No hard feelings...

[Shad]

The steps outlined seem logical enough for me to believe AP has a reasonable chance of success.

I wish him and AP the best.

As do I, but I will requote myself because the question remains unanswered:

Has anyone ever stopped to think about why AP should be struggling so mightily to right the ship? Is there something achievable in the future that makes all this pain worthwhile? I'm not so sure.

What is the definition of success here? and if there is one, is it rational?

Some examples off the top of my head would be:

• clear all debts and print all promised titles
  
• retire the PG series and launch a new, successful series
  
• retire existing series (*WAS & PG) and ride off into the sunset
  
• claw up to wargame industry juggernaut status
  

I pass no judgment on the likelihood of any of those, just giving examples. There must be something to work for, otherwise you're going in 10 directions at once.

I work for a medical systems joint venture. When I arrived in 2009 our vision statement actually said we were going to become the best medical systems supplier in the world. This was beyond stupid, it was asinine. Why? Because we are a joint venture! In order to do that we'd have to somehow acquire BOTH our parent companies... not to mention all the other billion brilliant business decisions necessary to achieve global leadership in an industry.

It took a lot of pushing, but in the end I succeeded in changing it. Now our scope is reduced to in China. This is still a difficult, long-term goal... a vision! But it's not insane... and it gives employees a realistic target to aim for...

What's AP's target?