What did you do today.

[Primarch]

Found this floating around the interwebs this morning.

GW's financial statement.


Gross Margin is how much profit they make on sales less the cost of production. So if they sell a box for 10,000 yen, 6904 yen of that is profit.

Operating Margin is how much profit they make after taking away ALL costs (e.g. logistics, staff, marketing, etc.) excluding corporate taxes (which they pay on their profits) and any debts they have. Continuing the above example, from that 10,000 yen box 4141 yen is how much they get to keep before taxes.

The missing line on that statement is Net Profit, which currently stands at 33.33%. Net Profit is what you have left after paying for everything including taxes and debts. So from that 10,000 yen box, the company pockets 3333 yen.

Generally speaking, a 20% Net Profit is considered good. 10% is about average. GW has 33.33%. Make of that what you will.

[Jye Nicolson]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is the first time I've seen you post about playing a non-GW game. 5 Parsecs looks like it could be pretty fun. Between that and Stargrave I'm tempted to see what random SF minis I can get painted.

It has been a long time since I played a non GW wargame - since the heady early days of Warmachine I think.

I'm historically more of an RPGer than a wargamer though, and that's how they got me, a bunch of my online friends got into it at once. Plus I love solo gaming since it competes with videogames (or the baseball) not face to face gaming.

5 Parsecs is easily worth the price of the pdf. It's not exactly my wheelhouse but I've had fun with it so far. Would recommend to anyone with vaguely appropriate figures, a little fungible time and a love of random tables.

[Jye Nicolson]

Generally speaking, a 20% Net Profit is considered good. 10% is about average. GW has 33.33%. Make of that what you will.

My actual problem with GW is they massively underinvest in their game design capability and their people relative to their resources.

I mean sure, sell expensive plastic, raise prices, stay shackled to books you printed months ahead of time if you must. But they should have a lot more rules staff with zero financial worries (ie no stress, no incentive to leave), and Louise Sugden should be driving a Ferrari*

They are clearly getting better at this but not nearly enough. And I don't think there's any way to compel them.


* This is probably an impractical choice around Nottingham.

[me_in_japan]

No painting for me this weekend - Horizon Forbidden West came out on Friday, so there was all my time gone.

(It's real good so far.)

I recently started Horizon Zero Dawn. Tis good, very good. Didn't even know Forbidden West was a thing. Shame on you, Steam marketing. Shame on you...

[The Other Dave]

Well, you really don't want to play Forbidden West without playing Zero Dawn first anyway - the story and world-building are really good and benefit very strongly from minimal spoilage, and starting with FW would just info-dump you right into it in a probably not very satisfying way.

But yes, it's a verra good game. I'm pretty Bad at Videogames, but it managed to teach me to be a machine-hunting badass in a very satisfying way - I remember cursing and raging at the first boss battle the first time I played, but on my second playthrough, on a harder difficulty with the same gear, the same fight was almost a cakewalk just because I'd learned to fight robots so well.

[me_in_japan]

I'm only a few hours into it, but I did notice that it does very well at showing rather than telling you about the backstory/worldbuilding stuff.

*edit*

pppppffftfttttkoffkoffsputter!!!!!! *MiJ chokes on coffee*

The reason I havent had it pushed to me on Steam is that its a PS4/PS5 exclusive. What the actual hoohah? Who the heck even thinks that's a good idea any more? I'm royally sick of publishers' refusal to acknowledge that simply allowing the broadest market possible to buy their stuff is actually a good idea. Bloody gatekeeping barstewards. Makes me want to stop playing Zero Dawn, not rush out and buy a PS5. Not as if I even could if I wanted, given their availability

gah. Down with capitalism and that kind of thing

[The Other Dave]

Zero Dawn is also a PS exclusive, and yet here you are playing it on Steam. Just means Forbidden West’ll be released to PC later on. How much later I don’t know, but considering how popular ZD seems to be on Steam I reckon it’s a given.

[Karantu]

Zero Dawn has a ton of content so maybe by the time you're done Forbidden West will be out on PC too. (probably with a healthy amount of bug fixes and added content.) There has been a shift towards more "exclusives" coming out on PC which is good at least. I'm still waiting for Final Fantasy VII remake to be done with an Epic Store exclusive so that I can get it on Steam, when it's on sale of course.

But seriously corporations and their antiquated anti-consumer practices make me feel like throwing all my hobbies out the window sometimes.

[Primarch]

While exclusives suck if you don't have that machine, I can see how the companies that make the hardware need some way to ensure sales of their devices. The initial release on one system followed by later expansion to other devices is still miles better than the 'exclusive forever' style of yesteryear.

[me_in_japan]

But seriously corporations and their antiquated anti-consumer practices make me feel like throwing all my hobbies out the window sometimes.

This, so much this.

The initial release on one system followed by later expansion to other devices is still miles better than the 'exclusive forever' style of yesteryear.

Also, admittedly, this.

Actually, regarding corporations and their anti consumer antics, I've been doing a little bit of an experiment recently, trying to change my gaming habits.

Basically, I'm trying to just not play fortnite or MtG arena. While these may appear at first blush to be wildly different games, their sales methods are very similar. The whole game can be downloaded for free and you can continue to play the full experience without paying a dime. But...if you want to maintain your play experience, ya gotta play every day. More specifically, to play magic you need cards. New cards are released every few months. You gotta open packs. Packs cost gold. Gold is accumulated through play. As long as you play a little every day, you'll have enough gold to buy packs and maintain a decent collection. But if you stop...you'll not only not accumulate gold, you won't accumulate any cards from whatever set is current. If you ever want to get back into it, you'll have a gaping hole in your card collection that can only be filled by spending rather a lot of money. So you have a choice: keep playing, or accept that at some point in the future you'll need to spend money on what is currently free. (Or accept you'll never play again, which comes with its own sense of lost value thanks to the time/effort already sunk). Fortnite is a tad less unforgiving, as all you lose out on there is skins and stuff, which I don't really care about. It bugs the completionist in me, though.

*Sigh*

I guess weve moved from being taken advantage of at point of sale, to being continuously taken advantage of in small increments, foreeeeeveeeeeeer...

Not sure which is worse