I have to say, this article hit me, because today is my birthday, and I'm deciding how to spend my birthday money. This, and Christmas, are really the ony times I can expand my Warhammer armies. And I just decided I had enough. I'm priced out. I had the option of spending my birthday cash on some boxes of Games Workshop's Warhammer, and I went for a Bandai 1/48 Gundam kit instead, to the tune of $107. The new Riptide suit is $85 and it's tiny, the new Eldar is $115 and it's half the sixze of the Bandai 1/48 scale Gundam, which is much higher quality and has fully posable joints. Games Workshop is just soaking the customers at this point and it's ridiculous.
Looking back at my GW purchases, I make the odd bits purchase on ebay, but for the last five years or so, it's been core boxes or nothing. I bought five boxes of Battle for Macragge, five boxes of Black Reach when it was $50, three boxes of Skull Pass, one box of Island of Blood and one box of the LE Dark Vengeance, I bought three boxes of Escape from Goblin Town, and I'll probably buy two more, but only because it tanked, and it's being blown out online for $75, and I can flip the spare rulebooks and Thorin's Company sprue on ebay to reduce the cost further.
My GW purchases are getting less and less each year. Last Christmas I asked for $100 worth of Infinity and today I bough a 1/48 scale Gundam for $107. Buying more GW wasn't even an option. Things like the Reaper Miniatures kickstarter proide so much more value it's a joke.
I have to say, that's it, I'm out.
So I gotta ask, how have your purchases worked out over the last five years. Are you all still Ferrari collectors?
I'd have to sit down and take a long look at my last 5 years of paypal history for most of my purchases.
I know that in 5 years I've done the following:(most brand new items were bought at 30% off)
Bought a lizardmen army $325
Bought a Space Marines army. $350
Sold the Lizardmen to pay for High Elves (total out of pocket for this was basically just the new Army Book)
Sold the Space Marines to pay for Dark Elves (total out of pocket so far has been about $150)
Bought a new conversion heavy SM army ($490 roughly out of pocket)
Slowly acquired various OOP Empire models as well as select models I want to paint for fun. ($700, mostly ebay or through trade)
Bought about $150 of IoB Skaven from ebay or bartertown.
On average I spend about $500 a year in miscellaneous hobby related items, be it paint, brushes, models etc.
I certainly don't consider GW to be "Ferarri" or any comparable brand. At the end of the day, they are toy soldiers. I don't buy everything GW sells, and the items that I do buy I end up getting for at least 30% off brand new.
Lucky for me, my primary opponent is my wife, and we both have full armies, so I could drop GW purchases entirely without having to stop playing Warhammer. I've never been a FotM buyer, and I don't play competitively, so I don't feel the need to buy every new OP shiny that GW puts out for crazy money.
I agree that the Lord of Skulls is crazy money, as are a few of the upcoming Lizardmen releases.
I don't blame anyone for dropping GW games due to cost, as I agree it's getting out of hand, even with my discount.
The increase of $$ from GW has actually turned me to purchasing more from Forge World. That and I'm finally getting stuff 100% painted. But when GW releases kits I like, I still buy them. I simply budget accordingly and then make the purchase.
Over five years? I have bought all my armies. TBH I owe 40k so much, it tought me alot of things, mostly social skills.
I definitly dont do impulse purchases like i used to, but I plan everything out now
I'd leave the HHHobby but I don't think I have anything left to buy. I've got like 20k points of guard and 3k points of demons, plus 3 more armies I don't even want.(SW,Necrons,Tyranids)
I have bought a lot of FW since January over 2 grand worth of fantasy and 40k, I really like the models and it may be pricey but in the long run I know I will be more satisfied with them then the run of the mill GW stuff you always see.
I know you can get sucked in and over buy and such but with a fairly robust second hand market, great deals abound. I personally just pull a small amount a week from my paycheck and that's more than enough for me to buy anything I want from GW. Budgeting is important and giving myself space between having money and making purchases lend itself to smarter and fewer buys. Does it annoy me to see these increases at a rate I find to be stupifying? Yup, but it's not really expensive unless you're one of those people who buy whole armies at a time. Try painting them entirely at the limit of your own quality and I'm sure the pace of spending will slow to a more reasonable level. But that's advice for people who are getting in or staying. Sorry to hear you're leaving us, but I understand entirely. I've cut my budgeting for movies by over 75% and find myself much happier for the loss.
Less GW means more X-Wing, Kings of War, and Deck Building games like Legendary, DC Heroes and Ascension. I still buy a ton of games-it's just everything except GW these days. I bought 1 Slaanesh and 1 Tzeentch chariot, both Daemon books, and the cards to go with them: those have been my warhammer purchases from last year, with the exception of a couple small eBay finds that I really wanted. In the past year I've spent $200 on GW. The year before that I spent quadruple that. The money that had been spent on GW went fully to Mantic this year-KoW kickstarter, Dreadball, LOKA (not sure about it, but kinda wanted a cool chess set) and Deadzone. It's easily been $800, plus $200 in deals on miniature market and miniwargaming. So I've found other games to fill the roll of GW. And I've gotten a LOT more product out of the other companies.
Aerethan wrote: I'd have to sit down and take a long look at my last 5 years of paypal history for most of my purchases.
So like 2-3 new armies over the last five years, that seems to be the pattern. I start armies, but I never finish them, and the price seems tyo go up by the day...
purplkrush wrote: I know you can get sucked in and over buy and such but with a fairly robust second hand market, great deals abound. I personally just pull a small amount a week from my paycheck and that's more than enough for me to buy anything I want from GW. Budgeting is important and giving myself space between having money and making purchases lend itself to smarter and fewer buys. Does it annoy me to see these increases at a rate I find to be stupifying? Yup, but it's not really expensive unless you're one of those people who buy whole armies at a time. Try painting them entirely at the limit of your own quality and I'm sure the pace of spending will slow to a more reasonable level. But that's advice for people who are getting in or staying. Sorry to hear you're leaving us, but I understand entirely. I've cut my budgeting for movies by over 75% and find myself much happier for the loss.
If you go to cons, then yeah,. you can still get a deal, but on ebay, everything is very overpriced. I blew out some stuff on ebay and it all went for nothing. I had rare stuff too, old Zoats, Fantasy Adventurers, old Epic, and it all went for nothing. I blame the slow economy; nobody has any spare money to spend. I think GW is really just cannibalizing their fanbase. Only the core box sets are worth it, and sometimes not even then. I want a second island of Blood set, and some more basic Clanrats from island of Blood, but that's it. I want more Escape from Goblin Town box sets, but only if I can get them for $75 and flip the rulebooks, and the Thorin's company sprues, ie, only the goblins and terrain.
I used to buy multiples of the core games, now I can barely manage. I think GWwants it this way. I think they want you to buy just one core game, and then a bunch of add-ons, or not even that. Their business model revolves around a new crop of customers coming in to buy the core game. Maybe they stick around, maybe they don't. It doesn't matter either way, there's always a new crop of 12-year old coming in.
It amazes me that most businesses place such a premium on customer loyalty, and business books say it costs 10 times as much to acquire a new customer , as to retain an existing customer, but GW is oblivious to it.
The fact is, they're positioning the company for a sell-off, and damn the short term consequences. Higher prices and one-man stores are where it's at for them right now.
I've been a staunch GW supporter for a long time, but...
Yeah. The prices are finally getting too high even for me. I also agree with a lot of accusations that they've fallen out of touch with their player base and are generally behaving like bullies.
I don't hate GW. They've got a right to pursue a profit via whatever means they deem most effective. But, my spending on 40k has decreased this year, as I just can't justify shelling out these kinds of prices any more.
The fact that they didn't do an annual price increase does suggest that they finally reached the push-back point with their prices. So we'll see how things shape up.
I buy 100% Mantic, I play pretty much exactly the same games and have just as much fun as I did when I bought 100% GW, only now I'm paying less than a quarter of the price for it.
The fact that they didn't do an annual price increase does suggest that they finally reached the push-back point with their prices. So we'll see how things shape up.
Stealth price increases. Repackaging on key items. Different tactic = Same result. Price increase.
Seriously though, the hobby is expensive but so are LOTS of other hobbies. Do you play golf? You'll spend a lot more on stuff like that. GW games has really helped me find friends no matter where I've moved to in the world. You're not buying a $100 display model (if you have the money to do that, more power to you) you are buying a gaming model that you will hopefully assemble, paint, and play with for many years afterwards. Have you been playing with your latest video game for 2-3 years? Have you had the same emotional and socially stimulating experience with that copy of Skyrim that you've had with that GW model?
If you don't think the superior quality sculpts and insane customization and conversion potential from across the entire GW range is worth the price tag, good for you, champ.
I don't really keep track of specific GW expenses as it just comes right out of my leisure budget. As a ballpark figure, however, over the past six months expenses are roughly USD 1500 mostly from bits sites, the Dakka Swapshop, or GW direct.
My last true GW purchase (minus White Dwarf $10) was a direct order for goff rockers about a month ago. Before that the DVLE box set. I have traded for anything else new and shiney in my collection. Been painting alot however. Complete 3rd DA company, finished my DW and RW and about 10 tanks of various types.
With me it wasnt so much the price of GW but other priorities. See my avatar??
scarletsquig wrote: I buy 100% Mantic, I play pretty much exactly the same games and have just as much fun as I did when I bought 100% GW, only now I'm paying less than a quarter of the price for it.
I went the other way; I realised that the prices GW want for their deformed five-heads side-of-beef-hands clown-feet models had gone up so much, I was spending the same amount of money on them I would be buying incredibly beautiful OOP Rackham minis on eBay, or really intricate boutique resin sculpts from small companies and one-man-bands online, so I just started buying the nicer stuff instead. I still buy the occasional GW model if the scale issues aren't too egregious, or it has some nice bitz in it I really want, but I actually find it fun and rewarding scouring around for better quality minis that fit with the 40K/Mordheim aesthetic.
I'm not against buying GW minis on principle, but most of the time the value proposition just isn't there anymore.
I love hearing people say "Golf is dearer! GW Sculpts are the BOSS'.
Well I have been playing GW for over 25 years - and yes - I agree with the OP - the price hikes are ridiculous - the new money grabbing flyer inclusive rules make me sick.
And before I her "Yo dawg, I heard you #are a GW H8r" etc etc - I have built, and own, a 40K scale Imperator Titan - so I know my stuff. I have 5 Thunderhawks, and multiple other Titans, and a CHAPTER of Marines. *That's 1000 to those who don't know - and their support vehicles.
"See ya. One day, if you ever get a job, you won't have only two opportunities a year to intake money and therefore have to ration it." - Antagonistic, and ultimately, uninteresting. See ya.
Yeah, the price changes and their tactics have made me pretty much stop most of my purchases from GW. Normally, I would impulse buy a box of marines or yet another CSM lord... or something.
You can't (well, not even this impulsive gamer) impulsively buy a stormraven. After a certain price point, it's hard to instantaneously rationalize the purchase.
Sure, other hobbies are more expensive. They are also less litigious and less obnoxious in how they try to sell you.
I feel your pain. I still find myself buying GW stuff, but only at a discount or on Ebay. Most of my recent GW purchases were either the terrain kits, or stuff from Forgeworld. I do look at alternatives, though. Building up a nice IG force using Dreamforge's stuff.
I totally understand people ribbing the OP and saying "get a job" and stuff like that. I've probably made comments like that myself in the past.
But, you know what? Even I am starting not to see value in some of these kits. It is getting to the point that it's just more than I am willing to pay. And you know what else? Between my wife and I, my household income is comfortably in the six figures. I'm not trying to brag here at all - just illustrating that everyone's perception of value is different, and even someone who does fairly well like me is beginning to think the value isn't there.
Someone mentioned better quality sculpts - that is arguable these days. In the past, I felt like GW had nothing but hits, but lately I've been seeing a lot of misses. The Riptide was awesome, IMO, the Wraithknight really nice. But this new Khornate chainaxe wielding wheelchair gimp? Excuse me? The Dreadknight? The Dark Angel flying Cadillacs? I realize this is all entirely subjective, but that's an awful lot of misses in my book for a company that charges so much.
Again, I do not hate GW at all nor begrudge them their right to pursue a profit. I'll probably still buy boxes here and there. But I just don't see myself buying as much as I used to.
chris_valera wrote:and I went for a Bandai 1/48 Gundam kit instead, to the tune of $107. The new Riptide suit is $85 and it's tiny, the new Eldar is $115 and it's half the sixze of the Bandai 1/48 scale Gundam, which is much higher quality and has fully posable joints. Games Workshop is just soaking the customers at this point and it's ridiculous.
To give people an idea about 1/48 Gundam kits, you can see the feet of one in this picture of other 30mm or so (also 1/48) tall resin figures:
There's no problem gaming with a gundam kit if you wanted to as well. But for many, the modelling side of the hobby is reason enough to enjoy an amazing model kit like the 1/48 gundams.
As for myself, the last GW thing I bought was a box worth of chaos warriors and a box worth of chaos knights when the stupid forsaken came out. They really made me question GW's artistic direction and I wanted to finish my chaos collection before that design aesthetic infected the rest of the line. Before that, i bought a couple boxes of bloodletters. The chaos warriors were bought through Discount Games Store on eBay while the Bloodletters were ordered through my local store right before they stopped carrying GW products. I also bought 3 bestigors and a couple gors from Blackdagger Games on eBay.
All of the above are used for skirmish gaming and not for Warhammer Fantasy as I find GW's rules to be poor.
akira5665 wrote: I love hearing people say "Golf is dearer! GW Sculpts are the BOSS'.
Well I have been playing GW for over 25 years - and yes - I agree with the OP - the price hikes are ridiculous - the new money grabbing flyer inclusive rules make me sick.
And before I her "Yo dawg, I heard you #are a GW H8r" etc etc - I have built, and own, a 40K scale Imperator Titan - so I know my stuff. I have 5 Thunderhawks, and multiple other Titans, and a CHAPTER of Marines. *That's 1000 to those who don't know - and their support vehicles.
"See ya. One day, if you ever get a job, you won't have only two opportunities a year to intake money and therefore have to ration it." - Antagonistic, and ultimately, uninteresting. See ya.
So what I am hearing you say is that you have won at your Space Marine collection and don't need to buy anymore! Just play with what you have! Unless it isn't enough.....
Yeah - I have not bought any GW in more than a year now.
The main reasons have been:
Price.
Really not liking the current editions.
Not liking a lot of the recent releases.
Price.
That said... I still play Mordheim, and still love the game. But... the number of GW miniatures in my warbands has been shrinking for quite some time.
But - if you like the games then don't let GW's pricing drive you away.
There are miniatures from other companies that will work fine - I can suggest Mantic and Avatars of War. And, Hell yeah, Reaper!
As for the folks that compare wargaming to golf.... The reason I don't try to compare a hobby that I enjoy to a sport that in no way, shape, or form interests me may be connected to the fact that it is an overpriced sport that in no way, shape, or form interests me.
I am just as likely to say 'You spent how much on that five iron?!' as I am to say 'You spent how much on that Warhound Titan?!' (See * below.)
Heck, the only golf that I have spent any money on... ever... is minigolf... played by black light, which I am not going to pretend that I take seriously.....
But I take it more seriously than I do real golf.
The Auld Grump
*EDIT* * Mind you, I had the same reaction when a friend bought a Barret .50 for his 50th birthday.... But at least I could understand that.
*EDIT 2* Or when a friend payed $600 for a carbon fiber penny whistle... sweet sound, but....
"I decided that I didn't like being told I had to upgrade my Ferrari every 4 or 5 years, and that I had to pay ever more exorbitant prices for products that hadn't changed their design for decades, and took my money elsewhere.
And it's not just "fringe" customers on the edge being priced out; it's also market collectors who used to have every special Ferrari make and model out there, who have decided they don't like the way the market is heading, and the prices they are charging for it. I usually spend, on average, $200 to $250 per month on gaming related items (minis, books, paints, rules, etc.). None of that now goes to GW, our Ferrari stand-in. About 5 or 6 years ago, I would say at least half went to them; 10 years ago, over 90% would end up in GW pockets. I finally decided that I had had enough of their ridiculous pricing structures (bought the Tomb Kings book when it came out... 2 weeks later it went up $20 CAD in price. Really, GW?) and stopped collecting, sold off my older models and armies and have felt great since.
Now, I drive all sorts of makes and models of "cars," all with varying degrees of quality, but none of them make me feel like I'm getting ripped off when I get into them.
Over the last 5 years I have not bought a single box of models from GW. I have bought new codices/army books to keep up on fluff but once they changed fantasy to where the game depended on large blocks of infantry and started charging more for fewer models I got out and 40k followed shortly after. I currently content myself with reading novels, creating characters/units and making fluff/models for said characters/units and that's pretty much through ordering from bits stores.
As someone with a growing family (married 2 years, baby due in october) I don't have the money to go out and spend 100$ on a single model nor a couple hundred just to have a full unit. So a 100$ worth of bits here and there which let me create my visions and indulge my conversion addiction works just fine.
scarletsquig wrote: I buy 100% Mantic, I play pretty much exactly the same games and have just as much fun as I did when I bought 100% GW, only now I'm paying less than a quarter of the price for it.
You are a fan of hard plastic kits, right? Check out the Eisenkern stormtroopers and the newer WGF plastics. They are cheaper than Mantic's offerings, in a better medium, and arguably are better quality sculpts and designs.
I'm only buying the books for the armies I like. Any new releases will have to jump off the shelf and into my arms AND be priced reasonably for me to bite.
Paying over $20 for a single figure is just too much. I could afford it, but its just the principle of the thing.
I really don't like that article, GW are in no way the Ferrari of wargaming, they are the Ford.
GW is where most people enter the hobby, warhammer is the game that everyone plays, for a good long time it was the only game you could find opponents for.
That is changing now and they have competition so they are SAYING they are the Ferrari's of wargaming to make their shareholders feel better.
Thinking about what I've bought from GW since returning to the fold 3 years ago:
Lots of scenery (RoB, Imperial Sector & Stronghold) - bought just before the massive scenery hikes.
Most of the guard characters - Bought before price hikes and/or finecast treatment.
40KBRB on launch (pre-ordered through Maelstrom).
LE Dark Vengeance box on launch (and then sold BRB, subsequently sold all of the models for about the cost of the box).
So we'll say about £400 of new GW stuff in the last 3 years, mostly at discount.
In the same period of probably spent £300 on Empire Of the Dead stuff alone, £300 on Hail Caesar, £300 on Bolt Action, £400 on 2nd hand 40K stuff.
So I guess I'm just finding that with the competition, I've got less reason to buy from GW, and at the prices I'm likely to stick with the army I've already got (about 3K of Guard) and not expand much unless the new Codex introduces something I must have that isn't a giant based figure or flyer.
I work full time now and have higher income than I've had before in my life, but I don't buy GW. In part, the cost of everything has risen, but GW prices are just silly. I don't hate on GW, they just make me shake my head. Their aggressive approach to IP makes me angry because its damaging other companies and product lines. But GW can charge what they like, if they go belly up it's their fault. Sad but it isn't the creative hobby company I loved 20+ years ago, with it's three core games only serving to push huge armies, all terrain as plastic kits, boring shops that all look identical with identical RoB tables, and publishing a magazine that says nothing of any interest. It's a shame FW and Black Library need their parent company to survive, because they are the only ones doing something interesting.
I've gotten to the point where I have enough so I only buy new things for csm/demons/eldar - I've not touched my wolves since about 4th ed.
I've got about 20k across my main 3 - my entire wants list is 10 warptalons and maybe 5 more wraithguard. Thats it.
My ferrari is now parked. I polish it every now and then. Its also my weekend car so I spend less on mileage and save on insurance too.
Ferraris are a status symbol. People buy them because they're rich and can afford to run them. If I was given a ferrari now, I still couldn't afford to run one. If everyone gave me lots of 40k all of a sudden, I'm sure I could find a use for it. Driving down the street in a ferrari results in people staring at your car. Walking down the street with 40k only results in people staring if you're doing the 40k trick balancing act with 2 cases, three shoeboxes and a couple of bags.
I get 40k is a luxury item, but at the end of it I can buy GW in instalments. I'm fairly sure Ferrari wouldn't deal with me if I said 'I'll take one, I'll give you random amounts between £10 and £50 for a while, I may also spend money on ebay and won't give you any money at all some months..."
I also stopped spending money on GW models. I still buy books, mainly Horus Heresy, but I cannot bring myself to finishing my Dark Eldar which basically would mean buying 2 or 3 more Venoms.
It is not because of the prices, although they are indeed a factor, but because Infinity is just a better game, where I have more fun playing.
What other wargames have you played, other than the GW core games?
On TT? I'm sitting on quite a sizeable FoW army, around 4500-5000 points. I played Necromunda back in the late '90s, and recently started up a new campaign with some friends. Also played some AD&D although not for very long. I'm much more of a video gamer, but I suppose those are 'for kids' as well so I won't list any here.
...I suppose those are 'for kids' as well so I won't list any here.
Not all of them, no.
But your other big tabletop game FoW is certainly not aimed at the "adult wargamer" market, it's aimed at the same kind of GW casual/entry-level/child market that GW targets with their core games - it's the GW of historical wargaming, really.
Necromunda, debatable, but tends towards an older target demographic. Some of the other more specifically grown-up intended SG games like Warmaster & Epic are definitely not aimed at children, the "clean sophistication" of the rules systems just confuses and bores kids (and the same goes for various more "adult intended" WWII wargames).
You can disagree with me, but that doesn't make you right. :-p
It makes me every bit as right as you seeing as you waited till I posted what I play then backpedaled and rubbished everything I play, a very childish method of making a point now that I think back to my school days. I don't like intricate tables and weekend-long skirmishes looking up intricate millimetre values for dozens of hit locations on a specific make of Panzer IV in a WW2 game. I guess that makes me a kid.
The only thing I bought from GW in the last 2 years was the Necron codex. Everything else I bought was 2nd hand at ridiculous prices - 200 Goblins for ~70€? Yes please.
The thing about price is that there is no objective way to judge them. A price is too high for any buyer that either cannot afford it, or does not see the value in it.
So, rather than making a blanket statement like "$75 for a flier is too much," instead you have each person saying things such as "for me, who no longer actively plays 40k, $75 for a flier is too much."
Why do you see people defending PP prices while deriding GW's? Because they are playing with the PP models they buy! For me $120 for a stormwall will be a good buy. Spending $120 on a High Elf Battalion will result in a shrink wrapped box sitting in my closet.
I find myself flinching at GW's prices, but I realize it's because I don't play 40k anymore. I could afford it, I have a good job and plenty of disposable income. But for me, GW isn't worth the price.
What I shouldn't do, and what more people need to stop doing, is generalizing their own decision that GW is too expensive as an overall inditment. Why? Because it implies that anybody buying GW is a sucker, or mark, or otherwise foolish. Not only are they none of those things, but people become defensive when called out on that.
The decision to leave a hobby, or put it on hiatus, is a big one, but I'm not sure its really a fertile ground for discussion.
I am out of the 40k game now.I switched over to Flames of war. but it really didnt price me out it was the Codex creep and lets discontinue use of armies.I was a Witch Hunters IG/Inquistion player.
As for new players ,wthich was the other turn off.I already had 10,000 pt apoc. worth of guard.I had a 150 man Stormtrooper company.So already had a army. But we started to price armies for them and it was running around a 1000$ for them to play.As for playing 15mm ww2 you can buy a decent force for under 200$ and get your Army book for free.
I still purchase GW. I play it quite a bit. As much as I move it's allowed me to make friends in new cities and across the country based on events I attend.
The cost is worth benefits to me. When it's not, then I'll stop. Polonius hit that on the head.
And based on his style of posting I thought the OP was out of GW a long time ago.
It's been my experience that while price might be the reason a person stops buying 40k, it's rarely, if ever, the reason they leave the hobby.
If a person is playing league games weekly, tournaments montly, and is building a new army all the time, price becomes an obstacle, not a barrier. it's only when you stop playing that price becomes prohibitive.
But, it's not as much fun to announce, "I've decided I just don't play the game, so I'm quititng."
Polonius wrote: The thing about price is that there is no objective way to judge them. A price is too high for any buyer that either cannot afford it, or does not see the value in it.
So, rather than making a blanket statement like "$75 for a flier is too much," instead you have each person saying things such as "for me, who no longer actively plays 40k, $75 for a flier is too much."
Why do you see people defending PP prices while deriding GW's? Because they are playing with the PP models they buy! For me $120 for a stormwall will be a good buy. Spending $120 on a High Elf Battalion will result in a shrink wrapped box sitting in my closet.
I find myself flinching at GW's prices, but I realize it's because I don't play 40k anymore. I could afford it, I have a good job and plenty of disposable income. But for me, GW isn't worth the price.
What I shouldn't do, and what more people need to stop doing, is generalizing their own decision that GW is too expensive as an overall inditment. Why? Because it implies that anybody buying GW is a sucker, or mark, or otherwise foolish. Not only are they none of those things, but people become defensive when called out on that.
The decision to leave a hobby, or put it on hiatus, is a big one, but I'm not sure its really a fertile ground for discussion.
I'm an active 40K player* and I find the price for fliers too much.
I dare say that competitive gamers will value the meta value more highly and be more inclined to buy good game units at prices other players recoil at. But for your standard casual gamer (the market GW claims to be aiming at) the in-game effectiveness is less important, and they may decide that they'd rather make do than spend $75 on a flier**.
*my last game was 2 days ago,1500pts of IG Versus a new Farsight Tau army, I got whooped by turn 3.
** I'm still in 2 minds about the Valkyrie kit I bought a couple of years ago; do I make it up and use it, even though I feel fliers are an odd addition to a skirmish game, or do I sell it at a slight loss (I bought it on spec before the price hikes) and buy something more useful (like a Hellhound).
...I suppose those are 'for kids' as well so I won't list any here.
Not all of them, no.
But your other big tabletop game FoW is certainly not aimed at the "adult wargamer" market, it's aimed at the same kind of GW casual/entry-level/child market that GW targets with their core games - it's the GW of historical wargaming, really.
Necromunda, debatable, but tends towards an older target demographic. Some of the other more specifically grown-up intended SG games like Warmaster & Epic are definitely not aimed at children, the "clean sophistication" of the rules systems just confuses and bores kids (and the same goes for various more "adult intended" WWII wargames).
You can disagree with me, but that doesn't make you right. :-p
It's certainly difficult to judge what it's aimed at but I'd argue that whilst 40K is currently marketed at children, it's overly cumbersome rules and abundance of special rules (and things like there being 4 different types of save (5 if you count 'stims' as different to FNP), of which some can override others) makes it pretty complicated for children and more into the realm of adults games. As a 30 year old Software Developer who pays casually I struggle keeping up with all the special rules interactions. When I was 15 I remember 2nd Ed 40K being a lot simpler.
So it may be aimed at children, but there are much more child (and adult) friendly games out there, like X-Wing.
Herzlos wrote: I'm an active 40K player* and I find the price for fliers too much
I have a good buddy that has a huge cygnar collection, and finds the price of Stormlances too much.
But you don't find it too much because the price is objectively too high. As you explain later, you don't like the mechnaics of fliers and don't enjoy them. I could offer a vegetarian the best cut of beef on earth for $5 a pound, and ti's not a good deal for him.
It's shocking how many people confuse "I don't want that product" with "that product is too expensive."
Polonius wrote: It's been my experience that while price might be the reason a person stops buying 40k, it's rarely, if ever, the reason they leave the hobby.
If a person is playing league games weekly, tournaments montly, and is building a new army all the time, price becomes an obstacle, not a barrier. it's only when you stop playing that price becomes prohibitive.
But, it's not as much fun to announce, "I've decided I just don't play the game, so I'm quititng."
It also baffles me the need that people get to announce that they are going to stop doing something.
If you wan't to quit, then quit! There is no need to create a thread about it.
In the last couple of years I've sold off a lot of my armies, mostly to fund other projects. Right now I have 2 armies for each game, Lizardmen, goblins, necrons and tyranids. So I'm just going to keep those and add new things here and there, but I don't expect to ever start a new army again. It's just too expensive and frankly I'm finding 10-model skirmish games to be a heluva lot more fun these days. I just don't have the spare time I used to and with skirmish games I can get a good team or army going in a short time, and for a lot cheaper.
Polonius wrote: It's been my experience that while price might be the reason a person stops buying 40k, it's rarely, if ever, the reason they leave the hobby.
If a person is playing league games weekly, tournaments montly, and is building a new army all the time, price becomes an obstacle, not a barrier. it's only when you stop playing that price becomes prohibitive.
But, it's not as much fun to announce, "I've decided I just don't play the game, so I'm quititng."
If it's presumptuous to make blanket statements that GW is too expensive, then it's presumptuous to claim that nobody quits "the hobby" because GW prices them out of the market, and doubly so to try and cast anyone who asserts they did as just looking for a sensationalist way to present their decision.
And frankly, I don't agree that it's wrong to say GW is too expensive. Goods have an objective value and a subjective value, the former being the cost of materials, labour, development, production, distribution, warehousing, and necessary company overheads, and the latter being the Capitalist definition of value as "whatever someone is willing to pay". There comes a point when a product is priced so far above its objective value that anyone who buys it is being irrational, regardless of the subjective value they assign to it; a perfect example is that ludicrous Kanye West t-shirt. It's a plain, white, crew-neck cotton t-shirt, and they were charging $120US for it. There is no scenario in which paying $120US for a plain white t-shirt is rational. Some of GW's product range is approaching that point, some has already passed it, and the realisation of that is why I stopped buying GW models except in very rare instances - I was allowing my love for the 40K and WHF IPs to inflate my assessment of GW product's subjective value.
I still quite happily buy what I like form GW, not that it's very much after 25 years.
I don't tend to spam units or play apocalypse so have no reason to have a huge collection of minis on the shelf; plus I haven't felt the urge to buy a new army since the original Tau Empire Army boxset was released. If I did want one I am lucky enough to be able to afford one (assuming I can hide the boxes from the Mrs - but the loft is looking pretty full these days ).
So I don't generally take too much of an interest in the price conversations, even so some prices do make you baulk a little.
Like this doozy. There's allot there but I swear I nearly chocked on my bacon banjo when I landed on that from an innocuous ad email.
If you've not read seen the email, it goes form tat Apoc cannon thing, to a wall of martyrs set up, to that. I suppose it makes the cannon look cheaper?
Herzlos wrote: I'm an active 40K player* and I find the price for fliers too much
But you don't find it too much because the price is objectively too high. As you explain later, you don't like the mechnaics of fliers and don't enjoy them. I could offer a vegetarian the best cut of beef on earth for $5 a pound, and ti's not a good deal for him.
No I said that I find fliers an odd addition considering the scale, but that's independent of the price. It's a useful gaming piece, and I'd definitely keep it if the price was better as I'd be able to fit it in somewhere, but at the current price I feel it's too expensive for me to justify it and that I'm happy to not use one as they don't always fit anyway.
If I'd gone for Marine allies, I wouldn't buy any Stormtalons because I think they are too expensive, even if they make more sense than troop dropships. If I was a Tau player I'd find the Riptide too expensive even if it fits the army fine. If I was eldar I wouldn't be buying a WraithKnight either.
I will agree that utility affects the price though; the more desirably it is in game, or the more modelling enjoyment a player gets, then the more it's worth. Up to a point.
Polonius wrote: If I'd gone for Marine allies, I wouldn't buy any Stormtalons because I think they are too expensive, even if they make more sense than troop dropships. If I was a Tau player I'd find the Riptide too expensive even if it fits the army fine. If I was eldar I wouldn't be buying a WraithKnight either.
Stormtalons are less than 50 bucks... Stormravens on the other hand is almost a little over 80 dollars... I can buy 2 Stormtalons for a little more than the cost of 1 Stormraven.
Necros wrote: In the last couple of years I've sold off a lot of my armies, mostly to fund other projects. Right now I have 2 armies for each game, Lizardmen, goblins, necrons and tyranids. So I'm just going to keep those and add new things here and there, but I don't expect to ever start a new army again. It's just too expensive and frankly I'm finding 10-model skirmish games to be a heluva lot more fun these days. I just don't have the spare time I used to and with skirmish games I can get a good team or army going in a short time, and for a lot cheaper.
Sums up my position almost exactly. Can't bothered with any more big armies when theres too much other stuff out there.
Polonius wrote: It's been my experience that while price might be the reason a person stops buying 40k, it's rarely, if ever, the reason they leave the hobby.
If a person is playing league games weekly, tournaments montly, and is building a new army all the time, price becomes an obstacle, not a barrier. it's only when you stop playing that price becomes prohibitive.
But, it's not as much fun to announce, "I've decided I just don't play the game, so I'm quititng."
If it's presumptuous to make blanket statements that GW is too expensive, then it's presumptuous to claim that nobody quits "the hobby" because GW prices them out of the market, and doubly so to try and cast anyone who asserts they did as just looking for a sensationalist way to present their decision.
I didn't claim nobody does that. I was actually pretty careful, and stated only what I've seen. Now, if you want to argue about my experience, feel free. My more subtle point is that compared to the internet, which if full of people rage quitting over price, I've never met an actual person who did the same. At least not one that was still enjoying other aspects of the hobby.
And I think it's more fun to explain decisions as due to immediate, tangible proximate causes. "i quit 40k because the prices got to high." "I dumped my girlfriend because she cheated on me." It's a way of neatly explaining what's often a complex issue. I don't think it's sensationalist, but it is more fun, and as I noted, generates more discussion.
And frankly, I don't agree that it's wrong to say GW is too expensive. Goods have an objective value and a subjective value, the former being the cost of materials, labour, development, production, distribution, warehousing, and necessary company overheads, and the latter being the Capitalist definition of value as "whatever someone is willing to pay". There comes a point when a product is priced so far above its objective value that anyone who buys it is being irrational, regardless of the subjective value they assign to it; a perfect example is that ludicrous Kanye West t-shirt. It's a plain, white, crew-neck cotton t-shirt, and they were charging $120US for it. There is no scenario in which paying $120US for a plain white t-shirt is rational. Some of GW's product range is approaching that point, some has already passed it, and the realisation of that is why I stopped buying GW models except in very rare instances - I was allowing my love for the 40K and WHF IPs to inflate my assessment of GW product's subjective value.
This is all so very, very wrong.
Goods don't have objective value. They do, as you point out, have an objective (or at least determined, non-arbitrary) cost to produce. But I can spend $1,000,000 on something and have zero value left over. Value is a subjective assessment.
And calling costs "irrational" says more about your reason than it does the costs in question. I don't know about $120 t-shirts, but I do know people gettting $115 worth of fun out riptides. So, maybe you should realize that there are more aspects to value than you current think.
Why don't we ask GW themselves? In 2004, Tom Kirby mentioned in the preamble to the annual report that "Games Workshop is in the business of selling toy soldiers to children."
I'm sorry if you don't like that you're playing a game aimed at children, but the guy running GW might know who the target audience is better than you.
GW was too expensive for me when I started collecting 5 years ago.
My purchases from GW were limited to about $100 a year.
That being said, I've got about 6k worth of CSM.
That's thanks to Ebay, Swap Shop, and occasional sales at my FLGS.
I make decent money, but I've got a family and other hobbies (making and drinking beer.) So yeah, GW priced me out - of paying full price for anything they've got.
I'm not sure what the point of this thread is? There are way more expensive hobbies out there, it's not like magic where you need to keep buying pack after pack and when a new set comes out you HAVE to buy more.
Usually when it comes to warhammer, when you have what you need you're done. Unless more gizmos come out you want to upgrade. I haven't spent out of pocket on GW stuff in awhile, if I want something else in the hobby I sell what i have and buy fresh from the proceeds I make from selling.
pities2004 wrote: I'm not sure what the point of this thread is? There are way more expensive hobbies out there, it's not like magic where you need to keep buying pack after pack and when a new set comes out you HAVE to buy more.
Usually when it comes to warhammer, when you have what you need you're done. Unless more gizmos come out you want to upgrade. I haven't spent out of pocket on GW stuff in awhile, if I want something else in the hobby I sell what i have and buy fresh from the proceeds I make from selling.
pities2004 wrote: I'm not sure what the point of this thread is? There are way more expensive hobbies out there, it's not like magic where you need to keep buying pack after pack and when a new set comes out you HAVE to buy more.
Usually when it comes to warhammer, when you have what you need you're done. Unless more gizmos come out you want to upgrade. I haven't spent out of pocket on GW stuff in awhile, if I want something else in the hobby I sell what i have and buy fresh from the proceeds I make from selling.
>_< Please stop spouting this garbage about magic being more expensive because of set rotation. Much like how in GW games you have to buy the latest rules to play in current edition tournaments, you have to play with the current rotation to play in the Standard style tournament rules. Modern has sets going back 10 years, and vintage and legacy go back to the beginning. You can buy an Intro pack for 15 dollars, and NEVER HAVE TO SPEND A PENNY MORE if you just play with your friends.
That line of thought is just as stupid as someone spouting GW being the most expensive hobby... Also rules for playing magic on a budget: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=464749 just like there's the second hand market for playing GW on the cheap.
pities2004 wrote: I'm not sure what the point of this thread is? There are way more expensive hobbies out there, it's not like magic where you need to keep buying pack after pack and when a new set comes out you HAVE to buy more.
Usually when it comes to warhammer, when you have what you need you're done. Unless more gizmos come out you want to upgrade. I haven't spent out of pocket on GW stuff in awhile, if I want something else in the hobby I sell what i have and buy fresh from the proceeds I make from selling.
>_< Please stop spouting this garbage about magic being more expensive because of set rotation. Much like how in GW games you have to buy the latest rules to play in current edition tournaments, you have to play with the current rotation to play in the Standard style tournament rules. Modern has sets going back 10 years, and vintage and legacy go back to the beginning. You can buy an Intro pack for 15 dollars, and NEVER HAVE TO SPEND A PENNY MORE if you just play with your friends.
That line of thought is just as stupid as someone spouting GW being the most expensive hobby...
Also rules for playing magic on a budget: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=464749 just like there's the second hand market for playing GW on the cheap.
You can also play warhammer on a budget, what's the difference? I could use pennies as models if i play with friends.
You can also play warhammer on a budget, what's the difference? I could use pennies as models if i play with friends.
The difference is that formats like Pauper, Vintage, Legacy, Cube, Commander/EDH and many other MTG formats are legitimate formats for the actual game and not a sub-standard substitute like using pennies for 40k. Locally there are sanctioned Pauper events, Commander leagues and a variety of other stuff. These examples of formats other than Standard are actually playing the full game of Magic: The Gathering.
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pities2004 wrote: I'm not sure what the point of this thread is? There are way more expensive hobbies out there
The point of the thread is that people are expressing that price has finally become an issue for them. When people have been participating in a hobby and then feel like they're not getting the value they once did, they want to talk about it. It's not that people hate GW or something, they actually love 40k and WFB and are just interested in expressing some disquiet about there no longer being a value for money proposition in any of GW's offerings (from their perspective). It's about talking.
As for the "there are way more expensive hobbies out there"-- that is 100% a total red herring.
GW is cheap compared to golf Golf is cheap compared to dirt biking Dirt biking is cheap compared to 4x4 off roading 4x4 off roading is cheap compared to sailing a yacht Yachts are cheap compared to space tourism.
But nothing about that means that any individual product offering in any of the above hobbies can be priced at any price. The fact that Yachts are cheap compared to space tourism doesn't mean that all yachts are good value for the money. I'm sure some are and some are not.
So yeah, total 100% red herring.
haven't spent out of pocket on GW stuff in awhile, if I want something else in the hobby I sell what i have and buy fresh from the proceeds I make from selling.
This is a really smart approach. I'd definitely encourage anyone who has grown disatisfied with the value of new releases to enter the second hand market. There are great deals to be had and people willing to buy stuff you've grown tired of.
pities2004 wrote: You can also play warhammer on a budget, what's the difference? I could use pennies as models if i play with friends.
This response is fantasic, I've got me a two'fer on this post right here...
Please regale me how I can pay 15 dollars for GW products and never have to spend a penny more to play a full game of 40k (I'm talking 1 HQ and 2 Troops minimum as a full game of 40k).
As to pennies as models, are your friends playing 6th edition 40k while your pennies are using 3rd edition rules? I don't care if you don't buy the books, this is fething laughable on a level I've never encountered on this website before. 15 dollars on an m14 Intro pack gives me enough cards to play Vintage, Legacy, Modern, maybe Pauper, and Standard (Commander/EDH is 100 cards with no repeats other than Lands and a Legendary Creature as your Commander). Sure I might not be able to play in a Standard tournament once m15 hits next year, but we're not talking tournament play, we're talking play with friends. So my 15 dollar investment will literally last me until the day I die, Magic dies, or has a drastic rules change that a 60 card deck is no longer legal.
Also you can't play with pennies, a penny is 19mm wide. You're modeling for advantage by lowering the space your models take up on the table. You can spread them out more, making it hard for me to hit them with templates and markers, and the distance require to charge them is a little more, which makes them harder to assault. Not to mention that they can be completely out of line of sight due to the height of a penny.
Presumably, some of us have other hobbies outside of Warhammer or wargaming. For those folks, hobby dollars all compete with each other.
For example, for me my wargaming $$ compete with collecting and shooting firearms and going to concerts/festivals. I place a value on which I'd like to do more, and I save and spend accordingly.
I can appreciate that everyone feels strongly about these things, it is much better than, ..meh...
All I can do is look at my own actions:
1) Mainly buying models second hand (bulk growth for Apocalypse).
2) Yes, did buy a couple new aircraft (meta update for armies).
3) I am a bit of a completionist and just cannot spend $190 for that oversized tank centaur: the design is not good enough. (Found my limit!)
I went into the Robotech Kickstarter and bought two Battlecry kits with some add-ons.
X-wing is looking real good to me and $190 would be VERY well spent there.
I will play 40k, I have plenty to keep me busy but the big flashy items are dead to me now.
In the future, I would update my armies with a couple key purchases and that is it, if they perform a mass obsolete of models I would probably drop out all together codex by codex.
This is my "reasonable" take on things as they are now.
pities2004 wrote: I'm not sure what the point of this thread is? There are way more expensive hobbies out there, it's not like magic where you need to keep buying pack after pack and when a new set comes out you HAVE to buy more.
Necron scythes, Helldrakes, Tau...this is even worse than MTG. MTG releases balanced new rulesets. GW releases blatantly overpowered models on purpose to increase their sales.
Talizvar wrote: In the future, I would update my armies with a couple key purchases and that is it, if they perform a mass obsolete of models I would probably drop out all together codex by codex.
This is my "reasonable" take on things as they are now.
Pretty much exactly what I do. Makes it a lot easier.
Personally, I only play Magic online, which is a shame, because I love the game. I just refuse to be around the people at Friday Night Magic. Its....unsavory...in my area.
pities2004 wrote: I'm not sure what the point of this thread is? There are way more expensive hobbies out there, it's not like magic where you need to keep buying pack after pack and when a new set comes out you HAVE to buy more.
Necron scythes, Helldrakes, Tau...this is even worse than MTG. MTG releases balanced new rulesets. GW releases blatantly overpowered models on purpose to increase their sales.
Oh yay! Glad to have the cries of OP enter the fray.
Talizvar wrote: In the future, I would update my armies with a couple key purchases and that is it, if they perform a mass obsolete of models I would probably drop out all together codex by codex.
This is my "reasonable" take on things as they are now.
Pretty much exactly what I do. Makes it a lot easier.
Personally, I only play Magic online, which is a shame, because I love the game. I just refuse to be around the people at Friday Night Magic. Its....unsavory...in my area.
That's part of the reason why I bought Duel of the Planeswalkers, so I can play magic without having to split my fridays between Wargaming and Magic.
cincydooley wrote: Magic only becomes as expensive as Warhammer if you want to play very competively. Only then.
Plenty of other adult hobbies are just as expensive, if not more expensive than Warhammer, including some of the aformentioned.
But Alf is right, Magic really isn't one of them.
I agree 100% here. A good example for me is drumming. A top of the line drumming setup runs as much as my 10 year budget for Warhammer. And upgrades there are never cheap. Now granted drums hold their value longer, and are an entire other beast to deal with. But it is a good example of other hobbies that cost just as much as playing GW games.
The biggest difference there is that the perceived value of $5,000 worth of drums is far greater to me than that of the same amount in models.
But when we look at comparable costs like this, it astounds me that GW still thinks this is a kids game.
You obvioulsy don't have a job since you only get money during Christmas and your Birthday, or if you do have a job you are struggling since once again you only get extra cash as gifts.....
40k is a hobby, therefore it shouldn't be an "expense" its something like shooting or fishing or even rebuilding old muscle cars, something you do when you have the time and the money.
I'm getting so annoyed with this Wahh GW is so expensive I can't afford it wahhh threads.... Its a hobby and comparably speaking its not even that expensive, for the price of say one nice rifle you can have about 4000pts of an army, the rulebook, and your codex... For the price of golfing memberships and clubs you could buy a whole company of Space Marines.
If you want cheap, buy some legos, download the Brickwars rules and have at it
cincydooley wrote: Magic only becomes as expensive as Warhammer if you want to play very competively. Only then.
Plenty of other adult hobbies are just as expensive, if not more expensive than Warhammer, including some of the aformentioned.
But Alf is right, Magic really isn't one of them.
I agree 100% here. A good example for me is drumming. A top of the line drumming setup runs as much as my 10 year budget for Warhammer. And upgrades there are never cheap. Now granted drums hold their value longer, and are an entire other beast to deal with. But it is a good example of other hobbies that cost just as much as playing GW games.
The biggest difference there is that the perceived value of $5,000 worth of drums is far greater to me than that of the same amount in models.
But when we look at comparable costs like this, it astounds me that GW still thinks this is a kids game.
Touche. I could easily go drop $5k and up on a nice skeet/trap shotgun today. And that's a ton more than I'll spend on GW in any given year.
cincydooley wrote:I'm sorry, but it isn't a red herring at all.
Presumably, some of us have other hobbies outside of Warhammer or wargaming. For those folks, hobby dollars all compete with each other.
For example, for me my wargaming $$ compete with collecting and shooting firearms and going to concerts/festivals. I place a value on which I'd like to do more, and I save and spend accordingly.
It's not a red herring at all.
The red herring is the idea that because other hobbies cost more than GW, price considerations related to GW's products somehow don't count.
Of course spending on non-essentials is going to be allocated to different things for different reasons, but when you're assessing whether or not something is good value for the money, the fact that space tourism costs even more doesn't add anything to the evaluation-- in fact, it muddies the evaluation.
Yeah as I always say, I think its a vicious cycle, I reckon that if you spend far too much on the hobby, then you take the hobby too seriously, and if thats the case, its no longer a hobby, its a fethed up obsession.
Stick to one or two armies, and you physically cant spend that much money, models and books don't decompose like tea bags on compost heaps.
Honestly, I am not even boycotting GW and I have not spent more than about $200 the last two years, I've got the same 4000 points of SM I have always had and I occasionally add gak, half of DV got me the new rules and some DA for $50 and.. I dont think Ive bought anything in about 10 months.
You can keep spending just 100-200 dollars a year, and gradually build up a fething awesome collection. I have only been dropping about that a year since I started back into the hobby four or five years ago, and now I have got absolutely gak loads of models.
Almost every hobby costs me more, I've spent three times that on video games, ten times times that on gambling, and about.. well.... feth knows, on going out boozing.
And when I finally move over to the US thanks to the badgering of my homesick missus, I will be spending a good few grand almost as soon as I land on guns and ammo.
Good value for the money is completely subjective.
It's not a red herring because you're comparing them to, as I said before, other common adult hobbies.
If you want to compare them specifically to other wargaming companies, then limit it to that. But that valuation is still purely subjective.
I, for one, buy more GW than other companies because of a few reasons:
1. I like the background and story. They have their hooks in me there.
2. I like their multipart plastic kits more than anyone elses.
3. I can always find a game.
For me, these three things, and in particular #3, mean a lot when adding my perceived value. I could legitimately walk into ANY of our 4 local stores with a 40k or Fantasy army and get a game more or less on sight.
You obvioulsy don't have a job since you only get money during Christmas and your Birthday, or if you do have a job you are struggling since once again you only get extra cash as gifts.....
40k is a hobby, therefore it shouldn't be an "expense" its something like shooting or fishing or even rebuilding old muscle cars, something you do when you have the time and the money.
I'm getting so annoyed with this Wahh GW is so expensive I can't afford it wahhh threads.... Its a hobby and comparably speaking its not even that expensive, for the price of say one nice rifle you can have about 4000pts of an army, the rulebook, and your codex... For the price of golfing memberships and clubs you could buy a whole company of Space Marines.
If you want cheap, buy some legos, download the Brickwars rules and have at it
Or you could think of it as. He is a kid, already priced out by GW, so when he dose get a job and can aford GW product. He will still not buy them becouse he will already be spending his money of other companys models and games. Witch could of been avoided, but that is what GW says the market plan is, short trem gain from kids. So truth be told GW all ready done with the OP, and everyone else here for that matter.
And when I finally move over to the US thanks to the badgering of my homesick missus, I will be spending a good few grand almost as soon as I land on guns and ammo.
When in Rome.....
I will happily take you to do some sporting clays, sir.
Polonius wrote: It's been my experience that while price might be the reason a person stops buying 40k, it's rarely, if ever, the reason they leave the hobby.
If a person is playing league games weekly, tournaments montly, and is building a new army all the time, price becomes an obstacle, not a barrier. it's only when you stop playing that price becomes prohibitive.
But, it's not as much fun to announce, "I've decided I just don't play the game, so I'm quititng."
If it's presumptuous to make blanket statements that GW is too expensive, then it's presumptuous to claim that nobody quits "the hobby" because GW prices them out of the market, and doubly so to try and cast anyone who asserts they did as just looking for a sensationalist way to present their decision.
I didn't claim nobody does that. I was actually pretty careful, and stated only what I've seen. Now, if you want to argue about my experience, feel free. My more subtle point is that compared to the internet, which if full of people rage quitting over price, I've never met an actual person who did the same. At least not one that was still enjoying other aspects of the hobby.
And I think it's more fun to explain decisions as due to immediate, tangible proximate causes. "i quit 40k because the prices got to high." "I dumped my girlfriend because she cheated on me." It's a way of neatly explaining what's often a complex issue. I don't think it's sensationalist, but it is more fun, and as I noted, generates more discussion.
In that case, your personal experience is not reflective of the wider situation - down here at the end of the pay scale where managing every pound you spend is important, quite a few people can and have been priced out of the hobby despite still finding it immensely rewarding and not actually wanting to stop.
And frankly, I don't agree that it's wrong to say GW is too expensive. Goods have an objective value and a subjective value, the former being the cost of materials, labour, development, production, distribution, warehousing, and necessary company overheads, and the latter being the Capitalist definition of value as "whatever someone is willing to pay". There comes a point when a product is priced so far above its objective value that anyone who buys it is being irrational, regardless of the subjective value they assign to it; a perfect example is that ludicrous Kanye West t-shirt. It's a plain, white, crew-neck cotton t-shirt, and they were charging $120US for it. There is no scenario in which paying $120US for a plain white t-shirt is rational. Some of GW's product range is approaching that point, some has already passed it, and the realisation of that is why I stopped buying GW models except in very rare instances - I was allowing my love for the 40K and WHF IPs to inflate my assessment of GW product's subjective value.
This is all so very, very wrong.
Goods don't have objective value. They do, as you point out, have an objective (or at least determined, non-arbitrary) cost to produce. But I can spend $1,000,000 on something and have zero value left over. Value is a subjective assessment.
And calling costs "irrational" says more about your reason than it does the costs in question. I don't know about $120 t-shirts, but I do know people gettting $115 worth of fun out riptides. So, maybe you should realize that there are more aspects to value than you current think.
You're proceeding from a false assumption; I am not a Capitalist, I do not hold to Capitalist economic principles, and I do not accept blindly the doctrines that come with Capitalism(and before anyone starts, "not Capitalist" != "Communist"). Goods do, in my opinion, have an objective value, which I have described - they are worth what they cost to create, regardless of what additional cost people choose to add by bringing subjective emotional judgements into things. In a Capitalist context, there's no choice but to accept that the subjective value and the objective value will be unequal, since that context includes profit, but the objective value does still exist, and it is irrational to pay hundreds, perhaps thousands of times what an item costs to create - a certain amount of leeway exists for personal subjective value, but it isn't infinite. If an item costs X, and most retailers sell the item at X+Y(Y being a modest percentage profit), a person who willingly pays X*1000 is not being rational, regardless of whether or not they personally feel they get X*1000 "worth" of enjoyment from the item.
Oh look, another one of these threads. Hobbies cost money, people. Deal with it. GW isn't even all that expensive, but if you find it to be, just do something else. Stop broadcasting it to the world.
I think Polonius has summed it up quite well.. the value of something will be different for each of us, although I think very much there is a sliding scale of what people will be willing to pay. The fact was that, relatively, when I was a child it was far cheaper to play some form of GW game than it is now - I had lots of extremely casual-wargamer friends who could play with £20 from picking up a Bloodbowl team, Necromunda or Mordheim gang. These days, only the hardcore need apply; getting and playing the games as GW intends requires a significant investment of money even for upper-middle class families.
In a way I think it's sad for the hobby that GW acts as the 'gate keeper' for wargaming, sitting fat and buddha-like and blocking the doorway as the only option for wargaming (with its own stores, and seemingly doing its best to drive the indies out of business) but as a result scaring off these casual or poorer younger gamers who therefore miss out on something that most of us agree can be an extremely fulfilling experience. In that sense I think it's a shame - great sense from a business perspective, but bad news for the customers.
The figures would seem to indicate that less are buying at the higher rates, but obviously still enough that GW doesn't even need to start thinking about changing course just yet. Expect more stealth rises, and more insulting 'one-click deals'.
Samurai_Eduh wrote: Oh look, another one of these threads. Hobbies cost money, people. Deal with it. GW isn't even all that expensive, but if you find it to be, just do something else. Stop broadcasting it to the world.
I find it interesting, I have bought very little GW over the last few years, not because i'm against them, but more that I found I was interested in other games and systems which I felt were a little bit more adult.
As such I'd been exploring things like infinity and malifaux and a real huge jump into FoW over the last 2.5 years or so.
I sold off 2 of my three armies due to lack of use, but with the new Eldar codex I was quite up for updating my army, I already had enough wraithguard thanks to ebay, so I was only looking at the new flyer and the wraithknight - however the cost (retail) for those 2 and the codex was £140! For £120 I could get a FoW army.
The opportunity cost is amazing, and so bar the new flyer I'm just not digging new GW anymore
In that case, your personal experience is not reflective of the wider situation -
It very well might be. I do note that you seem to not question if your experience is reflective of the wider situation.
down here at the end of the pay scale where managing every pound you spend is important, quite a few people can and have been priced out of the hobby despite still finding it immensely rewarding and not actually wanting to stop.
Really? So they were happily building, painting, and playing with their armies until a price point hit, and then simply could not play anymore? Without new models and units they could not play at all? I'm genuinely curious about the mechanics for that. In my experience, people that have limited means are more aware of sunk costs, and tend to use what they have as much as possible.
You're proceeding from a false assumption; I am not a Capitalist, I do not hold to Capitalist economic principles, and I do not accept blindly the doctrines that come with Capitalism(and before anyone starts, "not Capitalist" != "Communist").
I don't particualrly care what you believe. Your belief about market forces no more creates an objective reality than anything else.
Goods do, in my opinion, have an objective value, which I have described - they are worth what they cost to create, regardless of what additional cost people choose to add by bringing subjective emotional judgements into things. In a Capitalist context, there's no choice but to accept that the subjective value and the objective value will be unequal, since that context includes profit, but the objective value does still exist, and it is irrational to pay hundreds, perhaps thousands of times what an item costs to create - a certain amount of leeway exists for personal subjective value, but it isn't infinite. If an item costs X, and most retailers sell the item at X+Y(Y being a modest percentage profit), a person who willingly pays X*1000 is not being rational, regardless of whether or not they personally feel they get X*1000 "worth" of enjoyment from the item.
Well, enjoy feeling irrational.
First, I think you overstate the ability to ascertain an objective cost (how much does it cost to create something involving mental skill, such as writing code or painting a portrait?) Until you assign an objective cost to labor (which starts veering into communist territory) all of your "objective values" are going to rest on the market price for wages. Secondly, where, exactly, do you think the costs of materials come from? Oil doesn't cost more now because it's more expensive to produce, it's simply more in demand.
Second, your examples only go one way: where subjective value is higher than objective value. You only need to look at a used 40k army to see that subjecitve value can be much, much lower.
Market forces aren't blind doctrine, they are an observable phenomon.
First, I think you overstate the ability to ascertain an objective cost (how much does it cost to create something involving mental skill, such as writing code or painting a portrait?) Until you assign an objective cost to labor (which starts veering into communist territory) all of your "objective values" are going to rest on the market price for wages. Secondly, where, exactly, do you think the costs of materials come from? Oil doesn't cost more now because it's more expensive to produce, it's simply more in demand.
Second, your examples only go one way: where subjective value is higher than objective value. You only need to look at a used 40k army to see that subjecitve value can be much, much lower.
Market forces aren't blind doctrine, they are an observable phenomon.
The cost of the mental skill in this case is easy, it is what they agreed to do the job for, period. That's not communist, that is Capitalism at is most basic. Good try there.
The cost of the mental skill in this case is easy, it is what they agreed to do the job for, period. That's not communist, that is Capitalism at is most basic. Good try there.
Are you aware that my argument is that value is based on market forces?
cincydooley wrote:
It's not a red herring because you're comparing them to, as I said before, other common adult hobbies.
If you want to compare them specifically to other wargaming companies, then limit it to that. But that valuation is still purely subjective.
I, for one, buy more GW than other companies because of a few reasons:
1. I like the background and story. They have their hooks in me there.
2. I like their multipart plastic kits more than anyone elses.
3. I can always find a game.
For me, these three things, and in particular #3, mean a lot when adding my perceived value. I could legitimately walk into ANY of our 4 local stores with a 40k or Fantasy army and get a game more or less on sight.
What you are doing here is legit. A real comparison based on real factors. What the poster I originally responded to was doing was dismissing the entire value/price issue with a hand wave. The red herring is the idea that because some other hobby costs more, any evaluation based on price is not valid. The red herring was the attempt to dismiss price/value without consideration and certainly not the honest assessment of factors that you are talking about.
Samurai_Eduh wrote: Oh look, another one of these threads. Hobbies cost money, people. Deal with it. GW isn't even all that expensive, but if you find it to be, just do something else. Stop broadcasting it to the world.
*Goes back to buying GW one-click bundles*
This thread is like watching someone spending three hours insisting the glass really is half empty.
Samurai_Eduh wrote: Oh look, another one of these threads. Hobbies cost money, people. Deal with it. GW isn't even all that expensive, but if you find it to be, just do something else. Stop broadcasting it to the world.
*Goes back to buying GW one-click bundles*
This thread is like watching someone spending three hours insisting the glass really is half empty.
It is half empty, but this glass is one of two glasses you're interested in, and they're all comparable with each other, but the other glasses over there are just as half empty, but cost more than the glass you're interested.
Edit: I've no fething idea wtf I'm talking about with this post
MarsNZ wrote: It makes me every bit as right as you seeing as you waited till I posted what I play then backpedaled and rubbished everything I play, a very childish method of making a point now that I think back to my school days. I don't like intricate tables and weekend-long skirmishes looking up intricate millimetre values for dozens of hit locations on a specific make of Panzer IV in a WW2 game. I guess that makes me a kid.
Good day.
Yeah, if you tried a few different games, you'd find that impression of other game systems doesn't actually fit more than a couple of fairly old games - most adult-intended wargames are characterised by having less rules than GW core games (or FoW for that matter) that play in a more streamlined manner, but result in more complex actual gameplay.
cincydooley wrote: Magic only becomes as expensive as Warhammer if you want to play very competively. Only then.
Plenty of other adult hobbies are just as expensive, if not more expensive than Warhammer, including some of the aformentioned.
But Alf is right, Magic really isn't one of them.
I agree 100% here. A good example for me is drumming. A top of the line drumming setup runs as much as my 10 year budget for Warhammer. And upgrades there are never cheap. Now granted drums hold their value longer, and are an entire other beast to deal with. But it is a good example of other hobbies that cost just as much as playing GW games.
The biggest difference there is that the perceived value of $5,000 worth of drums is far greater to me than that of the same amount in models.
But when we look at comparable costs like this, it astounds me that GW still thinks this is a kids game.
Touche. I could easily go drop $5k and up on a nice skeet/trap shotgun today. And that's a ton more than I'll spend on GW in any given year.
That's an interesting thought experiment, at 2008 (so 5 years ago) influenced by DOW 2 and Cavatores new edition of 40k (the then new and quite good 5th), I cave in and decided to make a marine army, but a marine army under my terms, all new and all metal, more or less this.
But with their move to finecast all potential bridges got burned, with the latest codexes and the 6th the chasm got wider, the only other thing I bought that was produced by GW was one of each new wash at 2013.
Polonius wrote: It's been my experience that while price might be the reason a person stops buying 40k, it's rarely, if ever, the reason they leave the hobby.
If a person is playing league games weekly, tournaments montly, and is building a new army all the time, price becomes an obstacle, not a barrier. it's only when you stop playing that price becomes prohibitive.
But, it's not as much fun to announce, "I've decided I just don't play the game, so I'm quititng."
Speaking for myself, cost was the primary reason I didn't get back into Fantasy (with 40K, it was more the neglect of my chosen army). I started adding up the prices for an "evening's game" sized Warhammer Fantasy army, and quickly realised I didn't really want to do that.
PsychoticStorm wrote: I cave in and decided to make a marine army, but a marine army under my terms, all new and all metal, more or less this.
But with their move to finecast all potential bridges got burned, with the latest codexes and the 6th the chasm got wider, the only other thing I bought that was produced by GW was one of each new wash at 2013.
That all metal marine army is fantastic. Finecast must have been a big kick in the groin for you.
Polonius wrote: It's been my experience that while price might be the reason a person stops buying 40k, it's rarely, if ever, the reason they leave the hobby.
If a person is playing league games weekly, tournaments montly, and is building a new army all the time, price becomes an obstacle, not a barrier. it's only when you stop playing that price becomes prohibitive.
But, it's not as much fun to announce, "I've decided I just don't play the game, so I'm quititng."
Speaking for myself, cost was the primary reason I didn't get back into Fantasy (with 40K, it was more the neglect of my chosen army). I started adding up the prices for an "evening's game" sized Warhammer Fantasy army, and quickly realised I didn't really want to do that.
But that just supports my theory. You didn't quit WFB, you just didn't get back into it.
If the discussion is how many people want to get into GW but don't due to price... I imagine it's hefty.
GW, like any other company, is there to take your money. The increases in price have become ridiculous, but they know we will pay, and they are a company out to earn money so who can blame them. I remember the last time in my FLGS a mate was buying a few bits for his Space Wolves force (literally something like a character blister, squad of marines, some paints and glue). He was literally shocked to see that the total price at the till amassed to somewhere around the £120 mark for a small army booster and the required tools to assemble the models. He honestly thought the staff was being ironic when he said "Do you want a bag, it's 10p extra". Turns out he wasn't, GW will even take our money for their plastic bags. And as I said, why not? My mate still bought the stuff and GW became a little wealthier. My only other hobbies are computing and music, but I feel happier spending money on GW products because I want them to last a lifetime. If I buy a ton of new hardware and build a new PC it will set me back £1000 and last me a few years, then the hardware will be outdated and I'll have to upgrade. If I buy a new guitar it would be another £1000 and I would have to replace strings every few months, before replacing the instrument after a decade when it gives in. However if I spend £1000 on models it would be over a long period and not a single investment. Assembling and painting the models will last a good few fun hours, but gaming with them with friends; that will last many years.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that sure GW is stupidly overpriced like many hobbies, but we all have the choice to quit at anytime. But we probably wont, because we love it. And there's certainly nothing wrong with it.
Reaver83 wrote: I find it interesting, I have bought very little GW over the last few years, not because i'm against them, but more that I found I was interested in other games and systems which I felt were a little bit more adult.
As such I'd been exploring things like infinity and malifaux and a real huge jump into FoW over the last 2.5 years or so.
I sold off 2 of my three armies due to lack of use, but with the new Eldar codex I was quite up for updating my army, I already had enough wraithguard thanks to ebay, so I was only looking at the new flyer and the wraithknight - however the cost (retail) for those 2 and the codex was £140! For £120 I could get a FoW army.
The opportunity cost is amazing, and so bar the new flyer I'm just not digging new GW anymore
Pretty much sums up how GW may go: quietly as interests have gone elsewhere.
This is the most competitive time for people's disposable income and interests.
Selling some of the on the side armies would also slow their sales.
Anyway, as stated: "another one of those threads", more playing less griping as pointed out.
In the last few years i have sold
7 Lord of the rings armies
4.5k pts of Nids
3.5k pts of Orks
... I have bought a few hundred dollars worth of new minis if you count the last two 40k starter sets as well as the new codex for chaos and chaos demons. I am Selling my spacemarines off when i get back from my trip.
I agree that GW is pricing me out of the hobby. Instead i just spent 100$ on games i will play that cost 40$ total. Like Last Night on Earth, 7 Wonders etc. I love mini,s gaming but right now i feel like I cant really afford things.
Plus... A freind and along time GW collector recently informed me that sources have told him that the Company is being groomed for sale. Not sure how much stock i put in this, but i would rather be on the safe side.
To me, the prices are one factor which keeps pushing me from the hobby. The first thing I ever bought was a box of five 3ed chaos marines for $16.00 Canadian and the current box (new models) is $30.00 for five chaos marines. That's almost a 100% inflation over the decade I've been playing this hobby. When I started up I understood the cost, but all of my income was disposable because I was young and living with my parents and my only alternative was video games. I find it difficult to justify such an expense at this juncture because not all of my income is disposable and I'm honestly not convinced that the models are worth what I'm paying for them.
The game can really be played for free. When I started playing with my friend, he and I cut out a hundred circles of paper and wrote on them what they were then cut rectangles for tanks. This helped us experiment with what we liked and figure out what we wanted to buy but it was also incredibly fun. We may or may not have downloaded the army books and played for what may or may not have been free.
To me, I'm just not sure that you can justify spending any money on the hobby unless you have a reliable group to play with and are keenly interesting in owning, assembling and painting the models. This can probably be said of a lot of similar wargames, but what keeps me playing warhammer is a combination of the story and the group I play with.
I also played Fantasy for a long time and since my friends didn't play I often had to do it at the store. I liked what I consider to be a more sophisticated ruleset which rewarded strong generals over strong army books. I stopped playing Fantasy at exactly the moment that Matt Ward's Daemon book hit the shelf and the 8th edition rulebook frustrated me enough to shelf my army unless my friends wanted to pick it up. I am worried that 40k is trending in this direction. Even though codex creep has always existed, the rules are becoming less fun (flyers are bizarre and hull points involve tedious notetaking) and players are penalized for not playing FotM armies. The fluff gets frequently retconned and makes it hard to keep your own army's backstory consistent. I love the Black Library books and that's probably what keeps me playing more than anything.
I think I could get behind a community project which took the game from Games Workshop. I feel like they're losing touch with what makes the game fun. In response to a comment about the 7th edition Daemons being overpowered, Matt Ward famously said, "It would be a shame if it wasn't." I don't have a quote or source, but Games Workshop has also said that they're not interested in balancing the game at the tournament level and that they're selling plastic dolls to kids. They're really lost touch with the playerbase. Apparently other games (Magic?) run tournaments and keep an eye on tournament rules whereas I only ever see a GW booth set up at warhammer tournaments and they don't seem to care at all what sort of rules or scenarios are being used. If tournaments didn't require players to bring army books, painted models or even models at all, I'm not even sure if GW would make too much of a fuss.
Yes I like the GW models, no I don't like the cost. I like the hobby and I like playing wargames and my closest friends are devoted to 40k so I'm stuck. So for now I'm just converting and painting what I've got and lurking ebay until a good set of models comes up. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how much I'm willing to spend on the hobby (especially brand new), but if I spend anything then I'll be spending it at my non-GWFLGS as a silent protest to the direction GW has been heading over the past 5 years (at least).
The other thing I wonder about is related to 3D printers. I wonder if GW realizes that the majority of their income is at risk when those things finally become cost-effective and at higher resolution. I suspect that they're just trying to squeeze water from a stone until 3D printers come out in force and the models are rendered nearly obsolete. They have a lot of security with the Black Library, but I wonder if the hobby will die. I hope the community picks up the game and makes new rulebooks for tournaments and the like because the hobby has always been fun.
It is always interesting to read people ranting at the other camp.
For me it is simple, i started at 89, when GW was still affordable before the prices spun out of control.
IMOGW takes the same 5$ sweatshop T-shirt made in GWstan stick a GW label on it and says it is costs 50$.
I still like the 40K universe, but i have been buying mostily stuff other systems (dust tactic, Bolt action, 1-48combat)
GW just price/value wise isn't for me anymore.
Jehan-reznor wrote: It is always interesting to read people ranting at the other camp.
For me it is simple, i started at 89, when GW was still affordable before the prices spun out of control.
IMOGW takes the same 5$ sweatshop T-shirt made in GWstan stick a GW label on it and says it is costs 50$.
I still like the 40K universe, but i have been buying mostily stuff other systems (dust tactic, Bolt action, 1-48combat)
GW just price/value wise isn't for me anymore.
Cool. Enjoy your other games. I like bolt action a lot so far.
I haven't bought anything direct from GW for yonks, I've always gone through a supplier.
That said, I buy models based on either the 'cool' factor, or the 'eewww' factor. GW has had plenty of misses (for me) for a lot of their recent releases, but I'll still buy the occasional thing from them.
Which means I'll probably stump up for the Khornate Lawmower at some point.
Yeah for a while now I haven't bought anything from GW directly for at least 2-3 years especially after the increasingly crazy price hikes on the older kits for no real reason. With prices like Land Raiders being 89 dollars retail (!!!) most of my friends are getting "new" models through me as the mediator (they don't know/trust many of the online retailers so I get it for them) rather than buying it at Gdubs. I seriously don't know how much longer they're going to push this because sales are clearly going down despite the cuts to staff and other measures of staying lean. Until Tom Kirby and the rest of the Old Guard leave and we get some of the original talent back I don't think we'll be seeing improvement any time soon.
Jehan-reznor wrote: IMOGW takes the same 5$ sweatshop T-shirt made in GWstan stick a GW label on it and says it is costs 50$.
So do a lot of places - my mum used to work for surf companies working on their clothing lines. Bulk plain colour tagless shirt orders from bigger places like Bonds for ~$2au each wholesale, attach or print companies tag, print design, $50au-$60au shirt. The Quicksilver shirt I'm wearing right now cost me $60au, and would have cost about $5au to make and distribute, including labour.
If you wanted to have a dig at GW, their novelty clothes wasn't the way to go. GW do the same thing most other clothing companies do.
I stopped buying GWS stuff quite a while ago at this point, as a rule; but it wasn't really about the price. There were a confluence of events that occurred in rapid succession that made me stop buying.
Finecast - for me, this was a big one that stands out in my memory. I don't feel like starting the inevitable "I got 2,000 finecast characters and each was flawless\ruined" crusade this discussion always leads to, but right around when the Necron release happened, I bought a ton of characters for that release and had major issues with very nearly every one of them. My wife got me 2 characters for my birthday, and both had to be replaced; and she was unhappy "she got me a broken present". What should have been awesome was the complete opposite. I had always considered GW to be expensive and well-produced but now it seemed more of the former and a lot less of the latter.
Increasingly unattractive sculpts - The Necron releases also were the last releases I really liked the look of. I was very excited about Chaos, but wound up buying not a single model from that release because I didn't like the aesthetics. Obviously YMMV.
Competition from less complex games - Ultimately I only actively played 40k from 2009 until early 2012. When the 6th edition rulebook came out, I did not order it and I followed the threads discussing it. It seems the ruleset has become even more convoluted, even less intuitive, and it took me so long to get the intricacies of 5th edition down I simply had no appetite for learning it all over again. I'd rather play Space Hulk or Last Night on Earth or Arkham Horror or something that doesn't literally require 40 minutes of setup, 3 hours of playtime, and another 30 minutes of putting it all away again.
The Unpainted Pile - I bought things a lot faster than I painted them. This wouldn't be a problem if I were willing to play with unpainted stuff, but I refuse to play with anything that I haven't painted to the highest standard I was capable of at the time of painting. Eventually when I eyed new shiny stuff, I'd think of the, like, 4 year backlog I have built upstairs.
Games Workshop seems to be kind of a jerky company - This is probably the most minor of my complaints, but as time went on I was increasingly uneasy with subsidizing Games Workshop PLC when they seemed to be taking more and more ridiculous moves, legal and otherwise. No point in rehashing that here but if I'm going to give money to a tabletop game company, I can find plenty that will play a lot nicer with the community at large.
So. None of my concerns were related to the actual cost of the games. Even now, I think some stuff is really dubiously priced, like Land Raiders, in comparison with kits from other companies of similar complexity, but ultimately I don't want to buy more Games Workshop stuff regardless of the price - if they halved prices I still probably wouldn't get into playing regularly, though I'll still play now and then and haven't, like decided never to buy their stuff again, just that anything they make has to be nice enough to jump over all those hurdles above. As long as they keep releasing laughable garbage like the Khornemower that doesn't seem imminent.
Jehan-reznor wrote: IMOGW takes the same 5$ sweatshop T-shirt made in GWstan stick a GW label on it and says it is costs 50$.
If you wanted to have a dig at GW, their novelty clothes wasn't the way to go. GW do the same thing most other clothing companies do.
That's why i don't buy branded goods, either.
(but i meant it more in general fashion, GW kits aren't the pinnacle of model kit design, lot's of other company, have just as detailed kits for the same price or cheaper).
Competition from less complex games - Ultimately I only actively played 40k from 2009 until early 2012. When the 6th edition rulebook came out, I did not order it and I followed the threads discussing it. It seems the ruleset has become even more convoluted, even less intuitive, and it took me so long to get the intricacies of 5th edition down I simply had no appetite for learning it all over again. I'd rather play Space Hulk or Last Night on Earth or Arkham Horror or something that doesn't literally require 40 minutes of setup, 3 hours of playtime, and another 30 minutes of putting it all away again.
You must be playing a much better version of Arkham Horror than I am. Setup for that game is a bitch.
sennacherib wrote: I love mini,s gaming but right now i feel like I cant really afford things.
If you love miniature gaming there are far cheaper, far better options for you.
And of course "better options" is completely subjective.
Uhh... Not if the person's concern is price. Then it's 100% objective. As objective as any greater-than/less-than comparison of two numbers in mathematics.
It's an objective fact that if someone is looking to spend less on a gaming experience that there are options that meet that goal in a way that is better than GW's products.
It doesn't matter if you don't value the same things as sennacherib or fishy bob. If getting into miniature gaming while spending less money is the goal, then there are real, objective means of getting there. Even if it means you end up introducing factors that you personally might see as deal breakers.
A cheap gaming package:
$5 pack of 54mm army men
$7 of craft paint from the dollar store or Michaels or walmart something. A grey, an olive green, a black, a flesh tone, a brown.
$4 craft store paint on varnish
$8 flat flannel sheet in the right colour for the ground as a drop cloth
$5 pack of cheap arts and crafts brushes
$1 dollar store dice
$1 dollar store tape measure or ruler
$1 dollar store dish soap
$1 dollar store craft sand
$1 dollar store poker chips
$1 dollar store super glue
$10 of various containers, felt sheets and other terrain materials
FREE - Chain Reaction 3.0 or FUBAR miniature gaming rules
Step 1: Take the plastic toy soldiers and wash them with a very, very heavy amount of the dish soap. Then rinse them off and dry them.
Step 2: Superglue them to poker chips
Step 3: Using craft paint as glue, affix the sand to the bases
Step 4: Paint on a primer coat of the craft acrylics.
Step 5: Paint half of the soldiers with one colour uniforms and the other half another.
Step 6: Paint all the other areas as normal
Step 7: Paint & drybrush bases and allow to dry
Step 8: Brush on craft store matte varnish
Step 10: Paint and drybrush the various containers and whatnot as terrain
Step 11: Download rules and get playing
Total cost: $45 with terrain, figures, paint and rules, dice, etc.,. If you're willing to spend another $25, you can get two separate boxes of 1/32 scale figures and have historical opposing forces rather than just dividing up some toy soldiers. You could also cut $10 of terrain materials out if you are willing to use scavenged goods like food containers and cereal box card.
Whether or not it accomplishes your goals for miniature wargaming is indeed subjective. Whether or not it accomplishes the goal of costing less than GW is objective. And if this is the worst option, then fishy bob was 100% right with his statement. In the objective sense. Goals and preferences are subjective, but when it comes down to comparing numbers, we've moved into the objective.
There simply is no reason why price should keep people out of the hobby of miniature wargaming, even if it does keep them out of "The Games Workshop Hobby (TM)."
sennacherib wrote: I love mini,s gaming but right now i feel like I cant really afford things.
If you love miniature gaming there are far cheaper, far better options for you.
And of course "better options" is completely subjective.
Uhh... Not if the person's concern is price. Then it's 100% objective. As objective as any greater-than/less-than comparison of two numbers in mathematics.
It's an objective fact that if someone is looking to spend less on a gaming experience that there are options that meet that goal in a way that is better than GW's products.
The construction of the sentence, "If you love miniature gaming there are far cheaper, far better options for you" leads the average reader to read cheaper and better to be two separate qualifiers. You have options and these options are far cheaper and far better. Cheaper is not a quality of better in this case, and better is not a quality of cheaper, both are equal and apt descriptors of options. So while I agree if price is your only concern, a cheaper game is a better game, but if you're looking for a game better than GW games that is also cheaper, then you have to find a game that costs less (objective) and is better suited for you and what you want out of mini games (subjective).
People also refuse to acknowledge the fact that what games you can actually get in locally has a ton of bearing on the "worth" of said game.
If I really loved Infinity, but had to drive over an hour to get to the store where I could actually play the game (so two hours driving total) would it still be "worth it" for me? Would that savings on the model cost and army size still be "worth the squeeze," as it were?
Of course there are CHEAPER options, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're better for you, unless your only standard of value is cost.
The construction of the sentence, "If you love miniature gaming there are far cheaper, far better options for you" leads the average reader to read cheaper and better to be two separate qualifiers. You have options and these options are far cheaper and far better.
Sure. I read "better for you" as the second factor though and if that's the only one Cincy is talking about then pointing out that "better for you" is subjective is pretty much a tautology and a statement of the obvious that has no rhetorical weight except to muddy the waters.
This just in... personal opinions are subjective. Therefore discussions about price are subjective.
Um.. no. You can actually compare numbers. I really hope this wasn't what Cincy was trying to imply.
If I really loved Infinity, but had to drive over an hour to get to the store where I could actually play the game (so two hours driving total) would it still be "worth it" for me? Would that savings on the model cost and army size still be "worth the squeeze," as it were?
Of course there are CHEAPER options, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're better for you, unless your only standard of value is cost.
Absolutely. Thank you for clarifying exactly what you were objecting too. The obvious statement that "better for you" is subjective. But why did you feel the need to point out it was all subjective? Surely it's obvious that "better for you" is subjective? If you start introducing things like driving time to get a game and other entirely idiosyncratic factors, you've made having a meaningful discussion impossible.
Infinity is a worse game than Warhammer 40k because I have to drive two hours to play it.
VS.
Infinity is a better game than Warhammer 40k because I get to have an enjoyable two hour drive when I go play it.
See how it adds nothing and makes the point of comparison idiosyncratic?
People also refuse to acknowledge the fact that what games you can actually get in locally has a ton of bearing on the "worth" of said game.
40k and WFB are dead here. Like nearly completely replaced by Flames of War, Warmachine/Hordes, Dystopian Wars and board games and card games. And while there is a one-person GW store, you can't actually play there except in the 500 point bring and battle events.
People are not "refusing to acknowledge" these sorts of situations. They are simply recognizing that they are idiosyncratic and have no bearing on any sort of discussion that goes beyond the specific situation of an individual. And it's certainly not clear cut that it is always easier to get a game of 40k than something else.
I thought it was strange that I could not find a concrete means of identifying why GW product has "lost value" to me.
Reading carefully some of the longer term gamers of GW product I think I have it figured out.
Like with any product, a name brand has a worth or value they stamp on their product which starting value could be $5 and becomes $50 when branded.
A company with their brand brings more visibility (more people to potentially game with), supporting diversity of product (books, video games, apps), conventions / tournaments / trade shows, and supporting stores = a feeling of community.
I now see GW's brand value as less than Privateer Press or Wizards of the Coast or (shudder) Palladium.
As very well said by other posters: their legal IP attacks, shenanigans with FLGS, reducing or removing store and tournament participation all contribute to creating a less friendly, less marketable brand when compared with others. Rather than compare direct prices of models, compare relative worth between companies of what they offer to you that you appreciate.
There were too many things to count in the past that I REALLY appreciated about GW and so many of those things are gone now. Only the remaining large volume of their customers for me to play games with and a lingering feeling of loyalty (?!?!) seem to be all that remains (some models are really great but very hit or miss).
I had tied my gaming horse to the GW brand and the perceived "hate" is more like a friendly shake followed up with "you have done better than this, what is wrong?".
The "Brand" is no longer worth the price. Plain and simple. Their price changes are not in step with their brand value.
Thanks all for making that a little more clear to me.
I think the idosyncratic factors are important, though.
I think reasonable people can agree that the rules for Infinity and Warmachine are cleaner and better written than for 40k. And I love 40k.
I think that despite that, Infinity can be gakky because there's a lot to keep track of and Warmachine can be gakky because you really have to be cognizant of combos, etc, or you're going to lose.
Basically, I hate the statment "if you're a fan of wargames there are better options for you" than 40k. Because, as I said, it's completely subjective, and thats what I was driving it.
My biggest issue is that, on these forums, we get a lof of "my game is better than yours" when it's entirely unncessary. Want to say it's cheaper? Sure. Fire away. But to definitively say "better" bothers me.
cincydooley wrote: I think reasonable people can agree that the rules for Infinity and Warmachine are cleaner and better written than for 40k. And I love 40k.
I'm currently arguing a few points of unclear game rules in the DCM infinity thread atm, so I find issue with the bolded statement, or I find issue with me being unreasonable
cincydooley wrote: I think the idosyncratic factors are important, though.
I think reasonable people can agree that the rules for Infinity and Warmachine are cleaner and better written than for 40k. And I love 40k.
I think that despite that, Infinity can be gakky because there's a lot to keep track of and Warmachine can be gakky because you really have to be cognizant of combos, etc, or you're going to lose.
Basically, I hate the statment "if you're a fan of wargames there are better options for you" than 40k. Because, as I said, it's completely subjective, and thats what I was driving it.
My biggest issue is that, on these forums, we get a lof of "my game is better than yours" when it's entirely unncessary. Want to say it's cheaper? Sure. Fire away. But to definitively say "better" bothers me.
It's probably a petty concern, but whatevs.
And 40k can be gakky because of all the special rules?
And why do you hate that statement? because it's true? It is not just subjective, if you like skirmish games more, necromunda, more rpg like? Inquisitor More Apocalypse like? Epic, more tactical? first edition warzone, more realistic? tons of historical wargames. so don't be but-hurt that your nr#1 game is not top of the heap anymore.
Clearer and better written does not mean without flaws, or need of improvement.
For me 40k rules are quite badly written so cleaner and better is nothing to brag about.
In any case, what is worth and what isn't worth for each one personally in a moot point one hour drive is long, wow, the nearest gamestore to me is 2 hours drive and most are further away, do I feel carrying the luggage necessary to play 40k worthwhile, no, not really, but this is a really "per person"thing.
Likewise the great GW stores and community some of you are lamenting on loosing is something I, coming from a country that never had or possibly will never have a GW store, see as a "tax" in GW prices the countries that do not have one pay to keep their stores open.
For me as a gamer living in a country outside of GWs interest, most of their brand boons were never valid, no stores, no tournament support, no gamesday or equivalent, what they did have more than a decade ago was some of the best miniatures around, now I feel they have become too much toy-like, they have thrown out the old "fluff" I liked they have brought in a new lesser fluff in my eyes again I feel it appeals to younger audience, they have discarded their metal range, they have obliterated their bits sales, they have cut the ropes with local store, move more of their line to direct only and all that for a higher price.
I have moved forward almost a decade ago, GW is not really for me anymore, there are better things out there more suited to my taste, but I cannot stop and look back to the company that was and the company that has become, count the things gained and the things lost and feel sad for the passing of the (really) old GW.
And why do you hate that statement? because it's true? It is not just subjective, if you like skirmish games more, necromunda, more rpg like? Inquisitor More Apocalypse like? Epic, more tactical? first edition warzone, more realistic? tons of historical wargames. so don't be but-hurt that your nr#1 game is not top of the heap anymore.
There isn't a shred of truth to it because better is a value-based term.
I already intimated why I think 40k is better to me before, so I won't rehash it.
I think Warmachine has better rules. Doesn't mean I think it's a better game.
I don't know what NR#1 means, so I can't really respond to that.
And, quite frankly, you're foolish if you somehow think 40k isn't still at the top of the wargaming heap. Really foolish. Or blind. So which are you?
If you don't feel that you're getting a good "return" on your investment with GW miniatures, then I encourage you to stop. Like any hobby, 40k takes time to build and paint your army and terrain, time to find a game and play with friends or strangers, and money to buy the paint and miniatures and terrain and so on.
If you rarely play, and you don't enjoy painting, and you have sticker shock over some/most/all of the models, then it's probably not the hobby for you.
Find something else. There are plenty of hobbies in the sea. Fishing, surfing, wearing dark sunglasses while you walk along clothing optional beaches, etc...
kronk wrote: If you don't feel that you're getting a good "return" on your investment with GW miniatures, then I encourage you to stop. Like any hobby, 40k takes time to build and paint your army and terrain, time to find a game and play with friends or strangers, and money to buy the paint and miniatures and terrain and so on.
If you rarely play, and you don't enjoy painting, and you have sticker shock over some/most/all of the models, then it's probably not the hobby for you.
Find something else. There are plenty of hobbies in the sea. Fishing, surfing, wearing dark sunglasses while you walk along clothing optional beaches, etc...
kronk wrote: If you don't feel that you're getting a good "return" on your investment with GW miniatures, then I encourage you to stop. Like any hobby, 40k takes time to build and paint your army and terrain, time to find a game and play with friends or strangers, and money to buy the paint and miniatures and terrain and so on.
If you rarely play, and you don't enjoy painting, and you have sticker shock over some/most/all of the models, then it's probably not the hobby for you.
Find something else. There are plenty of hobbies in the sea. Fishing, surfing, wearing dark sunglasses while you walk along clothing optional beaches, etc...
You mean that the entire wargames genre is not for somebody if they feel GW is not worth it?
cincydooley wrote: And, quite frankly, you're foolish if you somehow think 40k isn't still at the top of the wargaming heap. Really foolish. Or blind. So which are you?
Okayyy... there is sufficient "confusion" on what is "top of the heap" so let us stuff our ego back into our pants hmmm?
I present to you a list for Board Game Geek which I keep finding myself at when I am looking at the next emerging game system.
Some evidence here, do you wish to supply a counter proof?
Now calling someone foolish is applying a label, not an avenue for a sound argument.
Open your eyes to new ideas, you might be surprised.
I fail also to see how someone who is blind would be unable to find out what would be a top war-game.
You make it easy to pull-out the "picking on the visibility challenged" card.
You failed to offer a third option from foolish or blind: they see something you do not, not their problem, it is yours.
@ Kronk.
There are lots of other table top war games too.
Just because 40k might not float your boat anymore, does NOT mean you ditch the GREAT TTMG HOBBY!
All the creativity and social interaction can be had playing other game systems and using other companies products.
Just to try to clarify what is subjective and what is not.
Price comparisons are objective.(I object to GW pricing ,lol.)
And rule set can be objectively compared .
They are written instructions on how to play the game. Therefore have a set function.
So the level of complexity of the game play AND the level of complication in the written rules can be compared.
.
In terms of CLARITY , BREVITY ,not to mention elegance, the 40k rule set does not compare well to others .
Game balance?
Satisfied, retained, customers?
Great miniatures?
Expansion of market share?
Seer bulk?
self owned stores?
Achievements relevant to size?
Post tax money relevant to company size?
40k is definitely the biggest most played game out there, that does not mean it is the best out there, or that its success is based on it been the best out there.
For example its bulk having been build uncontested for almost 15 years means players choose it because finding opponents is easy, that has nothing to do with quality of the product just availability, in a similar vein, when the local game stores decide to not take risks in such a problematic economic situation and cope with GW's demands in order to have a "safe" product thus limiting themselves to only GW, with emphasis to 40k, the demand is self build, people will want to play wargames, if there is only this available, they will play it.
What "Top of the heap" is and what this really means differs to what you define as heap and how you measure it.
You mean that the entire wargames genre is not for somebody if they feel GW is not worth it?
Show me where I said to quit the hobby completely.
My response is directed completely at someone that doesn't feel GW meets their needs for the price, since that was the original poster's complaint or observation.
Applying that to all table top gaming is your mistake, not mine.
kronk wrote: If you don't feel that you're getting a good "return" on your investment with GW miniatures, then I encourage you to stop. Like any hobby, 40k takes time to build and paint your army and terrain, time to find a game and play with friends or strangers, and money to buy the paint and miniatures and terrain and so on.
If you rarely play, and you don't enjoy painting, and you have sticker shock over some/most/all of the models, then it's probably not the hobby for you.
Find something else. There are plenty of hobbies in the sea. Fishing, surfing, wearing dark sunglasses while you walk along clothing optional beaches, etc...
Hmm never tried surfing. Fishing I do, and females was my main hobby before wargaming.
cincydooley wrote: Top of the heap implies to me the biggest, most successful.
Which 40k Is.
By Far.
Biggest: Define.GW is quoted to have 400 stores world wide. X-wing is being sold in Target, with 1500 stores in the US alone not including any hobby centers. I have one near me in Canada so they are getting around. My local hobby shop will no longer carry GW (due to their supply practices) but has a ton of X-wing. So your off the cuff statement is "bunk". Turns out "Fantasy Flight Games" is who GW goes to make their board games and role playing games so these guys are big.
Successful: Define: Profitable? Volume? Market Value? Public Awareness? Take a poll on who knows what Star Wars is vs. Warhammer 40k? Games workshop last year had an earnings of 6% of gross but only from infrastructure reduction. Fantasy Flight is a privately owned company so that gives it some advantages since it does not need to cave into investors (but cannot get any financials out of them). They have a license to almost every hot IP out there. Go look:
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_catalogo.asp
Anyway, this is just feeding the Troll, you cannot change a closed mind.
<<edit>> Where did all those extra line feeds come from?....
You mean that the entire wargames genre is not for somebody if they feel GW is not worth it?
Show me where I said to quit the hobby completely.
My response is directed completely at someone that doesn't feel GW meets their needs for the price, since that was the original poster's complaint or observation.
Applying that to all table top gaming is your mistake, not mine.
kronk wrote:If you don't feel that you're getting a good "return" on your investment with GW miniatures, then I encourage you to stop. Like any hobby, 40k takes time to build and paint your army and terrain, time to find a game and play with friends or strangers, and money to buy the paint and miniatures and terrain and so on.
If you rarely play, and you don't enjoy painting, and you have sticker shock over some/most/all of the models, then it's probably not the hobby for you.
Find something else. There are plenty of hobbies in the sea. Fishing, surfing, wearing dark sunglasses while you walk along clothing optional beaches, etc...
I am quite positive the hobby is miniature wargames and not GW or WH40k, suggesting somebody to stop and leave the hobby, then referring to other non miniature related activities, you are directly suggesting the reader to quite the miniatures wargame hobby and start something else.
You could phrase it otherwise, suggesting other miniature wargame related companies, but no, you chose to have quit the hobby and suggest non miniature related activities.
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cincydooley wrote: Okay. I'm done arguing semantics and how we define best. Cheers.
its not semantics, its a point of view, if you do not like it, fine.
cincydooley wrote: Okay. I'm done arguing semantics and how we define best. Cheers.
There is no argument about the meaning of "best" it is your unwillingness to provide your criteria.
You do not want to give the impression that by saying "I'm done" you have given up since you have no logical argument?
You have conceded? Lost the argument? Will be more careful of not throwing sweeping generalities?
I was just getting warmed up and was most disappointed you had no data to provide.
I really would hate to think this is all a waste of time now... Ta, ta then...
cincydooley wrote: Okay. I'm done arguing semantics and how we define best. Cheers.
There is no argument about the meaning of "best" it is your unwillingness to provide your criteria.
You do not want to give the impression that by saying "I'm done" you have given up since you have no logical argument?
You have conceded? Lost the argument? Will be more careful of not throwing sweeping generalities?
I was just getting warmed up and was most disappointed you had no data to provide.
I really would hate to think this is all a waste of time now... Ta, ta then...
Here's your data, sir:
www.icv2.com/articles/news/26216.html
Now, they're a touch old and I don't completely prescribe to them because they leave out direct from the publisher sales (of which would only assuredly support GW more than Privateer or Fantasyn Flight) but there it is for you. In black and white.
So as you can see, I have plenty of support for a "logical argument". 40k is the largest and most popular wargame in terms of sales. I can't categorically say it has more players, but based on the sales and the length it's existed, I'd make an educated assumption that it does.
What I'm done arguing the semantics of is the word "best" or "better" or any other phrasing that is inherently subjective.
And, quite frankly, you're foolish if you somehow think 40k isn't still at the top of the wargaming heap. Really foolish. Or blind. So which are you?
Given that GW has halved their production staff and in a period where prices doubled, revenues have stayed flat, I think it's fair to say that GW has half the market share they did a decade ago. Then add in that Jervis said that two-thirds of GW's customers don't actually play their game and you have those who actually play 40k representing about a sixth of the market*.
Wooo!! 17%! That's market domination! Top of the heap indeed.
* This also makes a huge amount of assumptions in GW and 40k's favor.
I think it is fair to say that Games Workshop has a massive, though stagnant or diminishing, share of the fantasy table-top wargaming market.
Games Workshop has been the largest, oldest, and most successful (in terms of unit sales) table-top fantasy wargaming company for a long while, and at the moment probably remains so.
I think it is debatable whether or for how long Games Workshop will remain on the "top of the heap" in terms of table-top fantasy wargaming. The size of the heap is growing daily, but market share of the kind Games Workshop has does not evaporate overnight.
The bulk of Games Workshop's revenue comes directly from fantasy table-top wargaming, as opposed to Fantasy Flight Games, for example. And a portion of FFG's revenue is tied to products made under license from Games Workshop that are not related to fantasy table-top wargaming.
So, for the nonce (meaning the last point of semi-reliable data), I would hope that we could all at least agree that strictly in terms of both revenue and unit sales related directly to the narrow category of table-top fantasy wargaming products, Games Workshop maintains the largest slice of the pie.
At the end of the day it is all guesswork, as aside from Games Workshop most companies producing table-top fantasy wargaming products are privately owned. But taking into consideration the icv2 data, anecdotal information, Games Workshop's revenue and unit sales (50% of which Games Workshop has said relates directly to Warhammer 40,000 table-top wargaming products), and reasonable inferences regarding the size of the nearest competitors (Privateer Press, Cool Mini or Not, Wyrd, etc.), I think it is more reasonable than not to assume Games Workshop has the largest single share of the table-top fantasy wargaming market in the United States.
And, quite frankly, you're foolish if you somehow think 40k isn't still at the top of the wargaming heap. Really foolish. Or blind. So which are you?
Given that GW has halved their production staff and in a period where prices doubled, revenues have stayed flat, I think it's fair to say that GW has half the market share they did a decade ago. Then add in that Jervis said that two-thirds of GW's customers don't actually play their game and you have those who actually play 40k representing about a sixth of the market*.
Wooo!! 17%! That's market domination! Top of the heap indeed.
* This also makes a huge amount of assumptions in GW and 40k's favor.
Games workshops market is the gw ip. How could they have lost market share?
Competition from less complex games - Ultimately I only actively played 40k from 2009 until early 2012. When the 6th edition rulebook came out, I did not order it and I followed the threads discussing it. It seems the ruleset has become even more convoluted, even less intuitive, and it took me so long to get the intricacies of 5th edition down I simply had no appetite for learning it all over again. I'd rather play Space Hulk or Last Night on Earth or Arkham Horror or something that doesn't literally require 40 minutes of setup, 3 hours of playtime, and another 30 minutes of putting it all away again.
You must be playing a much better version of Arkham Horror than I am. Setup for that game is a bitch.
Rubber bands and sandwhich baggies are your friends! We play with the Kingsport, Dunwitch, Dark Pharoah, Black Goat and King in Yellow expansions (havent bought innsmouth yet) and we've got it down to probably 10-15 mins. The random junk you dont routinely need (blessings, sheriff of arkham, retainer, etc) are all clipped separately in one bag so we only pull those if they actually come up.
here we are for dakka's weekly "who else hates GW?" thread. They are mostly all the same, thinly-veiled with different titles.
I"m here to help break the echo-chamber.
Prices have gone up...so buy less. $50 for a kit is not a problem if you aren't the type of player who simply buys the newest power army (which you probably won't even paint anyway). And if you can't spare $50 a month you are definitely in the wrong hobby, because that is pretty affordable with even a part-time job. Spend more time on your kits and get your money's worth instead of just slapping them together like toys.
Also, I am tired of subjective statements being taken for granted and going unchallenged. "Gundam kits are superior quality to GW." In what way? Certainly not in terms of customization (gundam kit builds the exact gundam shown on the box, very little customization and mixing of parts). The quality of plastic is something that I doubt very many people here are even qualified to comment on without being a chemist, so we'll leave that open. Mold lines? Gundam kits have those too. Scale issues? Possibly, but that doesn't automatically equate to a "superior kit." In fact, it's really closer to a design decision than one of implementation.
And how much does your $100 investment in the gundam get you? You have a model you can put on your shelf to look nice. The wraithknight and riptides you deride in comparison can function as display pieces, but are ALSO usable in as many games as you can fit into your schedule. You can take them to any store that runs GW games and be able to use them. GW offers ubiquity for the gamer; Gundam is purely for the modeler. GW, satisfying both the modeler and the gamer, gets the advantage from me.
And why is this always framed against GW alone? Where is the comparison between Gundam kits and PP's single pose, flat resin bricks they call colossi? I'll tell you why, it's because the people who post these kinds of things are purely pushing an anti-GW agenda/rant, not interested in real discussion.
775B53 wrote: here we are for dakka's weekly "who else hates GW?" thread. They are mostly all the same, thinly-veiled with different titles.
I"m here to help break the echo-chamber.
Prices have gone up...so buy less. $50 for a kit is not a problem if you aren't the type of player who simply buys the newest power army (which you probably won't even paint anyway). And if you can't spare $50 a month you are definitely in the wrong hobby, because that is pretty affordable with even a part-time job. Spend more time on your kits and get your money's worth instead of just slapping them together like toys.
Also, I am tired of subjective statements being taken for granted and going unchallenged. "Gundam kits are superior quality to GW." In what way? Certainly not in terms of customization (gundam kit builds the exact gundam shown on the box, very little customization and mixing of parts). The quality of plastic is something that I doubt very many people here are even qualified to comment on without being a chemist, so we'll leave that open. Mold lines? Gundam kits have those too. Scale issues? Possibly, but that doesn't automatically equate to a "superior kit." In fact, it's really closer to a design decision than one of implementation.
And how much does your $100 investment in the gundam get you? You have a model you can put on your shelf to look nice. The wraithknight and riptides you deride in comparison can function as display pieces, but are ALSO usable in as many games as you can fit into your schedule. You can take them to any store that runs GW games and be able to use them. GW offers ubiquity for the gamer; Gundam is purely for the modeler. GW, satisfying both the modeler and the gamer, gets the advantage from me.
And why is this always framed against GW alone? Where is the comparison between Gundam kits and PP's single pose, flat resin bricks they call colossi? I'll tell you why, it's because the people who post these kinds of things are purely pushing an anti-GW agenda/rant, not interested in real discussion.
Yeah, people either like it or hate it, not much you can do.
775B53 wrote: here we are for dakka's weekly "who else hates GW?" thread. They are mostly all the same, thinly-veiled with different titles.
I"m here to help break the echo-chamber.
Prices have gone up...so buy less. $50 for a kit is not a problem if you aren't the type of player who simply buys the newest power army (which you probably won't even paint anyway). And if you can't spare $50 a month you are definitely in the wrong hobby, because that is pretty affordable with even a part-time job. Spend more time on your kits and get your money's worth instead of just slapping them together like toys.
Or, alternatively, spend that same money on something that represents better value to me? I'd much rather spend that same money on some X Wing stuff, or a Mierce monster, or some Infinity. Not because any of those things cost significant amounts less, in some cases more, but they represent better value to me. The cost here is not the heart of the debate, its the value more and more people are finding lacking in comparison to other products.
Also, I am tired of subjective statements being taken for granted and going unchallenged. "Gundam kits are superior quality to GW." In what way? Certainly not in terms of customization (gundam kit builds the exact gundam shown on the box, very little customization and mixing of parts). The quality of plastic is something that I doubt very many people here are even qualified to comment on without being a chemist, so we'll leave that open. Mold lines? Gundam kits have those too. Scale issues? Possibly, but that doesn't automatically equate to a "superior kit." In fact, it's really closer to a design decision than one of implementation.
And how much does your $100 investment in the gundam get you? You have a model you can put on your shelf to look nice. The wraithknight and riptides you deride in comparison can function as display pieces, but are ALSO usable in as many games as you can fit into your schedule. You can take them to any store that runs GW games and be able to use them. GW offers ubiquity for the gamer; Gundam is purely for the modeler. GW, satisfying both the modeler and the gamer, gets the advantage from me.
Ok, lets boil it down to this. Gundam kits are produced in an identical way to GW kits. They have more pieces, in multiple colours and just way more plastic in the box. Therefore, if they are sold at comparatively lower prices, with a high likelihood of very similar development and production costs, what other reasonable conclusion is there other than GW stuff is overpriced? The use of the kit afterwards has no bearing on the cost to make it, and frankly is a very thin excuse for price gouging.
And why is this always framed against GW alone? Where is the comparison between Gundam kits and PP's single pose, flat resin bricks they call colossi? I'll tell you why, it's because the people who post these kinds of things are purely pushing an anti-GW agenda/rant, not interested in real discussion.
I don't like PP models, so I don't buy them either! I'm not anti GW, i have no agenda, i am just frustrated by GW's actions and what i see as woeful underachievement in comparison to where they could be and what they could be doing. The reason you won't read many posts from me criticising PP is that they are much better at simply not antagonising either their fans or the market at large (or even random non-wargamers, something that can't be said of GW)
Edit: There really isn't anything new in your assertions either, so rather than breaking the echo chamber, you've just perpetuated it.
MarsNZ wrote: So once you've posed your new Gundam a couple of different ways what are you going to do with it?
I budget, stick to one army, don't change factions like underwear and I manage with NZ pricing and a student income.
I'm the same. I've had SW since I started playing 6 years ago. I got around £200 worth of old unpainted marines (tact squads, some chars, dreads, rhinos, razors etc) for quarter price off a mate then.
I got a 13th company box set, a blood claw box set at the time, I've had people get my Logan/Njal/Thunderwolves for Bdays/Xmas, and I think I've bought a few other models (terminators, long fangs, powerfist dudes, landspeeder, landraider etc) off ebay and repainted them.
I'd say I've spent 100 quid or less on models with them since I started up, and that's including most of the gifts. They've had money off me for codex/rulebooks (5th/6th) but that amounts to about 100-150, and actually their books are worth the price IMO. I buy painting gear third hand.
As you say, it's all about budgetting, looking for a bargain and not swapping armies constantly. If you stick to one army, you get to play many different and competitive builds with it apart from anything else, you get proficient with it, and it costs a hell of a lot less.
I think the difference can be whether people are painters or not. I don't paint for pleasure, it's the playing that I like, so I don't buy more models all the time to get my painting fix. If people are heavily into painting and the modelling side of the hobby I imagine it can get very expensive!
avantgarde wrote: Y'all are missing the main point of the article. Assigning car companies to TT games.
Actually what's funny is while I was working at GW I remember our regional manager say that "do you ever see Porsche have sales? We are a premium product", and years after I left the company I hear echoes of that from managers and their employees every once and a while.
Long story short, GW is more like Jaguar, a sometimes pretty overpriced pile of British junk that thinks its the king of the world and only douchers with too much money and too little sense defend.
avantgarde wrote: Y'all are missing the main point of the article. Assigning car companies to TT games.
Actually what's funny is while I was working at GW I remember our regional manager say that "do you ever see Porsche have sales? We are a premium product", and years after I left the company I hear echoes of that from managers and their employees every once and a while.
Long story short, GW is more like Jaguar, a sometimes pretty overpriced pile of British junk that thinks its the king of the world and only douchers with too much money and too little sense defend.
With the exception that since it was bought by the Indians, Jaguar, and Range Rover, has been going from strength to strength and has produced some awesome cars?
70s and 80s Jaguar, fair comparison, present day, not so much.
In truth, Mercedes is probably the closest to what you describe at the moment.
Not disagreeing with your point, just the content of your analogy!
I didn't really solve this problem because i just started buying Death Korps of Krieg, in other words Forge world!!!! hahaha, but i mainly buy stuff from other people, not as much fro forge world directly.. brand new of any of my models is 60 bucks for a squad of 10 guardsmen w/o shipping!! and its supposed to be a hoard army... :/ but its my choice so i cant complain, i just like the models and their fluff to much... DKOK rule!
frozenwastes wrote: Given that GW has halved their production staff and in a period where prices doubled, revenues have stayed flat, I think it's fair to say that GW has half the market share they did a decade ago. Then add in that Jervis said that two-thirds of GW's customers don't actually play their game and you have those who actually play 40k representing about a sixth of the market*.
This math's a bit rubbish, isn't it? It confuses market share with sales and with revenue, and doesn't even try to account for any confounders like loss leaders or structural changes. It's just full steam ahead, throw some numbers in a blender and damn the context!
By the logic of this post, any time GW sells a miniature, it's losing market share to itself. The process that settled on 17% market share is analogous to comparing a 10-year-old picture of a dog to a hamster and concluding that trains have gotten much faster. The comparisons make no sense and the conclusion simply doesn't follow.
Here's your data, sir:
www.icv2.com/articles/news/26216.html
Now, they're a touch old and I don't completely prescribe to them because they leave out direct from the publisher sales (of which would only assuredly support GW more than Privateer or Fantasyn Flight) but there it is for you. In black and white.
So as you can see, I have plenty of support for a "logical argument". 40k is the largest and most popular wargame in terms of sales. I can't categorically say it has more players, but based on the sales and the length it's existed, I'd make an educated assumption that it does.
What I'm done arguing the semantics of is the word "best" or "better" or any other phrasing that is inherently subjective.
You looked for some subjective group as well to list, that is good to see. Those guys used to be an investment group that was granted bankruptcy in 2004.
Alot can happen in 8 years and I cannot find their means of measure other than calling and interviewing retailers.
The board game geeks are probably not much better (I think their measurement was more on degree of fun).
You would not be off the hook on the "black and white" since GW's reports to investors give clearer performance and Privateer is privately owned so they are not required to give a shred of data.
I had shown earlier that by delivery chain alone GW can be easily outperformed (3.75 times more stores than them in one region!) since they still want to control their "experience" but it has been reduced to little more come-in-buy and go so distribution to Target could be the next plan!
Through weight of history of product still out there you would have a good argument. Could take all the pieces and create an island in the middle of the Pacific.
This at least is a much more mature argument than name calling so I say "thanks for the respect, and looking more into it". My primary game IS GW's 40k but I find myself moving away from it and always asking why that is happening.
Many of the newer companies do not quite have the weight of sales of GW but they are catching up in a huge way and if GW primarily uses Privateer as their "spin-off" products while they also have a ton of primary product, I can easily see them outgrowing GW in two years.
Want to shake on that prediction? (easy bet unless they incorporate soon and we get some real numbers)
Actually, it's in GW's favor as it assumes 100% of their sales is 40k.
It confuses market share with sales and with revenue, and doesn't even try to account for any confounders like loss leaders or structural changes. It's just full steam ahead, throw some numbers in a blender and damn the context!
The market share can only be guessed at, but we do know for sure that GW has less of it, likely a lot less of it, than a decade ago. The revenue being flat with prices doubling and the halving of production staff is just further evidence that GW's volume of units sold has also declined by around half.
By the logic of this post, any time GW sells a miniature, it's losing market share to itself.
Where are you getting this from? That doesn't make any sense. The only thing I presented was a few different factors that might lead one to believe that GW is half the size they used to be in terms of units sold.
The process that settled on 17% market share is analogous to comparing a 10-year-old picture of a dog to a hamster and concluding that trains have gotten much faster. The comparisons make no sense and the conclusion simply doesn't follow.
Considering how badly you misunderstood what I was saying, I'm not surprised you see it that way.
Do you think it's unreasonable to assume that probably around 1 out of 6 hobby gamers play 40k? I mean *actually play* not buy and build and paint and never play. Actually play. Not one of the majority that Jervis called "craft hobbyists" who don't play. Just those who play. I think it's very, very reasonable.
cincydooley wrote: Okay. I'm done arguing semantics and how we define best. Cheers.
There is no argument about the meaning of "best" it is your unwillingness to provide your criteria.
You do not want to give the impression that by saying "I'm done" you have given up since you have no logical argument?
You have conceded? Lost the argument? Will be more careful of not throwing sweeping generalities?
I was just getting warmed up and was most disappointed you had no data to provide.
I really would hate to think this is all a waste of time now... Ta, ta then...
Here's your data, sir:
www.icv2.com/articles/news/26216.html
Now, they're a touch old and I don't completely prescribe to them because they leave out direct from the publisher sales (of which would only assuredly support GW more than Privateer or Fantasyn Flight) but there it is for you. In black and white.
So as you can see, I have plenty of support for a "logical argument". 40k is the largest and most popular wargame in terms of sales. I can't categorically say it has more players, but based on the sales and the length it's existed, I'd make an educated assumption that it does.
What I'm done arguing the semantics of is the word "best" or "better" or any other phrasing that is inherently subjective.
Well, 40k is #1 for sales, but that doesn't really reflect much data. There's no info on how close Warmachine is to that number or how far away. Given X-Wing's explosive popularity and hard driving sales in the last year and it's #3, they may be very close or there may still be significant distance. Further more, it doesn't show that 40k is in growth or is shrinking which is the better indicator of GW's quality. A large player base isn't going to suddenly disappear, but it is likely to slowly erode away to better offerings as it becomes more informed of the market. Many people on this forum cite that they stick with 40k because of the ease to get a game. That doesn't foster a healthy happy player base, though it is likely a small portion. Being large is a small overall determinant in terms of how good something is, especially if the size is waning. I mean, would you say Walmart is the best because it is a large company? It's just insufficient criteria.
Length it's existed isn't really a good indicator either. D&D has been around longer than Warhammer, does that make it better? Would you say that D&D is the best RPG because of it's age? If age determines how good something is, then BattleTech is better than 40k, but WHF is better than BTech. GW survived the 90s which was a big hit to the industry as a whole with the pokemon bubble. Many companies got culled then and many are just starting now. Are new companies ruled out from being as good or better than 40k because they're new? Age isn't a good criteria in how good something is unless it's scotch.
Do you think it's unreasonable to assume that probably around 1 out of 6 hobby gamers play 40k? I mean *actually play* not buy and build and paint and never play. Actually play. Not one of the majority that Jervis called "craft hobbyists" who don't play. Just those who play. I think it's very, very reasonable.
My point is that you can't determine market share from comparing company A's figures vs. ... company A's figures.
What you're saying is, "Only 1 in 3 models bought from GW are played with, and GW's sales have been halved; therefore, only 1 in 6 of all wargamers plays GW games." Can't you see how that's a non sequitur conclusion?
And, quite frankly, you're foolish if you somehow think 40k isn't still at the top of the wargaming heap. Really foolish. Or blind. So which are you?
Given that GW has halved their production staff and in a period where prices doubled, revenues have stayed flat, I think it's fair to say that GW has half the market share they did a decade ago. T.
OK - give us some figures. This is just another myth that lazily gets propagated here.
1: You're saying GW has halved production staff. The actual evidence is they have recruited more design staff; that's why there are more new models coming out
3: We keep hearing GW prices have doubled. A very small proportion of units might have. But plenty have stayed flat. The "truisms" bandied around here of units that have doubled in price rarely have, for instance the much-touted LOTR "doubling" which was actually a 33% increase (which I suspect is down to new licensing costs). Maybe we need to have a pricing thread with real information.
Overall, there's no real evidence that GW's market share has halved. You're showing classic selection bias.
Not denying GW can be a pain in the butt, but casual meaningless generalisations are like the pessimist's version of the "this is great news" meme.
Hivefleet Oblivion wrote: 3: We keep hearing GW prices have doubled. A very small proportion of units might have. But plenty have stayed flat. The "truisms" bandied around here of units that have doubled in price rarely have, for instance the much-touted LOTR "doubling" which was actually a 33% increase (which I suspect is down to new licensing costs). Maybe we need to have a pricing thread with real information.
That link means nothing, it is a rumour from a redshirt before the actual event occurred. LotR boxes are $37aud for 12, they used to be $35aud for 24. It is a an unarguable fact that (at the very least in Australia) prices have more than doubled.
There might not be solid evidence that is has halved but GW as a company grew 6% last year. The industry itself grew 15%, a whole 9% ahead of GW. That is a clear and undeniable indication that GW are losing their market share at a decent rate.
Do you think it's unreasonable to assume that probably around 1 out of 6 hobby gamers play 40k? I mean *actually play* not buy and build and paint and never play. Actually play. Not one of the majority that Jervis called "craft hobbyists" who don't play. Just those who play. I think it's very, very reasonable.
My point is that you can't determine market share from comparing company A's figures vs. ... company A's figures.
What you're saying is, "Only 1 in 3 models bought from GW are played with, and GW's sales have been halved; therefore, only 1 in 6 of all wargamers plays GW games." Can't you see how that's a non sequitur conclusion?
I am making one assumption that is again in favour of GW. I'm assuming that the market didn't grow or change outside of GW's original height of market share. I'm giving GW the benefit of the doubt that the rest of the industry isn't growing and is only instead holding on to GW's old customers. So yes. I'm honestly making one more needed assumption to get to my estimation. Again, I think I'm making this estimation in 40k's favor.
There's been reports of the hobby gaming industry growing since 2008, which would probably lower the percentage for players of 40k even further.
So yes, I have insufficient information to say "therefore only 1 in 6" but I do have sufficient information to say "probably in the area of around 1 in 6, assuming all sorts of stuff that would make that number better for 40k, not worse." I'm assuming the competition only takes GW's market share and doesn't grow their own customer base. I'm assuming 100% of GW's sales go to 40k players and I'm assuming that GW's sales are as evenly distributed as possible to as many people as possible that would allow any who would play 40k to have the models to do so.
I also believe that the GW player base is not evenly distributed geographically. I think there are pockets of activity in major cities as well as a concentration in the EU and the UK specifically. Even in the much vaunted GW stronghold of Chicago, there is insufficient sales at the Battle Bunker to keep it open. And Chicago was special enough to GW for them to justify to the courts tha CHS lawsuit should be in that jurisdiction.
That link means nothing, it is a rumour from a redshirt before the actual event occurred. LotR boxes are $37aud for 12, they used to be $35aud for 24. It is a an unarguable fact that (at the very least in Australia) prices have more than doubled.
I feel for you, but it a fact that UKLOTR box prices went up by exactly 33%. So please don't go quoting the 'fact" that prices have doubled when they have done so only in one territory, which sadly suffers from excessive costs. Not denying that 33% is painful if you play LOTR of course. (On the bright side, we sold our old figs for lots of £££).
Overall, there's no real evidence that GW's market share has halved
There might not be solid evidence that is has halved but GW as a company grew 6% last year. The industry itself grew 15%, a whole 9% ahead of GW. That is a clear and undeniable indication that GW are losing their market share at a decent rate.
Glad to see people acknowledge that the claim GW's market share has halved is ridiculous .
Wold be very interested to see worldwide figures for the gaming industry. Where are yours from?
I'm not picking a fight here, but if people are going to diss GW, it's more effective doing so with realistic figures rather than fantasy ones, which are the ones that seem to get repeated.
OK - give us some figures. This is just another myth that lazily gets propagated here.
No, it's from their own financial reports. Or do you think the fact that the Memphis production centre is closed is a myth?
3: We keep hearing GW prices have doubled. A very small proportion of units might have. But plenty have stayed flat.
Please bear in mind that I am talking over a long period of time. And it's actually a very large amount of items that have doubled in price. But I'm willing to split the difference and accept a lower percentage as things like metal-to-plastic and repackaging with different model counts makes things fuzzy. What would be fair for you? 75%? And since what date? I'm thinking of since GW's height for 40k of around 2000, but would be willing to go with 2004-5 as well as I believe LOTR sales masked a slow decline in 40k and WFB.
Overall, there's no real evidence that GW's market share has halved. You're showing classic selection bias.
I believe you are the one doing that in your constant dismissal of facts like the Memphis production centre closing and the numbers in GW's own financials. You want GW to be awesome, so you're ignoring all the bad things. Classic selection bias.
OK - give us some figures. This is just another myth that lazily gets propagated here.
No, it's from their own financial reports. Or do you think the fact that the Memphis production centre is closed is a myth?
I believe you are the one doing that in your constant dismissal of facts like the Memphis production centre closing and the numbers in GW's own financials. You want GW to be awesome, so you're ignoring all the bad things. Classic selection bias.
Who said GW is awesome? Funny how simply pointing out inconsistencies in people's arguments, not necessarily yours, attracts this kind of illogical response.
Overall, there's no evidence presented here by you, or anyone, of the claim that "GW's market share has halved." The numbers in GW's own financials are good enough that they're easily outperforming the leisure market, as shown in the link above. Memphis closed because they were centralising production - there's no evidence production of kits is actually down, because in Nottingham, they have bought more machinery, as mentioned by the designers in the link above.
I'm quite prepared to accept GW are losing market share. But there's no evidence that they're in a terrible shape, their own financials show they're in a pretty good shape, and the reaction of some people to suggestions that it's not as bad as they say, that any arguments to the contrart come from people "who want GW to be awesome" maybe indicates how thin their case actually is.
And now you're doing the same thing you accuse me of again. No where did I say GW was in terrible shape. GW is profitable and has managed the shrinking of production quite well, cutting costs and protecting their margins to support their revenue despite selling less individual kits.
My point is this: The 40k player base is a shadow of its former glory. The distribution of 40k players being UK centric might make it look like everything is fine from your perspective, but it's not. In many, many places if you wanted to get into a miniature wargame and actually have people to play against, 40k was the obvious no-brainer choice. Now that's not the case anymore. It's still widely played in many areas, but it's no longer fair to say "play 40k, you'll find lots of opponents" in any degree like it was in the early 2000s.
Basically getting into 40k now, in many areas where it used to be the dominate game, is investing in a declining player base. Everyone's local situation is going to be different, but unless you are in the UK, some places in the EU and certain cities elsewhere in the world, it's simply no longer true.
Games Workshop prices have gone from expensive to completely ridiculous. Where I live, two years ago, I decided to start an eldar army. Dire Avengerscost 55 dollars AU for 10, codex eldar cost 41 dollars. Now having come back to "wargamming" after a hiatus of a year. I find that you now get 5 direavengers for 55 dollars and the new codex cost 83 dollars. 200% more! The only explanation is excessive greed.
Plus they pull all the paint advice from their website and no longer include painting guides in there starter sets, so you can go fork out for "How to paint citadel miniatures". (Not that I really need any of that stuff, just annoys me).
ATM I'm really looking at flames of war as people say the game is good, and the newer miniatures, like those that come with open fire, look nice. It's a lot cheaper then GW and they offer alot of painting and gaming advice for free.
I simply must not live in one of these areas of declining player bases. Our Local GW has 18 people signed up for an In store Fantasy Slow grow league. And yes, I said in store.
Yeah its exspensive but idk i feel i get my moneys worth, even more so in the past years of price increase ive started painting so much more. the time i spend assembling converting and painting each model i barely have a few units finished after years of collecting. I mainly play with my wife and best friend so its all just for fun. I have considered other games but i find you mainly live to your means, ill just spend the money i save on someother crap, god forbid i go back to spending on unmentionables.
Yeah. The prices are finally getting too high even for me. I also agree with a lot of accusations that they've fallen out of touch with their player base and are generally behaving like bullies.
I don't hate GW. They've got a right to pursue a profit via whatever means they deem most effective. But, my spending on 40k has decreased this year, as I just can't justify shelling out these kinds of prices any more.
The fact that they didn't do an annual price increase does suggest that they finally reached the push-back point with their prices. So we'll see how things shape up.
All it points to is that with each codex release they increase the cost of comparably sized kits...they haven't stopped raising prices, they've just gotten more sneaky about it.
I have the disposable income for warhammer, but i haven't spent any money on it in months because it's just too expensive for what you get.
You mean that the entire wargames genre is not for somebody if they feel GW is not worth it?
Show me where I said to quit the hobby completely.
My response is directed completely at someone that doesn't feel GW meets their needs for the price, since that was the original poster's complaint or observation.
Applying that to all table top gaming is your mistake, not mine.
kronk wrote:If you don't feel that you're getting a good "return" on your investment with GW miniatures, then I encourage you to stop. Like any hobby, 40k takes time to build and paint your army and terrain, time to find a game and play with friends or strangers, and money to buy the paint and miniatures and terrain and so on.
If you rarely play, and you don't enjoy painting, and you have sticker shock over some/most/all of the models, then it's probably not the hobby for you.
Find something else. There are plenty of hobbies in the sea. Fishing, surfing, wearing dark sunglasses while you walk along clothing optional beaches, etc...
I am quite positive the hobby is miniature wargames and not GW or WH40k, suggesting somebody to stop and leave the hobby, then referring to other non miniature related activities, you are directly suggesting the reader to quite the miniatures wargame hobby and start something else.
You could phrase it otherwise, suggesting other miniature wargame related companies, but no, you chose to have quit the hobby and suggest non miniature related activities.
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cincydooley wrote: Okay. I'm done arguing semantics and how we define best. Cheers.
its not semantics, its a point of view, if you do not like it, fine.
See, your problem is arguing with a white, er, red knight like CD. I've read enough of his posts to see he's a GW fanboi through and through, and there is no changing his mind. I'm like you: I find X-Wing to be far better, both in locations sold, gameplay, and people's interest. I have friends who won't touch 40k, but clamor for X-Wing. GW is a dying company in my old neck of the woods, and X-Wing is growing expansively. It will overtake 40k monetarily in the near future. Some people just won't see it, because they are convinced they can't ever be wrong.
See, your problem is that you either missed or ignored all the previous posts in this thread where I pointed out some of the problems GW has and the fact that I've spent considerably less on GW in the past two years.
And of "all the posts [of mine]" that you read you must have also missed or ignored all of the ones waxing poetic about other game systems.
But you know, ignorant blanket statements and lazily calling people "fanbois" is fun and easy.
Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. In a rapidly growing market, stagnation (at best - rising prioces, slashing costs, increasing alternate revenue streams, and flat revenue is a pretty good indication of declining unit sales in what matters: table-top miniature wargaming) is a serious problem, and absolutely equates to a sharp decline in market share. If the pie gets bigger, but your piece doesn't get bigger, your share of the pie is smaller.
Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. .
Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. .
Great news!
Where are the stats?
The massive increase in the number of wargames and wargame companies in that last few years would indicate that. You know there are no cohesive stats on this as there is not enough public companies to warrant interest in this matter for statistical analysis. The unorganized nature of FLGS's and the large number of small miniature companies makes it even harder to obtain accurate information.
Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. .
Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. .
cincydooley wrote:I simply must not live in one of these areas of declining player bases. Our Local GW has 18 people signed up for an In store Fantasy Slow grow league. And yes, I said in store.
That's fantastic. If the approach continues to work, then the manager won't hit a sales dry spell and either be replaced or encouraged by the higher ups to clear the vets and not allow gaming in the store anymore. Either way, I'd highly recommend swapping contact info with the other players so that if the store suddenly changes to no in-store gaming, you can form a club or something.
I just found out yesterday that the last non-GW store in the area that carries their stuff has switched over to special order and pre-order only. They'll bring in what people pre-order and place a GW order when the special orders hit their minimum order values, but are not stocking any product beyond what they have (and when people shirk on their special/pre-orders). A friend of mine also goes to their weekly 40k night and there were 2 other people and the rest of the tables were being used by MTG players doing a draft. The owner started an organized MTG event on the same day because no one was coming for 40k.
Anyone gaming at a local GW store should definitely exchange contact info because policies can change with little notice and if you have a local store that runs a 40k night, show up and do your buying then and there or it'll get replaced with something else.
weeble1000 wrote:If the pie gets bigger, but your piece doesn't get bigger, your share of the pie is smaller.
But this can be easily dismissed by a demand for evidence that is unreasonably high. And then hand waved away with a "you don't have exact numbers for every other company so it must be that GW is doing great!" Just like how closing the Memphis production centre was spun into being "great news." And I'm sure when GW Canada was closed and the Canadian market was handed over to Memphis some years back, that was "great news" as well. After all, if you have to close a national division, it can never be because sales aren't good enough to justify it. And Memphis' production winded down because sales are great!
cincydooley wrote:I simply must not live in one of these areas of declining player bases. Our Local GW has 18 people signed up for an In store Fantasy Slow grow league. And yes, I said in store.
That's fantastic. If the approach continues to work, then the manager won't hit a sales dry spell and either be replaced or encouraged by the higher ups to clear the vets and not allow gaming in the store anymore. Either way, I'd highly recommend swapping contact info with the other players so that if the store suddenly changes to no in-store gaming, you can form a club or something.
!
Yeah, I don't have any real interest In that simply because I already play at another non-GW store closer to my home. My understanding is that there are a ton of "newish" players that only play at the GW (or at least I presume as I've never seen them at the 3 other LGSs I frequent). Honestly, I'm just beginning to think that Cincinnati is just a booming Area for GW where it's very clear other areas in the US aren't.
Like I said, we have 3 LGS and a GW, all of which have regular 40k/Fantasy leagues and relatively large player bases. There are some Warmahordes leagues at two of the LGS as well, and there are regular X-Wing events at 2 of the LGSs. But as for other smaller TTGs like Infinity or Malifaux or DZC, they're primarily played at one LGS and typically by me and a few other dudes that are miniature whores and try out a little of everything.
Again, it's pretty clear that Cincy MUST be an outlier when the market is drying up everywhere else.
There are lots of places across America were 40k is still going very, very strong. 10+ years ago though, it was everywhere. And all across Canada as well. It was so prevalent that getting into other games was a total gamble that they'd not catch on and go bankrupt. Since then, you have all sorts of competition both explode onto the scene and, more importantly, stick around.
weeble1000 wrote:If the pie gets bigger, but your piece doesn't get bigger, your share of the pie is smaller.
But this can be easily dismissed by a demand for evidence that is unreasonably high. And then hand waved away with a "you don't have exact numbers for every other company so it must be that GW is doing great!" Just like how closing the Memphis production centre was spun into being "great news." And I'm sure when GW Canada was closed and the Canadian market was handed over to Memphis some years back, that was "great news" as well. After all, if you have to close a national division, it can never be because sales aren't good enough to justify it. And Memphis' production winded down because sales are great!
I do not want to nitpick or make you think I am trying to simply "hand wave this away".
Memphis was supposedly not a huge production center, despite having been set up as one. They supposedly had molds for 'popular items' whatever that means.
Closing it was not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, but I would not pretend that Memphis was responsible for the product that you bought in Canada or I bought here in the US.
ThouShallNotHeal wrote: If the US and UK had too pay AU prices, they would be out of business. Simple as that
You say that, but, while I find their prices hard to stomach a lot of the time, I think you're wrong. While many, many people would snort derisively and go elsewhere, I think enough people would continue to buy that they would keep ticking over at least.
For example, I was chatting to one of the junior players at our club (younger than 20) and mentioned how ridiculous I found the prices. His attitude was he was spending 'spare' money on his models, so it really didn't matter. My attempts to explain how if prices were more reasonable he could get more for his money, or spend some of his 'spare' money on other things as he wouldn't need to spend it all on models to get what he wanted, simply failed to register.
As open mouthed and disbelieving as this exchange left me, I really don't think his attitude was all that unusual, and as long as there are little Johnnys spending their parents money, or teens living at home with jobs and no overhead, there will still be a hardcore of fans who will continue to buy.
You're right, I missworded what I meant. I meant that over time more and more people would drift away (As the likelyhood of a price rise in the future is a reasonable assumption)
ThouShallNotHeal wrote: You're right, I missworded what I meant. I meant that over time more and more people would drift away (As the likelyhood of a price rise in the future is a reasonable assumption)
Yes. The Australian pricing in relation to the exchange is ridiculous. Everyone agrees on this.
I believe we are beyond the point of questioning if GW is waning or waxing (closing stores, hobbit movies didn't bump like LotR, ...).
Another data point, here in the DC (war gaming is strong partly due to the DoD being everywhere here) Warmachine wasn't that big of a deal 5 years ago and now it is easily #2 and in some case #1 in the FLGS.
I've seen the trend and I think there are a lot of people like the OP. And, frankly I'm worried. 10 years ago, I used to be able to walk into one of the 10 stores in my area and see almost everybody playing 40k. This simply isn't the case anymore.
I'd hate to have my 40k minis be in the same freq of play class as say my AT-43 stuff, which is basement game group and brought out for a lark or a walk down memory lane.
People here talk about stock price and earnings and the like which is great and fine (I'm guessing there are less than 100 CEOs of 10's of million $ companies that post here). The fact is, the "other" games didn't have much of a viable presence years ago and they do now.
If that trend continues, it may come to pass that your 40k minis will get played once a year or so.
I want them to go bust, so they can get bought and things can have a chance to get better.
I'm selling up now because I don't particularly like 6th edition after a year of it. When I'm going off to watch Indiana Jones on TV during my opponents turn, how much fun am I having?
I'm thinking of going back to painting things I like only this time I'll sell them on, which on balance will keep my spend low overall per model whilst improving my painting skills, which is why I started 40K. Prices certainly don't favour building an army.
I guess I am just a sucker, they get loads of my money and its still only a small chunk of the amounts my friends spend on their past times such as golf and boozing.
I can see why people would be put off these prices and I always assumed that they would get far more business if they just dropped the prices even just a tad.
At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, its not about prices, there are many hobbies that require a greater amount of money on a regular basis, its about value.
I have no desire to see prices dropped especially, perhaps on one or two kits that are blatantly priced for effectiveness rather than cost to manufacture (cough fliers cough) but I think just over twenty quid for a Tactical Squad isn't unreasonable. What I find massively unreasonable is situations like that which happened with the Dire Avengers, or previously existed with Wraithguard, where you have to buy multiple, high cost, models in order to field a unit.
I have a unit of 5 Rackham Tigers Of Dirz, which have been OOP for quite some time, which I use as counts-as Slaaneshi Fiends, these 5 cost less to acquire than a minimum size unit of 3 would cost from GW, and almost half what a unit of 5 would cost.
It's this sort of pants in head pricing, which bears no relation to production cost, and appears to be based entirely on a philosophy of "I wonder if we can get away with this much!" that I find so distasteful and off putting.
Wow. Nice find if you were able to get the Tigers for cheaper! Those are great models. Tigers 1 & 2 retailed for 19.99 I believe but routinely fetch like, $40 on the market now. I think Tiger 3 is a bit more common.
Again, nobody is arguing that their international pricing isn't ludicrous.
As a UK company, its fair to use their UK price as the standard. The price in other countries needs addressing, but in many cases, at least with their plastics, the core price isn't completely irredeemable, some minor adjustments to price, or, more effectively I think, to box contents could go a long way to centering their value for money around a point that more people felt was reasonable. An extra sprue in the box here or there would dramatically alter a lot of people's perception of what they were getting for the better.
I actually asked a GW manager the other day why it costs more here..his reason was: Because the prices were set so long ago and we just didn't change them to fit in with the rest of the world
ThouShallNotHeal wrote: I actually asked a GW manager the other day why it costs more here..his reason was: Because the prices were set so long ago and we just didn't change them to fit in with the rest of the world
Pretty much. They were set when the AUD was half the USD. They haven't adjusted it.
cincydooley wrote:Wow. Nice find if you were able to get the Tigers for cheaper! Those are great models. Tigers 1 & 2 retailed for 19.99 I believe but routinely fetch like, $40 on the market now. I think Tiger 3 is a bit more common.
ThouShallNotHeal wrote:Any chance of pictures?
I averaged around £10 per model with delivery, took a while, but most of them were sourced from France, and as I believe they were based there, may explain their relative commonality.
Didn't get any of 3, didn't like the pose, and as a unit of 5, repeated 1 and 2 doesn't look too bad IMO.
In an attempt to actually respond to the OP's quoted article on Spikey Bits and the additional "Ferrari" Article on BOLS, here goes.
As pointed out by a few posters, the OP price out blurb is regrettable but understandable. If you are only getting money for Christmas and your Birthday, its hard to keep up with GW prices in this day and age. However at the same time, I hope the author writing that piece isn't then going out and waiting in line for the next Call of Duty, playing WoW or pre-ordered an Xbox1/PS4. Because like many of my fellow late teens/early 20 somethings, many of us love to complain about the cost of one thing, but will then drop money in other circumstances without a second thought. Ie - Booze/Video Games/Girls. It's all about competing priorities, not complaining about X/Y/Z.
However the Ferrari article is downright deceitful. Having personally re-entered the hobby from 3rd edition 40k, I am likewise shocked/infuriated/befuddled by the price rises and major decline in GW's interest in promoting the hobby/customer service. That being said, the price comparisons the author puts up are ridiculously biased. Apocalypse vs. PS3 vs. Computer vs. Ipad vs. X-Wing? Really? Unlike the Apocalypse Bundle, each of the other price points show a starter cost associated with the product. However like most, there are additional costs to even get any kind of enjoyment out of it. $400 for PS3? Nope, at least $460. Guess you are just browsing the internet on that Computer? If that $420 was spent towards building an army, it stacks up fine. Buy at 20% off retail, even more so.
In the end GW is a hobby. That's the only thing the article gets right. To that end, being involved in a hobby is about getting enjoyment from it. If GW products don't bring you joy, you can't justify the cost to yourself or truly can't afford it anymore, fair enough. But just because you have decided to use your hobby money somewhere else, please don't assume this applies to everyone else.
Kanluwen wrote:
Memphis was supposedly not a huge production center, despite having been set up as one. They supposedly had molds for 'popular items' whatever that means.
Closing it was not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, but I would not pretend that Memphis was responsible for the product that you bought in Canada or I bought here in the US.
After GW Canada closed, local gaming stores here in Canada had their trade accounts moved to Memphis. Memphis would get stuff from the UK, produce some stuff locally, assemble orders and ship them to stores. Eventually the production side was phased out and now they just sort and reship stuff from the UK. There was a time though that the latest releases and most space marines sold in the US and Canada were being made in the US.
So yeah, it wasn't a full product line production centre, but the demand for the production didn't outweigh the benefits of consolidating production in the UK. US and Canadian demand for the most common GW items simply isn't enough to justify a production centre in the US like it once was.
Sounds like you may have gotten recasts. Not that I find that abhorrent, but getting scupts 1&2 in bulk for that price typically means recasted models.
Unless you got them new in blister, then I stand corrected
Rackham's complete abandonment of their metal miniature market certainly led to a lot of recasters popping up pretty quickly. I know some of my Mid-Nor stuff turned out to be recast once it arrived. The metal was noticeably lighter and harder and there was the faintest trace of double mould lines.
Except one, which while sold as new, had a blister with the wrong product label on it and had, on close examination, been stripped.
Tried to get a partial refund, but the French sellers English was worse than my French, so just gave up. Ironically was the most expensive of the five!
Well, for those of you not using em, they can definitely fetch a solid $ on eBay these days. If I played Dark Eldar I'd have all sorts of Dirz in my collection. The clones are fantastic too.
I think comparing to other pastimes is a bit of a red herring.. I'm inclined to think of Stewie from Family Guy having lots of fun with his ball in a cup etc..
The issue here is that compared to other wargaming companies, within the same industry, GW stuff is by far the most expensive to get into. I'm just getting into the Hail Caesar historicals stuff and am actually being continuously shocked by how much cheaper it is, and for the most part pretty comparable quality.
While this wouldn't a problem by itself (as several have pointed out 'you don't have to buy GW, buy from another company') in the UK at least GW is pretty much the main gatekeeper for wargaming - Indies are being hit hard by the recession, the government here doing nothing to help the high-street, and GW's aggressive policies towards them - there is every chance that someone who likes the idea of wargaming might take one look at GW, decide that it is too expensive, and then walk away from the entire hobby. And that I think would be a terrible shame.
Ultimately that isn't good for GW, and it isn't good for the wargaming industry/hobby at large. It needs every chance it can get to survive against the increasing amounts of competition for children's attention, and pricing an army (if you want to play as GW intend) at the same level alongside the latest new console releases, competing for the same parent-xmas cash, must surely be counter-productive in the long term.
So yes - GW miniatures are far too expensive, but this is compounded by the high entry price and the amount of money you have to pay to get the 'full experience from their games.
Of course those are two things which are comparable to Ferraris in their respective markets...where GW really is just making the same as everyone else...just charging more for it.
A competition shotgun with range computer and a high end hand bag...of which I think they are ridiculously priced when my wife buys them, I can see the difference between the way those are made versus cheaper bags she buys at Dillards.
Indies are being hit hard by the recession
Based on the latest numbers for the US at least, they are entering their 5th straight year of growth. Generally recessions are good for these types of hobbies as it is a larger time sink for dollars spent versus other hobbies.
Coincidentally I think the quality of GWs plastics are noticeably better than everyone else's, though Wyrds new plastic range is certainly getting better and better.
an awesome computer or some mass produced plastic crap that you need to spend hours, days, weeks cleaning and painting.
to most people it's not subjective at all.
no wonder GW is closing all their stores.
For many people cleaning, building, and painting the models is part of the appeal. Personally, I've never spent that much on a computer not would I, as I don't do any PC gaming or any video editing that would warrant it.
an awesome computer or some mass produced plastic crap that you need to spend hours, days, weeks cleaning and painting.
to most people it's not subjective at all.
no wonder GW is closing all their stores.
For many people cleaning, building, and painting the models is part of the appeal. Personally, I've never spent that much on a computer not would I, as I don't do any PC gaming or any video editing that would warrant it.
So yeah, it's pretty subjective.
Its about as appealing as running and finishing a marathon. atleast after the run you would be healthier, not more screwed up.
i think most people would just pay someone else to build and paint everything for them if they could afford it.
loki old fart wrote: Much as I like painting and modeling, I'd still buy the computer.
No plastic is worth that.
Of course. If you had a windfall of $2000 there's not a lot of people that would go out and buy $2000 of warhammer stuff, they'd buy something that requires $2000 at once to buy.
You can't really build a computer $40 at a time, but over a few months you can put together a warhammer army spending $40 a month.
loki old fart wrote: Much as I like painting and modeling, I'd still buy the computer.
No plastic is worth that.
Of course. If you had a windfall of $2000 there's not a lot of people that would go out and buy $2000 of warhammer stuff, they'd buy something that requires $2000 at once to buy.
You can't really build a computer $40 at a time, but over a few months you can put together a warhammer army spending $40 a month.
I did buy my computer piece by piece, and built it.
One thing that needs to be remembered about these high price tag items and GW's pricing in general, is that when the price is double and you still get half the people to buy it, you make the same amount of revenue AND you get the cost savings of less production, less shipping, less staff, etc.,.
A smart business tries to maximize revenue by finding the price point where units sold multiplied by price equals the highest amount of money possible. Then they also invest some of their revenue in marketing and other activities to try to get even more units sold.
GW internalized all their tooling many years ago. While they have to pay staff and buy some consumables, largely the capital investment to make new moulds is done. So now they can crank up the prices to try to maximize their revenue while investing as little as possible back into the business. Then Kirby & friends can issue themselves a dividend.
This doesn't need to go on forever. It just needs to go on long enough for Kirby to retire richer than he currently is. Maybe as a final feather in his cap, he'll negotiate the sale of GW to another company and he can retire as the richest and most successful person in the history of the hobby gaming industry.
The CHS Lawsuit spreadsheet showed that new releases sell well and variations on the Space Marine idea sell well. So GW doesn't even need to do across the board price increases. They can stop doing the annual 5-10% price hikes and instead price things like the Dire Avengers when new products are released. As long as every two or three releases is a Space Marine related release (be it loyalist or chaos), they'll keep their product line both updated in terms of new models and updated in terms of raising the average price of what they sell.
They also have some major room in terms of cutting administration costs. Their admin team has doubled in size over the last decade while production has shrank. So there's lots of admin people waiting to be laid off if Kirby needs to cut expenses to make the annual reports look good. If GW successfully ran with way more production and less admin staff, they can run with their now reduced production with reduced admin staff and cut some of these jobs.
GW as a company isn't going anywhere, but the real question is whether or not your local 40k or WFB community is going to stick around long term. I'm starting to think Forgeworld and Australian prices show just how much GW can charge per figure and I think we'll see even more aggressive prices on new releases. And again, if they can double the prices again and keep half the customers and cut more admin and production staffs they'll have the same revenue but less costs and thus be more profitable even if they sell half the amount.
Canada and Australia are already priced in near parity with Forgeworld (in some cases more) and I think GW can bring that same pricing policy to the UK and EU as well.
an awesome computer or some mass produced plastic crap that you need to spend hours, days, weeks cleaning and painting.
to most people it's not subjective at all.
no wonder GW is closing all their stores.
For many people cleaning, building, and painting the models is part of the appeal. Personally, I've never spent that much on a computer not would I, as I don't do any PC gaming or any video editing that would warrant it.
So yeah, it's pretty subjective.
Its about as appealing as running and finishing a marathon. atleast after the run you would be healthier, not more screwed up.
i think most people would just pay someone else to build and paint everything for them if they could afford it.
I keep looking for a point that you're making in these posts, but I can't find one. Millions of people run for fun. There are absurdly long waiting lists for the largest marathons. So I'm not entirely sure what you were trying to use for analogy here, but whatever it was it was a failure.
I think you're 100% wrong in that "most people would just pay someone else to build and paint". 100% wrong. I think the massively popular Painting and Modeling section here would attest to that, as would the pretty vocal number of People that post in it that dont even play the gme but only paint and model.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @frozen - I think it's incredibly important to note that the size of their design staff has also increased considerably over the past 5 years.
loki old fart wrote: Much as I like painting and modeling, I'd still buy the computer.
No plastic is worth that.
Of course. If you had a windfall of $2000 there's not a lot of people that would go out and buy $2000 of warhammer stuff, they'd buy something that requires $2000 at once to buy.
You can't really build a computer $40 at a time, but over a few months you can put together a warhammer army spending $40 a month.
I'm just going to switch to grey knights. Get ten models on the field and be at around 1500+ points? =) I've only purchased a few new models since i got into the hobby a year ago. My friends and i all buy used models off craigslist and use a automobile paint stripper that doesnt harm the plastic. If you leave it in long enough it will even break down the glue.
an awesome computer or some mass produced plastic crap that you need to spend hours, days, weeks cleaning and painting.
to most people it's not subjective at all.
no wonder GW is closing all their stores.
For many people cleaning, building, and painting the models is part of the appeal. Personally, I've never spent that much on a computer not would I, as I don't do any PC gaming or any video editing that would warrant it.
So yeah, it's pretty subjective.
Its about as appealing as running and finishing a marathon. atleast after the run you would be healthier, not more screwed up.
i think most people would just pay someone else to build and paint everything for them if they could afford it.
I keep looking for a point that you're making in these posts, but I can't find one. Millions of people run for fun. There are absurdly long waiting lists for the largest marathons. So I'm not entirely sure what you were trying to use for analogy here, but whatever it was it was a failure.
I think you're 100% wrong in that "most people would just pay someone else to build and paint". 100% wrong. I think the massively popular Painting and Modeling section here would attest to that, as would the pretty vocal number of People that post in it that dont even play the gme but only paint and model.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @frozen - I think it's incredibly important to note that the size of their design staff has also increased considerably over the past 5 years.
no, id say that's wrong, most people run for fitness or for competition actually.
i didnt realize it was so hard to grasp. 2300 canadian for unfinished plastic.
the price of that terrain shows they are out of touch.
for 1000+ you could get a beautifully fully finished set of modular foam boards from a very talented artist.
And you've missed the whole point where I said that, for a great many people, a big portion of the hobby is doing it yourself. That was when you made your incomprehensible analogy to marathons.
kb305 wrote: an awesome computer or some mass produced plastic crap that you need to spend hours, days, weeks cleaning and painting.
to most people it's not subjective at all.
Of course it's subjective, as are any two reasonable consumer purchases.
If you have someone who just started playing 40k, who already has an awesome computer; which would they prefer? In 2009, I would definitely have picked the 40k stuff because my PC was already top of the line. Or someone who loves 40k and doesn't play computer games at all; someone who is tied into the OSX ecosystem or who just doesn't like computers? I mean, just because it's clear cut to you doesn't mean it would be to anyone else. Which would you rather have, the 2 grand 40k package or 2 grand's worth of manure? What if you were a famer - you see how that matters?
This whole tangent is just foolish to even pursue; frankly. We can do all sorts of halfass analogies but it's a futile pursuit. Seriously, it's like arguing over whether chocolate or vanilla is better.
I get that you personally don't think that 40k package is worth the money; and on that I'd agree with you because I'm just not that into 40k anymore. However, I can grasp that different people like different stuff and value it accordingly.
cincydooley wrote: And you've missed the whole point where I said that, for a great many people, a big portion of the hobby is doing it yourself. That was when you made your incomprehensible analogy to marathons.
it's a fine analogy actually.
you cant say painting is anywhere near as good as sitting on your butt watching a good movie or playing a good video game. it isn't. which is why there is a large market for already finished stuff.
i guess you have somewhat of a point? running your ass off for hours is a bit more fun than painting.
I think of present day marketing and can come to only one conclusion of what GW needs to do:
Make a full detailed major production movie like Avengers.
My favorites, X-wing and Robotech are based on movies that as a kid, I would have killed for.
Now I really like it but it just seems to miss the younger market (selling well though!).
Hype and public awareness is what drives the market and justifies the expense of the product.
If they do it well enough maybe Disney would buy them (that would be too funny, how about Disney or equivalent? ).
GW is doing all the same steps that I have seen other companies in bad markets: pull back all work from satellite offices (close where possible) to keep the core offices in the black and busy.
They are unique because they sell only one IP consistently and always, so offer a stability few hobby companies can match.
Where most businesses try to offer more value and bling to their product GW is doing the opposite with no hype to raise perceived value which those who like to argue logically kinda throws it out the window.
BTW @cincydooley I too must applaud your posts, they are better and more thought out. The name calling and general statements are gone... What happened? Wanted to be taken more seriously or got a ghost writer? I am about ready to friend you for it... but that may just drive you crazy
BTW @cincydooley I too must applaud your posts, they are better and more thought out. The name calling and general statements are gone... What happened? Wanted to be taken more seriously or got a ghost writer? I am about ready to friend you for it... but that may just drive you crazy
Without starting a pissing match (because I really don't intend to) most of my posts are multiple line posts that involve at least the bare minimum amount of thinking. Often more. And besides, I don't consider saying someone is fooling "name calling," but to each his own. Perhaps is the first thread we've both participated in, but I typically try to make rational, cogent arguments in my posts.
I agree that if you're jobless maybe expensive hobbies aren't for you (and that isn't limited to war gaming) but I don't think that precludes some of the GW pricing to be high. And again, I've expressed that a few times already in this thread. That being said, I don't think they're under any obligation to lower them.
GW should probably keep increasing the prices. People will pay Forgeworld prices and GW Australia turns a profit despite being much higher than the UK. So there's probably room for GW to increase things in the US, UK and EU even further.
I haven't bought something directly from a GW for at least 6 years now, yet I still play actively. I've obtained most of what I currently have at 50-80% off retail via trading sites.
Well, as a publicly traded company, they should do whatever the shareholders want them to do (within reason, obviously). If the shareholders are satisfied, then that's that.
They probably ought to rethink their aggressive legal policy and might want to consider the long term effects of continually jacking up prices vis a vie potentially yielding more of the market to competitors, but perhaps they have and decided it's worth it anyway.
Regardless, I haven't bought anything from GW other than a few paints in something like three years. I'd obviously like to see them enact at least a price freeze, but, as they see, people in hell want ice water.
RatBot wrote: Because only a jobless person could decided that Games Workshop stuff isn't worth the money.
Well yes. I'm on minimum wage and I can still afford a box a week - which is more than I can paint, and far more than I actually buy. I will spend the cost of a tactical squad in about 2 hours in a club
Just want to point out, Bryll, that I said worth the money. I know plenty of people who can afford GW, but do not buy their models because they don't think they're worth the money, for whatever reason.
For all of you that are making these ethical stands against buying from GW, I think that's great. Honestly. But remember that all that 2nd hand stuff you're buying was purchased from GW at some point. Also remember that GW sells product to distributors at a significant markdown anyway, so the % off retail that you're paying second hand is really far less than GWs bottom selling line.
I mean, I think voting with your wallet is the best way to show your dissatisfaction, but its got a bit more oomph if you actually quit buying their product completely and not just first hand
RatBot wrote: Just want to point out, Bryll, that I said worth the money. I know plenty of people who can afford GW, but do not buy their models because they don't think they're worth the money, for whatever reason.
And that brings us back to our circular argument discussing "worth."
So the point of this thread is "I'm not into 40k"? Should I start a thread saying that I have no interest in Debenham's menwear because I consider it over-priced?
If you're a grown-up with a full time job then £25 a week on a hobby isn't too much for *anyone*. If you don't want to spend it on GW then it means you don't like Gw, it's not because it used to only cost you £23 a week (that's an 8% increase which is more than the average price increases before anyone starts).
RatBot wrote: Just want to point out, Bryll, that I said worth the money. I know plenty of people who can afford GW, but do not buy their models because they don't think they're worth the money, for whatever reason.
And that brings us back to our circular argument discussing "worth."
I suppose. I skipped a few pages of this thread since I (try to, obviously not very successfully) avoid price threads anymore.
frozenwastes wrote: GW should probably keep increasing the prices. People will pay Forgeworld prices and GW Australia turns a profit despite being much higher than the UK. So there's probably room for GW to increase things in the US, UK and EU even further.
Except that sales have been dropping by about 10% a year in Australia for what, a good 5 years now?
price rises and cost cutting have kept them turning a profit but less and less people are playing GW games which is very bad for them long term. It used to be that everyone played 40k cos that's what everyone else played, now people are looking at other games because not everyone plays 40k any more and if nothing changes in a few years no one will be getting into the game because they will have no one to play with.
Actually, we're not that far off from UK and Australia parity on the latest release of Lizardmen:
Lizardman Carnosaur/Troglodon: $100 AUD = £60 GBP, UK price is £50. Markup: 20%
Bastiladon: $90 AUD = £54 UK MSRP £35. Markup: 82%
Pterydon/Ripperdactyls $80 = £48. UK price £35. Markup: 37%
Skink Priest $22 = £13.24. UK price £12. Markup: 10%
Tetto'eko $55 = £33. UK price £30. Markup: 10%
GorRok $25 = £15.05 UK price £15. Markup: 0.3% (wow!)
Auspicious Phalanx One Click Bundle $2337 = £1406 UK Price: £943.60 Markup: 49%
Assuming the Auspicious Phalanx represents a wide variety of the Lizardmen product line, it looks like GW is indeed closing the gap. They've raised the UK prices up to within 50% of Australian prices.
cincydooley wrote: I agree that if you're jobless maybe expensive hobbies aren't for you (and that isn't limited to war gaming) but I don't think that precludes some of the GW pricing to be high. And again, I've expressed that a few times already in this thread. That being said, I don't think they're under any obligation to lower them.
Someone jobless would have more important things on their mind than the price of gaming.
For the diversions out there, GW is facing strong competition in number and quality of models as well as engaging IP.
I am under no obligation to buy their stuff if they keep the prices high.
It is simply being attracted elsewhere for gaming value than crying poor.
When you are paying over $7 for a joe troop model however, you do start wondering if it is competing with your scotch fund...
Except that sales have been dropping by about 10% a year in Australia for what, a good 5 years now? price rises and cost cutting have kept them turning a profit but less and less people are playing GW games which is very bad for them long term. It used to be that everyone played 40k cos that's what everyone else played, now people are looking at other games because not everyone plays 40k any more and if nothing changes in a few years no one will be getting into the game because they will have no one to play with.
Exactly what has happened here in Canada. Except apparently GW keeps getting enough new people to still have a few stores here and has a good number of trade accounts.
But if enough people can be sold the product to keep revenue flat and then GW can cut costs to stay profitable, then it'll work for them. Even if it means shrinking their market share even further.
I think my thoughts about stopping buying because of price can be summed up as follows:
GW already has all the money they thought they were going to get from you. They've geared their product offerings to have very high up front costs so the act of getting into the game ensures them the greatest amount of revenue. They only expect you to get either a starter or a rulebook, a codex, paints and hobby supplies, the start of an army and one or two purchases here or there before you quit.
If you hit the point where you see the pattern of higher and higher prices, then you've been around long enough that GW has already gotten what they want from you.
There's more money in new people than in keeping you or I happy, so they can keep raising prices and trying to sell the product to new people who don't yet know just how bad the overall cost of a full army is now and certainly don't have an awareness of lower prices from the past. And if you're into your 20s or 30s, you're certainly not GW's target market anymore. Anything you spend is just gravy to them.
Got one.
You bore me, narrow that mind a little more.
I was addressing the OP, not you.
Well let me get off my high horse then...
Next time I will assume addressed to OP unless shown otherwise.
Great statement to get people excited though, as demonstrated.
Surely it makes more sense to try to keep the vets happy while bringing in new blood than to insult them, especially when word of mouth is their only form of advertising.
Surely it makes more sense to try to keep the vets happy while bringing in new blood than to insult them, especially when word of mouth is their only form of advertising.
And those video games.
And those novels that are always on the "new sci if" shelf.
And that whole "only miniatures company with their own store" thing.
Word of mouth is certainly a big branch, but its far from the only form.
Also, the demo sales process works. When GW stores do it, they sell starters. Same when Independent retailers can make it work.
It's the reason Privateer has focused their volunteer pressgangers so much on demo games.
Demoing games sells games. Old fashion, put the product in the customer's hands kind of sales. Their retail arm is a form of marketing that uses time tested sales methods of getting people to try it, giving them a positive experience with it, putting it in their hand and closing the sale.
cincydooley wrote: I agree that if you're jobless maybe expensive hobbies aren't for you (and that isn't limited to war gaming) but I don't think that precludes some of the GW pricing to be high. And again, I've expressed that a few times already in this thread. That being said, I don't think they're under any obligation to lower them.
Someone jobless would have more important things on their mind than the price of gaming.
For the diversions out there, GW is facing strong competition in number and quality of models as well as engaging IP.
I am under no obligation to buy their stuff if they keep the prices high.
It is simply being attracted elsewhere for gaming value than crying poor.
When you are paying over $7 for a joe troop model however, you do start wondering if it is competing with your scotch fund...
Well, to be fair, you were under no obligation to buy them in the first place. The OP stated his only sources of discretionary income were from birthdays and Christmas. While he may have a job, he certainly wasn't making any additional "play money" and he seemed to be pretty concerned that GW priced him out.
I mean, you certainly shouldn't have to be a sheikh to play 40k, but if your only source of income is those two means, maybe hobbies that cost money aren't for you at this moment in time anyway.
Surely it makes more sense to try to keep the vets happy while bringing in new blood than to insult them, especially when word of mouth is their only form of advertising.
What would make you happy other than that which brought you in as a customer in the first place? How about another new edition or perhaps a new codex release updating an army? Maybe to entice existing customers to start another army. Perhaps a flyer or a big monster or robot kit to go along with your existing army? Surely more of the same is just what the doctor ordered.
EDIT: I'll answer my own question: For GW to get me back as a customer, they need to retool their game experience from the ground up. And start concentrating on game design rather than just seeing the design studio as a promotional department for selling toy soldiers. Some integrity in game product design like Paizo has with Pathfinder or Wizards has with MTG. Or even Privateer with Warmachine/Hordes. As it stand, GW's rules are just an idea they use to sell people miniatures they may or may not ever play a game with. I want the game to be the point again and not just part of a sales pitch. However I do get that their existing business model and customer behaviour expectations don't merit the reboot I'd like to see. The way they are operating is working for them, so why should they change?
frozenwastes wrote: Also, the demo sales process works. When GW stores do it, they sell starters. Same when Independent retailers can make it work.
It's the reason Privateer has focused their volunteer pressgangers so much on demo games.
Demoing games sells games. Old fashion, put the product in the customer's hands kind of sales. Their retail arm is a form of marketing that uses time tested sales methods of getting people to try it, giving them a positive experience with it, putting it in their hand and closing the sale.
You make it sound a lot creepier than it is. Or do you have a moral objection to kids having hobbies and being introduced to tabletop gaming and painting/modelling? You'd rather they just stared blankly at a tv playing COD all day?
BryllCream wrote: So the point of this thread is "I'm not into 40k"? Should I start a thread saying that I have no interest in Debenham's menwear because I consider it over-priced?
If you're a grown-up with a full time job then £25 a week on a hobby isn't too much for *anyone*. If you don't want to spend it on GW then it means you don't like Gw, it's not because it used to only cost you £23 a week (that's an 8% increase which is more than the average price increases before anyone starts).
"The Games Workshop Hobby, I gotta admit it, I'm out. The prices got to me."
Comprehend to title!
You should start that thread on the men's wear forum.
And £25 doesn't get you as much as it used too at GW.
frozenwastes wrote: Also, the demo sales process works. When GW stores do it, they sell starters. Same when Independent retailers can make it work.
It's the reason Privateer has focused their volunteer pressgangers so much on demo games.
Demoing games sells games. Old fashion, put the product in the customer's hands kind of sales. Their retail arm is a form of marketing that uses time tested sales methods of getting people to try it, giving them a positive experience with it, putting it in their hand and closing the sale.
You make it sound a lot creepier than it is. Or do you have a moral objection to kids having hobbies and being introduced to tabletop gaming and painting/modelling? You'd rather they just stared blankly at a tv playing COD all day?
I don't think he made it sound creepy at all. That's what it is; get people to try it, turns out they like it, they buy it.
You make it sound a lot creepier than it is. Or do you have a moral objection to kids having hobbies and being introduced to tabletop gaming and painting/modelling? You'd rather they just stared blankly at a tv playing COD all day?
I don't understand how it's creepy. Or do you think that GW doesn't include sales training for their single-employee store managers? Do you think they're actually interested in what army you play when they ask? They're asking as part of a sales technique they've been trained to use. Do you think that when they do a demo game and the customer always wins it is because the employee sucks at the game? They're letting the customer win in order to ensure a positive experience with the game. Surely this isn't news to you.
And when did I ever say anything about having moral objections to anything? Or being a video game proponent? I have no moral objections to GW and don't really care for extended video game play. I think you've confused yourself.
I think he's confusing you with the other Canadian that is convinced everyone in the miniatures hobby would rather play video games and let someone else paint and construct their models.
frozenwastes wrote: Also, the demo sales process works. When GW stores do it, they sell starters. Same when Independent retailers can make it work.
It's the reason Privateer has focused their volunteer pressgangers so much on demo games.
Demoing games sells games. Old fashion, put the product in the customer's hands kind of sales. Their retail arm is a form of marketing that uses time tested sales methods of getting people to try it, giving them a positive experience with it, putting it in their hand and closing the sale.
You make it sound a lot creepier than it is. Or do you have a moral objection to kids having hobbies and being introduced to tabletop gaming and painting/modelling? You'd rather they just stared blankly at a tv playing COD all day?
hunching over a desk for hours on end glueing and painting is no better than playing video games. dont pretend like it is.
cincydooley wrote: For all of you that are making these ethical stands against buying from GW, I think that's great. Honestly. But remember that all that 2nd hand stuff you're buying was purchased from GW at some point. Also remember that GW sells product to distributors at a significant markdown anyway, so the % off retail that you're paying second hand is really far less than GWs bottom selling line.
I mean, I think voting with your wallet is the best way to show your dissatisfaction, but its got a bit more oomph if you actually quit buying their product completely and not just first hand
And twice the oomph if you spend that money on competitors' products. Three times the oomph if you use those products at your FLGS. Four times the oomph if you actively promote said products and work to build a thriving community around them. Hell, send GW videos of your Warmahordes tournament, pictures of your Infinity league, or battle reports from your Kings of War games.
The swiftest, best response I ever got from GW customer service was when I first started boycotting GW for ethical reasons. I sent GW a list of my planned GW purchases with MSRP, explained why I was planning those purchases, and attached a list of the same value of Privateer Press starter boxes that I had purchased instead. I explained that I had never purchased a single PP product in my life and had never expected to, but that I had now done so because of behavior GW was engaged in. This is your company. This is your company losing market share.
I got a personal phone call from GW customer service inside of a week. I politely explained that Games Workshop's litigation and treatment of the hobby community in general were the principle reasons I had made my decision, and stated that I would, as long as such activity continued, continue spending my table-top wargaming dollars elsewhere.
It may not look like it, but Games Workshop really does care about losing market share. Games Workshop knows it is happening, and instead of actually taking steps to deal with it intelligently, GW has instead chosen to say, "This is great news!"
hunching over a desk for hours on end glueing and painting is no better than playing video games. dont pretend like it is.
I guess that's the case if you don't value being creative.
Different people value different things and that act of valuing is what makes a hobby worthwhile.
at a kid's level it's little more than paint by numbers and there's pressure to paint them in established color schemes.
if you value having your kids sit around all day inside hunched over a desk breathing plastic glue, primer fumes and god knows what else then i dont know what you tell you.
Dakka Dakka is a community site devoted to miniature wargaming, if you don't see any value in that hobby, why are you posting here?
And are you actually implying that parents who let their children do things related to plastic models are bad parents for exposing them to toxins? Really? And if so, what does this have to do with anything? Do you have anything to say about the topic at hand other than some sort of crusade to push video games over miniatures?
kb305 wrote: hunching over a desk for hours on end glueing and painting is no better than playing video games. dont pretend like it is.
The end result is what matters. For example -
I did both this weekend. I finished off a Haqqislam hassassin and started a Nasmat drone, and felt pretty good about my progress towards having my 200pt list done. Took me a few hours all up.
I also put about 6 hours into Guild Wars 2 to do my Daily and Monthly acheivment goals. I finished my Daily, but still haven't done my monthly, and played some wvw. I'm also no closer to my goal of having teir 3 armour for my character.
Neither of these had any human contact.
Next week I'll be bringing my nearly complete 200pt list to have a game against my friend or my brother, whoever has the time. This will be a good half day of actual human contact in a friendly environment, probably having a few drinks, lunch, and catching up on gak.
I'll also probably put a few hours into Guild Wars 2, acheive a Daily goal and part of my new Monthly goal, and be no closer to my teir 3 armour. Still having no actual human contact while doing it.
One of these activities leads to actually getting out of the house like a human being. One leads to more sitting around on the couch/chair doing the same thing over and over.
I get the itch for both, but they're not the same thing.
hunching over a desk for hours on end glueing and painting is no better than playing video games. dont pretend like it is.
I guess that's the case if you don't value being creative.
Different people value different things and that act of valuing is what makes a hobby worthwhile.
at a kid's level it's little more than paint by numbers and there's pressure to paint them in established color schemes.
if you value having your kids sit around all day inside hunched over a desk breathing plastic glue, primer fumes and god knows what else then i dont know what you tell you.
It's called "ventilation." And who primes inside their house? At the end of the day, if I've played a video game, I have a bunch of ones and zeros inside a metal box. If I built and painted a model, I have a little piece of art to show for it. And who cares about what a child is doing right now in terms of output? He's developing skills to become a better painter and learning patience.
I dont see where the Tabletop vs Video Gaming is coming from atm. Neither are better or worse than the other. They are hobbies nothing more nothing less.
One line struck me "Their bottom line seems healthy". It isn't, at least that's not what my business/finance friends say.
GW has lately been cranking out the new books & models, raising prices, and looking to be in a dash to raise their bottom line. Also if you read their stock holder reports they aren't making nearly as much as they should be considering their expenses. What I was told was they seem to be getting all their stuff off the drawing board & into production so they can beef their sales up quickly & look good to potential investors / buyers. I'm not saying they're looking to completely sell out but maybe be bought out by a parent company & become something like netherealm studios after midway fell.
DISCLAIMER: This is PURE SPECULATION based on what I have seen, read & been told.
I don't usually chime in on these sorts of threads as what other people like to spend on their wargaming comes down to so many factors (enjoyment they get out of it, income, time available, other hobbies in their lives) that its pretty much upto the individual and shouldn't need my input.
However I must admit, from a personal standpoint, those new apocalypse formations had me raising an eye brow as a GW fan and player. I mean upto $1800 for a formation without any substantial discount or attempt to market it as a good buy was really disgusting and just a slap in the face really. Even as someone with a decent amount of disposable income I honestly don't know who would buy these sorts of things.
I've stood by GW since I got into the hobby. I Love the rules, the background, I don't mind dropping some money on a kit that gives me a good few hours of painting time then gaming time ontop of that. I've tried the other game systems out there and in my opinion none are as enjoyable, but when they just spit in your face like that it really makes you think if they value you as a customer at all.
as I am to say 'You spent how much on that Warhound Titan?!' 
).
