Warhammer+ Plus has been a challenge since the get-go, but when you graph it out, it may just be the reason Games Workshop stock is dropping…
A few months ago, we talked about how the hobbysits’ outrage over some of GW’s practices had actually made an impact on their stock. Now a few months later it has continued to fall, all the way back to pre-COVID numbers (which was their previous all-time high mind you).
This is just our opinion on the matter, and we’ll cover a bunch of the options, but one thing that is certain, their stock has taking its biggest fall since COVID.
Is Warhammer+ Plus Why Games Workshop Stock is Dropping?
The most telling thing to look at first is the actual stock price. You can actually see they have hit the exact same level they were at right before COVID. (Which again was their previous all-time high).
Just looking at the chart you can see this is also the first long-term decrease they have had since 2017 (not counting the COVID drop as that was just the market, nothing to do particularly with them). In the years before they had a fairly slow but steady increase month over month. Then, when COVID happened and more people than ever were getting into the game and the hobby aspect, their stock, like man others, just exploded.
Right at the peak, however, was when Warhammer+ was released. Since then the price has continued to fall. So, was Warhammer+ the actual catalyst for this latest slide? Has the new crowd of players just stopped buying now that they have minis? Do lesser COVID restrictions mean people are just doing more outside and with their lives? Well to be fair, they are all possible factors.
And, obviously, we’re not financial wizards, but people who predict the market and stare at it every day are also started to take notice just weeks after the launch of Warhammer+ Plus.
With calls from Reddit for a “boycott” pretty much all about Warhammer+ Plus and the events around it, Wall Street started to take notice, and GW stock continued its slide through the holidays.
But to us, it’s very curious that the GW stock slide happened right after the launch of Warhammer+ Plus (see the plateau drop-off above). Again to be fair that also mirrored other stock trends, but the timing and degree to which their stock has slipped could be very telling of a huge lack of not only customer confidence but also investor confidence in Games Workshop.
Did investors expect more from the launch, and then dump when they didn’t see a favorable outcome from consumers? I guess the answer may come in the form of another question: What do you think would have happened to Disney’s stock price if the launch of their Disney Plus platform went the same way as Games Workshops’?
The Warhammer+ Plus GW Stock Price Conundrum
Let’s first look at the issues Warhammer+ has had and why people seem to have been so adamant against it.
When this was first announced, we actually thought this could be a good thing. If you could bring all the rules, various apps, animations, and such to one place, for a decent price, this could have been awesome.
However, things didn’t really play out that way… Loads of technical issues have basically turned the platform into something frustrating to use, doesn’t have that much on it, and just left a really bad taste in everyone’s mouths.
Maybe the real issue was that they tried to do this in-house. It seems like they had to release it way, and we mean way before it was really ready, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
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The 40k app still barely works and is full of bugs. The AoS app took over the old one again in a basically Beta stage (but seems to work pretty good) and lastly, they have continued to slow down the releases for animations.
Walking Back To a Super Slow Release Schedule
Let’s start with the most important part, new content.
This is the big change right here from the Warhammer+ FAQ. They originally said content would be added every week, now and literally within a month of the release of the platform, GW had walked it back to be most Wednesdays.
Every Wednesday will see new content added. The Loremaster series will also be joining the service from Wednesday the 1st of September, followed by Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App later that month.
They also went back and edited all their promotion posts to reflect this change in content schedule, conveniently after a lot of people had already signed up for a year to get their shiny new bonus miniature.
In this post from GW, the text looks to have been changed to be “practically every Wednesday”, again after tons of hobbyists had signed up for one thing, and were delivered another.
This comes after many of people’s favorite animators went off YouTube, thus further paywalling the content folks watched, and that really, at least to us, feels like when the outrage started to manifest online.
The Need to Offer Value
The recent price increases have also upset people, but let’s be real, GW is always going to increase its prices. Everyone is in 2022, and the latest increase just happened recently.
However, what could help Games Workshop in the long term is to offer more value in return for those prices.
This could be something as simple as offering rules updates for free, actually allowing you to download codices, an army builder, sales, etc… Because at this point, they need a way to improve consumer confidence and keep customers buying.
The simplest thing would be rules, this would allow a lower entry to get into the game, keep current players happy as they don’t have to continue to shell out for new rules, and just build back some of the lost consumer confidence.
Or, maybe they could just get the Warhammer+ Plus platform up to par, and it might bring more people back to it when they could actually see some of their favorite content creators at work.
Because at this point, whether you believe the complaints of hobbyists or not, Games Workshop stock is dropping a lot.
It Could Just be the Market Adjusting
When you look at the S&P charts, they are mostly all going down, but are still far above the pre-COVID numbers. So, there’s always a chance this is just the market correcting itself.
Plus people are just doing more in real life, meaning the hobbying is going down because people are more willing to go out and do things, meaning they are spending their money and time elsewhere.
Either way, it is strange this all started happening within weeks of the release of Warhammer+ Plus, and them changing the narrative of the offering.
Again this could all be life resetting after COVID, or the lack of a “normal amount” of new releases (i.e. revenue stream) that has hurt them as well.
More than anything though, it feels like Warhammer+ was their key to value, easy rules access, and consumer engagement, but the constant technical failures have actually done the opposite and turned a portion of the customer base (and potentially investors) slowly against them.
Please take a moment and click on any of these articles which outline a lot of the issues hobbyists have had with Games Workshop over the past year, along with the price increases (some over 50%) since 2019.
Games Workshop was great once, and we’re here for when they will be great again.
- What the Community Thinks About the New 40k Rules Updates
- Is Warhammer+ Plus Worth It: Everything You Need To Know
- Games Workshop NDA Leak More Damaging Than Their IP Policy
- YouTubers Have Started Attacking Warhammer TV
- News of the GW ‘Fan Revolt’ has Hit Wall Street
- Boycotts Don’t Work, Do This Instead to Games Workshop
- Lookout YouTube, GW Just Updated Their IP Guidelines
- Where GW Fan Creativity Ends & IP Infringement Starts
- How Much Money Games Workshop Marks Up Their Products Now
- Warhammer Plus Is Why Games Workshop Stock is Dropping
Lastest Price Increases From Games Workshop Since 2019:
- GW Raising Prices Again (but it’s not as bad as it sounds)
- Games Workshop Price Increases Versus Inflation
- GW Raised Prices on 135 items TWICE in Less Than a Year
- GW 2019 Price Hike: Some Marine Units Up Almost 50%
What do you think about Games Workshop stock price dropping and Warhammer+ plus in general?
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About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits In 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
Bio: Virginia restless, miniature painter & cat dad. He blames LEGOs for all this, as there was something about those little-colored blocks that started it all. Spikey Bits started with Rob trying to stay motivated to hobby on his backlog of projects and share his knowledge with others during the early blogging era.
Scale model hobbyist in the 80s, miniature wargamer, and trading card player ever since. He’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy since 5th Edition, but Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and minatures made of both pewter and resin.
