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Wait, so i just saw some forgeworld stuff today, all the packaging was plastered with "Made in China".

This seriously upset me. Up until this point i figured the reason why games workshop stuff was so expensive was because it was all made in the UK. I knew that i was paying 30 dollars for 5 dollars worth of plastic, i just figured that obviously the price of labor in the UK must be astronomical and people need to make some money. Chinese Labor is not expensive - nor is plastic. Maybe i am late to the band wagon - but I'm not buying anymore games workshop stuff until they start charging reasonable prices.

You are exactly right!Cheap labor cheap prices just ask wal-mart.

This is another nail in the forgeworld coffin: too expensive, products being near impossible to construct without extensve conversions and now this.

Its gonna get to the point where GW products will being made in China with the counterfeit products being made next door. if they are using chinese labour (a fraction of the cost of uk/us labour) then costs should go down. UK and US companies should realise that by shipping work off to china it means less jobs and money in the counties that mainly buy their products.

Welcome to the GW "hobby". GW will charge what people will pay. The price increases, especially for the boxed sets (regardless of people crying "it's such a deal") almost inflating 40% over 5 years from $50 to $90 and yet we keep on going back for more!

Sorry for being so cynical. I love the models and the games. I hate the prices which for me, and I'm not speaking for everyone, have limited how much I buy and force me to go the ebay route. Sorry GW. You've priced me out of buying new models at full price.

Lower prices? We've become adjusted to the high prices and GW/Forge World knows this; prices will never be lowered. They may remain stagnant for awhile, but they'll never come down in price.

all i have to say on the topic is: the Op's rank of "Annoyed Blood Angels Devastator" is quite fitting for his post and, all my GW pachages say "made in UK" on them

Stubby wrote:Wait, so i just saw some forgeworld stuff today, all the packaging was plastered with "Made in China".

This seriously upset me. Up until this point i figured the reason why games workshop stuff was so expensive was because it was all made in the UK. I knew that i was paying 30 dollars for 5 dollars worth of plastic, i just figured that obviously the price of labor in the UK must be astronomical and people need to make some money. Chinese Labor is not expensive - nor is plastic. Maybe i am late to the band wagon - but I'm not buying anymore games workshop stuff until they start charging reasonable prices.

could it have been the raw materials you saw or was it definitely the finished product?

Forge world and GW have been producing full pieces in china for years now. It is not news that GW has been running jewelry level markups for the past couple of years(1000% or more) you just happen to order some of the china made pieces. GW also still produces pieces in the UK and USA. The question is how quickly the production ratio is shifting from the older UK and US plants to the newer asian factories.

@ jordanis- The box might say made in the UK and be telling the truth while containin pieces made in china, the box itself is indeed made in the UK. Now look to see where your codex was made.:b

Even if all the hobbyists who buy GW stuff stop buying theyll probably raise their prices its insane how a defiler cost 62 US dollars! plus the glue and primer and paint that has a new formula that make the paint dry out faster and on top of it all everything is overpriced

So far as they've said so far, all of the regular GW minis are still made in the UK and US, although bases have been coming out of china for several years now, as have all pretty much all of the hobby materials.

Forgeworld though has been gradually shifting to Chinese production for the last few years. Partly to cut costs and partly, I think, to try to keep up with the demand.

Khorne Flakes wrote:Even if all the hobbyists who buy GW stuff stop buying theyll probably raise their prices its insane how a defiler cost 62 US dollars! plus the glue and primer and paint that has a new formula that make the paint dry out faster and on top of it all everything is overpriced

US $62 for a defiler? We pay AUS $103 for a defiler and our currency is currently almost on a par with yours:(

kizzdougs wrote:US $62 for a defiler? We pay AUS $103 for a defiler and our currency is currently almost on a par with yours:(

You have crazy import taxes though. Probably because your customs people have to check that every package coming in doesn't have any seeds or animals hiding in it or something

Before you all assume that you're automatically being screwed, it helps to know a few facts.

1. Production in China is becoming more expensive. Also, transport costs tend to undercut any savings in production costs.

2. China has a lot of expertise in resin casting. If you've ordered from FW recently, you will have seen a big improvement in the quality. This is because they are now using better resin and the quality control of the casting is greatly improved - because it's being done in China. I know this from someone who has his own resin casting business in China and who's been to the FW casting facility there.

3. FW doesn't produce anything in plastic, so Stubby's original comment about plastic being cheap it irrelevant.

GW paints are now manufactured in China as well.

Tailgunner wrote:Before you all assume that you're automatically being screwed, it helps to know a few facts.

1. Production in China is becoming more expensive. Also, transport costs tend to undercut any savings in production costs.

2. China has a lot of expertise in resin casting. If you've ordered from FW recently, you will have seen a big improvement in the quality. This is because they are now using better resin and the quality control of the casting is greatly improved - because it's being done in China. I know this from someone who has his own resin casting business in China and who's been to the FW casting facility there.

3. FW doesn't produce anything in plastic, so Stubby's original comment about plastic being cheap it irrelevant.

GW paints are now manufactured in China as well.

Regardless of where its being made, plastic is no longer cheap. Relative to where it was 5 to 10 years ago its raised in price by several hundred percent. If you think about the actual work and energy that goes into makeing a GW plastic or a FW resin peice, you'll realise that your actually paying a fair price for what your getting.

a "fair" price is a subjective term. The markup on plastics, even at inflated cost, is still in the 100's of %.

If you look at markup on other "hobbies" such as musical instruments the markup is at best 35% of the retail value (and no one pays retail).

A $1000 drum set runs about $600 to be made, which then sells to the retailer at $800, is priced at $1000 and can then be haggled down to $900, which is only about a 12% margin to the store and 30% to the manufacturer.

I know that GW hobby isn't as prolific as playing guitar but the business model is the same idea.

The problem with GW pricing is their overhead as a company. No other model company puts a store every other town like GW does. I myself drive about an hour to the closes lgs to play, bypassing a closer GW.

GW is an overinflated company that needs to just close out stores where LGS's exist or move to strictly becoming a manufacturer in order for retailer cost to go down, and thus retail prices to drop.

To compare again, DW Drums doesn't sell directly to the public. You HAVE to go thru a dealer. GW does sell direct, and thus demands that their retailers charge the same price.

We are dealing with the Emperor Palpatine of hobby companies here.

If that is the case Tailgunner why has everyone been shutting down plant in the west to set up shop in China?

Nice inducements no doubt and cheap labour?
If there was not a significant cost saving, even including transport, firms would not go out there.

While I agree GW prices are steep the same can be said for miniatures imported to the UK from the U.S such as Privateers Warmachine, Darkage and Mercs if it costs $30 in the U.S it will be £30 over here not £17.50 or so.

Damn my codex really is made in china haha.

Catyrpelius wrote:Regardless of where its being made, plastic is no longer cheap. Relative to where it was 5 to 10 years ago its raised in price by several hundred percent. If you think about the actual work and energy that goes into makeing a GW plastic or a FW resin peice, you'll realise that your actually paying a fair price for what your getting.

GW are one of the most expensive companies out there. Others offer products of the same quality for less. There are a lot of plastic manufacturers churning out high quality plastic kits now and all are cheaper than GW. GW's economies are all messed up, sure they have colossal overheads from all those stores, but what about economy of scale? If they don't benefit from their scale meaning they have to charge significantly more than many smaller games companies then their business model is flawed. Opening shops shouldn't make you worse off. The benefits of economy of scale should outweigh those overheads, otherwise every new shop cuts into the profit margin. Perhaps that's why GW have such a huge turnover, such a huge amount of shops and yet only keep a few million quid each year. And that's before you think about whether you make more money by dropping prices and attracting more customers. Every year their answer is to raise the prices, but that's not sustainable in the long run. How long until a box of Marines is £25? £28? £30? When will they simply run out of people prepared to drop such a lot of money for little plastic?

Thats why I buy secondhand from ebay! Prices of this stuff are absurd! I think its incredibly ridiculous to charge a price for something based on its value in the game. Best of luck with your boycott!

SilverMK2 wrote:

kizzdougs wrote:US $62 for a defiler? We pay AUS $103 for a defiler and our currency is currently almost on a par with yours:(

You have crazy import taxes though. Probably because your customs people have to check that every package coming in doesn't have any seeds or animals hiding in it or something

Customs duties in Aus are pretty run-of-the-mill. Tax isn't especially high either. Neither of those explains the price difference.

I think you people are crazy enough to continue to play WH or 40K while there are many other good games out there at a much lower price.

but they arent AS good as 40k & FB...

This was from another thread that was locked:

"I'm probably too sleepy to get this right so bear with me... I think this is interesting. I think we can actually figure out a rough estimate of how much it costs them to produce a kit from this report. 59% of their sales they get to keep the full amount and 41% are to independant sellers @ a 50% discount. so 6 kits direct for every 8 kits to independant stockists. (6*60+8*30)/14=$42.86 (average sale price) on which they make a 72% margin($30.86 margin) so actual cost to them to make a $60 kit is $12. so GW gets $48 if you buy it from them and $18 if you buy it from an independant retailer (the retailer pockets the difference) "

These are from GW's own numbers in their report. (before the recent prices rises).

wildger wrote:I think you people are crazy enough to continue to play WH or 40K while there are many other good games out there at a much lower price.

Other games that let you field a hundred models and finish the game in a couple of hours?

These are numbers from their last financial report. This is on average so on some individual products they are going to be making more money, and on some they are going to be making less. For someplace like Walmart who makes a scary low margin like 6% you could buy the same box for less than $13. This is why GW price seems so out of line, for most things that most people buy they charge a lot more money compared to how much it costs them to produce.

Edit: this was supposed to go right after my previous post ... (shakes fist)

Scott-S6 wrote:

wildger wrote:I think you people are crazy enough to continue to play WH or 40K while there are many other good games out there at a much lower price.

Other games that let you field a hundred models and finish the game in a couple of hours?

Kings of war.

Well, I don't think any of us were under the illusion that GW was operating as any sort of charity. They're a for profit business with share holders to satisfy. In terms of pricing, they'll keep upping the price of things to maintain and increase their margins while trying to stop short of driving enough people away to hurt their overall profit. All the while, they'll look or internal cost savings just like everyone else.

While there are some great up and coming games, none of them look to be big enough to provide serious competition to GW yet. Given a few years, maybe, but for now GW is the big kid on the block with enough market share to do more or less what it likes.

For us, we either find another game that we like and people in our area play, buy from independent retailers and eBay where the prices are similar, but GW gets a lesser cut or just keep buying from GW and dislike it. If we really want to change GW's pricing practice, the first option is the best one to take. It's also the hardest sell for those of us with large armies, who like GW's games and/or have to sell people in the area on a new game.

You still buy GW's justification for their high prices due to the material / cost / labor / etc?

GW and FW is all the same , the only justification to how they price their product is simply : It'll be as high as what buyers are willing to pay.

insaniak wrote:So far as they've said so far, all of the regular GW minis are still made in the UK and US, although bases have been coming out of china for several years now, as have all pretty much all of the hobby materials.

Forgeworld though has been gradually shifting to Chinese production for the last few years. Partly to cut costs and partly, I think, to try to keep up with the demand.

And Insaniak hits the nail on the head.

It's also worth noting that if Games Workshop had everything being produced in China, the profit reports for the last would have been very, very different.

I do have to wonder where in China that Forge World is contracting out to though. I've not seen any recasts come up on eBay, etc yet.