Is it time the Games Workshop split itself in two?

Well after yesterday's tough love (and it was love) for Games Workshop, today I try and offer what I think would be a sensible way forward for them. You see I've been thinking now, pretty much for years that Games Workshop was a really bad business model, not necessarily in the sense of purely making money, it seems OK at that right now, but I always felt it might have a tendency to go stale or be susceptible to shocks. I thought it was weak in other areas when I worked part time for them while I was paying my way through university and I've continued to think it to this very day. Yesterday as I said I posted a blog about whether the Imperium was becoming a metaphor for the Games Workshop itself and indeed whether the Imperium was Games Workshops ultimate destiny. I'm not going to go over old ground again because you can read it all here, plus I think it upset a few people so why try and upset them some more?

Lets be clear though, Games Workshop must be doing something right otherwise we wouldn't all be talking about them and we wouldn't have purchased their products in the first place now would we? However that's not to say their isn't room for improvement; in any business there is always room for improvement. So today I want to pick apart why it is that I think Games Workshops various wings and departments are quite frankly getting in each others way and screwing each other over and suggest ways in which the various parts of the company should be split up and broken down into its constituent parts. Then re-modeled and reshaped to do their individual functions far better than they are currently doing them right now and maybe even get them thriving again. Maybe what you're about to read are the ramblings of a nutcase, but this nutcase is quite good at systems analysis and right now looking at the Games Workshop as a system its clear to see that at some points its broken and has got itself into a toxic cycle.

Retail

Often cited by those close to the company as the 'drain on resources', or 'the problem'. I don't see it that way entirely and although I think there are problems with Games Workshops retail department and model I think there are bigger issues at play. Its often said that the retail arm of the Games Workshop struggles to support it's three core game systems and I hold my hands up, I've been guilty of this blisteringly dumb oversimplification myself at times. I think if you look at it as a rational system it can't be true that retail is struggling to support the core game systems. Just think about it for a second, when a business struggles, auditors never say 'well HMV was struggling to support DVD sales and console sales' do you? Its farcical, no the product range is unable to support the retail business and its structures.

Read more �