>>21820251

Ex GW staffer from London here.

Yes and no is the answer to that. When i was working there there were certain truths to what you said. On the weekends we had to focus an awful lot on the new guys and people getting into the hobby. Then the veterans nights were just that - veterans nights.

One thing that im sure im going to get moaned at is this - i dont think a lot of gamers understand just how much time they suck up from a staff member. At the end of the day if the stores dont cover their costs they get shut down. If we ended up spending our time shooting the breeze with the vets on a weekend we miss a lot of sales. Plus the fucking amount of whinging old bastards who used to come into my store and say "oh this isnt like the old days of rouge trader" etc etc was beyond count.

Now thats not to say you should ignore them - thats not what we did in the UK. We were encouraged to get them to come back on the dedicated vets nights as that way we could focus on that.

My last store had a fucking awesome vets night that i used to run. We had such a good community going there as we kept the vets night to a thursday after hours and locked the doors and the core club to a sundays and again - locked the doors! That way you could really use the store time to focus on the new kid whilst giving them something to work towards like entering the "cool lock in club" type thing.

Wall of text. Sorry about that. Does that help, even in the slightest?

>>21820155
>ordering direct from GW website
>not using independent, cheaper websites
I'm a bubbling cauldron of WHY right now.

>>21820240
Oh yes, awesome, it's archived.

After this thread is dead anc archived, we should make a PDF in interview form about all available threads and distribute them fucking everywhere so everyone can really see this corporate bullshit for what it is.

We have been given a weapon, /tg/. Let us use it for good.

>>21820155
GW's hard-on for customer rape aside, the most prohibiting factor is money. Whilst I'm aware that it's possible to build a decent army for "only" one or two hundred dollars, I simply don't have that to spend on miniatures. Not to mention that the nearest game store is about 45 miles from where I live and my vehicle gets crappy mileage.

I will stick with shelling out $4-5 for the occasional novel, thank you very much.

>>21820473
It's not a weapon, it's just an account of shit that happens. In every business/venture there is the capacity for one person's character to influence and change things for the worse. GW is no different; this sort of story happens all over, all the time It just isn't in a condensed storytime form and perhaps is more subtle or hushed up. Also, lots of "negative" actions are done with sincere intentions from the best and worst of people; it's cynical to assume everyone is a douchebag, but of course naively optimistic to assume everyone isn't. That said, someone who talks to another while having a piss is a considerable douchenozzle, and is as evil as all his actions suggest.

I don't think GW could ever be "saved" as anyone interested in GW has some internal agenda they want to push while anyone not intereseted in GW drafted in to save GW dosn't know jack shit about such a specific niche market. Something new needs to rise from the ashes but it can't as it is choked by the smog that is GW? Phoenixes are a hard metaphor to use, and pony-related too, maybe there is something else I could use?

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html

It's up! We should vote it up so it stays there.

>>21820682
>phoenixes
>pony-related
Hang on, how? Aren't they just big fiery birds?

>>21819692
They aren't big enough to attract investors that would move the emphasis from fun hobby to money making. If they did get big somehow I'm sure the first thing that would happen is all the free rules and stuff would disappear.

>>21820682
And following, how is that a problem? You got an issue with lighthearted fantasy adventure with occaisional semi-harmless aesops?

Ok, there is a toxic fanbase, but then adventure time has a toxic fanbase too
Besides, that episode was hilarious
On other notes, this kind of defensiveness is why you were worried, it is a cycle of pain my friend

>>21820999
GW still gives out free rules.

>>21821008
Where? Or are you talking about unsupported back catalog games? The only way they can make money for them is if the rules are available.

>>21821015
Yeah, the older games now called 'specialist games'. They still sell models for them and the rules are free.

>>21821022
But they aren't supported. They don't get updates or new minis.

>>21821077
True.

Wow I've just finished reading this epic thread.

I hope he does decide to do one more, I've got a couple of questions I'd like to ask

>>21819692
CB has fucked up hard, they're not far away from becoming GW

>>21820240
>I got into 40K with Dawn of war. I think they focus on more RTS games.


I don't know what the fuck you're saying.

GW just has relic throw money at them and then poof another shit 40k game gets shat out

>>21822964
lol

>>21823037
>shipping still drying books (loosing have the shipment)
>charging $60 for a book whose only goal it to sell $30 blisters for support units

Nope, these guys can do no wrong. They are flawless.

I know everyone thinks I'm a troll, but I was actually a GW employee at one point, (but I was never high up at the OP) I can answer some questions, and I have some of my own regarding things that happened since I left the company.

>>21815304

-Wank Stain can you post a throwaway e-mail? I'd love to keep in touch, seeing as how I'm ex-GW too.

- OP Wank Stain, how many copies of Space Hulk did they print?

- Tell the story about the Eldar Falcons winding up at the bottom of the sea. I know the story, but not the specifics.

- Does Beth Baynon Hughes know about all the creepy nerds that were lusting over her at dakkadakka.com. Is she aware and what does she think of it?

- Are GW aware of 3D printing and do they realize it's a threat? SO many people make add-on bits through shapeways, and as the technology catches on it'll only get bigger.

- Similar question about 3D printing; does GW realize it'll be hard to sell $15-20 wizard figures when you can shapeways print them for $6, and soon they'll be even cheaper as the techonology catches on, with better detail.

- How badly did the Chapterhouse thing scare GW? What's really going on there?

- Do all the small companies making plastic kits now worry Mantic?

- Has PP's WM/HORDES game catching on affected GW's sales at all? A LOT of disaffected GW customers made the switch.

- Same question with Flames of War.

- Did the rise of Warzone in the late 90s ever worry GW at all? At one point, just before the release of 40K3, it was catching on in a major way, and its alternating action sequence paved the way for games like Warmachine.

- Do GW remember Enigma Miniatures, the company that made blatant knock-off GW figures. Some of their models, like the knock-off Empire cannon became best-sellers, proving how tenuous the GW hold is on the market.