Games - Games Workshop

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	Games - Games Workshop

Games Workshop (GW) is a British game production and retailing company. Games Workshop is one of the largest games companies in the world, and is the dominant company in the miniature wargaming hobby. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange with symbol GAW.

Overview

Games Workshop was originally an importer of American board games and RPGs. When they became publishers of the UK based roleplaying magazine White Dwarf, Games Workshop created a national chain of gaming stores in the 1980s. Their publishing arm also created UK reprints of famous but expensive to import American RPGs such as Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Traveller and Middle-Earth Role-Play.

The key to the company's success since its inception has been its ability to innovate. The creation of the Warhammer and later Warhammer 40,000 universes enabled the company to create unique products separate from the role playing games of their early days. The universes are an amalgamation of many different ideas, many coming for the Tolkien mythos in the early days of Warhammer.

During the 90s, following a management buyout in December 1991 the company refocussed on their most lucrative lines, namely their miniature wargame Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 lines. The retail chain refocussed on a younger, more family-oriented market. The change of direction was a great success with a rising share price and growing profits, in spite of the fact that it lost the company much of its old, loyal fanbase. The complaints of these old customers led a breakaway group of GW employees to publish Fantasy Warlord in competition with GW, but this met with little success. Games Workshop expanded in Europe and the USA opening new branches and organizing events. The company was floated on the London Stock Exchange in October 1994. In October 1997, all UK based operations were relocated to the current HQ in Lenton, Nottingham. This site now houses the corporate HQ, the White Dwarf offices, mail order, and the creative hub.

By the end of the decade, though, the company was having problems with falling profits being blamed on collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon. It was realised that the targeted 12 and under age group was not an appropriate market to be aiming towards, and the company's focus was redirected.

In recent years, Games Workshop has been attempting to create a dual approach that will appeal to both older, loyal customers while still attracting the younger audience. This has seen the creation of initiatives such as the "Fanatic" range that supports more marginal lines with a lower cost trading model (the Internet is used widely in this approach, to collect ideas and playtest reports). Games Workshop has also contributed to designing and making games and puzzles for the popular television series "The Crystal Maze".

The miniature wargames the company promotes are considered to be a welcome substitute to those young people mostly immersed in videogaming. Some view it as a learning experience that cultivates artistic talent as well as resource management skills, and that the hobby reminds people of more traditional mediums of entertainment, harking back to simple toy soldiers. The release of the Lord of the Rings (LoTR) games in 2000 signalled their intention to capture the younger audience with a simple, yet effective, combat system.

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Games - Games Workshop

Overview

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