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zerosignal wrote:
I think FW would do themselves a MASSIVE favour by at least trying to justify why they are raising prices.

The lack of any (sensible) communication in the face of a massive community outcry is a real PR humdinger.

Even if they just go 'brexit uncertainty, supply chain costs likely to increase, sorry guys' - it's something.

The crass response from the fb page hasn't helped. It seems, as twenty years ago, they are still hiring Orks over Inquisitors...

Frankly, if they would say that, publicly, i belive they would get alot less hate then they get now.
FW's communication is terrible, GW's now a bit better but still iffy sometimes. Most of their problems could be solved by better communication, heck even for the discontinued lines, if they'd say we put some of them into plastic (for exemple R&H ) to finally get you the options for cultists/ we will upgrade them into either mainline codexes (ala the old lost and the damned) or additional content for existing codexes or make them subfactions with a plastic relaease, nobody would be sad.

Instead we get nothing , only a pricespike covered by supposedly "better/ faster" shipping to get a positive spin on the whole debacle.

The fact that a Corsairs Heavy upgrade kit is 33$ for a 4 man upgrade kit for a 5 man unit that is for an army unit they no longer care about is beyond stupid.

A box of Kabals are 30$ and it comes with 10 guys (not 4) and Heavy/Assault weapons too.....
Edit: SPellLeng, English hurded

Not Online!!! wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
I think FW would do themselves a MASSIVE favour by at least trying to justify why they are raising prices.

The lack of any (sensible) communication in the face of a massive community outcry is a real PR humdinger.

Even if they just go 'brexit uncertainty, supply chain costs likely to increase, sorry guys' - it's something.

The crass response from the fb page hasn't helped. It seems, as twenty years ago, they are still hiring Orks over Inquisitors...

Frankly, if they would say that, publicly, i belive they would get alot less hate then they get now.
FW's communication is terrible, GW's now a bit better but still iffy sometimes. Most of their problems could be solved by better communication, heck even for the discontinued lines, if they'd say we put some of them into plastic (for exemple R&H ) to finally get you the options for cultists/ we will upgrade them into either mainline codexes (ala the old lost and the damned) or additional content for existing codexes or make them subfactions with a plastic relaease, nobody would be sad.

Instead we get nothing , only a pricespike covered by supposedly "better/ faster" shipping to get a positive spin on the whole debacle.

Except it's been proven time and time again that it's better for them as a company to keep quiet about it. There'll be complaints and discussion when it happens but if they say nothing that dies down. If they say something it gets picked up and the story continues. They say nothing people get bored, the majority stop caring and then when someone says anything they're drowned out by apathy.

If they remove a line of models then outright say they're not coming back it becomes a story. If they drop models then just give some generic response interest dies down and people stop caring. While it is nice as a customer to be somewhat kept in the loop it makes no sense as a company for them to do so.

Due to the ridiculous decision to gouge the Australian market I will not be using my FW models, will not allow them in my games and will not be purchasing any more.

I vote with my wallet... and I'll be picking up other games and models instead of GW or FW in the future.

 Azmodaeus wrote:
Due to the ridiculous decision to gouge the Australian market I will not be using my FW models, will not allow them in my games and will not be purchasing any more.

I vote with my wallet... and I'll be picking up other games and models instead of GW or FW in the future.

Nice attitude to carry, your opponent that has such an army is surely going to be angry, but not at FW like he should be, (and mostlikely will be) but rather at you.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 IronBrand wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
I think FW would do themselves a MASSIVE favour by at least trying to justify why they are raising prices.

The lack of any (sensible) communication in the face of a massive community outcry is a real PR humdinger.

Even if they just go 'brexit uncertainty, supply chain costs likely to increase, sorry guys' - it's something.

The crass response from the fb page hasn't helped. It seems, as twenty years ago, they are still hiring Orks over Inquisitors...

Frankly, if they would say that, publicly, i belive they would get alot less hate then they get now.
FW's communication is terrible, GW's now a bit better but still iffy sometimes. Most of their problems could be solved by better communication, heck even for the discontinued lines, if they'd say we put some of them into plastic (for exemple R&H ) to finally get you the options for cultists/ we will upgrade them into either mainline codexes (ala the old lost and the damned) or additional content for existing codexes or make them subfactions with a plastic relaease, nobody would be sad.

Instead we get nothing , only a pricespike covered by supposedly "better/ faster" shipping to get a positive spin on the whole debacle.

Except it's been proven time and time again that it's better for them as a company to keep quiet about it. There'll be complaints and discussion when it happens but if they say nothing that dies down. If they say something it gets picked up and the story continues. They say nothing people get bored, the majority stop caring and then when someone says anything they're drowned out by apathy.

If they remove a line of models then outright say they're not coming back it becomes a story. If they drop models then just give some generic response interest dies down and people stop caring. While it is nice as a customer to be somewhat kept in the loop it makes no sense as a company for them to do so.

Ah yeah, the EA buisness model, even bad PR is PR, and whilest that might be true, it can massivly backfire, from boycotts from down under to generally more peple searching for alternatives and using those alternatives (be it GW kitbashes or recasters).
Btw don't you think a small sneak peak at such new and improved plastic lines or codexes which they no doubt could be doing would be better?

Not Online!!! wrote:
Ah yeah, the EA buisness model, even bad PR is PR, and whilest that might be true, it can massivly backfire, from boycotts from down under to generally more peple searching for alternatives and using those alternatives (be it GW kitbashes or recasters).
Btw don't you think a small sneak peak at such new and improved plastic lines or codexes which they no doubt could be doing would be better?

There won't be significant boycotting in Australia. We were hit much worse back when GW introduced the rule that retailers couldn't sell outside of their region. 40k is still going strong here that the increase to FW will ultimately have very little impact. Most people don't buy FW as it is so it'll only be a fraction of a fraction of the player base who boycott over this.

With regards to more information sure it'd be nice to have more heads up but they're not going to do it. We used to get more information and they stopped that. If I recall correctly they even threatened legal action over leaks at the time. Releasing info on products a while before launch is bad for business. It only benefits the players who save up for each purchase as it allows them to get it on release day. At the same time it kills impulse buys and can reduce sales of other kits. For example someone was saving up to buy a knight but then they find out a new primarch is coming in two months so they instead decide to not buy the knight. In the case where they didn't have that information the player buys the knight then gets excited in two months that a new primarch is here so they decide to start saving for that to use with their knight.

Giving players time to talk themselves out of buying something is bad for a business like GW. It's the same reason companies like nvidia don't announce a new graphics card, get it out for review, then launch it. They announce and launch it almost simultaneously. Same as how video game publishers have embargoes on games that don't lift until the day of or just before launch. Giving your customers time to forget a product or talk themselves out of buying it is bad for business.

I live in Australia, though this has dissuaded me from buying some superfluous stuff atm, tbh I don't really care (I don't play Horus Hersey or something dependent on Forge World). Prices have to be dependent on the market and the fluctuating money value of current countries (they have to pay employees etc on top, if compensating to much I don't mind). I will still buy everything Necromunda they produce and maybe get a few things for my other armies as I see fit (I don't really care). Every company increases in prices, some do it staggered yearly (For inflation etc) this company has done it in one hit (how long has it been since they have changed prices?). Either way, meh

Well now I know where Kirby ended up.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Nice attitude to carry, your opponent that has such an army is surely going to be angry, but not at FW like he should be, (and mostlikely will be) but rather at you.

I will let people know ahead of time and if that conditions is a deal breaker then we won't play, there is nothing rude about it.

Spectral Ceramite wrote:I live in Australia, though this has dissuaded me from buying some superfluous stuff atm, tbh I don't really care (I don't play Horus Hersey or something dependent on Forge World). Prices have to be dependent on the market and the fluctuating money value of current countries (they have to pay employees etc on top, if compensating to much I don't mind). I will still buy everything Necromunda they produce and maybe get a few things for my other armies as I see fit (I don't really care). Every company increases in prices, some do it staggered yearly (For inflation etc) this company has done it in one hit (how long has it been since they have changed prices?). Either way, meh

The fluctuating currencies should cause the cost for Australians to decrease, instead we don't just get shafted on future currency fluctuations in our favour but get slapped with a 30% price hike due to some arbitrarily picked conversion rate some Brit pulled out of his eye of terror.

If you think this is a reasonable change then you're a mook and deserve to be parted from your money.

The thing that I find most annoying is that I have to pay VAT if I get things mailed to me but if I went there in person I could get a refund. However, that is a problem with British law and FW has to follow the law.

The thing i find funny is 1. ForgeWorld prices haven't changed until now in the last 4 years. 2. People complain about an extravagance. I suppose it's better than changing a Prime Minster every few terms because we can.... (they all the same but I find it funny we go threw them like water).

To change one every few terms they'd have to last at least one term though.

Spectral Ceramite wrote:
The thing i find funny is 1. ForgeWorld prices haven't changed until now in the last 4 years. 2. People complain about an extravagance. I suppose it's better than changing a Prime Minster every few terms because we can.... (they all the same but I find it funny we go threw them like water).

They had a small price hike not even a year ago.... The usual inflation related one.

I was considering ordering some more transfers from them when I noticed that they HH transfer sheets are now $25 USD. I only paid ~$24 with shipping for the last one. Smegging hell, I knew this was going to be annoying but that just irks me in ways I didn't expect.

zerosignal wrote:
I think FW would do themselves a MASSIVE favour by at least trying to justify why they are raising prices.

Pretty simple explanation. ForgeWorld and GW aren't really separate companies. They absolutely do not have separate IT departments. Their stores are just barely separated and clearly use the same tech. The GW store has always had region specific pricing, while the FW store has only accepted UK orders. They ported over/enabled the region specific pricing to FW and because of that, you now get to pay the same inflated prices for FW stuff that you've always paid for the rest of GWs line. They really didn't raise prices, they just started accepting alternate currencies at the same abysmal rate they accept alternate currencies everywhere else on their store.

Spectral Ceramite wrote:
The thing i find funny is 1. ForgeWorld prices haven't changed until now in the last 4 years.

Sit down, F. They've already increased it at least once if not twice. Warhound weapons went from 33 to 43 pounds. Knights from 175 to 185, Thunderbolt from 88 (or something near that) to 97, etc. I bet they will surely increase this year too, by some 5% (10% to Australians, because FW hates them, obviously)

Spectral Ceramite wrote:
1. ForgeWorld prices haven't changed until now in the last 4 years.

They have increased the price of things every single year around about this time of the year for as long as I can remember, but they don't increase everything at once so you generally only notice if you had your eye on something.

I don't know... i've done a little research and the numbers don't really match up. Even the brexit thing, most companies sorted that out 2 years ago... if they're just addressing it now it would show incompetence so I doubt it's that. But the fact it's cheaper and faster for a ausy to get on a plain, have a weekend in forgeworld, buy everything they want and get home is just stupid to me... If you really wanted to continue to buy FW then buy it for British price and get a mate to send it to you through the post.

 lolman1c wrote:
Even the brexit thing, most companies sorted that out 2 years ago...

We still don't have a bloody clue what is happening with Brexit. Every week it seems something new shifts. So to say everyone sorted themselves out 2 years ago is not at all accurate. Companies are constantly having to adapt to the changing economic environment here still.

I am pretty sure that a large scale boycott will occur and they will just simply abandon their U.S market completely. Then, with more massive price spikes, FW will go out of business like they should and GW will start offering plastic kids of at least half of what FW did at less than 1/4 of the price just to spite them.

 Vasarto wrote:
I am pretty sure that a large scale boycott will occur and they will just simply abandon their U.S market completely. Then, with more massive price spikes, FW will go out of business like they should and GW will start offering plastic kids of at least half of what FW did at less than 1/4 of the price just to spite them.

GW and FW pricing and marketing is all controlled by the same people. Very few people ever boycott anything and most of the ones who do "boycott" something were never going to buy the thing in the first place. You're massively delusional if you think if FW was shut down that any significant number of kits would be converted to plastic. The few that did get moved over would be things like dreadnoughts and only if they're amazingly popular and then they'd continue to charge the exact same amount for the plastic kit. Every other FW model and rule would just be squatted if they closed FW.

 IronBrand wrote:

 Vasarto wrote:
I am pretty sure that a large scale boycott will occur and they will just simply abandon their U.S market completely. Then, with more massive price spikes, FW will go out of business like they should and GW will start offering plastic kids of at least half of what FW did at less than 1/4 of the price just to spite them.

GW and FW pricing and marketing is all controlled by the same people. Very few people ever boycott anything and most of the ones who do "boycott" something were never going to buy the thing in the first place. You're massively delusional if you think if FW was shut down that any significant number of kits would be converted to plastic. The few that did get moved over would be things like dreadnoughts and only if they're amazingly popular and then they'd continue to charge the exact same amount for the plastic kit. Every other FW model and rule would just be squatted if they closed FW.

Not entirely true. There is a director of Forgeworld who has quite a lot of autonomy. Supposedly he has been rubbing the other higher ups the wrong way of late.

You're right that if FW went under that would be the end of basically all those lines though. But I don't think it will come to that. The whales will still buy FW, and they bankroll it at the end of the day.

Stux wrote:
Not entirely true. There is a director of Forgeworld who has quite a lot of autonomy. Supposedly he has been rubbing the other higher ups the wrong way of late.

You're right that if FW went under that would be the end of basically all those lines though. But I don't think it will come to that. The whales will still buy FW, and they bankroll it at the end of the day.

Yeah, it would take a lot for FW to go out of business. The molds are much cheaper so outside of the cost of paying the sculptor and labour for casting the model itself there aren't really any costs other than material. A relatively small dedicated group of customers will be more than enough to keep FW afloat. This won't hurt FW in any significant way and the people complaining are just a vocal minority. I don't like the price hike either but it just means I won't be getting the rhino doors I've been wanting because the prices almost doubled. Losing a sale of a couple rhino doors is nothing.

Hopefully the loss of sales is cumulative, though, and forces them to rethink this. I used to feel pretty comfortable buying from FW, as it wasn't a frequent thing. But now the sticker shock is enough that I probably won't ever, unless I ask a friend in the UK to make a big purchase for me and ship it over.

I'd considered getting a bunch of Cerastus-style knights for the smaller Adeptus Titanicus scale when FW (eventually, inevitably ) releases them. But at the prices we're seeing now, I'm definitely scrapping that!

 Azmodaeus wrote:


The fluctuating currencies should cause the cost for Australians to decrease, instead we don't just get shafted on future currency fluctuations in our favour but get slapped with a 30% price hike due to some arbitrarily picked conversion rate some Brit pulled out of his eye of terror.

If you think this is a reasonable change then you're a mook and deserve to be parted from your money.

But that's not how companies which sell in multiple different currency markets work.

Generally any large company will always adopt a regional pricing policy where they set different RRPs for their products in different territories. And those are based on a whole lot more than the current exchange rate between the currencies. They're based on the state of the local market, competition, average wages and disposable income of their customers, operating costs for warehousing and distribution in that market (if they need it), import fees and whatever else I'm not thinking of. Exchange rates go up and down, but that doesn't really change the value of your currency to you and its purchasing power within your own country unless the exchange rate persists for a long time and inflation balances things out. You guys already have it worse than others due to the 'Australia Tax' and I can guarantee that sort of stuff will be taken into consideration. After all, if you're already used to paying over-inflated prices for everything else you buy, any company setting prices for its products in AUD is going to assume that you're already used to over-paying for stuff and set its own prices high to match. Sure, when the GBP is weak, GW could have lowered its prices in Australia so that each sale still gave them the same amount of GBP, but why would they? The purchasing power of their Australian customers in AUD hadn't changed at all, so they keep charging them the same price they've been paying for years, and make more profit on it once the money is exchanged back to GBP. Altering your prices up and down based on what the exchange rate is doing is not a good idea - because at times when prices are high you're going to have customers hold off from buying in the hope that prices will come down again soon.

Making sure that their profit margins will be acceptable is where the exchange rate comes in, based on a long-term weighted average of exchange rates. It's never going to be based on what the exchange rate is right now. It's an equation of what price they can set this at which works in the local market and is positioned against the historical average exchange rate, which means that if the exchange rate varies according to historical precedent they probably won't need to change prices. That's how GW came up with their regional pricing models however many years ago they brought them in. They weren't arbitrarily picked by 'some Brit'. GW is a FTSE250 business. You can bet that those pricing structures were set very carefully by a team of professional accountants and sales experts. (Aside - some really big companies I believe hold accounts of all sorts of different currencies to help them smooth fluctuations, but I don't believe GW does this).

GW/Citadel has been operating its international prices that way for many years, but for whatever reason they hadn't applied them to FW. The thing to remember here is that Forgeworld did not sell in your market before. Forgeworld sold to the British market, but because they didn't have regional pricing they allowed you to buy from the British market and pay British prices. We're GW's home territory over here, so it's always going to be cheaper - and recently because the exchange rate was so much in your favour you could almost argue that overseas customers were getting a relatively better deal on FW than the Brits. Any major company like GW was never going to let that situation persist for too long and an introduction to regional pricing was always going to increase your prices. It was probably especially easy for them to do, since they only had to integrate FW further into their existing systems.

I think it's important not to look at this in isolation, but to consider that GW are applying the same pricing policy as they do for Citadel to Forgeworld. People are getting angry at Forgeworld for doing what the rest of GW has been doing for decades.



Finally I feel like I should say that I'm not arguing in favour of this move and saying that you guys *should* have to pay more. That's not my intention at all. It sucks that stuff costs you so much more than it would have done a few weeks ago. It's just that through most of this discussion it's all been anger at the increased overseas prices, talk of boycotts and people assuming that the move has been made for no reason, when really it's standard corporate behaviour. Sure, be angry that they're expecting you to pay more without really telling you why. You have a right to that - but please also consider that they're changing from a business model that was beneficial to you to one that the majority of major companies use and which they already used across most of their lines.

---

Or in far fewer words, this exactly:

 LunarSol wrote:
Pretty simple explanation. ForgeWorld and GW aren't really separate companies. They absolutely do not have separate IT departments. Their stores are just barely separated and clearly use the same tech. The GW store has always had region specific pricing, while the FW store has only accepted UK orders. They ported over/enabled the region specific pricing to FW and because of that, you now get to pay the same inflated prices for FW stuff that you've always paid for the rest of GWs line. They really didn't raise prices, they just started accepting alternate currencies at the same abysmal rate they accept alternate currencies everywhere else on their store.

 RiTides wrote:
Hopefully the loss of sales is cumulative, though, and forces them to rethink this. I used to feel pretty comfortable buying from FW, as it wasn't a frequent thing. But now the sticker shock is enough that I probably won't ever, unless I ask a friend in the UK to make a big purchase for me and ship it over.

I'd considered getting a bunch of Cerastus-style knights for the smaller Adeptus Titanicus scale when FW (eventually, inevitably ) releases them. But at the prices we're seeing now, I'm definitely scrapping that!

Look, the prices aren't going back down. It undermines the boutique nature of FW if prices are ever reduced. They need to maintain the illusion that the cheap resin is actually worth a premium and part of that means being inflexible on pricing.

In their eyes it would open a floodgate.

 Vasarto wrote:
I am pretty sure that a large scale boycott will occur and they will just simply abandon their U.S market completely. Then, with more massive price spikes, FW will go out of business like they should and GW will start offering plastic kids of at least half of what FW did at less than 1/4 of the price just to spite them.

So according to your logic gw went down when they introduced same policy(and are likely who ordered this as well) years ago...umm...they stlll are?

And spite who? Fw? You realize right they are same company?

Lol some people are way out of reality

Again, I think it's totally fair that they can raise their prices without an explanation. It is equally fair for me to not buy any of their stuff until they lower their prices. If that means I never buy FW again so be it, they have permanently lost a customer. Enough said.

Bellerophon you do present a well reasoned argument however there is a massive and glaring issue; we have easy access to a global economy.

FW do not have Australian offices, warehouses or costs. This move is purely motivated by profit just as the previous GW region locking was.

I am sick of being gouged by trashy companies at no benefit to myself so I will take my money elsewhere... and yes I have spent fairly significant sums on this hobby.
Far more than most casual hobbyists would spend in a decade over the three years I have been collecting.

 Azmodaeus wrote:
Bellerophon you do present a well reasoned argument however there is a massive and glaring issue; we have easy access to a global economy.

FW do not have Australian offices, warehouses or costs. This move is purely motivated by profit just as the previous GW region locking was.

I am sick of being gouged by trashy companies at no benefit to myself so I will take my money elsewhere... and yes I have spent fairly significant sums on this hobby.
Far more than most casual hobbyists would spend in a decade over the three years I have been collecting.

I'm sure you're right on the motive - they probably decided that they were missing out on extra profits by not integrating FW into their normal pricing scheme. I guess my main point is that it's surprising it took them this long to do it. Whether it has a long term effect on sales remains to be seen, but the accountancy team must have calculated the likely outcome as greater overall profit otherwise they wouldn't have done it. So they probably expect the additional profit from their remaining sales will outweigh the lost sales from the folk who think the hikes are too much. The global economy is a good point, enough that they feel the need to stop you from buying from cheaper markets with region locking. I honestly don't know to what extent other industries do this - tech for example. That would be interesting to find out. I suspect most people buy in their local market even if they're not region locked, but then general tech consumers probably aren't as switched on to international prices as the GW-gaming crowd. I wonder how much of that comes down to GW's daft website design where if you find a page through google it likes to show you it in a random currency.

And I do sympathise on the feeling about being price gouged. For perhaps a similar example, I've spent a lot of money on my PC and I may have been in the market for a new graphics card - but the prices have been inflated in the last year or so to a level that I'm not willing to pay, because cryptominers are buying them all up and the sellers are hiking their prices accordingly. I refuse to pay what they're charging at the moment, so I'll hang on to my several-generations-old card until the new cards fall to a price which I think is reasonable, or until my old one gives up. (Or unless I decide that Brexit will drive prices up even further and figure I'd better buy now...)