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I also like how you completely slide slid most of my post and simply focused on one small part. Kudos to you my friend. Enjoy your rage.

Kind of like you did huh with my post huh!

Hulksmash, You tell me how to play and what to play and I wasn't a good customer and you say I have the rage?

Not really angry, i've got my minis.

I'm dissapointed that the players let GW get away with it.
I'm annoyed because if I ran either of my companies this way I'd be out of business.

Some minis are better now, some are worse than they were. We could give lists but it'd just be cherry picking. In general they are better, I can admit that. But not 600% better.

Better is also a relative term, the details of sculpts are better in most cases (much worse in others). Many of the "multipose" really only work in one pose, standing strait up. I guess if i wanted to have a parade that would be great. I dont think everyone needs to be a character model though with the details, but hey a dynamic pose might be nice. They don't play any better. Your $40 squad of marines can't beat my $7 squad of marines. Most people probably can't even paint to the level required to make the new details stand out.

I think what saddens me the most is when I hear people like you, (probably a guy who loves the hobby and has given GW tones of cash, and deserves some loyalty from them) go "Yeah it's expensive but I suck it up every once in a while and buy something". Why should you have to suck it up? Why do you defend a company that makes you suck it up. They don't have to make you suck it up you know. They could just make it ........affordable. It's called better business practices.

People defend prices for only one reason. They'll be damned if they are made fools by a company dropping the prices like that. They really want to believe that these plastic men are worth what they were charged, because that is what they paid for them. You know what, to you maybe they are worth that. But that's not what they cost, and it's not what they should cost. It's not right. YOU SHOULD BE THE ONE WITH RAGE. Not me, i got my minis, or i'll get them used. When I have kids.......maybe they will get them used I don't know.

Competition is going to come along. You should support it! What you shouldn't do is bury your head in the sand and understand that the $40 in plastic that you just bought costs about $4 total to manufacture.

I have a hard time believing that the assembly is done by hand, not when I work at a fething factory. The only thing done by hand here is stacking the pallets (except when the robot is doing it), otherwise it's people making sure the machinery doesn't make mistakes. And it really does sound like you're mad at a company for being a company and wanting to make a profit.

You work in a factory where? The united states. Where labor is the most expensive in the world? Yes, You will witness very little hand assembly done there.

Where are most products made (especially the ones I was referring to)? Where labor is cheaper than machinery. Where they don't have to pay unions. Go to any major factory in China or the third world....its hand assembly.

Disclaimer

Oh please don't get me started on globalization and outsourcing of jobs, I'm not a fan of outsourcing manufacturing, but as far as I know GW products are not produced in the USA (and I'm not sure if they are still produced in England), so they might as well be produced in china to save the customer money. (sorry England...just my two cents...keep your stiff upper lip and all). However again comparative to the other products I used as an example there is very little labor involved in the cost of GW products, so move those machines back to England. (Good show chaps) Either way if these are manufactured in England or the U.S. the prices are still crazy, if they are made in china they are redonkulous

The price for GW plastics will be coming way down, at the bankruptcy clearance sale, if they keep doing what they are doing.

Andrew1975 wrote:snip

I also feel the prices on GW miniatures are borderline outrageous, but this is DakkaDakka. People will argue that GW is great for saving them a few bucks, completely ignoring the fact the models went from metal to plastic and that it was GW who drove the metal prices that high in the first place. I think you'll find that most people who feel like you do are not on the forums. To be honest they're probably not doing anything GW.

Andrew1975 wrote:You work in a factory where? The united states. Where labor is the most expensive in the world? Yes, You will witness very little hand assembly done there.

Where are most products made (especially the ones I was referring to)? Where labor is cheaper than machinery. Where they don't have to pay unions. Go to any major factory in China or the third world....its hand assembly.

Disclaimer

Oh please don't get me started on globalization and outsourcing of jobs, I'm not a fan of outsourcing manufacturing, but as far as I know GW products are not produced in the USA (and I'm not sure if they are still produced in England), so they might as well be produced in china to save the customer money. (sorry England...just my two cents...keep your stiff upper lip and all). However again comparative to the other products I used as an example there is very little labor involved in the cost of GW products, so move those machines back to England. (Good show chaps) Either way if these are manufactured in England or the U.S. the prices are still crazy, if they are made in china they are redonkulous

A lot of their products are are now made in china, with modern equipment(Your info on china seens to be a decade behind here), the chinese have modernized their production capabilities considerably.

I don't know if they they still produce any pieces in the Tennessee factory, they were a few years ago when they moved the facility from Baltimore.

davetaylor wrote:H.B.M.C., thanks for cutting a tiny snippet from my post, letting me know what my memories should have been, then completely missing my point. Way to argue you on the Internet.

Now I remember why I steer clear of the Discussion sub-forums here on Dakka. Wait, let me use an orkmoticon so you know I'm just kidding

Oh harden up Dave. It's the internet - it's not like it's 'serious business' or anything. And besides, quoting your entire post would have been a waste of time, as I was only responding to the error you made, not the point you were making.

I think you are 100% correct in that statement Andrew1975. Just because you like the product, doesn't mean you have to bend over and assume the position. The only reason they get away with it is because they can, and if their customers had any sense or willpower they would put a stop to it.

Andrew1975 wrote:

People defend prices for only one reason. They'll be damned if they are made fools by a company dropping the prices like that. They really want to believe that these plastic men are worth what they were charged, because that is what they paid for them.

Amen to that. Someone just hit the nail with a hammer.

Andrew, I think we had the same GW experience.

Bet you still have your original copy of Orcs Drift and Chapter Approved...

Lord-Ironfist UNA wrote:I can't stop laughing at the people saying a kid would go for a handful of plastic for $100 instead of two just released video games! Now we know who the real addicts are .

As a kid which would you pick?

Games-Workshop:
Island of Blood - $99

Alternative:
Halo 3 - $20
Gears of War 2 - $20
Left 4 Dead - $20
Bioshock - $20
Dead Rising - $20

Or go buy them pre-owned and throw in 2-3 more games. True they are older games, but the prices drop quickly shortly after the big release.

Although I agree with the sentiment in general, You chose poorly on specifics. Which is to say, of your "just-released" video games,

Halo 3: released Sept 2007. $27
Gears of War 2: Released November 2008. $28
Ledt 4 Dead: released November 2008. $20
Bioshock: Released August 2007. $20
Dead Rising: Released August 2006. $17

Saying "Would you buy Island of Blood for $90, or 3 games that were released 2 to 4 years ago" isn't exactly the same argument, yes?

@Andrew1975.

Whilst a large amount of supplementary stuff (figure cases, I think the RoB game boards) is manufactured in China and most of the printing (Rules, WD, etc) is done in Poland, the minis are produced in Nottingham, UK.

When the US operation got big enough, they copied the factory (literally - the layout was identical) and built one in the US (can't remember where) to reduce shipping costs.


The point still stands, though, that GW are overpriced, especially when compared to some of the competition. Any arguments saying that you can't compare prices because the competition makes different games are spurious - after all, Ford makes cars, Volvo makes cars. They are different in many ways but they are still cars and worthy of comparison on price, quality and applicability to your needs.

You can do the same with wargames - it doesn't matter if they are made by PP, GW, Rackham, Mantic, Wyrd or MyMateBob (not a real company ), they still produce wargames minis and rules and should theoretically be in direct competition with each other. The reason why GW charges what it does is because as yet none of the other companies have got their 5h1t together to a level where they can challenge them on a meaningful scale.

When this happens, GW prices will fall or GW will go under - its that simple.

Sidstyler wrote:I bought the Orange Box for $30 last month (yeah I know, I'm a little behind the times)

Spoiler:

focusedfire wrote:

A lot of their products are are now made in china, with modern equipment(Your info on china seens to be a decade behind here), the chinese have modernized their production capabilities considerably.

I don't know if they they still produce any pieces in the Tennessee factory, they were a few years ago when they moved the facility from Baltimore.

QFT.

Wargames Forge charges $20 for 18 greatcoats and their miniatures are produced in China; I'm sure they're making a reasonable profit off of sales but the price is low enough that they are selling well (at least going by their online forum and facebook page) and that's even after the shipping snaffu here recently.

Mantic produces some nice figs, cheaper than GW and includes a case with each unit.

Production costs are not an issue in GWs pricing. What is an issue, as has been mentioned before, is we're paying for overhead costs unrelated to actual production and delivery. Support for competitions, the brick and mortar shops that are continually shuffled about. Foremost, we're paying for the salaries of a CEO, CFO, Legal department,etc. all of which smaller companies like WF and Mantic don't have or contract out for; believe me, they'll charge more as they grow....just like GW. None of this excuses the high prices (they'll charge what they can get) but it does result in more and more people looking elsewhere....seriously why pay GW (even discounted) for a box of 10 cadians when I can get 18 greatcoats for the same or a cheaper price?

Nobody's going out of business here. GW is not going to close shop tomorrow. FLGS owners like Mikhaila won't see their stores run dry because of GWs prices (as I'm sure Warhammer is only a percentage of his shop's earnings) and dedicated GW fans will continue to buy for their own reasons......for now. I'm sure GW realizes that as comepetition becomes more fierce, they'll have to do something different or fall by the wayside. They've had a good run but nothing's forever; even TSR (1973-1997)closed shop and sold out to Wizards of the Coast and D&D has/had a larger audience with a much stronger IP than GW (Books, movies, saturday morning cartoons, dolls and figs, video games, clothing, gaming merchandise, novels).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ouze wrote:

Although I agree with the sentiment in general, You chose poorly on specifics. Which is to say, of your "just-released" video games,

Halo 3: released Sept 2007. $27
Gears of War 2: Released November 2008. $28
Ledt 4 Dead: released November 2008. $20
Bioshock: Released August 2007. $20
Dead Rising: Released August 2006. $17

Saying "Would you buy Island of Blood for $90, or 3 games that were released 2 to 4 years ago" isn't exactly the same argument, yes?

Yeah but he can trade those games back and forth with his friends or go to gamestop and buy a pre-owned for less; will you loan a friend an army that you spent months putting together and painting?

This hobby really suffers for GW not having a peer competitor. The table top wargaming industry is probably just over a $300M/yr industry, of which GW is about $230M/year. The rest split between a large number of much smaller companies. Rackham is a 1/10th GW size, based on revenue and when wizkidz was sold their value had sunk down to less than that and those two are the next biggest companies. By not having to compete GW can get away with what they do.

Actually, on a second look this is really good value for money. If your like me and only want one army (High Elves of course) and you swap the army you dont want with a mate for the one you do want, you end up with quite a lot of miniatures which is almost enough to start battling right away. Now compare this to the $150 us Aussies pay for battalion box sets, for an extra $10 I'll be getting a regiment of Reavers, 2 Lords on a freaking griffon, 2 mages, and the rulebook. Well worth it IMO.

Something no one has mentioned (that I noticed) - GW most likely raised the price so people couldn't profit too much from breaking the sets. If you price a set too cheap people make a killing breaking it up and selling it off in small pieces; not exactly what they intended by making the sets in the first place. They are meant to be a good deal, especially for a beginning hobbyist; not something to be sold in pieces on Ebay.

Besides they are a BUSINESS. And a sucessful one at that. They can never make everyone happy, especially people who are blind to how businesses are run.

I personally would like to see plastic meganobs since the current ones are crazy expensive but GW takes a gamble every time they produce a plastic model. Unlike metal ones they could actually LOSE money on the plastic models. Just because the end product is made from cheap plastic does NOT make the process inexpensive.

For example, a plastic ring costs .01 cents for the actual plastic it is made out of. That one cent does NOT include the $80,000 spent on molds, the $2 million dollar machine, the electricity to run the machine, the 5 people who check for quality control, the carboard box it comes in, the shipping to the major distribution center and then to the local store, or the sales person who sells it to the retailer. Suddenly that ring no longer costs one cent... how much that ring really "cost" is determined by how many eventually sell since those huge costs will be divided among all of the rings produced. So that ring could cost 5 cents in the end OR as much as ten dollars. If you sold the ring for 10 cents to the retailer then you are hoping you sell enough so that the ring will cost you less than 10 cents... it's a gamble.

And yet people will still complain about spending 10 cents on a "ring that cost one cent!!!". Sigh.

And last - it is a free country. Spend your money on what you feel is "worth it".

I keep posting it but it doesn't seem to sink in. On all the models GW makes they make a 72% margin on average. That means taking everything you said into account with the molds machinery and manpower to produce the goods, they are making a big margin by any standard. $12 to produce a $60 box on average. Almost any consumer good you find will be on a much smaller margin than that. For instance Walmart and most of its suppliers operates on less than 10%.

People don't complain because the plastic in the ring costs a penny. They complain because it actually cost a penny to make with all those factors you added in considered. Actually to put it better, for most other things people are used to buying, if a ring costs 10cents to purchase, it likely cost 9 cents to get it there all things considered, where GW would charge 50 cents for the same thing. Its that 5x multiplier for GW goods that in my opinion, keeps them from explosive growth. Hell knock it down to a 3x multiplier and they would more than make up the money both in short, and especially long term IMO.

A lot of their products are are now made in china, with modern equipment(Your info on china seens to be a decade behind here), the chinese have modernized their production capabilities considerably.

While I appreciate the input, i know a little bit about Chinese factories. My sister used to have to go to China to supervise the production of toys for a large well known toy company. I'm not saying everything is hand assembled, but there is a good amount, especially with the products I used as examples. No two Gi joe characters are the same, you cannot create assembly machinery for each different Joe. I also used to have to go to factories on the U.S. Mexico border to supervise the assembly of (get this) audio greeting cards. The sound chips, speakers, and printing were done in China, but to avoid a "Made in China" tag this company used to have the hand assembly done in sweatshops full of illegal immigrants. I didn't work for them much longer after that.

Please don't get me wrong, I don't hate GW. I think they make a great product. They fumble here and there (Minatars), but their minis are for the most part better than they were a few years ago. I think they are setting themselves up for a fall though. They have turned from a game company that had hundreds of games, to a manufacturing company that has 40K. They continue to whittle down their revenue stream buy constantly pricing their products out of the reach of entire segments of the market.

If they are having problems running the company at the prices they charge they are very inefficient. All it would take is some company like Hasbro to crunch the numbers and decide to buy them. We know what happens then, cheap prepainted crap, and a further watering down of the game until is resembles WOC crap. Do you want that? I don't want that?

Competition in the market place improves every aspect of a business. It cuts costs, increases quality, and creates greater talent in the field. It turns fat companies into Olympic athletes. The customer benefits, but so does the company. Could you imagine the juggernaut that GW could be, if they were priced properly and created "warm fuzzies" for all their customers?

Yes there will always be people that complain about the price. If you can logically defend it and keep the grumblings to a minority, that's fine. But this is not currently GWs situation. When you have professional reviewers questioning the price of your products in public, you have a major problem. When was the last time you heard a Car and Driver reporter say that car is a nice car....but its way overpriced for what it is. I see it all the time in GW reviews.

If you ask me if the new box is a value, I'd have to say No. The contents of the box are top notch (GW is getting much better at this compare 1st ed Space hulk with the current space hulk. 1st ed space hulk however worked just fine, but it was not as pretty). It's still over priced, but probably not by much. The reason it is a terrible value though is that "It has $300 dollars worth on miniatures". Compared to the rest of the GW line these are worth $300 DOLLARS! I would wonder what I was getting into at that point. It's like the drug dealer giving you the first one free. That box is not worth $300 dollars, its not worth $90, If GW was honest they would sell it for $60, if they really wanted to get their hooks in people the would sell it for $40.

Sony losses money on every PS3 they sell when they are first released. Why? To get them into the market, drive down the cost of production, beat their competition, and start selling games, peripherals and licenses which is where the real money is made.

Mantic is going to give its rules away (will they be great rules, who knows, does it build good will and interest, you bet it does). They will have multiple starter sets at reasonable prices. I think their minis look good and come in cases (brilliant marketing by the way), I don't like the elves style, but the dwarfs are actually believable. Other people say they are not GW quality, I can't confirm or deny that, I havn't seen them up close, but they look good. Good enough that I would field them to represent my ranked troops. There is a point where every mini does not have to be a masterpiece. I don't need to fiddle with and paint 300 character models just so I can field my army.

In business there is not the Big and the Little. There is the Slow (dark eldar codex is how old?) and the Fast (Mantic has put out 3 soon to be 4 armies in a matter of months and will be releasing a full game from concept to finish in what 4 months). GW Wake up.

I don't want to get into a lengthy argument about actual costs (since it is almost entirely speculation) - I just want to reiterate two points.

One - they don't want people to break their sets for large profit.

Two - they are a business. They will price their products according to their business model. I highly doubt they spin a wheel to determine their prices. As a consumer if you do not feel that something is worth what they are charging you can elect not to buy it. Simple as that.

I've owned and operated two businesses (one solely retail and one wholesale production and retail) and I could go on and on about mark-ups but its all boils down to GW being a very normal business.

I think my first point is the most applicable to the original post anyways.

sigh... it's not "entirely speculation" it's from GW's financial statement.

@ PinkPaw,

If point one is true, it doesn't make a very nice introductory kit into their line for new players. I believe this is the intent but if you make it too high, you won't get as much new interest.

@ All
Several people have posted comparisons between GW and consol game systems. What they have all left out is the concept of perceived value. There is greater perceived value in the purchase of an electronic good than in a pile of plastic army men. The reason? I can use a PS3 for more than just playing games on; there's greater utility in an object that provides me with hours of game play, a Blu-Ray movie player, an internet portal, the ability to play music, etc. I can build, paint and play a game with my little plastic army men....that's it.

Scenario: Man owns a console game system, nerds out all during the week but has a GF and wants some quality time so slips in a CD with some mood music or watches a movie with her.... this means that a console system can possibly help you get laid. Now imagine if you take a woman to your house and tell ask her "Hey do you want to look at my army men for two hours and then make out?" This means your army men may have the opposite result.

Something no one has mentioned (that I noticed) - GW most likely raised the price so people couldn't profit too much from breaking the sets. If you price a set too cheap people make a killing breaking it up and selling it off in small pieces; not exactly what they intended by making the sets in the first place. They are meant to be a good deal, especially for a beginning hobbyist; not something to be sold in pieces on Ebay.

This is a perfect example of the worst business practices ever! Price a product so that in no way is it a deal for anyone! This is quite possibly the worst excuse ever. Why does GW care what you do with your minis once you have bought them. They have never sold the contents of any of their boxed sets separately! If you want deff copters you have no choice but to buy the box, or buy off ebay or a friend. Do you think they will be rereleasing any of those minis from the new box in the stores seperatly? Not likely.

So it's ok for GW to force you to buy a new starter box because you like the new silver helms? This.....This is your rational? WOW I never imagined GW tactics as that sinister, and you are using it as a defense. I want to know what businesses you ran so I can stay clear of those.

I accuse them of being slow and stupid......you counter with their just mean. Hey don't share your toys

Um they did it in the past to their box sets (raised the price so people would stop breaking them up as much - now when you break them up you can break-even or make a little money but not a huge profit) - it has been posted about in the past on Dakka as well as other forums. Not new news - just something not mentioned on this thread.

And if the price is too high to entice new players (which GW will shortly find out once they go on sale) the only other option would be to offer less pieces and lower the price to like $60. Unless they never took a business class I'm pretty sure they considered the other option but decided that keeping the sets large enough to actually play with was a better option.

Um they did it in the past to their box sets (raised the price so people would stop breaking them up as much) - it has been posted about in the past on Dakka as well as other forums. Not new news - just something not mentioned on this thread.

Wouldn't that just encourage the sales and splitting of boxes? At $40 I'd keep them all, at $100 I'm pretty much forced to sell what I'm not using. Raising the prices creates the market for resales.

If GW ever actually used this rational its an excuse to raise prices, not a reason.

Andrew1975 wrote:Raising the prices creates the market for resales.

Indeed!

1) Buy GW models.
2) Wait until next GW price hike.
3) Profit!

Once upon a time, that would have been a gamble. Now, it seems more certain than the stock market.

HA HA! nerd rage love it

i remember when i bought mine..... it was only 75$

Once upon a time, that would have been a gamble. Now, it seems more certain than the stock market.

GW perfects alchemy, turns plastic into Gold*. Soon you will see "Cash for GW products" stores in every mall. We'll all be millionaires.

Step one. Steal underpants

Step two. ?

Step three. Profit

*fools gold (sorry knew iit would be in the next post...so i went for it)

asmith wrote:. the IoB box set should not cost more to produce than a basic DVD player.

How can you even think that IoB should be cheaper? Hundreds of millions of DVD players are made every year. How many IoB sets will be produced total? I'd be amazed if it was 1% of that (i.e. several million).

This is why DVD players are cheaper. The comparison to DVD players was to refute agnosto premise that being more complicated makes something more expensive. He has since suggested that something should be more expensive because some of it's component materials cost more per gram, also clearly incorrect. Economies of scale and cost of labour are the factors which define production costs. For most products materials are insignificant.

The only legitimate way to show that GW stuff is overpriced is to show similar items at a similar quality being sold for significantly less. The example was made of the greatcoat infantry. I'm not keen on the sculpts but they are much better value than most GW stuff. That's a useful example

agnosto wrote:Scenario: Man owns a console game system, nerds out all during the week but has a GF and wants some quality time so slips in a CD with some mood music or watches a movie with her.... this means that a console system can possibly help you get laid. Now imagine if you take a woman to your house and tell ask her "Hey do you want to look at my army men for two hours and then make out?" This means your army men may have the opposite result.

I think the latter would be more successful with my gf.

Andrew1975 wrote:

Step one. Steal underpants

Step two. ?

Step three. Profit

step two, beer its part of every great plan