Production on the Warhammer Amazon Series Won’t Begin for at Least a Year

The biannual business update from Games Workshop has provided some intriguing insights into the organization. If you can get beyond the large, bulky document’s dry statistics and even drier corporate jargon, it offers some illuminating insights into Games Workshop’s operations and the second half of 2023. Fortunately, we went through it so you wouldn’t have to.

Overall, the past six months have been excellent, with Warhammer earnings rising in almost every category. Games Workshop provides important facts about the upcoming Amazon event, “core revenue growth in all channels,” the cost of the contentious new website, and the overall failure of 2023’s video games.

The report opens with a discussion on the power of licensing from CEO Kevin Rountree and CFO Rachel Tongue, who make it apparent that this will be a major area of focus for the business in 2024. They explain, “We hold what we think is some of the best underutilized intellectual property (‘IP’) worldwide. “We have persistently searched for partners who can assist us in realizing this potential during the stated time. We will keep granting licenses to carefully selected partners who uphold our right to sole ownership of our distinctive intellectual property in order to prevent damage to the core company, which is a major risk that we identify each year.

Games Workshop is carefully selecting its partners, including Amazon, and is patient with its intellectual property. In a time when massively popular assets like The Lord of the Rings are up for grabs and the number of adaptations soars without concern for quality, this is a welcome change.


Afterwards, Games Workshop clarified how cautious it is when working with its creative partners, such as Amazon. According to the half-yearly report, “Games Workshop and Amazon will collaborate for a duration of 12 months to establish creative guidelines for the movies and television shows to be produced by Amazon.” “The agreement will only move forward if Games Workshop and Amazon can both agree on the creative guidelines.”

This implies that the show’s production, which naturally stars Henry Cavill, a well-known Warhammer aficionado, won’t begin for at least a year. This ambitious project is still a long way off, lacking a story, pre-production, and casting aside from Cavill.

The fact that the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game was not mentioned once in the report only served to fuel the rumor that Games Workshop had forgotten about it.

Among the most contentious choices made by Games Workshop this year was the launch of the new website. There were other problems with the site, such as broken graphics and unusable navigation, and many fans still think it’s worse than the old one. The business asserts that “there were some teething issues but no showstoppers” nevertheless. The document also disclosed the redesign’s overall cost of £10.8 million.

It appears that GW is aware of the problems with supply and is “exploring options for Factory 4” at its Nottingham location. Globally, GW has bought 25 robots for the Adeptus Mechanicus US facilities in the last six months, and it is renting a new warehouse in Australia. It is unclear, however, whether this will have a good effect on the extraordinarily high AUD prices. It may surprise some to learn that Warhammer+ is still expanding, since subscribers have increased by more than 50,000 (almost 50%) in just the past year.

However, due to Warhammer video games’ dismal performance over the past six months, licensing revenue has decreased. The two games released during this time are Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge and Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin. Games Workshop has been transparent about the latter’s poor sales. The current breakdown of the £12.1 million reported income (a decrease of £2.2 million) is as follows: “47% PC and console games, 33% mobile, and 20% other.” Though it’s not entirely clear what this refers to at the moment, the “other” may be virtual reality or cloud gaming. Games Workshop seemed content with the ongoing income from well-known titles despite this underwhelming result, citing Total War: Warhammer 3, Tacticus, and Darktide specifically. There might be a lot of pressure on Space Marine 2, and Games Workshop might need to be as picky about its video gaming partners as it is about its TV and film licensees.




The report concludes with a noteworthy remark of John Blanche, a pioneer of Warhammer and grimdark artist, who departed from the firm this year. It states, “Not many people have retired from Games Workshop.” John Blanche left his position as our design studio’s art director around that time. We are grateful to him for nearly 40 years of sharing his immense talents and excitement with us. He is a creative genius. All of us hope the best for him. He departs from us with a brilliant and well-invested Warhammer Studio.

Although Blanche is a unique talent, all Warhammer fans will appreciate his contribution and wish him well in his retirement. His artwork is timeless and iconic, and his ideas will continue to influence the Warhammer universe for many years to come. We can only hope that the Amazon series embraces the grimdarkness of Blanche’s artwork and treats his designs as canonical, as one of its creative rules. We can all look forward to something amazing if that is the case.