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Oh my god I'm laughing so hard I can't hit the exalt button hard enough!

Strange i am GW's demographic because i have always been a collector first and wargamer second, love the fluff but their prices drove me away. Living in the land of bandai, Tamiya, garage kit and mecha, i laugh at their prices of their imperial knight and their tanks, for those prices i can buy high quality tanks/mecha's with metal parts.

That is a good point. If you are a modeller or collector there are many alternatives to GW and most of them are at least arguably cheaper and/or better.

The only reason to choose to collect GW is if you particularly like their aesthetic.

And even if you are a collector, just how many tactical squads DO you need?

I am more painter and collector too and I have two. But as collector i dont have big problem with they prices, yes they can be cheaper, but I buy one for year? so 30€ isnt that much and I have ten figs for painting.

The thing is that Games Workshop needs about five million "one box a year" collectors to keep going if they don't sell larger armies and books to game players.

Seems like they should work on the hobby aspect of the game then...or start a major advertising campaign geared towards modeling enthusiasts.

That sounds like a logical ans sensible suggestion.

Hence why it is now in the mighty bin of NOPE!

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The thing is that Games Workshop needs about five million "one box a year" collectors to keep going if they don't sell larger armies and books to game players.

Which shows just how fething stupid their idea that they sell to collectors really is. Most collectors aren't going to buy enough figures to make an army, and if they do then they likely aren't really collectors. Yet the price is way too high for real collectors who might collect an entire Napoleonic regiment (barring weird things like 60mm figures or whatever which have tons more detail)

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The thing is that Games Workshop needs about five million "one box a year" collectors to keep going if they don't sell larger armies and books to game players.

Which shows just how fething stupid their idea that they sell to collectors really is. Most collectors aren't going to buy enough figures to make an army, and if they do then they likely aren't really collectors. Yet the price is way too high for real collectors who might collect an entire Napoleonic regiment (barring weird things like 60mm figures or whatever which have tons more detail)

Right there, that's the point that Kirby is missing about collectors. They buy pieces that they like. It could be a squad of Space Marines or it could be 90mm piece from a Spanish sculptor. As I've mentioned before I got out of gaming big time a long time ago, but the peces I'm seeing in Figure Painter Monthly are making me want to get back to painting / collecting big time. So Kirby's idea of a "collector" is way off big time.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The thing is that Games Workshop needs about five million "one box a year" collectors to keep going if they don't sell larger armies and books to game players.

Which shows just how fething stupid their idea that they sell to collectors really is. Most collectors aren't going to buy enough figures to make an army, and if they do then they likely aren't really collectors. Yet the price is way too high for real collectors who might collect an entire Napoleonic regiment (barring weird things like 60mm figures or whatever which have tons more detail)

I cant agree collector will buy whole army as he like his fraction, but he likely wont buy nothing else. But anyway theh in the end will reduce prices, they cant that stupid.

Well, Kirby still thinks his product has a good shot of being the premier collector's items, it would only happen if it was like the below item:
The only thing I can see happening to be able to mint money is to actually create a cult based on the 40k Emperor lore in real life.
The "Church of the Sub-Genius" got a bit of traction as a joke cult, "Bob" could be a great supporter.http://www.subgenius.com/index.htm
What worked for L. Ron Hubbard should easily translate.

In all seriousness, if GW can make the connection that they sell a game:
1) Written rules defining how models behave.
2) Sell models that match what is in the rule books.
3) Support/advertise events that celebrate the above two things, I dunno, minimal stuff their competitors do.

I just cannot wrap my brain around the Kirby business model: "we are fantastic and they should flock to us", how is that created/deserved?
This sense of entitlement and big brass balls as if through just being belligerent he can bully us into buying their product.

This is just crazy stuff, thank goodness my friends have taken a sudden interest in Battletech Alphastrike so I may have little break from 40k and gain some perspective.

Just googling that plushie made me realise there are collectors and there are REAL collectors out there.

http://www.tycollector.com/the-scoop/princess-bear.htm

They (try to) behave just like HP, Apple, Microsoft and such big companies...money can make funny things with your brain. They are biggest and most succesfull companies in this hobby, so they think they may take to afford it.
Next thing is, they dont makes consumables items, its just natural they salles drop because there is no need for so many minis since demand isnt that big.

 Shandara wrote:
Just googling that plushie made me realise there are collectors and there are REAL collectors out there.
http://www.tycollector.com/the-scoop/princess-bear.htm

Yeah, good find/observation isn't it?
Whenever I think I am going too far in a hobby I search for others on the net that far exceed to what lengths I would go.
It makes you feel so much better.

 Naberiel wrote:

Next thing is, they dont makes consumables items, its just natural they salles drop because there is no need for so many minis since demand isnt that big.

There should be a constant flow of demand for their products because they should be recruiting faster than people leave the hobby. That is like.. sales 101. You need to be gaining more customers in a year than you lose.
GW can't seem to understand this and their buy in price is just ludicrous so it isn't happening.

Exactly, That is what I cant understand. They cant be that stupid...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Quarterdime wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Agree that Infinity is somewhat more suited to having civilians involved in the conflict, although I'm sure you probably could work it in to a 40k scenario - Imperial Guard trying to evacuate civilians in front of a Nid invasion, A Space Marine kill-team attacking through a crowded government building to knock out an un-cooperative governor, Night Lords trying to capture some hive juves to induct into their ranks while local PDF try and stop them. All it needs is a little imagination, although the rules might need some tweaking.

 Quarterdime wrote:

3 reasons: First, and I don't mean to sound rude by saying this, they don't look good. Second, Games Workshop humans are disproportionate, "heroic scale" as people say. Which is of course just them trying to keep the range consistent (and making #3 more of a problem than it needs to be) Reason #3 being that they don't fit the Warhammer 40k aesthetic. If I imagine imperial citizens, I imagine people who are a bit more dryly dressed. But that's just me, I think that if you're making civilian models the whole point should be to make them look as generic as possible.

Points 2 and 3 are valid points definitely. But, Infinity civilians don't look good? I must only assume that you haven't seen these miniatures sir, or perhaps live in some kind of alternate universe?

Spoiler:

I just did a google image search of "Infinity Civillians". The results looked nothing like those. Still...Reasons 2 and 3.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well I'm not Games Workshop's demographic, but I can explain why I can understand their prices, and, dare I say, even think they are fair. It has to do with the ideal. You shouldn't be buying large amounts of miniatures at once. Starter sets I can see because of the price, but generally speaking, you should only ever be buying a kit every few weeks or every few months (depending upon what you're buying, how much time you have, etc.) once you're done with your last. You buy one, you build it, you paint it, and you take your time with it and do it well. THEN you do the next one. Eventually you'll have an army. As you're no doubt aware the greatest flaw of this ideal is startup time. Once you have a core army finished this process becomes much more enjoyable---constantly growing and changing your games, keeping them fresh. But there could easily be years between the point where you make your very first investment into this hobby and the day you actually have the army you visualized in your carrying case. In that time, your army book could be updated, the rules could be updated... typically anyone in this position breaks and starts playing with unpainted models. I've seen how this then leads to people feeling comfortable playing without paint and lose any motivation to paint them. These people (most players) then no doubt feel liberated enough to buy more miniatures, aiming for the gratification of playing with them before they're even finished, but then they hit the wall and realize they're spending more money than they should be on this hobby. Well I say you're doing it wrong. Take it easy, slow down, and actually learn how to paint. A wise man once said you have nothing to fear but fear itself. The end result will be a painted army and new expenditures lowered to the level of a cell phone bill.

As for the righteousness of raising prices needlessly.... While the model itself is archaic, their prices are still cheaper than Warmachine, you simply need to buy more to play. Plastic and Resin is cheaper than metal, but that's beside the point. Miniatures are sushi. Just because it's a tiny piece of fish not worth 50 cents on its own doesn't mean with the right labor it can't turn into something far more valuable. They have been expanding constantly for the last, well, ever. And in that time, think of how many presses they had to pay for since then, and all of the full time jobs that feed every single employee of the company from the CEO to the pushy man behind the desk. They all work full time, and rely solely on you to put gas in their car, food in their belly, and a roof over their heads. In my opinion that need for support alone is enough to justify it to me. And honestly, I'm sure they could lower their prices, but I don't know by how much, and if the amount that they need to lower them by to adequately increase sales would be as feasible for them as it would be for us. Once you buy the model, you're not buying it again.

P.S. If you're actually in Games Workshop's demographic, I can see why you're growing upset. The new cartoony aesthetic is working against the notion that someone would buy these models for their own sake.

You kind of have to buy lots of miniatures at once because of the ever-increasing scale of the game.

 Quarterdime wrote:

Well I'm not Games Workshop's demographic, but I can explain why I can understand their prices, and, dare I say, even think they are fair. It has to do with the ideal. You shouldn't be buying large amounts of miniatures at once. Starter sets I can see because of the price, but generally speaking, you should only ever be buying a kit every few weeks or every few months (depending upon what you're buying, how much time you have, etc.) once you're done with your last.

Except that we are talking about games where you field armies - and games that have fielded armies that are arguably larger than most of their competition.

You cannot play the game until you have those armies.

People want to play the game. So they buy their miniatures, and typically start fielding them as bare plastic, or, if they are playing Space Marines they give them a quick one coat of the base color - sometimes.

So... no - not a valid argument.

With most other games I can spend less money, get a playable force, and not spend months painting the fershluginner things before I get to play.

Some games even sell *GASP!* prepainted miniatures that are still cheaper than GW unpainted plastic. (I hate prepainted miniatures, but the starting cost for the Star Wars game is a heck of a lot less that the starting cost for, oh, 40K... and a lot less than Fantasy.

Mantic and Kings of War are also aimed at having large armies - and sell miniatures for a lot less.

Historical games ten to have VERY large armies - and the Perrys are selling their figures for a whole lot less than GW.

And the Perry models look better than most GW plastics.

The Auld Grump - GW ain't PORSCHE!

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
With most other games I can spend less money, get a playable force, and not spend months painting the fershluginner things before I get to play.

Some games even sell *GASP!* prepainted miniatures that are still cheaper than GW unpainted plastic. (I hate prepainted miniatures, but the starting cost for the Star Wars game is a heck of a lot less that the starting cost for, oh, 40K... and a lot less than Fantasy.

Mantic and Kings of War are also aimed at having large armies - and sell miniatures for a lot less.

Historical games ten to have VERY large armies - and the Perrys are selling their figures for a whole lot less than GW.

And the Perry models look better than most GW plastics.

The Auld Grump - GW ain't PORSCHE!

That's very true. As far as size goes the closest comparison to GW games is historicals (and things like KoW), but historicals tend to traditionally be 15mm or even smaller. Even the 28mm historicals though cost a fraction of what GW charges, but operate along the same lines (lots of figures = large armies). So again why does GW alone feel they can charge double or more for the same thing?

Did you miss me saying Games Workshop is slightly cheaper than Warmachine? And my admission that the biggest drawback to the aforementioned ideal was that yes, you do need an army to play, and that it is expected to be painted to a standard?

 Quarterdime wrote:
[size=9]
Well I'm not Games Workshop's demographic, but I can explain why I can understand their prices, and, dare I say, even think they are fair. It has to do with the ideal. You shouldn't be buying large amounts of miniatures at once. Starter sets I can see because of the price, but generally speaking, you should only ever be buying a kit every few weeks or every few months (depending upon what you're buying, how much time you have, etc.) once you're done with your last. You buy one, you build it, you paint it, and you take your time with it and do it well. THEN you do the next one. Eventually you'll have an army. As you're no doubt aware the greatest flaw of this ideal is startup time. Once you have a core army finished this process becomes much more enjoyable---constantly growing and changing your games, keeping them fresh. But there could easily be years between the point where you make your very first investment into this hobby and the day you actually have the army you visualized in your carrying case. In that time, your army book could be updated, the rules could be updated... typically anyone in this position breaks and starts playing with unpainted models. I've seen how this then leads to people feeling comfortable playing without paint and lose any motivation to paint them. These people (most players) then no doubt feel liberated enough to buy more miniatures, aiming for the gratification of playing with them before they're even finished, but then they hit the wall and realize they're spending more money than they should be on this hobby. Well I say you're doing it wrong. Take it easy, slow down, and actually learn how to paint. A wise man once said you have nothing to fear but fear itself. The end result will be a painted army and new expenditures lowered to the level of a cell phone bill.

As for the righteousness of raising prices needlessly.... While the model itself is archaic, their prices are still cheaper than Warmachine, you simply need to buy more to play. Plastic and Resin is cheaper than metal, but that's beside the point. Miniatures are sushi. Just because it's a tiny piece of fish not worth 50 cents on its own doesn't mean with the right labor it can't turn into something far more valuable. They have been expanding constantly for the last, well, ever. And in that time, think of how many presses they had to pay for since then, and all of the full time jobs that feed every single employee of the company from the CEO to the pushy man behind the desk. They all work full time, and rely solely on you to put gas in their car, food in their belly, and a roof over their heads. In my opinion that need for support alone is enough to justify it to me. And honestly, I'm sure they could lower their prices, but I don't know by how much, and if the amount that they need to lower them by to adequately increase sales would be as feasible for them as it would be for us. Once you buy the model, you're not buying it again.

P.S. If you're actually in Games Workshop's demographic, I can see why you're growing upset. The new cartoony aesthetic is working against the notion that someone would buy these models for their own sake.

Problem with this, is, that GW wants you to spend your $200-$1000 and never come back again. I didn't believe that at first, but then I started seeing that. The people who work at GW are not like that, they want you to come back, but I can see over the years how GW acted and works, I can see this being true. They want the rich parents to come in with their kids, buy the stuff they need and that is that.

GW doesn't act like they want you to come back. GW doesn't act like buy only a little bit, and then come back more when you are done. They act like buy all at once. especially their One Click deals. that is not buy a little bit now, and a little bit later at all.

 Quarterdime wrote:
Did you miss me saying Games Workshop is slightly cheaper than Warmachine? And my admission that the biggest drawback to the aforementioned ideal was that yes, you do need an army to play, and that it is expected to be painted to a standard?

And did you notice that it is cheaper to have a playable army in WARMACHINE than in any GW game?

And that with fewer models you can be painted in a lot less time?

And that the starter boxes are actually balanced between armies - and have enough to play right out of the box? And what you get are fieldable armies? That the Two Player Battle Box is cheaper than one Nagash? (Or try comparing the Imperial Knight to the WARMACHINE colossals... where you can get two of the largest colossal - in metal and resin - for the cost of one Imperial Knight inplastic.)

Hmmm?

Whereas the two player starter for WH40K isn't balanced, and most often (though not always) can't be fielded in a regular game without adding another unit? That whole two Troop and one HQ thing, you know?

So - still not a valid argument.

And if we compare to what comes with Deadzone - which is thematically a much closer match than Warmachine....

The Auld Grump

Ho-hmmm. This post... again.

 Quarterdime wrote:

Well I'm not Games Workshop's demographic, but I can explain why I can understand their prices, and, dare I say, even think they are fair. It has to do with the ideal. You shouldn't be buying large amounts of miniatures at once. Starter sets I can see because of the price, but generally speaking, you should only ever be buying a kit every few weeks or every few months (depending upon what you're buying, how much time you have, etc.) once you're done with your last. You buy one, you build it, you paint it, and you take your time with it and do it well. THEN you do the next one. Eventually you'll have an army. As you're no doubt aware the greatest flaw of this ideal is startup time. Once you have a core army finished this process becomes much more enjoyable---constantly growing and changing your games, keeping them fresh. But there could easily be years between the point where you make your very first investment into this hobby and the day you actually have the army you visualized in your carrying case.

You've just proved the stupidity of your own post. Well done. Most people who post such insane garbage are totally unaware of it. I salute your level of self-awareness.

1: I'd like to play Warhammer
2: I should collect and paint a new batch of figures every few weeks or months.
3: One day, in months or years time, I will be able to play my first game.

Yeah, makes perfect sense...

 Byte wrote:
Ho-hmmm. This post... again.

*YAWN*

Followed by this one.

Again.

There is a reason that point keeps being made.... Games Workshop games are more expensive to enter than any of their competitors.

So, ho-hmmm away... and sooner or later GW will ho-hmmm away as well... most likely sooner, at the rate that they are pricing themselves out of the market.

Because, you see, ho-hmmm does not actually address the problem, now does it?

It is a response that translates to 'I have no actual answer, so I will ridicule the post in the hopes that it goes away'.

The Auld Grump - ho-hmmm.

Just for interest I totted up the cost in today's prices of my Tau army.

£845.54

Cost at the original prices = £500 (approx)

I collected my army over a couple of years -- 2005 to 2007 -- at which time most of the units were cheaper, in some cases being a different model. The Crisis Commander and the Broadside were variations on the basic Crisis Suit.

Rules, Codex, Crisis Commander, Ethereal, Stealth Team, 2 Crisis Teams, 4 Fire Warrior Squads, 2 Kroot Squads with 4 Kroothounds and 2 Krootoxen, Pathfinder Team in Devilfish, 2 additional Devilfish, Vespids, Gun Drone Squadron, 3 Hammerheads, 3 Broadsides, 2 Sniper Drone Teams.

This gives you a unit for every slot in the standard FOC and a couple of spare Hammerheads that can be used as Devilfish or Heavy Support.

It gives you a bit of flexibility, for example for smaller games you can have three separate Broadsides. I can't point it up but I expect you can easily assemble a 2,000+ army by adding plenty of upgrades. There are none of the modern units like the Riptide and Sunray, as my models are all 3rd and 5th edition, but apart from that you can make a reasonably good army for any size of game except Apocalypse.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Just for interest I totted up the cost in today's prices of my Tau army.

£845.54

Interesting. One "army" I just bought for Infinity (Morat Aggression Force) cost me a grand total of $167.11 including rules. Compare that to your $1,403 for a Tau army. Additionally, with GW, each time you "update" your army you are looking at $200-$300, just to update it. When you can start an entirely new game, with a complete tournament ready force for less than updating your army, GW is in trouble.

There is NO argument left that GW has no where to go. They are NOT going to recruit new customers with this kind of market disparity (at least not in sufficient numbers to survive) and it is now cheaper for existing customers to switch to a new system than updating their armies.

Tying this to the point of the OP:

New customers: Looking at 10 TIMES THE COST of almost any other game on the market just to enter the game.

Existing customers: Looking at almost a 50% REDUCTION IN COST to switch to any entirely new game system.

Then again, if GW did ANY market research they may at least begin to recognize this.

Yes, that is the other point. Merely to purchase the 7th edition rules and 6th edition Tau codex would cost me £80, before adding any of the new unit models (Riptide, etc.) I don't like a lot of the 6th and 7th edition rules (Flyers, Lords of War and so on.)

From my viewpoint GW not only have a pricing problem to get new customers, they also will have difficulty in retaining old ones as new rules and codexes are issued.