Warhammer 40,000 maker Games Workshop has found itself in the news for its falling share price, which has left some wondering what’s going on behind the scenes.
Games Workshop is one of the UK's biggest success stories, with its stock rising more than 70% over the past five years. But its share price has fallen 13.76% over the past six months, wiping hundreds of millions of pounds off the value of the company. This comes even as Games Workshop reports record profits. So, what’s going on?
Broadly speaking, there seems to be investor nervousness at Games Workshop’s ability to keep growing in the face of rising manufacturing and logistics costs. Some on the internet will say the recently released 11th edition of flagship tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000 hasn’t done as well as Games Workshop had hoped, but there is no official data to back this claim up. Indeed, in an update issued mid-September, Games Workshop said that trading to August 30 was “in line with the Board’s expectations for the current financial year.”
However, there is certainly a feeling that Games Workshop may have hit a wall in terms of the popularity of its tabletop games, particularly Warhammer 40,000, which has seen multiple new, pricey miniatures released recently amid claims of over-saturation.
Things ramped up last week with two reports from the financial press about the state of Games Workshop. The first, from the Financial Times, titled ‘Is Warhammer still winning?’ The FT pointed out that while GW’s financials are, broadly speaking, very positive, retail growth per store turned negative for the first time since the pandemic in the second half of its 2026 financial year.
Then there was a report in The Times titled, ‘Games Workshop takes a hammering after mystery report.’ This story claimed a confidential Dragoneye document had wiped £480 million (approx. $635 million) off the company’s value “as the closely guarded contents trigger unease among investors.”
What’s in this Dragoneye document? We don’t know, but The Times said it was about the potential for slowing growth at Games Workshop. It’s interestingly timed, and Dragoneye is a short-focused research firm, so its report should be read with that in mind. Through it all is the obvious point that projecting a slowdown in consumer spending on Games Workshop products shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The global economy is struggling, the rising cost of living has caused many to rethink their spending, and AI has everyone spooked about jobs.
So, while some fans are taking to subreddits to express concern about the future of Games Workshop, there is nothing here to indicate the company is in any sort of trouble. Quite the opposite. And let’s not remember what’s in the works for Warhammer. Big hitting video games such as Total War: Warhammer 40,000 and Space Marine 3 are due out in the coming years, and Henry Cavill is soldiering on with his Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Universe for Amazon. The entertainment push to broaden the appeal of the Warhammer 40,000 IP is surely going to stand Games Workshop in good stead over the years.
And, at the time of this article’s publication, Games Workshop’s share price was up 1.22%. The Emperor, it seems, protects.
Photo by Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images.