Lord Damocles wrote: So GW just had a second price list, with much higher increases, lying around - as you do - and just oopsie doopsie sent that one out instead of the correct one.
Right. Sure. Seems legit.
Does it sound more reasonable that they made sweeping, company-wide pricing decisions literally because of ~ one and half days of mild internet outrage?
Such things are usually calculated and projected in some form, and that usually entails a substantial process - not to say that they have not made dumb decisions before, but they are probably not exactly mustache-twirling cartoon villains that drop their plans once they are found out by those meddlin' kids.
Mistakes do actually happen and get corrected from time to time, it's not literally always just an excuse and arse-covering.
Lord Damocles wrote: No, spoken like somebody who's never sent out a massively 'inaccurate' spreadsheet to a continent's worth of customers.
Can you honestly say you've never worked with someone careless or incompetent enough to do that? I certainly have. And, like I said, it's a lot more believable than the idea that the standard whining about price increases made GW panic and change their plans.
Lord Damocles wrote: No, spoken like somebody who's never sent out a massively 'inaccurate' spreadsheet to a continent's worth of customers.
Can you honestly say you've never worked with someone careless or incompetent enough to do that? I certainly have. And, like I said, it's a lot more believable than the idea that the standard whining about price increases made GW panic and change their plans.
And it's also a lot more believable than GW actually thinking they could get away with announcing a 6% price increase publicly and "secretly" doing a 20% price increase in their largest region instead, on the same day. As if those price lists wouldn't find their way to the internet.
Lord Damocles wrote: So GW just had a second price list, with much higher increases, lying around - as you do - and just oopsie doopsie sent that one out instead of the correct one.
Right. Sure. Seems legit.
Spoken like someone who has never had to deal with shared excel sheets at a job.
No, spoken like somebody who's never sent out a massively 'inaccurate' spreadsheet to a continent's worth of customers.
I know someone who nearly caused a margin call on a high street bank (that would possibly bankrupted them) once by sending the wrong day's speadsheet.
Lord Damocles wrote: No, spoken like somebody who's never sent out a massively 'inaccurate' spreadsheet to a continent's worth of customers.
Can you honestly say you've never worked with someone careless or incompetent enough to do that? I certainly have. And, like I said, it's a lot more believable than the idea that the standard whining about price increases made GW panic and change their plans.
Correct. I've never worked with anyone who would have been 'careless' enough to create a second parallel version of a spreadsheet with wildly different numbers, just because they like pushing random buttons on Excel or something, and then sent it to third parties.
Lord Damocles wrote: Correct. I've never worked with anyone who would have been 'careless' enough to create a second parallel version of a spreadsheet with wildly different numbers, just because they like pushing random buttons on Excel or something, and then sent it to third parties.
Why do you assume it was a parallel version? The most likely explanation is that there was a single version, someone screwed it up, and when GW caught the error they made a new version with the correct numbers and sent it out as a replacement. I really don't know why you find this hard to believe, this kind of error is hardly rare.
mikhaila wrote: And they just walked back the 20% increase and claim (possibly true) it was an error and whoever made the list used a wrong file.
So, the “useless” pushback had more of an effect than just quietly going along with things and not complaining? Imagine that.
Or it’s a genuine typo. Far stranger things have happened.
I would need to see some extraordinary proof to believe that.
As would I for the ludicrous claim that GW fans finally succeeded in complaining loudly enough for it to be heard at Nottingham. The timetable, especially, is impossibly fast for that outlandish scenario to be true.
Jihadin wrote: I stopped playing over a year ago. So many mini's still need to be painted. Broke out all my mini's for Battletech now......way cheaper.
It’s funny how easy battletech makes it, I have enough mechs to introduce players and play full games with them. And I still feel I haven’t spent too much on it.
I think all my GW hobby money will end up going there for now, easy easy.
No GW game is worth the prices.
Oh I have spent too much on Battletech over the years, and I will probably spend a lot more xD, but I could play planetary assaults 1:1 if I chose to, at this point ^^
In regards to the old list, it's source is one of the 3rd party retailers, as my local one says he was sent the same one from GW. When he called his rep they were tearing their hair out and said the recent list is being sent out post-haste. (the link has already been sent in this thread)
Seems like it was a semi-legit mistake. Not sure why they have the document, who knows, but it does seem the recent one was meant to be sent out.
FWIW, "leaking" a worst case scenario, and "backtracking" to the position you intended all along is a fairly common PR tactic for breaking bad news, as everyone's instant reaction resets from "oh my god, this is terrible" to "oh, phew, it isn't as bad as it looked."
I've seen multiple cases suggesting Netflix have done this with their new account sharing policy, for instance.
Obviously hardly anybody outside of department likely knows the precise events, but it's not unprecedented.
Azreal13 wrote: FWIW, "leaking" a worst case scenario, and "backtracking" to the position you intended all along is a fairly common PR tactic for breaking bad news, as everyone's instant reaction resets from "oh my god, this is terrible" to "oh, phew, it isn't as bad as it looked."
I've seen multiple cases suggesting Netflix have done this with their new account sharing policy, for instance.
Obviously hardly anybody outside of department likely knows the precise events, but it's not unprecedented.
From what I can tell from my local, it seems to have been an upper-management thing, as none of the reps or support staff seem to have any idea that this was happening or why it happened. They're currently panicked and trying to run damaged control. How high up the chain is still a mystery.
Azreal13 wrote: FWIW, "leaking" a worst case scenario, and "backtracking" to the position you intended all along is a fairly common PR tactic for breaking bad news, as everyone's instant reaction resets from "oh my god, this is terrible" to "oh, phew, it isn't as bad as it looked."
I've seen multiple cases suggesting Netflix have done this with their new account sharing policy, for instance.
Obviously hardly anybody outside of department likely knows the precise events, but it's not unprecedented.
If that was the case then it was a really badly executed version of the strategy. The "leak" was only in a non-public document that hardly anyone would see, not a public statement where it would get attention. And rather than letting the leak sit long enough for more than a handful of dedicated forum members to see it GW immediately informed retailers that the price list was incorrect and would be updated. In fact, they set expectations before the leak went out by making their public statement about the actual ~6% increase, establishing that as the reference point for discussion and wasting a lot of the relief effect. This is PR 101 stuff GW would be getting very wrong.
And then there's the question of why GW would bother with PR manipulation over a normal price increase when they haven't shown any interest in doing so in the past, and when regular price increases have clearly been a winning business plan. The simplest explanation, that it was a genuine error, is a far better fit for the events we've seen.
Lord Damocles wrote: So GW just had a second price list, with much higher increases, lying around - as you do - and just oopsie doopsie sent that one out instead of the correct one.
Right. Sure. Seems legit.
Does it sound more reasonable that they made sweeping, company-wide pricing decisions literally because of ~ one and half days of mild internet outrage?
Such things are usually calculated and projected in some form, and that usually entails a substantial process - not to say that they have not made dumb decisions before, but they are probably not exactly mustache-twirling cartoon villains that drop their plans once they are found out by those meddlin' kids.
Mistakes do actually happen and get corrected from time to time, it's not literally always just an excuse and arse-covering.
Your point might have landed if we weren’t constantly seen by cases of companies putting out policy statements, facing more backlash than they had anticipated, quickly walking back their policy statement, and then trying to pretend they had always intended to go with a more reasonable policy and this was all just a big misunderstanding.
Azreal13 wrote: FWIW, "leaking" a worst case scenario, and "backtracking" to the position you intended all along is a fairly common PR tactic for breaking bad news, as everyone's instant reaction resets from "oh my god, this is terrible" to "oh, phew, it isn't as bad as it looked."
I've seen multiple cases suggesting Netflix have done this with their new account sharing policy, for instance.
Obviously hardly anybody outside of department likely knows the precise events, but it's not unprecedented.
Yeah a secret evil conspiracy is certainly more plausible than someone fat-fingering an Excel file.
Azreal13 wrote: FWIW, "leaking" a worst case scenario, and "backtracking" to the position you intended all along is a fairly common PR tactic for breaking bad news, as everyone's instant reaction resets from "oh my god, this is terrible" to "oh, phew, it isn't as bad as it looked."
I've seen multiple cases suggesting Netflix have done this with their new account sharing policy, for instance.
Obviously hardly anybody outside of department likely knows the precise events, but it's not unprecedented.
This is far more believable than GW accidentally creating and then accidentally distributing an oopsie spreadsheet.
Lord Damocles wrote: So GW just had a second price list, with much higher increases, lying around - as you do - and just oopsie doopsie sent that one out instead of the correct one.
Right. Sure. Seems legit.
Does it sound more reasonable that they made sweeping, company-wide pricing decisions literally because of ~ one and half days of mild internet outrage?
Such things are usually calculated and projected in some form, and that usually entails a substantial process - not to say that they have not made dumb decisions before, but they are probably not exactly mustache-twirling cartoon villains that drop their plans once they are found out by those meddlin' kids.
Mistakes do actually happen and get corrected from time to time, it's not literally always just an excuse and arse-covering.
Your point might have landed if we weren’t constantly seen by cases of companies putting out policy statements, facing more backlash than they had anticipated, quickly walking back their policy statement, and then trying to pretend they had always intended to go with a more reasonable policy and this was all just a big misunderstanding.
Eh, it's not a hill i'm particularly interested in dying on, you may very well be correct, but we'll probably never know for sure. I'm happy to end that particular thread of discussion on that note.
mikhaila wrote: And they just walked back the 20% increase and claim (possibly true) it was an error and whoever made the list used a wrong file.
So, the “useless” pushback had more of an effect than just quietly going along with things and not complaining? Imagine that.
Or it’s a genuine typo. Far stranger things have happened.
I would need to see some extraordinary proof to believe that.
As would I for the ludicrous claim that GW fans finally succeeded in complaining loudly enough for it to be heard at Nottingham. The timetable, especially, is impossibly fast for that outlandish scenario to be true.
I have to be honest, I do find it to be very amusing that certain people think that they forced GW into making a completely different set of price changes in the space of a few hours.
Azreal13 wrote: FWIW, "leaking" a worst case scenario, and "backtracking" to the position you intended all along is a fairly common PR tactic for breaking bad news, as everyone's instant reaction resets from "oh my god, this is terrible" to "oh, phew, it isn't as bad as it looked."
I've seen multiple cases suggesting Netflix have done this with their new account sharing policy, for instance.
Obviously hardly anybody outside of department likely knows the precise events, but it's not unprecedented.
Yeah a secret evil conspiracy is certainly more plausible than someone fat-fingering an Excel file.
Nothing conspiratorial about it, it's a known technique for taking the edge off when news with no upside needs to be broken.
I'm not even claiming that this is what I think happened, it's just something that does happen.
As for the points further up thread, how exactly do you think leaks work? You don't send out a fething press release, you deliberately release it in a method that reaches a wider audience but looks like it wasn't meant to.
As for why now? Cost of living crisis in many western economies.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Your point might have landed if we weren’t constantly seen by cases of companies putting out policy statements, facing more backlash than they had anticipated, quickly walking back their policy statement, and then trying to pretend they had always intended to go with a more reasonable policy and this was all just a big misunderstanding.
Except GW didn't face backlash. They faced the normal amount of complaining about price increases, complaining which in the past has not made them change their mind about price increases and has never had any effect on their annual profit. A few people grumbling about price increases and swearing to quit, just like they do every year, is not the level of response that makes a company panic and reverse course on their business plan. Hell, most people didn't even see the incorrect price list before GW informed retailers that it was an error.
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BobtheInquisitor wrote: This is far more believable than GW accidentally creating and then accidentally distributing an oopsie spreadsheet.
Like I said above, spoken like someone who has never had to deal with shared excel sheets. This kind of error is 100% believable and the only surprising thing to me is that it doesn't happen more often. And TBH maybe it does, it just doesn't get any attention because "GW sent out the wrong file and fixed it a few hours later" isn't news outside of some poor employee's quarterly review.
Azreal13 wrote: As for the points further up thread, how exactly do you think leaks work? You don't send out a fething press release, you deliberately release it in a method that reaches a wider audience but looks like it wasn't meant to.
Key point: reaches a wider audience. This supposed "leak" never reached a wider audience. Hardly anyone saw it before GW made direct statements that it was not an accurate price list, and GW made their public statement of the actual price increase before the "leak" happened. If this was an attempt at leak and retract PR games it was so hilariously badly done that whoever was responsible should be fired and blacklisted from ever working in the industry again.
Azreal13 wrote: You're awfully confident of information that you shouldn't really be in a position to know, do you work for the Nottingham Mafia by any chance?
To be fair, I've seen fairly incorrect spreadsheets be sent out by careless coworkers and I don't even work in finance.
Azreal13 wrote: As for the points further up thread, how exactly do you think leaks work? You don't send out a fething press release, you deliberately release it in a method that reaches a wider audience but looks like it wasn't meant to.
Key point: reaches a wider audience. This supposed "leak" never reached a wider audience. Hardly anyone saw it before GW made direct statements that it was not an accurate price list, and GW made their public statement of the actual price increase before the "leak" happened. If this was an attempt at leak and retract PR games it was so hilariously badly done that whoever was responsible should be fired and blacklisted from ever working in the industry again.
You think they don't know those independent price lists don't make it out on to the web just like this one did? You think that their public statement didn't "forget" that it was just focused on UK RRP?
Once again, I'm not claiming I believe any of it, but your certainty suggests either you are in possession of information that the general public isn't, or you're so naive you don't really appreciate how little information you do have.
Azreal13 wrote: You think they don't know those independent price lists don't make it out on to the web just like this one did? You think that their public statement didn't "forget" that it was just focused on UK RRP?
Of course those price lists make it out eventually. But GW didn't allow time for the "leak" to propagate beyond the retailers and a handful of obsessive forum posters before making direct statements that the "leaked" price list was incorrect and shutting it down. We're very rapidly reaching the point where arguing over tinfoil hat theories about the "leak" has been going on longer than discussion of the "leaked" prices and it's barely after lunch time.
Once again, I'm not claiming I believe any of it, but your certainty suggests either you are in possession of information that the general public isn't, or you're so naive you don't really appreciate how little information you do have.
I have plenty of information and the ability to use common sense. We have two possible explanations here:
1) GW made a spectacularly bad attempt at a "leak and retract" PR stunt, completely failing to manage even the most basic sequence of events. Despite having abundant examples of past timelines from a price list going out to retailers to discussion of the price list ramping up they issued the retraction before the "leak" spread beyond a handful of people, ensuring that very few people felt any sense of relief at the actual prices because they were never aware of the "leaked" prices. And despite the key to the whole idea being "thank god it's not that bad" the published the public statement before the leak, anchoring the 6% number in the minds of most customers and making the "leak" less believable as well as reducing the impact of the correction. And they did all of this for a regular price increase that has not involved any PR shenanigans in the past and has not faced anything more than the usual mild grumbling that accompanies every price increase.
or
2) The claimed error was in fact an error. When the alternative explanation is "the idiots running GW's PR department have no idea how to execute even very basic PR actions" the simplest explanation is by far the most likely one. Someone at GW made a mistake, the sort of mistake that is 100% believable for anyone who has worked with shared excel sheets, and as soon as the mistake was discovered GW issued a correction.
Yeah this doesn't feel like a slick PR stunt. Those often come with big apology messages and far far more outcry.
This feels like a "oh darn Dave put a 20 instead of a 6 on the final version of the spreadsheet and didn't doublecheck before he hit "send to all" on the email list.
Can such things happen - sure they can. It's also far more believable than GW trying a price rise stunt when they've no reason too. They do a price rise around this time of year most years, its normal practice and every year there's an uproar of "this is the end times" and then, GW goes on to have a decently to more profitable year.
There's just no reason to mess with this kind of PR stunt and its not the kind of PR that we generally see from GW. They do "leaks" of their own sure along with leaks that aren't of their own making; but by and large their marketing is more up front because its 7 days a week every week. I don't think they can really afford shock-value-pr-stunts when they are more reliant on daily pr
GW have convinced themselves into a corner of ''we're special'' a long, long time ago, and even the flushing-out of kirbyite management has not fully undone this yet - as long as they insist on maintaining their own stores, and on ''The GW hobby'' being a different thing from tabletop wargaming at large, you'll have a very hard time in making them see common buisness sense. That being said, their practices are weird, but not unsuccesful - they managed to stay afloat and expand during multiple economic downturns in the last couple of decades.
GW are special, in the UK at least. They completely dominate the tabletop gaming space.
No other company is releasing new models every single week - all the major FLGS have weekly new stock email circulations and they mainly coincide with the GW 10am Saturday pre orders.
GW release more stuff (plus all the books and merchandise), have more variety in available games, and have arguably the best most detailed miniatures for sale.
The fact that they can get away with some of the more unpalatable aspects (like high prices and paying for rules), and yet still make very healthy profits, shows they are the Apple of tabletop gaming. As much as it's cool to hate on them, they have a massive fan base who are happy to pay premium prices for a premium product.
Overread wrote: Yeah this doesn't feel like a slick PR stunt. Those often come with big apology messages and far far more outcry.
This feels like a "oh darn Dave put a 20 instead of a 6 on the final version of the spreadsheet and didn't doublecheck before he hit "send to all" on the email list.
Can such things happen - sure they can. It's also far more believable than GW trying a price rise stunt when they've no reason too. They do a price rise around this time of year most years, its normal practice and every year there's an uproar of "this is the end times" and then, GW goes on to have a decently to more profitable year.
There's just no reason to mess with this kind of PR stunt and its not the kind of PR that we generally see from GW. They do "leaks" of their own sure along with leaks that aren't of their own making; but by and large their marketing is more up front because its 7 days a week every week. I don't think they can really afford shock-value-pr-stunts when they are more reliant on daily pr
I'm with you on the mistake angle, for the most part. If this were really a PR stunt, the Reps would have been told this was a stunt and to not panic as much as my Local tells me they are. Though having seen both documents, I think it's not a "bob pressed 20 instead of 6" and more "bob sent Document B instead of Document A". Both are legit documents, but the 20% isn't the one intended to be sent out today. What the old document is for is a mystery to me though.
It is interesting that you say 20% increase in the USA. When i was searching the Thousand Sons combat patrol on my IPhone it shows the GW workshop as an option with the Combat patrol showing $180 USD. once you click the link though it shows the $150 USD. and it just so happens that is exactly 20 percent increase. I think they already coded it into their web page but probably won't take effect until March. $180 combat patrol is insane!!!!
angel of death 007 wrote: It is interesting that you say 20% increase in the USA. When i was searching the Thousand Sons combat patrol on my IPhone it shows the GW workshop as an option with the Combat patrol showing $180 USD. once you click the link though it shows the $150 USD. and it just so happens that is exactly 20 percent increase. I think they already coded it into their web page but probably won't take effect until March. $180 combat patrol is insane!!!!
Would it be possible to post a screen shot of the $180 price?
Overread wrote: Yeah this doesn't feel like a slick PR stunt. Those often come with big apology messages and far far more outcry.
This feels like a "oh darn Dave put a 20 instead of a 6 on the final version of the spreadsheet and didn't doublecheck before he hit "send to all" on the email list.
Can such things happen - sure they can. It's also far more believable than GW trying a price rise stunt when they've no reason too. They do a price rise around this time of year most years, its normal practice and every year there's an uproar of "this is the end times" and then, GW goes on to have a decently to more profitable year.
There's just no reason to mess with this kind of PR stunt and its not the kind of PR that we generally see from GW. They do "leaks" of their own sure along with leaks that aren't of their own making; but by and large their marketing is more up front because its 7 days a week every week. I don't think they can really afford shock-value-pr-stunts when they are more reliant on daily pr
I'm with you on the mistake angle, for the most part. If this were really a PR stunt, the Reps would have been told this was a stunt and to not panic as much as my Local tells me they are. Though having seen both documents, I think it's not a "bob pressed 20 instead of 6" and more "bob sent Document B instead of Document A". Both are legit documents, but the 20% isn't the one intended to be sent out today. What the old document is for is a mystery to me though.
See, while I do think the mistake theory is credible, that whole document A Vs document B thing is the bit that doesn't figure. It's a long time since I worked in an office, but surely you just save the iterations as they happen, you're not creating fresh documents each time? If it's a backup then surely it's saved somewhere else? They're always building a better idiot, so no amount of incompetence should be dismissed, but it's the bit I have trouble with.
Another theory that occurs is that, far from public outcry which would be water off a duck's back, perhaps pushback came from a few senior figures in the distribution network? It's an aspect of the business that GW still leans on in the US, and a well placed phone call from someone/multiple someones who authorises singificant spend with your company every year suggesting this might be too much will carry far more weight in forcing a rethink.
Ultimately GW's gonna GW, but thats the sort of behind the scenes way things get changed more often than not.
Overread wrote: Yeah this doesn't feel like a slick PR stunt. Those often come with big apology messages and far far more outcry.
This feels like a "oh darn Dave put a 20 instead of a 6 on the final version of the spreadsheet and didn't doublecheck before he hit "send to all" on the email list.
Can such things happen - sure they can. It's also far more believable than GW trying a price rise stunt when they've no reason too. They do a price rise around this time of year most years, its normal practice and every year there's an uproar of "this is the end times" and then, GW goes on to have a decently to more profitable year.
There's just no reason to mess with this kind of PR stunt and its not the kind of PR that we generally see from GW. They do "leaks" of their own sure along with leaks that aren't of their own making; but by and large their marketing is more up front because its 7 days a week every week. I don't think they can really afford shock-value-pr-stunts when they are more reliant on daily pr
I'm with you on the mistake angle, for the most part. If this were really a PR stunt, the Reps would have been told this was a stunt and to not panic as much as my Local tells me they are. Though having seen both documents, I think it's not a "bob pressed 20 instead of 6" and more "bob sent Document B instead of Document A". Both are legit documents, but the 20% isn't the one intended to be sent out today. What the old document is for is a mystery to me though.
After spot checking a few prices I'm pretty sure the mistake was them putting current Canadian retail prices into the new price column. Their Combat Patrols are $180 CAD, and several other items match exactly too. It also explains why items exempt from the increase changed.
angel of death 007 wrote: It is interesting that you say 20% increase in the USA. When i was searching the Thousand Sons combat patrol on my IPhone it shows the GW workshop as an option with the Combat patrol showing $180 USD. once you click the link though it shows the $150 USD. and it just so happens that is exactly 20 percent increase. I think they already coded it into their web page but probably won't take effect until March. $180 combat patrol is insane!!!!
Would it be possible to post a screen shot of the $180 price?
How do I post an image? I just looked it up and it did the same for me.
angel of death 007 wrote: It is interesting that you say 20% increase in the USA. When i was searching the Thousand Sons combat patrol on my IPhone it shows the GW workshop as an option with the Combat patrol showing $180 USD. once you click the link though it shows the $150 USD. and it just so happens that is exactly 20 percent increase. I think they already coded it into their web page but probably won't take effect until March. $180 combat patrol is insane!!!!
Would it be possible to post a screen shot of the $180 price?
Sorry i couldn't figure out how to make it appear on here so i just uploaded it to my imgur. Once I click the GW website though it goes to the combat patrol at $150 pricing. The 20 percent price rise is unreal for the USA and honestly I think USA should boycott GW for the next quarter.
Same result as above, first link off google search.
Combat Patrol: Thousand Sons - Games Workshop
https://www.games-workshop.com › en-US › combat-p...
thousand sons combat patrol from www.games-workshop.com
A selection of Thousand Sons units ideal for starting or expanding an army; A Combat Patrol-sized force in a box; Contains 26 multipart plastic miniatures.
$180.00
However, I'm getting prices from many different currencies from the other combat patrols, so this seems to be more a google error showing the Canadian price (above) with the US site.
Azreal13 wrote: See, while I do think the mistake theory is credible, that whole document A Vs document B thing is the bit that doesn't figure. It's a long time since I worked in an office, but surely you just save the iterations as they happen, you're not creating fresh documents each time? If it's a backup then surely it's saved somewhere else? They're always building a better idiot, so no amount of incompetence should be dismissed, but it's the bit I have trouble with.
Assuming you're working on a single document. If you're working on prices_Q1_2023.xlsx and prices_Q4_2023.xlsx and different versions for each country, different versions for each distribution channel, different versions because you haven't decided which one to submit to your boss at next week's meeting, etc, it would be pretty easy to accidentally send out the wrong file. Or to copy/paste data into the wrong file, applying 2024's price increase to the 2023 sheet for example. And it's even easier for that sort of thing to happen if GW has a single multi-tabbed book for internal use and someone copy/pastes the appropriate price list into a separate document to send out to each distribution channel.
Another theory that occurs is that, far from public outcry which would be water off a duck's back, perhaps pushback came from a few senior figures in the distribution network? It's an aspect of the business that GW still leans on in the US, and a well placed phone call from someone/multiple someones who authorises singificant spend with your company every year suggesting this might be too much will carry far more weight in forcing a rethink.
This is certainly more plausible than the PR stunt theory but still pretty hard to believe. It requires that GW has such a major customer, that they didn't bother to reach out to this super-important customer who can get prices changed with a single call before sending out the price list to the entire retail network, and this whole sequence with the major customer doing their own market analysis andGW putting together their response to it happening in a very short amount of time. The absurdly short time frame for this all to happen still makes it far less plausible than the simple explanation: that GW made a mistake and corrected it as soon as it was noticed.
Overread wrote: Yeah this doesn't feel like a slick PR stunt. Those often come with big apology messages and far far more outcry.
This feels like a "oh darn Dave put a 20 instead of a 6 on the final version of the spreadsheet and didn't doublecheck before he hit "send to all" on the email list.
Can such things happen - sure they can. It's also far more believable than GW trying a price rise stunt when they've no reason too. They do a price rise around this time of year most years, its normal practice and every year there's an uproar of "this is the end times" and then, GW goes on to have a decently to more profitable year.
There's just no reason to mess with this kind of PR stunt and its not the kind of PR that we generally see from GW. They do "leaks" of their own sure along with leaks that aren't of their own making; but by and large their marketing is more up front because its 7 days a week every week. I don't think they can really afford shock-value-pr-stunts when they are more reliant on daily pr
I'm with you on the mistake angle, for the most part. If this were really a PR stunt, the Reps would have been told this was a stunt and to not panic as much as my Local tells me they are. Though having seen both documents, I think it's not a "bob pressed 20 instead of 6" and more "bob sent Document B instead of Document A". Both are legit documents, but the 20% isn't the one intended to be sent out today. What the old document is for is a mystery to me though.
See, while I do think the mistake theory is credible, that whole document A Vs document B thing is the bit that doesn't figure. It's a long time since I worked in an office, but surely you just save the iterations as they happen, you're not creating fresh documents each time? If it's a backup then surely it's saved somewhere else? They're always building a better idiot, so no amount of incompetence should be dismissed, but it's the bit I have trouble with.
Another theory that occurs is that, far from public outcry which would be water off a duck's back, perhaps pushback came from a few senior figures in the distribution network? It's an aspect of the business that GW still leans on in the US, and a well placed phone call from someone/multiple someones who authorises singificant spend with your company every year suggesting this might be too much will carry far more weight in forcing a rethink.
Ultimately GW's gonna GW, but thats the sort of behind the scenes way things get changed more often than not.
The main thing that put me on the A vs. B theory is the fact that both documents (that i got from my Local) have completely different names, as well as different formatting indicating they're not the same file just updated. The old Document has the new Retailer/MSRP prices in green, and a note at the top about that the MSRP is just that, suggested price and retailers don't have to use them, while the 6% document has neither of those. The date on the 20% one being Feb 23rd as opposed to March 6th on the 6% file as well. Especially since the Feb 23rd document has the old prices as the exact same as the current ones.
As for the distribution idea, I do like that that theory as well, if only because It maybe, just maybe, may cause GW to rethink this whole regional price thing.
Overread wrote: Yeah this doesn't feel like a slick PR stunt. Those often come with big apology messages and far far more outcry.
This feels like a "oh darn Dave put a 20 instead of a 6 on the final version of the spreadsheet and didn't doublecheck before he hit "send to all" on the email list.
Can such things happen - sure they can. It's also far more believable than GW trying a price rise stunt when they've no reason too. They do a price rise around this time of year most years, its normal practice and every year there's an uproar of "this is the end times" and then, GW goes on to have a decently to more profitable year.
There's just no reason to mess with this kind of PR stunt and its not the kind of PR that we generally see from GW. They do "leaks" of their own sure along with leaks that aren't of their own making; but by and large their marketing is more up front because its 7 days a week every week. I don't think they can really afford shock-value-pr-stunts when they are more reliant on daily pr
I'm with you on the mistake angle, for the most part. If this were really a PR stunt, the Reps would have been told this was a stunt and to not panic as much as my Local tells me they are. Though having seen both documents, I think it's not a "bob pressed 20 instead of 6" and more "bob sent Document B instead of Document A". Both are legit documents, but the 20% isn't the one intended to be sent out today. What the old document is for is a mystery to me though.
After spot checking a few prices I'm pretty sure the mistake was them putting current Canadian retail prices into the new price column. Their Combat Patrols are $180 CAD, and several other items match exactly too. It also explains why items exempt from the increase changed.
That seems like a likely enough source for that error, as it would effectively render the change down to an off-by-one error where the wrong column got copied&pasted. It also makes sense that this mistake would happen on the 'desk' of someone responsible for north america.
xttz wrote: After spot checking a few prices I'm pretty sure the mistake was them putting current Canadian retail prices into the new price column. Their Combat Patrols are $180 CAD, and several other items match exactly too. It also explains why items exempt from the increase changed.
And it makes sense that the mistake could propagate to whatever hidden code on the online store google is reading from. Someone probably has a master sheet of prices that goes into both the retail price sheets and the website updates, and whatever IT guy does the website updates isn't going to spot the difference between $150 and $180 for a product that could plausibly be either.
Is there any confirmation on whether Australia/NZ are copping the price rises too? Seeing some comments saying that the article was edited overnight to say not, and then subsequently edited to remove that line
Overread wrote: Yeah this doesn't feel like a slick PR stunt. Those often come with big apology messages and far far more outcry.
This feels like a "oh darn Dave put a 20 instead of a 6 on the final version of the spreadsheet and didn't doublecheck before he hit "send to all" on the email list.
Can such things happen - sure they can. It's also far more believable than GW trying a price rise stunt when they've no reason too. They do a price rise around this time of year most years, its normal practice and every year there's an uproar of "this is the end times" and then, GW goes on to have a decently to more profitable year.
There's just no reason to mess with this kind of PR stunt and its not the kind of PR that we generally see from GW. They do "leaks" of their own sure along with leaks that aren't of their own making; but by and large their marketing is more up front because its 7 days a week every week. I don't think they can really afford shock-value-pr-stunts when they are more reliant on daily pr
I'm with you on the mistake angle, for the most part. If this were really a PR stunt, the Reps would have been told this was a stunt and to not panic as much as my Local tells me they are. Though having seen both documents, I think it's not a "bob pressed 20 instead of 6" and more "bob sent Document B instead of Document A". Both are legit documents, but the 20% isn't the one intended to be sent out today. What the old document is for is a mystery to me though.
See, while I do think the mistake theory is credible, that whole document A Vs document B thing is the bit that doesn't figure. It's a long time since I worked in an office, but surely you just save the iterations as they happen, you're not creating fresh documents each time? If it's a backup then surely it's saved somewhere else? They're always building a better idiot, so no amount of incompetence should be dismissed, but it's the bit I have trouble with.
Another theory that occurs is that, far from public outcry which would be water off a duck's back, perhaps pushback came from a few senior figures in the distribution network? It's an aspect of the business that GW still leans on in the US, and a well placed phone call from someone/multiple someones who authorises singificant spend with your company every year suggesting this might be too much will carry far more weight in forcing a rethink.
Ultimately GW's gonna GW, but thats the sort of behind the scenes way things get changed more often than not.
If they’re using a programme like SharePoint or Office365 it creates new versions every time you save. It’s really easy to go in and load a previous version. Multinationals are not just having people save major business spreadsheets on their desktop.
Or alternatively someone fat-fingered a cell that others multiply by and they just corrected it once they realised they’d sent a duff version out..
Incompetence is much more likely than malice here.
A CAD/USD swap would also not immediately look out of place as it would still be in the right general range, unlike a swap with e.g. Yen, depending on the specific setup of the spreadsheet/database would also be in or look like being in the right unit to the human eye, and would have a good chance at only being caught when someone takes a closer look on specific items instead of the sheet as a whole. After a couple of hours producing stuff like that, it's easy to imagine someone losing concetration and half-assing the job a bit, no longer double-checking every column and thus overlooking the fatal copy&paste mistake - automated checks would perhaps not catch this one as the units and ranges still look correct.
Aecus Decimus wrote: I'll grant that you have some professional experience at least, but how do you explain the fact that GW has done similar price increases in the past and continued to increase their annual profit? Why should we expect this particular price increase to have different results?
They'll keep doing it until there are consequences. What I'd be curious about, and I'm sure someone who pays attention to their quarterly reporting could probably answer this, is how much their volume has increased over the last 10 years. How much have they grown the business versus increased the profit from the same number of sales.
When something like the zone mortalis column and walls set, which is a pretty fringe 40k product, increases its price by 40+% in two years, I'd love to know who's still buying it in the volume you need to make a table.
Their yearly revenue made really big jumps for a couple of years - it more than doubled between 2014 and 2019, and rose another 60% since then, as you can see here:
Now, revenue is obviously not the same as profits, and there are probably some currency effects in there i.e. the devaluation of the GBP, but that is probably of lesser concern for them and it's very hard to argue with what will probably amount to quadrupling revenues in the 10-year period between 2014 and 2024.
OP you quoted asked about sales volume, not overall revenue.
Overread wrote: Actually I'd say Magic the Gathering is right now the Apple of the market.
£1000 for a handful of cards that can't even be used in regular MTG games?
£100s for collector sets that are time limited?
Graph needed to work out which booster set you need for what game format?
MTG are WAY more Apple than GW right now in the gaming scene
I wouldn't consider Magic to be a competitor to GW as it's a completely different medium to wargaming.
I see your point, but GW is a different medium to wargaming. They are a miniatures company that make rules to inflate sales of their miniatures.
Wargames aren't exclusively about miniatures, I have many that use cardboard tokens, or wooden blocks.
Wargames tend to be about strategy, where as miniature games (due to the scale limitations) tend to be about tactics. 40k for example is fought on a small area, so the focus is on the quality and ability if those fighting. Where as say Twilight Struggle is more about the position on a global map.
Edit.
Looking at some of the prices that are coming out is eye watering. Quite hard to drum up interest in GW games if the prices make the entry point even more difficult.
I think the ultimate question that has to be asked is at what price point would you stop buying GW all together?
I know when single models went about the $100 range, I would not buy those models.
It think combat patrols at $180 would do me in as well, as any saved value would be lost.
It is also hard to put value in models that don't come with the rules and you need to spend several 100 dollars in supplements just to play a game.
This is why I think games like Legion, MCP, FWW, soon to be shatterpoint, are all going to be some heavy competition for GW. The rules are free or next to it. Most units/ models come with the rules to play them in the box, and you don't need a library to play one game.
angel of death 007 wrote: I think the ultimate question that has to be asked is at what price point would you stop buying GW all together?
Probably somewhere around twice what they are now, adjusted for inflation. At that point I'd complete any existing projects but it would be hard to justify starting anything new when GW is 2-3x the price of the competition.
This is why I think games like Legion, MCP, FWW, soon to be shatterpoint, are all going to be some heavy competition for GW. The rules are free or next to it. Most units/ models come with the rules to play them in the box, and you don't need a library to play one game.
I don't think so. Shatterpoint and MCP are very different games and not even in the same genre as 40k, you can't really use one as a substitute for the other. Legion seemed like it might become a strong competitor, being a game at the same scale with the Star Wars license to drive interest, but for whatever reason it seems to have failed. Maybe something about the mechanics drives people away? I don't get it, but at this point in the game's life it would be surprising to see it make a complete rebound and take on GW, especially with quality design space rapidly running out.
Jihadin wrote: I stopped playing over a year ago. So many mini's still need to be painted. Broke out all my mini's for Battletech now......way cheaper.
It’s funny how easy battletech makes it, I have enough mechs to introduce players and play full games with them. And I still feel I haven’t spent too much on it.
I think all my GW hobby money will end up going there for now, easy easy.
No GW game is worth the prices.
Oh I have spent too much on Battletech over the years, and I will probably spend a lot more xD, but I could play planetary assaults 1:1 if I chose to, at this point ^^
That's not very impressive due to the old FASAnomics Many planets have to make do with a lance of Urbies after all.
angel of death 007 wrote: I think the ultimate question that has to be asked is at what price point would you stop buying GW all together?
Probably somewhere around twice what they are now, adjusted for inflation. At that point I'd complete any existing projects but it would be hard to justify starting anything new when GW is 2-3x the price of the competition.
This is why I think games like Legion, MCP, FWW, soon to be shatterpoint, are all going to be some heavy competition for GW. The rules are free or next to it. Most units/ models come with the rules to play them in the box, and you don't need a library to play one game.
I don't think so. Shatterpoint and MCP are very different games and not even in the same genre as 40k, you can't really use one as a substitute for the other. Legion seemed like it might become a strong competitor, being a game at the same scale with the Star Wars license to drive interest, but for whatever reason it seems to have failed. Maybe something about the mechanics drives people away? I don't get it, but at this point in the game's life it would be surprising to see it make a complete rebound and take on GW, especially with quality design space rapidly running out.
I honestly think if the USA boycotted for like one quarter, GW would be forced to see the light and lower prices. Legion is a solid game, only thing that holds it up really is that it is based around Starwars. There are those who love and those who hate star wars. Legion's game play is pretty solid, units come with all upgrades they can take, cards they need, and data needed to play them from the box. Rules are free and online and when they are FAQ'd they get instantly updated. If it wasn't for the starwars haters out there, i think it could easily grow in momentum, esp if GW raises its price by 20% in the USA.
Shatterpoint, MCP, and FWW, are not on point with 40k, but they are skirmished base and give Necromunda and Kill Team a solid run for their money, especially with the starting boxes cheaper then the competition. I honestly think that Atomic Mass Games will give GW a run for their money, and once GW prices more and more gamers out of their market, they will look toward more affordable game systems that still offer a lot of fun.
Pretty sure the stock issues, being sold to a different company, and uncertainty of the game's future have way more to do with people not getting into Legion than "Star Wars haters". And that's before accounting for how hard it is to get an established community into a new game.
Platuan4th wrote: Pretty sure the stock issues, being sold to a different company, and uncertainty of the game's future have way more to do with people not getting into Legion than "Star Wars haters". And that's before accounting for how hard it is to get an established community into a new game.
I don't think them going to AMG is really going to hurt them, since AMG does a lot of their stuff in plastic much like GW, but with little to no mold lines, so if anything I think that is more of an improvement. The local community isn't growing for GW either. At my LGS, AoS is non existent, and only 40k is still active though loosing numbers with each new book needed just to play the game. As far as stock issues go, same could be said about Horus Heresy, as that is definately what tanked that game from getting off the ground. A shame really because it plays better then 40k and the starter box was lovely even if it should have been Mk3 armor.
GW is betting heavy on 40k to carry the gavel through the next year, but to be honest many 40k players despise this edition and all the expansions and are hoping for a complete or near complete revamp of the rules.
40k tenth ed, will either make or break it for GW, but if they go with price increases and don't fix the gaming mechanism, I could see people just as easily starting a new game as it is just as cheap as starting a new edition considering a $60 rule book and a $50 codex at minimum.
angel of death 007 wrote: I don't think them going to AMG is really going to hurt them, since AMG does a lot of their stuff in plastic much like GW, but with little to no mold lines, so if anything I think that is more of an improvement.
In product quality maybe, but in rules? It's a major concern. AMG didn't want the Star Wars games and it shows in how they've completely botched the handling of X-Wing, causing a major drop in activity and a community split by polarizing rule changes. I don't follow Legion at all but I wouldn't be surprised if a similar thing is happening there, and it's certainly cause for caution in investing in the game. Even great miniatures lose their appeal for a lot of people if they don't have a game to use them in.
Of course this speculation doesn't change the original point I was making. It's interesting to wonder why Legion failed to be the 40k killer I expected it to be but the reality is that doesn't seem to be anywhere near a threat to GW at the moment and its long-term prospects are in serious doubt.
The local community isn't growing for GW either.
However, the overall financial picture for GW is and that's what matters.
40k tenth ed, will either make or break it for GW, but if they go with price increases and don't fix the gaming mechanism, I could see people just as easily starting a new game as it is just as cheap as starting a new edition considering a $60 rule book and a $50 codex at minimum.
What game are they going to start? GW owns the army-scale scifi market and nothing else is even close.
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angel of death 007 wrote: I honestly think if the USA boycotted for like one quarter, GW would be forced to see the light and lower prices.
Sure. And if I won the lottery I could buy GW and have them make me all the models I want. Neither of these things is going to happen.
Shatterpoint, MCP, and FWW, are not on point with 40k, but they are skirmished base and give Necromunda and Kill Team a solid run for their money, especially with the starting boxes cheaper then the competition.
Possibly, but don't forget a huge part of the appeal of Kill Team: that it uses the same models as your 40k army, making it easy to get into for existing 40k players and a good starting point for new 40k players. And Necromunda lives by its narrative play and immense customization options for "your dudes", something that doesn't exist with AMG's games. I'm sure there are some customers that just want to play any random miniatures game and will buy whichever one is cheapest but for people who have a more specific idea of what they want out of a game the AMG games aren't really competing with GW.
Oh joy! Most KT boxes in Japan got a stealth price increase of 600Y extra. That's a bit over 9%. I hope that this is just GW being a bunch of jerks and not bothering to warn Japan about the upcoming prices rather than double dipping.
Miguelsan wrote: Oh joy! Most KT boxes in Japan got a stealth price increase of 600Y extra. That's a bit over 9%. I hope that this is just GW being a bunch of jerks and not bothering to warn Japan about the upcoming prices rather than double dipping.
Just do what I'm doing: Humans don't need food of water, right? So we go without that to afford the new plastic.
I'll see if I can find an unatended baby or two around too. I heard you can sell them at a good price. Got to contribute my quota to GW like a good citizen.
Just do what I'm doing: Humans don't need food of water, right? So we go without that to afford the new plastic.
Finally the advantage of being very small!
You all need to eat much more!
Looking back, last few years, the only miniatures I been investing less into has been GW. So price increases here, and the community failing won’t really be a issue for me. But I do think it’s sad when passionate players lose something they love.
Platuan4th wrote: Pretty sure the stock issues, being sold to a different company, and uncertainty of the game's future have way more to do with people not getting into Legion than "Star Wars haters". And that's before accounting for how hard it is to get an established community into a new game.
Plus being based on a licensed IP limits new releases. GW can release new models every week, but Legion you're lucky if you get a new unit per quarter. Especially since AMG were forced to take over and none of the games original developers are involved any more.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I wonder what expenses they expect their customers to cut from their lives in order to continue feeding the habit.
I choose paint.
My Grey plastic/base coated stuff seems to play just as well as painted stuff....
After that comes stuff like White Dwarf on a regular basis, & filler material like AoO.
Funnily enough, just a base with a cardboard cutout does also play just as well
Eh, I've always preferred 3d minis myself.
What exact color they are is not something I've ever been overly concerned with though. Just give me a decent sculpt. Or a sculpt I like. (Decent sculpt & sculpt I like are not always the same thing.)
Just do what I'm doing: Humans don't need food of water, right? So we go without that to afford the new plastic.
Just walk out your back door and slay a kangaroo, there's plenty of floodwater in Queensland just put it through a Brita filter and you've got plenty to eat and drink
I'll see if I can find an unatended baby or two around too. I heard you can sell them at a good price. Got to contribute my quota to GW like a good citizen.
M.
My kind of humour (which would be expected from a fellow Mishiman)
Aecus Decimus wrote: In product quality maybe, but in rules? It's a major concern.
it was a concern
main problem is that AMG does not have the manpower to care about all games they got the same way
for Star Wars Legion, the community is very happy with the rules update from AMG and already consider it to be a big improvement over FFG and though balance of some heroes is still off, it is better than with 40k Shatterpoint now is a direct competitor to Kill Team/Necromunda and with Escalation rules for Legion there is now also a competition for small scale 40k/Crusade
the main concern is not if AMG can handle it but how long it will take
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I wonder what expenses they expect their customers to cut from their lives in order to continue feeding the habit.
I choose paint.
My Grey plastic/base coated stuff seems to play just as well as painted stuff....
After that comes stuff like White Dwarf on a regular basis, & filler material like AoO.
Funnily enough, just a base with a cardboard cutout does also play just as well
but than there is no point in playing a GW game in the first place
Papercraft Wargming is fun and cheap but don't need to spend money on the GW rules for that
so the easiest cut is not spending money on GW rules and still use the models I like
kodos wrote: but than there is no point in playing a GW game in the first place
Papercraft Wargming is fun and cheap but don't need to spend money on the GW rules for that
so the easiest cut is not spending money on GW rules and still use the models I like
Of course there's a point. It's playing the GW game. Just because you think GW games are bad doesn't mean everyone agrees with you. A game is a game. Rules are just way to play it, there's no "good" or "bad" rules as long as everyone agrees to play them.
And models were always just game tokens to play it. Can be replaced with anything, in reality. Even empty bases with the name of the model written on it.
So it depends if your focus in on the models or the game. Papercraft is for people focusing on the game who don't care much about the Hobby. Same for people using online tools like Tabletop Simulator.
Why GW games instead of others ? Simply put, it's because it's easier to find players. You play faster when you already have people knowing the rules in opposite of using an obscure game system no one knows before - no matter how "good" it is said to be by its fans whose number you can count on the fingers on one hand. The universal truth of games is that you can't enjoy a game you can't play because you're unable to find players to play it with you.
good points, but GW rules are a major cost factor as well
miniature gaming is always has a focus on miniatures, therefore "I don't like certain minis" is a point for not playing certain games
pay for expensive rules that last only several months until they are replaced by expansive rules again, just because it is easier to find players in theory but you cannot afford to pay for the miniatures to play that specific miniature game is the wrong solution to the problem
because as soon as you go for cheaper replacement of the miniatures, finding players that are willing to play against you is not easier than finding players for other games
hence it is the better solution to buy GW models and play OPR-GDF instead of buying OPR Cardboard tokens to play 40k
We actually do not know if the rules for 10th are going to be expensive... They just might implement the living digital rule set the game is crying out for, they may even provide the rules completely free?
Of course I am absolutely incorrect and they will charge through the roof for rules again, but it sure would be nice.
kodos wrote: but than there is no point in playing a GW game in the first place
Papercraft Wargming is fun and cheap but don't need to spend money on the GW rules for that
so the easiest cut is not spending money on GW rules and still use the models I like
I don't exactly see this as a bad thing. But also, people also play GW games for the lore.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: We actually do not know if the rules for 10th are going to be expensive... They just might implement the living digital rule set the game is crying out for, they may even provide the rules completely free?
Core rules may be available to download from their site for free, sure, but no way that overall the "full game" (meaning everything you "need" to play like codexes and so on) they'll be completely free. That's not their business model.
TBH, in comparison to all the money you need to build your whole army of models, rules will always be in comparison "cheaper". So focusing on the game only and "just" buying the rules while using models from elsewhere / papercraft will be always an option.
And yes I know there are cheaper rule systems elsewhere on the market, but like I said ; you can't enjoy a game you can't play because you're unable to find players to play with. I have way too many rule systems taking dust on my shelves that won't see a game anytime soon for that sole reason...and that I can technically say I bought them for nothing and was "lost money", in the end.
kodos wrote: Shatterpoint now is a direct competitor to Kill Team/Necromunda
Based on what we've seen so far I don't think that's true at all. Shatterpoint is a superhero fighting game (the only thing AMG knows how to make, which is how they ruined X-Wing) re-skinned with some Star Wars characters and a completely different miniature scale, Kill Team is a squad-scale skirmish game using models from the larger game, and Necromunda is a narrative-focused skirmish game with a level of customizing "your dudes" that is anathema to AMG's design principles. The only thing Shatterpoint has in common with the GW games is that it uses a roughly similar number of miniatures.
(Which of course works both ways. Shatterpoint is unlikely to draw many GW customers but GW's games are unlikely to draw many customers away from Shatterpoint, if it succeeds in attracting any.)
TBH in one of my local stores this price hike and the general bloat of 9th edition and GW constantly screwing over game stores with pre-orders may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. We're already talking about getting into Bolt Action and I've sold maybe half the people on it (it's a rather small group, maybe a dozen people at most).
At some point people will get fed up with the constant price hikes.
I can’t imagine a dozen people being considered a small group of players. We once had eight semi regular attendees and our minds were blown to have such a congregation: )
Wayniac wrote: TBH in one of my local stores this price hike and the general bloat of 9th edition and GW constantly screwing over game stores with pre-orders may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. We're already talking about getting into Bolt Action and I've sold maybe half the people on it (it's a rather small group, maybe a dozen people at most).
At some point people will get fed up with the constant price hikes.
I have seen almost this exact same post made across multiple forums across multiple editions since, oh probably 4th ed? I believe many of those people did in fact move onto other games / rulesets / miniature ranges (I know I did), but the problem is there’s clearly been enough people replacing us that GW just don’t care.
Wayniac wrote: TBH in one of my local stores this price hike and the general bloat of 9th edition and GW constantly screwing over game stores with pre-orders may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. We're already talking about getting into Bolt Action and I've sold maybe half the people on it (it's a rather small group, maybe a dozen people at most).
At some point people will get fed up with the constant price hikes.
I have seen almost this exact same post made across multiple forums across multiple editions since, oh probably 4th ed? I believe many of those people did in fact move onto other games / rulesets / miniature ranges (I know I did), but the problem is there’s clearly been enough people replacing us that GW just don’t care.
And I would say a large majority of those people come running back when the next 'bestest ever' version of the rules come out. Until eventually bloat creeps in and the cycle repeats.
There's been a massive amount of people using their 40k stuff for Xenos Rampant. I expect many to vanish this summer of 10th.
Wayniac wrote: TBH in one of my local stores this price hike and the general bloat of 9th edition and GW constantly screwing over game stores with pre-orders may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. We're already talking about getting into Bolt Action and I've sold maybe half the people on it (it's a rather small group, maybe a dozen people at most).
At some point people will get fed up with the constant price hikes.
I have seen almost this exact same post made across multiple forums across multiple editions since, oh probably 4th ed? I believe many of those people did in fact move onto other games / rulesets / miniature ranges (I know I did), but the problem is there’s clearly been enough people replacing us that GW just don’t care.
Exactly. People prophetising the "big change" since so many years just don't understand the dynamics behind and the fact GW shops have as first purpose to recruit, not cater to old players. That's why GW is so successfull in comparison to other companies who don't invest enough money in recruiting new blood on a professionnal level (just relying on other players / independant stores to do their job for free is cute and all, but sadly it's not dependable on long term). That's also why GW is still the big one after so many years : their own network is strongly implanted and never stops, on the opposite of their so called competition. The fun part is that this "competition" is actually leaning a lot on GW's own network to make their own advertisement. For example, Mantic Games do attract a good number of disgrunted GW customers...if GW was to suddenly disappear, something tells me these competitors will actually get hurt a lot, because they would lose one of their main ways to recruit new players themselves.
IF that network gets seriously crippled, like GW suddenly decide they don't need their GW shops because they cost too much money and close them all, THEN we can talk about a real decline in recruiting on long term. It won't be fast, it will be more like a slow decline, but unless they have someone REALLY STUPID at the head of their company and there's absolutely no resistance inside the company about it, it's unlikely to happen. It can, of course, because that's how stupid things happen (having stupid people at the top), but you shouldn't underestimate the strength of already existing networks and the tendancy of people to look after established and safe places rather than undependable risky "new" ones (that's why Twitter is still around so far). After all, the investment made to create it has already been funded so many years ago. All it needs is proper maintenance.
You can't enjoy a game you can't play because you're unable to find players to play it with you, after all. That's the main reason people who want something else go back to GW : they tried a new system, they found no one to play with / have too many difficulties to get what they need to play, they get bored / tired and thus go back to a place where they can at least find some fun.
No one wants to waste their time if they can't have some fun in the end. That's the trick : building miniatures, painting them, building a table with decors...all of that takes a lot of time (and money). No one wants it to be for nothing but pain and a hole in their wallet : even if the price of the new game is cheaper than GW, it's definitely no time invested free. At least with GW models, they know they can have somewhat of a value by reselling them...which is totally not the same case with other obscure miniature / game ranges. That's why people thinking a bit more ahead tend not to jump on the next new shiny ship appearing and promising "better rules" and "cheaper miniatures". Because they know a new game means investing a lot of time in learning it, not to talk about investment in money for the new materials needed to play / supporting the company producing the game. And that's with the uncertainty of finding someone to play with.
The terrible truth about life is that our own free time is definitely finite on this earth. Wasting it feels like a cut in your belly when it happens...and God knows it did happen to me a lot in my young time supporting these new shiny companies, not many still around after all these years...leaving me with memories and obscure miniatures on my shelves no one wants unless it's sold at a small fraction of what I bought them at that time. Because these dead games have no value for the common of mortals, even in the gaming community.
The terrible truth about life is that our own free time is definitely finite on this earth. Wasting it feels like a cut in your belly when it happens...and God knows it did happen to me a lot in my young time supporting these new shiny companies, not many still around after all these years...leaving me with memories and obscure miniatures on my shelves no one wants unless it's sold at a small fraction of what I bought them at that time. Because these dead games have no value for the common of mortals, even in the gaming community.
Can be huge value in the memories though - I wouldn't write that off as wasted. At least if it was enjoyable at the time.
The thing about the "people to play with" point though often misses the fact that you only actually need one person to play with. You can enjoy the game with just one other person to play against, if that's what you want to do. I'd imagine most games of 40K still happen at homes, not clubs, just like Magic The Gathering.
I think what's more likely in these cases is that people aren't looking for someone to have a game against, they're looking for a community to join. And that's totally valid and really important for many people who maybe don't get that elsewhere. And GW games give you an easy in to a community. But if that's not what you're looking for, if it's just you and a mate or two or three, then jump around, try different systems, experiment - there's plenty of fun to be had.
Can be huge value in the memories though - I wouldn't write that off as wasted. At least if it was enjoyable at the time.
The thing about the "people to play with" point though often misses the fact that you only actually need one person to play with. You can enjoy the game with just one other person to play against, if that's what you want to do. I'd imagine most games of 40K still happen at homes, not clubs, just like Magic The Gathering.
I think what's more likely in these cases is that people aren't looking for someone to have a game against, they're looking for a community to join. And that's totally valid and really important for many people who maybe don't get that elsewhere. And GW games give you an easy in to a community. But if that's not what you're looking for, if it's just you and a mate or two or three, then jump around, try different systems, experiment - there's plenty of fun to be had.
Yes, that's all that's left : the few times I had fun with these miniatures. I know that when I die, they'll probably get dumped into a trashcan. Ah sorry, I'm getting sentimental.
I do indeed keep a small group of friends with who I play old games. However, I'm cruelly aware that time keeps going on and I did lose people over the years simply because they weren't interested to play anymore / had no more time with their job / family...or they died. Replacing them is the tricky part...because I found new players don't exactly want to play multiple different game systems (especially old ones), even if they're the best in the world. Their gaming time is finite too...
Can be huge value in the memories though - I wouldn't write that off as wasted. At least if it was enjoyable at the time.
The thing about the "people to play with" point though often misses the fact that you only actually need one person to play with. You can enjoy the game with just one other person to play against, if that's what you want to do. I'd imagine most games of 40K still happen at homes, not clubs, just like Magic The Gathering.
I think what's more likely in these cases is that people aren't looking for someone to have a game against, they're looking for a community to join. And that's totally valid and really important for many people who maybe don't get that elsewhere. And GW games give you an easy in to a community. But if that's not what you're looking for, if it's just you and a mate or two or three, then jump around, try different systems, experiment - there's plenty of fun to be had.
Yes, that's all that's left : the few times I had fun with these miniatures. I know that when I die, they'll probably get dumped into a trashcan. Ah sorry, I'm getting sentimental.
I do indeed keep a small group of friends with who I play old games. However, I'm cruelly aware that time keeps going on and I did lose people over the years simply because they weren't interested to play anymore / had no more time with their job / family...or they died. Replacing them is the tricky part...because I found new players don't exactly want to play multiple different game systems (especially old ones), even if they're the best in the world. Their gaming time is finite too...
Honestly if what you really care about in the hobby is interesting systems and fun rules, get into board gaming. Find a local group and you'll see all sorts of brilliant systems for play. You may even find someone interested in playing a few games with a defunct old wargaming system you have a bunch of ready-to-go painted models with.
Wargames are certainly fun if what you want to do is immerse yourself in a single system, get excited about new releases, re-enact historical battles (fictional or otherwise) and paint stuff that looks great, but if you want to find a group that values playing different stuff and exploration, look for board gamers.
(Of course, over/under if your local area will have a board game group also, but in my experience they're about as common as 40K groups these days)
It's not a complete list though, they just posted a few random pages. Quite a few kits go up by 10% or more, also a lot of fairly recent kits such as the new World Eaters and Astra Militarum models.
It's not a complete list though, he just posted a few random pages. Quite a few kits go up by 10% or more, also a lot of fairly recent kits such as the new World Eaters and Astra Militarum models.
Scummy, and points toward them deliberately instilling FOMO for their preorders if that trend continues. Not the most customer-friendly practice.
It's not a complete list though, they just posted a few random pages. Quite a few kits go up by 10% or more, also a lot of fairly recent kits such as the new World Eaters and Astra Militarum models.
The € prices are not as awful as I was expecting, having seen some of the US price conversions previously.
But seeing this list really shows just how awful their pricing is all around. Raising the price of a Start collecting set by €10 that is just weeks away from being removed from shelves anyway. €15 for a single pack of necromunda cards. €30 for a single Daughters of Khaine champion- not far off the price of an entire unit box set.
I won't stop buying models, but I'll stick to my value purchasing only- If I can get them at a discount, force extra value out of a set by not 'following the instructions' as written and can be used in more than one game, and can be used for older games which are either free, cheap or available online. I'll never buy into edition chasing again.
There is still quite a lot of value in the majority of their models sets. A Necromunda gang and a copy of all the old rules will set you back the grand total of the necromunda gang set. Thats a good bit of painting and gaming from a single box alone. When you start chasing the constant rule updates and extra cards, dice & books/white dwarf is where you will see the costs mount up.
With only 2 more Saturdays left before March the 6th I was hoping to see a more detailed list of the new prices.
Being in Australia and having avoided the general price increase this same time last year I'm worried about what 'down under' gets this time around. As in a 6% increase or more.
I'm having trouble finding a Aus list as my local independent store closes down this weekend forever.
I understand in the USA that GW backpedaled a bit on their leaked price increases and made them closer to the originally stated 6%. That's better but still was not a good look and sent warning bells off everywhere around the world I think.
Did the UK get a detailed list yet other than a general 6% increase on most things?
I'm more interested in Starter sets and Blood Bowl at this point. Unfortunately quite a few things I'm interested in on the GW site are out of stock and I doubt they'll be restocked before the price rise.
Did they release the US list? I might have to buy something before the hike.
Probably not as I'm pretty far removed from GW these days (enjoying wildly better games) but I still pick up a thing or two that catches my fancy (mostly Warcry) for fantasy gaming.
Gallahad wrote: Did they release the US list? I might have to buy something before the hike.
Probably not as I'm pretty far removed from GW these days (enjoying wildly better games) but I still pick up a thing or two that catches my fancy (mostly Warcry) for fantasy gaming.
They did, and I posted a nice spreadsheet earlier in the thread that adds info like delta increase, filters, and sorting
Gallahad wrote: Did they release the US list? I might have to buy something before the hike.
Probably not as I'm pretty far removed from GW these days (enjoying wildly better games) but I still pick up a thing or two that catches my fancy (mostly Warcry) for fantasy gaming.
They did, and I posted a nice spreadsheet earlier in the thread that adds info like delta increase, filters, and sorting
Has it been said if the price increase will also affect mail only units? I'm just curious as to whether I need to grab some stuff now or I can wait for a more convenient time.
Gallahad wrote: Did they release the US list? I might have to buy something before the hike.
Probably not as I'm pretty far removed from GW these days (enjoying wildly better games) but I still pick up a thing or two that catches my fancy (mostly Warcry) for fantasy gaming.
They did, and I posted a nice spreadsheet earlier in the thread that adds info like delta increase, filters, and sorting
I don't mean to be a pedant however the %Delta appears to be calculated incorrectly. It should be the price delta divided by the old price. For example all the items that have gone from $45 to $50 are showing with a 10% change, but this is really an 11.11% increase.
Gallahad wrote: Did they release the US list? I might have to buy something before the hike.
Probably not as I'm pretty far removed from GW these days (enjoying wildly better games) but I still pick up a thing or two that catches my fancy (mostly Warcry) for fantasy gaming.
They did, and I posted a nice spreadsheet earlier in the thread that adds info like delta increase, filters, and sorting
I don't mean to be a pedant however the %Delta appears to be calculated incorrectly. It should be the price delta divided by the old price. For example all the items that have gone from $45 to $50 are showing with a 10% change, but this is really an 11.11% increase.
Thank you, I've amended it. My want to be helpful is overshadowed only by my lack of understanding of math
H.B.M.C. wrote: We get paid our yearly bonuses on Monday, just a week shy of the increase.
Time to get all the things I put off because they "weren't going anywhere".
Good idea, grab what you can
Don't forget spray paints go up in price too!
Btw Thank you to the guys who posted those lists for both the USA and the UK, it helped give an idea what to expect here. Well hopefully an idea that is.
H.B.M.C. wrote: We get paid our yearly bonuses on Monday, just a week shy of the increase.
Time to get all the things I put off because they "weren't going anywhere".
Or you could not reward GW for raising prices *shrug*
Don't reward GW for raising prices by not purchasing things you want before the price increases? I'm having problems following this logic
If you spend more than you would otherwise have because the price rise is coming, you still spend more on GW in total. From GW's perspective, an actual sale 'in hand' at lower prices now is better than a maybe-sale in six or nine months at higher prices.
Again?! It seems like just yesterday I lived in Alabama and got them for $17 a can at the GW store. Now they're $22-30 and going up more. I think it's finally time for me to find a cheaper alternative. I was always willing to pay extra for the better stuff but at this point it's like 5x more than the Krylon camo I use on terrain which is 90% as good.
H.B.M.C. wrote: We get paid our yearly bonuses on Monday, just a week shy of the increase.
Time to get all the things I put off because they "weren't going anywhere".
Or you could not reward GW for raising prices *shrug*
Don't reward GW for raising prices by not purchasing things you want before the price increases? I'm having problems following this logic
If you spend more than you would otherwise have because the price rise is coming, you still spend more on GW in total. From GW's perspective, an actual sale 'in hand' at lower prices now is better than a maybe-sale in six or nine months at higher prices.
People are choosing to spend more than they normally would today, to buy things that they were going to own at some point in the future anyway. They are in total spending LESS on GW products by buying before the prices rise rather than buying after they rise.
So they are buying the same number of models, just at a time before the prices go up. Thus GW gets some money earlier, but less overall and the customer gets a glut of models in one go instead of spread out; but they spend less overall
This is neither rewarding nor punishing GW for the price rise. It's exactly what GW would expect of the market when they announce a price rise. It's the same as when something is announced as going out of production. Sales of that model will jump up like crazy.
The only punishment for a price rise would be a significant percentage of GW customers ceasing all (or most) of their GW spending and for a prolonged time (one week isn't going to cut it).
I thought about it, and then decided that I don't want to spend any money in GW stuff before the price rise. If anything I was interested in is too expensive after the price raise, well, then I wasn't that interested anyway.
Which is quite probably what will happen, but as I have too much unpainted GW stuff anyways, I don't see it as much of a loss.
People are choosing to spend more than they normally would today, to buy things that they were going to own at some point in the future anyway. They are in total spending LESS on GW products by buying before the prices rise rather than buying after they rise.
So they are buying the same number of models, just at a time before the prices go up. Thus GW gets some money earlier, but less overall and the customer gets a glut of models in one go instead of spread out; but they spend less overall
This is neither rewarding nor punishing GW for the price rise. It's exactly what GW would expect of the market when they announce a price rise. It's the same as when something is announced as going out of production. Sales of that model will jump up like crazy.
The only punishment for a price rise would be a significant percentage of GW customers ceasing all (or most) of their GW spending and for a prolonged time (one week isn't going to cut it).
Indeed. People buying the things that they had planned to get, but just a bit earlier, to avoid the extra price rise percentage is the clever thing to do.
Yesterday at a GW store, I confess that I was tempted to get some kits for the sake of it just to avoid the rise, but then it occurred to me that this was not my original plan ( which was to get the anniversary Minis which was inside my budget of £25). So I hold my ground.
Does this mean I will get them in the future but just more expensive? No clue. Depends how much I need them then.
I had £100 to burn yesterday if I wanted to, but then again I looked at full retail prices and Meh! (even with loads of free anniversary gifts available like coins and badges which I don't care about)...
I guess you could say GW "lost" sales from me this time around, I just have no interest to go out of my way/budget no matter what GW does.
its a simple life
Nobody cares if you can’t or can’t, will or won’t, pay a given price for a given thing.
I do feel bad for folks who are priced out, or feel priced out.
But don’t ever tell the next person what the depth of their pocket should be. It’s a futile task. Always has been, always will be.
Indeed the only time I’ve gave a flying proverbial about another hobbyist’s spending was when a former flat mate stiffed me on their share of the rent, whilst holding a bag of new models.
H.B.M.C. wrote: We get paid our yearly bonuses on Monday, just a week shy of the increase.
Time to get all the things I put off because they "weren't going anywhere".
Or you could not reward GW for raising prices *shrug*
Don't reward GW for raising prices by not purchasing things you want before the price increases? I'm having problems following this logic
If you spend more than you would otherwise have because the price rise is coming, you still spend more on GW in total. From GW's perspective, an actual sale 'in hand' at lower prices now is better than a maybe-sale in six or nine months at higher prices.
The only perspective I care about is the balance in my hobby budget/bank account.
Nobody cares if you can’t or can’t, will or won’t, pay a given price for a given thing.
I do feel bad for folks who are priced out, or feel priced out.
But don’t ever tell the next person what the depth of their pocket should be. It’s a futile task. Always has been, always will be.
Indeed the only time I’ve gave a flying proverbial about another hobbyist’s spending was when a former flat mate stiffed me on their share of the rent, whilst holding a bag of new models.
Yeah. People can spend money on whatever they like. If it's legal it's none of my business unless it personally affects me.
Nobody cares if you can’t or can’t, will or won’t, pay a given price for a given thing.
I do feel bad for folks who are priced out, or feel priced out.
But don’t ever tell the next person what the depth of their pocket should be. It’s a futile task. Always has been, always will be.
Indeed the only time I’ve gave a flying proverbial about another hobbyist’s spending was when a former flat mate stiffed me on their share of the rent, whilst holding a bag of new models.
Yeah. People can spend money on whatever they like. If it's legal it's none of my business unless it personally affects me.
And eventually it might. As the younger gamers are priced out, there's no new generation in the hobby to keep it going.
But hey, it's all about the short term money for the shareholders.
Pretty sure kids are just as naturally skint as we were.
Parents. It’s the parents that cough up. Maybe a part time job as well - and what else do kids spend their pocket money or part time Saturday job type wages on?
As ever I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I had a Saturday job? It was 4 hours a week, for £2.50 an hour. Didn’t buy me a whole lot of models at the age of 14.
Back in the 90s when I started GW was still very overpriced for most kids and was very much reliant on parents and birthdays and such. It was always the "expensive" hobby; even if parents would often be keen on things like Hornby or Mecanno in those days and those were just as expensive.
If anything its more that parents related to some products and not others. It's the same way how video games have also gone from "that expensive toy I don't understand" to something many parents now engaged with and still engage with.
Video games can be flipping expensive on release, especially for digital editions, where they tend to stay flipping expensive.
This isn’t an attempt to repaint GW as “cheap”. Just that they’re far, far from the only thing your kid might get into which carries a fairly hefty price tag. And typically it’s the parents and grandparents that are coughing up, and always has been. Because kids are generally noted for their own disposable income, on account….they’re kids.
Back in the 80s when I was a teen no one had a warhammer army, no one could afford one. Each person would have maybe 1 unit, 2 for the 'richer kids', and that probably took some time and saving to acquire. Games were 8+ kids around a table, each controlling one unit.
Also found that any hobby cost the same - specifically 100% of my available money (and I worked multiple paper rounds from as early as I could).
As a parent, 2 daughters who got into horse riding was definitely not cheaper.
there is a difference between being an expensive hobby and being the most expensive hobby of that type
horse riding is not cheaper, but there is still a difference between owing your own horse and having a private teacher or joining a club and rent one to learn it (and it is a nice example as my kids were into horse riding too)
for GW prices, when I started historical games were the ones played but because those were mostly full metal armies, the younger ones startet with Warhammer because those were affordable armies (in comparison)
now it is the other way around and historicals are the affordable miniature gaming/wargaming part of the hobby
I could afford GW stuff a little bit at a time with my hobby budget.. But they are now roughly twice as expensive as the miniatures for much better games.
They also take a lot of boring time to assemble (Heart of Ghur trees! Ugh, what a chore). I feel like I'm buying IKEA without the benefit of cost savings. Next to no interesting bits left over or possibilities for posing.
For me, the uncompetitive cost plus the mindnumbing assembly time has me looking at GW minis from afar.
GW has a lot more competition in the "miniatures gaming" space then they did even five years ago.
CMON's ASOIAF has great pre-assembled minis which I can basically prime right out of the box. The game play is superb, and a army with many options is $140-$180 depending on whether you shop at discounters or flgs. Free rules, a great app, regular releases for all armies...
Oathmark and Frostgrave plastics scratch my itch for conversions. Skirmish level games like Song of Blades and Heroes let me use whatever minis I want...
GW makes beautiful single pose models (that you have to assemble). But the value isn't there for me. And their games...leave a lot to be desired.
I guess it's how we remember it.
When I purchased my first Citadel figure, it was a 'Great Goblin' in a blister for the mighty price of 60p. At the same time, my pocket money was being spent on ZX Spectrum games, which were around the £5.99 price for a single taped game.
In other words, the single mini blister was about a tenth the price of a computer game. Now a single figure blister is about 25 quid and a new computer game around 50.
So, in my eyes, a mini has gone from 10% of a computer game, to 50% of a computer game. That's how I see it in the eyes of 'little kid' me.
I used to be able to buy a blister each week with my pocket money, but not a computer game. It's all how we view it.
As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.
We all know that Warhammer is the gateway drug for miniature wargaming, but I do worry for the future of the hobby. In a few decades, who will be the new whales to keep GW running.
I always see people saying this kind of thing and it perplexes me. Because I don't think anyone ever actually says that "Warhammer is THE Hobby".
Now true GW's marketing only addresses GW stuff, but the same is true of almost all the other companies in the market. Heck the only part of the market that is active at promoting others is the Patreon 3D print market where its more a cross-posting thing where everyone is fighting over backers so model exchanges with other creators is self serving for both sides and such.
It's also true that many fantasy/scifi game clubs might only play Warhammer games and that if you want something else YOU have to put the time, money and effort into trying to drum up local support.
But not one ever says Warhammer is the only part of the hobby. Though it will dominate on a site named after and focused on the franchise.
We all know that Warhammer is the gateway drug for miniature wargaming, but I do worry for the future of the hobby. In a few decades, who will be the new whales to keep GW running.
The kids of Warhammer playing parents. Introduced into Warhammer by their parents, through the kids books, through the slowly growing animation productions; through Warhammer Total War; Dawn of War and a myriad of other video games and more.
I mean that's basically where today's older players come from; save that many of us didn't have parents in the hobby and it was much harder to convince them of the virtues of the game and how really important it is to get another carnifex
The kids of Warhammer playing parents. Introduced into Warhammer by their parents, through the kids books, through the slowly growing animation productions; through Warhammer Total War; Dawn of War and a myriad of other video games and more.
I mean that's basically where today's older players come from; save that many of us didn't have parents in the hobby and it was much harder to convince them of the virtues of the game and how really important it is to get another carnifex
One should also be wary of conflating general social trends in hobbies and such with wargaming- or GW-specific symptoms and ailments. While it's undoubtedly true that sticker shock and cost of entry to the hobby can and do drive away a lot of prospects, it's also an observable phenomenon that children and young adults have less free time in general, that social hobbies and hobbies that involve tangible things like arts & crafts, modelling and so on are on the decline, more time is spend in virtual or online communities and in front of screens, and that a lot of pastimes have taken a turn from the creative or at least semi-creative to a purely consumerist stance where you, as the meme put it succinctly 'just consume product and then get excited for the next product' - all of this is not really conductive to hobbies that demand a certain dilligence, a lot of free time, the presence of a friend group in close proximity that has the same, and necessitates a physical space you can occupy more or less uninterupted for a couple of hours.
Overread wrote: I always see people saying this kind of thing and it perplexes me. Because I don't think anyone ever actually says that "Warhammer is THE Hobby".
GW absolutely does. It's even part of their training. And many, if not most, GW players may not say it, but they are almost oblivious to anything outside GW.
Overread wrote: I always see people saying this kind of thing and it perplexes me. Because I don't think anyone ever actually says that "Warhammer is THE Hobby".
GW absolutely does. It's even part of their training. And many, if not most, GW players may not say it, but they are almost oblivious to anything outside GW.
And I addressed all that in my post.
It's all perfectly normal and the same thing every other competing brand does - with one difference that GW is about the only one in wargaming to have their own stores on the highstreet. Others rely on 3rd parties and game groups and local reps and such to spread the word. It's the same as if you go to Lego Land all they are going to talk about and sell to you is Lego. You won't get any Megablocks there and many stores might only stock Lego. It doesn't mean Megablocks doesn't exist, just that if you want it you might have to put a tiny bit more effort in and if you want to promote it you'll have a bit of work to do so.
Again this is all totally normal and expected and its why most 3rd parties that do well have local rep systems for gamer groups; its why they sponsor game events; reach out to clubs and why they work hard to interact and promote their product to the world
Gimgamgoo wrote: As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.
Not to disparage your experience, but it's hard to deconflict in the face of continued revenue growth at GW.
Gimgamgoo wrote: As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.
Not to disparage your experience, but it's hard to deconflict in the face of continued revenue growth at GW.
I think hobbies come in cycles at school. I recall when I went through school in the 90s to early 00s all the warhammer groups were basically either outright dead or only populated with older students. There was just no active scene of Warhammer present, yet there had been. I'd wager you can track this pattern with a lot of school hobbies as they rise and fall. Magic the Gathering likely does a similar thing - appearing in one big surge and then declining as the students who originally got into it get older and move on and the newer generations have something else they randomly latch onto.
There's certainly a rise and fall of things and whilst price is likely part of it, I'd wager that there's other social elements going on as well which might well be superior influences on the price aspect.
The kids of Warhammer playing parents. Introduced into Warhammer by their parents, through the kids books, through the slowly growing animation productions; through Warhammer Total War; Dawn of War and a myriad of other video games and more.
I mean that's basically where today's older players come from; save that many of us didn't have parents in the hobby and it was much harder to convince them of the virtues of the game and how really important it is to get another carnifex
My son plays the video games (that I bought), watches the youtube videos, reads the books (gifts), and reads the lore from all of my books, and likes the models...BUT
He has zero interest in actually buying them because they're so expensive. Nothing like walking into a store with "pocket money" of around $20-40 and being able to buy like one character blister. For 11 year old him, it was eye opening. For 13 year old him, its now a joke every time we wander into a store to browse.
So while I'm a parent who spent way too much money on GW product, my son has zero interest due to price. Instead, he has saved for and bought a Soviet ww2 force from various companies, and tanks through Rubicon, and painted it all up. He is super happy with his investment and saved a bunch of money.
Gimgamgoo wrote: As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.
Not to disparage your experience, but it's hard to deconflict in the face of continued revenue growth at GW.
A lot of hobbies gave up on 'kids' as a target group altogether and are just content to sell stuff to the same people they sold to 20 years ago, minus the ones that died of course. Model railroads come to mind, but other examples exist. It means an ever-shrinking circle of people, but not necessarily shrinking revenues - due to societal changes there are a lot of people without any real commitments, but deep pockets for their personal entertainment and enjoyment. There's even a certain paradoxical turn to it: not only do the relatively succesful people have a lot of spending money, but the mostly unsuccesful have as well, mainly because they gave up on a lot of the traditional 'live achievements' that cost a lot of money, like e.g. committed relationships, children, their own homes and so on, either because they deem it unachievable or because it actually is unachievable outside of heritages and/or marrying into money. These people have comparatively high disposable incomes once they realize that saving for a mortgage down payment, children's college funds or early retirement will just lead to nothing and decide to blow it all on pleasure, now. As i said before: a dire signal for society in total, but it keeps a lot of boats in the entertainment industry afloat, for now.
I always see people saying this kind of thing and it perplexes me. Because I don't think anyone ever actually says that "Warhammer is THE Hobby".
Now true GW's marketing only addresses GW stuff, but the same is true of almost all the other companies in the market.
GW is marketing their products as part of "the Warhammer Hobby" they are not promoting 40k as part of the Wargaming Hobby, or Miniature Gaming Hobby, but 40k is part of the Warhammer Hobby, with AoS, Underworlds, Citadel etc are all parts of "the Hobby" which is Warhammer
And I read/hear it more often than not that people see Wargaming/Miniature Gaming and Warhammer is different hobbies, and not one being part of the other and GW marketing does everything to keep it that way
talking about other companies not advertising 3rd party stuff, well giving that most don't have their own colour range or hobby tools, they actually do and non of them is saying that their brand is "they hobby"
for GW prices, when I started historical games were the ones played but because those were mostly full metal armies, the younger ones startet with Warhammer because those were affordable armies (in comparison)
now it is the other way around and historicals are the affordable miniature gaming/wargaming part of the hobby
GW is expansive, and Warhammer is not "the hobby"
I, and few friends were into historicals before Warhammer even existed. Warahmmer when it came along was most certainly not cheaper - warhammer armies of the day were also all metal. Unlike historicals though, there were hardly any bulk buys or different scales. In the early days if you wanted a regiment you bought many blisters of 1 or 2 metal goblins etc. A few 'regiments' would turn up eventually, but they were still all metal.
Historicals on the other hand, I could buy entire 15mm armies for a fraction of the cost of warhammer.
Warhammer is not "the hobby", not sure whether that was aimed at my comment you seemed to be replying to, but I certainly didn't say it was. It is 'a hobby' and like every other hobby it would suck up 100% of my money as a kid, because as a kid I never had enough money to buy 'everything' I wanted for what ever, be it historical wargaming, warhammer, board wargames, D&D or early computer games. All hobbies were expensive, but what mattered then, and to an extent now, is how many others are into the same hobby if your hobby requires some social interaction. As a kid, or even young adult, that aspect probably matters most - not many kids are going to buy into warhammer (or other social hobby) if no one else is into it.
And I read/hear it more often than not that people see Wargaming/Miniature Gaming and Warhammer is different hobbies,
I see both as true, it is the same and it is not. Like so many things in life it depends on the context of the conversation. One can indeed view historical wargaming as distinct just like warhammer. They are subcategories of 'Wargaming' - Wargaming is a wider hobby can include miniature and board wargaming, and then each can include other apsects like genre of period etc. I am into wargaming in the most general sense, and I know plenty of people who are warhammer or nothing, or minis only but not board games etc.
Gimgamgoo wrote: I guess it's how we remember it.
When I purchased my first Citadel figure, it was a 'Great Goblin' in a blister for the mighty price of 60p. At the same time, my pocket money was being spent on ZX Spectrum games, which were around the £5.99 price for a single taped game.
In other words, the single mini blister was about a tenth the price of a computer game. Now a single figure blister is about 25 quid and a new computer game around 50.
So, in my eyes, a mini has gone from 10% of a computer game, to 50% of a computer game. That's how I see it in the eyes of 'little kid' me.
I used to be able to buy a blister each week with my pocket money, but not a computer game. It's all how we view it.
As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.
We all know that Warhammer is the gateway drug for miniature wargaming, but I do worry for the future of the hobby. In a few decades, who will be the new whales to keep GW running.
TBF the eighties were a very different world! But GW and wargaming in general has always been a niche hobby, except now there are many many more alternative things kids can do for hobbies, including a completly new genre (i.e. internet related "watching" rather than "doing" hobbies).
The RRP for a new this gen video game is £59.99 (i.e. in theory more money than you'd expect an average child to have in disposable cash) and the average gamer is a 20/30 something year old with a job and therefore cash to spend. Although video games are infintely more popular than GW, as long as interesting models are made, with lore behind them, and rulesets to play some sort of game with them, then there should always be a market for GW even if it ends up being more and more adults rather than kids driving sales.
Cruentus wrote:He has zero interest in actually buying them because they're so expensive. Nothing like walking into a store with "pocket money" of around $20-40 and being able to buy like one character blister. For 11 year old him, it was eye opening. For 13 year old him, its now a joke every time we wander into a store to browse.
So while I'm a parent who spent way too much money on GW product, my son has zero interest due to price. Instead, he has saved for and bought a Soviet ww2 force from various companies, and tanks through Rubicon, and painted it all up. He is super happy with his investment and saved a bunch of money.
It feels to me like a certain (mental) rubicon was crossed when individual normal sized boxes started costing more than a video game does. When a tank costs more than a video game and a character costs half a video game people start to reconsider starting the hobby. Sure there are issues like video games not having increased their prices for years from the 60€ price point and all the DLC backloading/obfuscating the price increase, consoles being needed to play them, and so on but the mental shorthand goes 60€ = a whole gaming experience (video game) vs. a tank.
A good example is WHF. People excuse it's demise with how it became impossible to start an army without investing hundreds of "your local currency" but it was GW who raised the prices constantly, reduced the content of boxes, and made (accidentally and intentionally) bigger regiments more or less an requirement. That were three factors ratcheting in sync to make the game less appealing for newbies. The game didn't just magically become less desirable.
40K (and mainly Space Marines) are much more coveted than the whole of WHF but at some point GW will again come against a situation where their constant price increased and resulting reliance on a slowly shrinking market (not that this second part is happening right now, they seem to be healthy) that just buys more won't lead to increased profits. And by then they'll have a comparably higher overhead that will make cost cutting measurers more difficult. When it happened the last time (at some point in the years before the CEO change) they were already cutting so much and are as a company still rather frugal that it could become difficult next time around while shareholders expect the usual profits.
I bought the MegaBloks ( budget Lego ) TMNT Technodrome for $240 and is just shy of 3000 pieces. A kit with the same number of pieces in Lego is $300. And you WILL notice the quality difference.
For that price I could get Angron and 30 Berzerkers, which to me is an equivalent value and perhaps offers more fun over the long term for the money spent, but I bought it because I friggin' love me some Technodrome.
When I started the internet and computers were not around. Miniatures were precious little metal toys that we managed to get because a guy at store had a catalogue etc.... and was super niche. The vast majority did not know what this was all about. You would have very small forces... and guess what it was actually fun too!
Today all is easier and I would not worry too much about prices because "Warhammer" is so famous these days that for most of us, outpaced with the price increases, theres thousands with a better income that will chip in.
Cruentus wrote:He has zero interest in actually buying them because they're so expensive. Nothing like walking into a store with "pocket money" of around $20-40 and being able to buy like one character blister. For 11 year old him, it was eye opening. For 13 year old him, its now a joke every time we wander into a store to browse.
So while I'm a parent who spent way too much money on GW product, my son has zero interest due to price. Instead, he has saved for and bought a Soviet ww2 force from various companies, and tanks through Rubicon, and painted it all up. He is super happy with his investment and saved a bunch of money.
It feels to me like a certain (mental) rubicon was crossed when individual normal sized boxes started costing more than a video game does. When a tank costs more than a video game and a character costs half a video game people start to reconsider starting the hobby. Sure there are issues like video games not having increased their prices for years from the 60€ price point and all the DLC backloading/obfuscating the price increase, consoles being needed to play them, and so on but the mental shorthand goes 60€ = a whole gaming experience (video game) vs. a tank.
A good example is WHF. People excuse it's demise with how it became impossible to start an army without investing hundreds of "your local currency" but it was GW who raised the prices constantly, reduced the content of boxes, and made (accidentally and intentionally) bigger regiments more or less an requirement. That were three factors ratcheting in sync to make the game less appealing for newbies. The game didn't just magically become less desirable.
40K (and mainly Space Marines) are much more coveted than the whole of WHF but at some point GW will again come against a situation where their constant price increased and resulting reliance on a slowly shrinking market (not that this second part is happening right now, they seem to be healthy) that just buys more won't lead to increased profits. And by then they'll have a comparably higher overhead that will make cost cutting measurers more difficult. When it happened the last time (at some point in the years before the CEO change) they were already cutting so much and are as a company still rather frugal that it could become difficult next time around while shareholders expect the usual profits.
I'm surprised the bubble hasn't burst already, Henry Cavill must be buying all these minis himself.
Well any random teenager in my area can get a job at a fast food place for ~$17.50/hour. Converting that to GBP and subtracting approximate taxes, it works out to about 10/hr GBP. More than enough to afford a GW box with every shift and have a decent amount to spare.
HOWEVER I am entirely aware that my local scene is NOT representative, and in fact we have it better than many with California's $15/hr minimum wage.
The UK minimum wage for under 18s is £4.81 but a lot of companies don't pay that low. Fast food places tend to go to about £5/hour to say they pay more than minimum wage but some jobs will pay as high as £6. My first job was 8 hours a week at Greggs getting £6ish/hour and I had plenty of cash to splash on Warhammer.
Part of GW's power on price is that models retain use for decades. With the exception of the Old World to Age of Sigmar disaster and with the exception of Specialist side games (which are honestly FAR more stable now than they have ever been in the past); most GW products last for decades.
So you can collect a small army as a kid (killteam/Meeting engagements; warcry; underworlds etc...). Then as you become a teen; become a student; become a young adult; etc... As your potential disposable income grows you can grow your army from its early foundations.
^ I respectfully disagree...GW definitely hooked me when I was young (I own 8 Old World fantasy armies and 3 40k armies so a rather massive collection) but my hobby budget has shrunk pretty substantially now due to inflation. Everything costs more which coupled with the poor World Eater release (at least IMO) means I've spent next to nothing on Warhammer in the last 6 months.
Wages aren't raising at the rate prices are and if prices keep going up I'll just step back from 40k and wait till Old World comes out simply because things are just too expensive now. And if the prices for that are outrageous, I'll just buy the rules and play with what I got.
And even when inflation comes back down its not like here in America the fine folks running our companies are going to lower their prices. Definitely difficult decisions to be made ahead IMO.
Daedalus81 wrote: I bought the MegaBloks ( budget Lego ) TMNT Technodrome for $240 and is just shy of 3000 pieces. A kit with the same number of pieces in Lego is $300. And you WILL notice the quality difference.
For that price I could get Angron and 30 Berzerkers, which to me is an equivalent value and perhaps offers more fun over the long term for the money spent, but I bought it because I friggin' love me some Technodrome.
As someone who collects both Lego and Mega, saying Mega is "the budget Lego" does a huge disservice to Mega. The quality isn't noticeably different, though Mega has a lot more unique shaped pieces and their mini-action figures with their 12-13 points of articulation are leagues better than the Lego Minifig and I WILL die on that hill.
Edit:
All I'm saying is I know which one my money is going to.
Video games can be flipping expensive on release, especially for digital editions, where they tend to stay flipping expensive.
This isn’t an attempt to repaint GW as “cheap”. Just that they’re far, far from the only thing your kid might get into which carries a fairly hefty price tag. And typically it’s the parents and grandparents that are coughing up, and always has been. Because kids are generally noted for their own disposable income, on account….they’re kids.
In regards to Lego, it depends though. If it's some IP like Star Wars and Marvel where they know kids want it, they're making bank. Otherwise for the more "model" kits like the ship in a bottle I received on Christmas.....not too bad actually.
Daedalus81 wrote: I bought the MegaBloks ( budget Lego ) TMNT Technodrome for $240 and is just shy of 3000 pieces. A kit with the same number of pieces in Lego is $300. And you WILL notice the quality difference.
For that price I could get Angron and 30 Berzerkers, which to me is an equivalent value and perhaps offers more fun over the long term for the money spent, but I bought it because I friggin' love me some Technodrome.
As someone who collects both Lego and Mega, saying Mega is "the budget Lego" does a huge disservice to Mega. The quality isn't noticeably different, though Mega has a lot more unique shaped pieces and their mini-action figures with their 12-13 points of articulation are leagues better than the Lego Minifig and I WILL die on that hill.
Mega used to be lower quality with the figures to be fair. I remember the Dragon Knight sets and the figures were gorgeous, but they had even less articulation than the regular Lego dudes (you couldn't rotate the hands) and their fingers broke really easily, on top of getting loose legs. If they ever updated that line, I'd be spending a lot of money on that.
I've held the Halo guys my nephews have, and while they FEEL flimsy they're a lot more durable than people give them credit for.
At this point it seems like replies are just becoming circular and repetitive.
It’s a hobby. You can argue until death about there being cheaper and better game systems but ultimately the #1 is Warhammer , despite price rises , despite issues over the years , despite everything ….. it’s Warhammer.
Is it the hobby for everyone who likes wargaming ? Nope. Is it it’s own hobby, yes. Has Games Workshop done more than anyone else to promote it and try improve accessibility if you live in a country it supports ? Yes.
You’ve got kid’s parents paying £10-£30 for a bottle of Prime.
Many planets have to make do with a lance of Urbies after all.
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