Yes. One advantage GW has, is that it has never outsourced manufacturing. The miniatures are still made locally, so they haven't lost their expertise, nor are they threatened by a former contractor turned competitor.
Their success is down to a bunch of factors: near monopoly position in their niche, total vertical integration, obsession with design and marketing, and I think crucially, having the kids who grew up playing coming into a high-spending age bracket.
That said, I think there's something to the comment. The vertical integration is key, IMO. They own the IP, manufacture and distribution. There's a lot of power in that business model: short supply chains, all profit kept in house, a lot less faffing around with third parties.
They have kept skills in house. Two of their great original designers have retired at the company in the last few years. I don't think that's been the one critical factor in their success, but they're well-respected figures who knew the business and were very much a part of building that fanatical brand loyalty. One of my gaming group occasionally plays with the great John Blanche.
And man, keeping manufacturing in the UK. As a Brit, despite my many misgivings about how they operate as a company, I gotta love that. Again, I don't know if it's they key factor here, but they've been doing this for decades, they're good at it, and that's got to help the bottom line.
Keeping things in the UK would have been a difficult decision to maintain, particularly as overseas manufacturing was taking off, but it's clearly paid off in the long run.
how do you identify their niche? Miniature wargaming has a bunch of competitors[0], and so does genre publishing.
I suppose they have more physical shops and places to play[1], and it's easier to find people to play with, so that may be what you're think of.
I myself never played the TT game, but I love the world of 40k, and have spent a lot of time consuming related content. I'd pay for WarhammerTV, if they just let me!
[1] I recall looking slack jawed at the awesome miniatures in a GW shop in.. Maidenhead, I think? 60k people. Around ~1993, I was a kid in a "english studying" holiday.
The near-monopoly comes from network effect. There are plenty of other games, I'm more of a painter and have models from a load of them, but I've only ever played GW games as that's what my friends play.
I can't think of anything that comes close on tabletop in terms of number of active players. I've just moved to a new town (pop ~5K), there's a club and that wasn't surprising. I wouldn't expect that with any other wargame.
Aren't most 40k minis cast resin? The process is incredibly simple, I don't think outsourcing it to China would save a lot of money, just bringing those minis over the ocean would probably cost 10x as much as making them locally.
Injected plastic. Resin occasionally, but it's premium and GW have pretty much discontinued it.
There's definitely a quality component, which will be part design and part manufacture. GW minis are substantially better quality than other brands.
The interesting thing now is resin-based 3D printing! I've done a load and it's great fun. The process is not quite ready for mainstream adoption, resin is icky, but that's the exciting thing to watch out for in the space.
