Games Workshop Share Discussion Threads

[nod] 21/3/2018 21:47

GAW has funded game development in the distant past but it proved to be too expensive for them. In the early 2000's we funded a project with Climax. GAW withdrew in 2004 as costs escalated.This led to discussions between GAW and Mythic, the companies knew each other quite well. Mythic developed Warhammer Online AOR which was released in 2008 to rave reviews. Unfortunately the timing was bad with the GFC unfolding. Mythic was acquired by EA who then hit the wall with a $1 Billion financial loss. EA couldn't fund AOR well enough and it limped along for years with inadequate server capacity. My son and his friends loved the MMORPG but many times it was full, so they couldn't play. Frustrating when you've paid your fee.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Online:_Age_of_Reckoning

[cockerhoop] 21/3/2018 20:46

Agree the value of the GAW IP is massively underestimated. My chart from a few posts back does demonstrate how the company is starting to exploit it over the last couple of years and Vermintide 2 is clearly helping in this.

I personally think it would be a mistake to develop their own games - the bar for games now is so high. Leave it to the experts and negotiate decent royalty deals.

[nimbo1] 21/3/2018 20:03

I've been thinking about something recently.

The latest game proves the brand power of warhammer / games workshop etc. Nick train is always banging on about the value of brands.

Many game companies have PE's of 40-60 - whether its take two, ubisoft, activision etc. The large japanese ones lag them with c.25-35.

Point is its higher than GAW's 15. I have a large holding in Frontier Developments so have researched the game industry a lot. Their last game planet coaster only cost them c.6 million to develop and self publish.

GAW should really be looking at all their licensing deals and the royalty should be far higher. No reason they shouldn't expect 25%+ plus over a certain threshold of sales etc.

Could GAW one day spec their own development team or self finance a title through a games studio? 1.5 million games sold for £30 is a lot of revenue....

[nod] 21/3/2018 19:45

I don't know anything about TCG Lightseekers.A goal is crossover of customers.I would imagine many of the players will already be familiar with Warhammer through the independent hobby stores (which tend to have a lot of card players).I hope they are as successful as Fatshark.

[nod] 21/3/2018 17:58

A summary of Fatshark's products and comparative sales.https://steamspy.com/dev/Fatshark

[nod] 21/3/2018 17:50

Interesting. Not sure how the profits worked out like that. Over 1.2 million V1 were sold. Wahlund previously highlighted how GAW has allowed Fatshark time to polish the product. It took six months for V1 to reach 500,000 sales and 4 days for V2 to reach the same. For GAW this should translate into much faster royalty payments and hopefully a lot more to come."Controlling your release dates is so important," Wahlund said. "We self-funded our game, and self-published it, which gave us the freedom over our release dates. Like now, we feel the game is really fun to play so we can release it."The biggest issue with licensed properties is that you have to fit in with a book release, or movie release, or start of a TV series, and you often end up releasing the game, no matter if its good or bad."That's the key thing Games Workshop has learned over the years; those games do well really if they are good games and that takes times to do. They have learned that pushing stuff out too early is the best way destroy a game. Just a couple of months extra can be all it takes."

[pnetol] 21/3/2018 17:47

Any thoughts on the new tie up announced yesterday ??

[pnetol] 21/3/2018 17:46

Does anyone have

[shanklin] 21/3/2018 16:12

Includes:

"...now Fatshark CEO Martin Wahlund has commented on the success of his recently released title.

According to Wahlund,... "Right now, we have outsold, in terms of revenue, the lifetime revenue of the original Vermintide, and on PC only." in just two weeks of release."

My bold.

Up to 696,309 on Steamspy.

[cockerhoop] 21/3/2018 08:16

I suppose if Steam took a smaller cut the publisher would have a larger piece of cake and GAW would be able to negotiate a larger royalty!

Equally Steam clearly facilitates additional sales and presumably speedier reconciliation.

As an aside GAW do mention advances and guarantees with regard to Royalties in the AR along with booking some accrued income within receivables which may be minimum guarantees not yet surpassed through projected sales.

[nod] 21/3/2018 01:16

Thanks Patrick. Steam has its critics for taking 30% of sales but it seems to be good for GAW.

[cockerhoop] 20/3/2018 21:42

Nod,

You're correct in thinking Steam helps to speed up reconciling sales through it's platform. The publisher would be able to run reports to obtain accurate sales data at will and then depending on the agreement with the IP provider would pay royalties perhaps on a monthly or quarter basis.

The royalty deal could be structured in a number of ways but could typically be composed of an Advance, a minimum income guarantee and a payment (often % of sale price) per copy sold which would accrue up to the minimum income guarantee and only start to generate extra income once sales produced amounts above the threshold.

[cockerhoop] 20/3/2018 10:42

Nod,

I don't recall any conversation regarding speed of revenue recognition and associated cash flow at the Agm.

Leave it with me, I've a good friend who could help with this.

[nod] 20/3/2018 09:48

G'day Patrick, I vaguely recall GAW informing shareholders many years ago how game royalties were paid. From memory, there was considerable delay in reconciling total retail sales across all the outlets around the globe with payments. Presumably, with Valve Steam this whole process is now much simpler and an advantage to the licensee.Was royalty income covered by the Board on your visit?

[nod] 20/3/2018 09:30

G'day Martin, it looks like 12k per day. I notice Steamspy has a possible error of + or - 25k on the total. That's around two days of sales. The growth was steady prior to release date and then rose more sharply at over 40k per day. Now slowed to 12k per day. I've never watched game sales before. Interesting. Presumably the trend depends on the feedback and blogs of gamers.After only 11 days V2 is more than half the sales of End Times over two years.

[shanklin] 20/3/2018 07:57

Steamspy now showing 663,579 vs the 651,499 last reported here. So, depending on when it updates, that is either circa 6k or 12k ongoing sales per day.

[nod] 19/3/2018 18:38

Yes, in the 2016 Annual Report GAW put the royalty increase down to two big sellers: "This was due to the strong performances of Total War: Warhammer and Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide."If the computer games do generate new hobby customers then it's not an overnight thing. There was no boom in model sales while the computer games were selling. Perhaps, because the hobby is expensive, it takes time for customer momentum to build.

[cockerhoop] 19/3/2018 10:31

Certainly H2 2016 (Vermintide released late Oct 2015) saw the start of the step up in royalty revenue with £4.4m in the 6 month period.

[nod] 19/3/2018 10:08

For Vermintide End Times it has owners over 1.4 millionOwners: 1,439,928 ± 38,487

[glaws2] 19/3/2018 06:54

Thanks for the explanation Typo56

[nod] 19/3/2018 01:09

Looking at Vermintide 1 End Times, they cleverly reduced the price of this game on 1st March from $29.99 to $7.50

[nod] 19/3/2018 00:47

Now 651,499nice

[simso] 17/3/2018 17:19

From this link (already posted a few days ago by nimbo1) its shows a Daily Graph of Sales of Warhammer: Vermintide 2. If I am interpreting what other posters say above, then it appears that 500k had bought by 13th of March. The "Games Insider" Article which shanklin posted is also dated 13th March and also references the 500k sales, so it matches the graph on steamspy.
The article does talk of the 500k sales happening in two days, whereas the steamspy graph shows it building more slowly and steadily from 23rd Feb (which I guess are pre-orders) before launch on 8th March. A encouraging thing about the steamspy graph of Daily Sales is how consistent they are...seeming to rise by an average of c40k a day without a really notable spike on launch followed by a fall away. I see that the number now stands at 624k games sold....so very nice business if the estimated £2 Royalty Per game is accurate. The Royalty is 100% profit, of course.

[nod] 17/3/2018 03:15

Thanks DbD, that makes sense.

[nod] 17/3/2018 03:02

MMORPG magazine gives a stellar review of Vermintide 2 and end their review with an insightful piece about how the successful video games introduce a new generation of customers to the GW hobby. This is a point I like to keep highlighting, as the impact of strong game sales is not solely royalties but new customers to the hobby.



The Gateway Drug
The game introduces a whole new generation to the Warhammer universe which is perfect for GW. They sell table top models at their core and having new fans leave their keyboards to purchase a hero or villain they see in the game is only the beginning for collecting and building table top armies.

Similar to the Dawn of War series which captured an RTS version of Warhammer 40,000 extremely well and launched an entire new fan base into the genre, Vermintide 2 is poised to bring in a new audience for GW. The game promises more maps and heroes and continues to do well in sales, you may see a lot of crossover at your local hobby store (a rarity these days). The thing to remember is before we had video games of this level, your local hobby store is where everything began. Old school developers will tell you how they spent days at their stores playing games and learning to use their imagination.

Vermintide 2 does an excellent job bringing that imagination to the screen and its fast paced game mechanics will fit perfectly with competitive gamers of this generation. We hope it continues and more fans take a break to sit down and paint a model once in a while.