Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Well i have seen GW have bumped up the prices again. I only recently started 40k however i have spent £200 and will probbaly have to spend another 200 before gaming needs are content.

Im beginning to make comparisons to other things i could have spent my money on....

An xbox 360 elite, with halo 3 and gears of war 2. (the only games i miss from only having a ps3)

2 ounces of high quality w**d.

800 KitKat bars.

The new NVIDIA Quadro FX 370 card, along with other pc componants i woudnt mind having.

8 trips to Thorpe Park.

16 goats for a poor Ethiopian tribe.

Audica 10in Sub-Woofer along with the 7.1 channel speaker system.

Fullfill my life long dream of acting out SuperSizeMe first hand.


All in all the list is endless, how do you guys cope with the GW prices?


P.S if anyone has some spair cash please contact me so we can organise the shipping of two more monoliths.

The only advice I can give is "don't get addicted to GW's crack".

If you have £200 to spend on "fun", then good on you. The rational thing is to look at all the things that can give you "fun" and find what will give you the most fun for that £200 and splurge it on that.

Obviously whenever prices rise then you can buy less" fun" for your £200 than you could before. If that means that you now re-evaluate your priorities and buy a couple of bottles of decent 30-year-old malt instead then so be it. If sticking little bits of metal and plastic together in slightly smaller quantities still appeals, then so be it.

Most "normal" people when faced with price rises and static incomes just buy less. Or swap out their purchases with cheaper alternatives.

In my book, only a fool would say "suck it up and stick it on the plastic". Either a fool, or someone so hopelessly addicted to 40crack that they can no longer find enjoyment in alternative uses for their money.

OK, either a fool, someone hopelessly addicted to 40crack, or a rich git with an income that rises by 25% per annum...

Thats an intaresting stance however i dont understand what you mean by buying less, i play 40k for the game and therefore for the game to be fun i need a balenced army.

With enough choices to defeat other armies.

Are you saying there is cheaper way of getting hold of 40k models?

If you play Marines, Orks or IG the following options are available.

1. Buy a couple of boxes of Black Reach for the cheap figures.
2. Use Pig Iron figures for IG.
3. Convert vehicles from historical tanks and lorries.

Nice ideas but unfortunatly i collect necrons, if only necrons showed up at black reach!

...Why would you censor weed?

Do you think games workshop prices are going to far?

Hell, yes.

Forge World's are worse.

BYE

To be honest, when you look at other luxury items you may purchase, although quite high for what basically amounts to plastic and metal, Games Workshop products are, when all things considered, good value for money.
I have never brought a game (New around £40) that has lasted me more than 3 months without it being a subscribe to play game I.E. MMORPG. Consumables such as weed and kitkats, once used cannot be used again. Games Workshop products can last innumerable battles and as such have a good replay value.

Yes gws prices are way to high, they raised them on the back of high energy prices but thats alleviated and the prices will still stay high for good now.

Also GW have backstabbed all the independant stockists by only allowing them to sell whole boxed sets when the money was to be made by buying big boxed sets and splitting them up.

GW should remember that 50% of all their sales are made by independant stockists, that means that half of the stock they sell isnt sold at the RRP at all.

I used to be an independant stockist but i got tired of them making up rules to prevent me making a profit (especially their rule about splitting up boxed sets)

I asked their legal team what to do with the thousands of £'s worth of stock that i had that was already split up and they told me to "keep it for my own personal use"

GW have lost their business sense.People who want a part from a monolith, arent going to buy an entire monolith and they need to realise that.

Also i believe they need to drop the hippies from the gw stores and cut the workforce back.It used to make my blood boil when i would walk past my local GW and see them sat painting all day while i was prepping orders for hours on end and going twice a day to the post office.

Sure they make some good models, but theyre a very brutal company and treat those that they deal with like a pimp treats a streetwalker.

Darth wrote:i play 40k for the game and therefore for the game to be fun i need a balenced army.

It's all in the definition of the word "need". You "need" food, water, clothing and shelter. Everything else is optional. You do not "need" it, you merely "want" it.

So instead of bunging £200/month at the hobby stretch the purchases out over longer. Also, many collect multiple armies.

Also if you want option X from the codex, but option Y costs less cash, then chosing X over Y is more of a luxury.

And also, with a little ingenuity and a bit of greenstuff, many options can be converted out of cheap second-hand plastics off ebay.

Being a cheapass may not be your style, and that's your call. I'm not telling you how to spend your money. But it's certainly possible to enjoy gaming and modelling with GW stuff if you employ an open mind and are prepared to think outside the box and not just buy the latest shiney toy GW dangles in front of your nose.

Of course, if you don't tend to play in GW-official arena (i.e. stores and tournaments) then you are able to take advantage of the many manufacturers who make models that are cheaper than GW's. (such as em4miniatures, etc., etc.)

Personally I haven't bought a new metal model for myself from GW for around 3 years now. My enjoyment of my wargaming hobby hasn't been adversely affected one little bit.

I'm not criticising those that do buy full price from the store - that's their business, not mine. But I am saying that if the cost concerns you there's always a way around. Just take a couple of minutes to think before you dip your hand in your wallet.

I'm just saying there's no need to get caught up in the "its only £20" trap if you don't want to. To me £20 is too much for a "spot purchase". I can buy a lot of enjoyment for £20 (and I have a decent salary, so its's not that I'm hard up, just I don't like wasting money), so if I'm going to dump £20 on my wargaming hobby I like to be sure I really, really want the goods. And not just in a sort of "ooh its new shiney" kind of way, but in a way that will mean I get a lot of fun out of it for the next few months. A couple of qid, or maybe a fiver I'll just dump on a spot purchase, but £10 or £20... no way. Once GW's blisters went over a fiver for character models a few years back, I stopped making spot purchases on a whim.

To be fair, I'm not even criticising GW in particular here. GW just set their prices at the level they think the market can justify, and as teenage, nerdy boys are their target demographic, they set their prices at a level they believe teenage, nerdy boys are prepared to pay. And it is a well known retail phenomenon that teenage, nerdy boys are not particularly good at price descrimination. And in latter years, with access to easy credit via their parents, the propensity for teenage nerdy boys to pay high prices for crap have only increased.

I think the single best piece of advice I can give any young hobbyist is to never, ever buy something the first time you see it. If you are tempted to buy something, sleep on it. If it still feels like a good idea in a week or two's time, then it probably still is and you may as well get it. That gives you the time to shop around for the best deal, and also rethink whether you really want it, or whether you were just falling for hype. The entertainment industry makes £squillions out of the kind of person who is so desperate for the latest piece of pop-culture they are prepared to pay a premium rather than just wait a couple of days. Seriously, is it *that* important to be the first to get something in your social group? Really?

The Dreadnote wrote:...Why would you censor weed?

Probably trying to protect the Americans, they're suprisingly up tight about wacky-baccy. I've seen Americans ranting on about weed like it's crack cocaine or something.

On the one hand gaming with GW is good value for money, because of the total immersion in the system. You have painting and converting of the models, the making of the scenery and the gaming, but and it's a big but, this only works if you happy to stay with the same army for a fair few years. If not, you are then you looking at another £400 for your next army at which point the case for the hobby being value for money starts falling apart.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

The Dreadnote wrote:...Why would you censor weed?

Probably trying to protect the Americans, they're suprisingly up tight about wacky-baccy. I've seen Americans ranting on about weed like it's crack cocaine or something.

I suppose it all depends on what you lace your weed with.. I've known people to lace it with PCP, cocaine, LSD and the great wonder of the new world ..... meth. they'd jsut spray the leaves and let it dry..

I've seen Europeans going on about it like it's corriander or something..;}

The (metal) figures are expensive next to industry standard, but the vehicles are about right, compared to other kits available. Still, with GW it's always been about the money.

But, hey, you don't like it, bring down global capitalism.

Amen Brick wrote:But, hey, you don't like it, bring down global capitalism.

I think the world economy is doing a fine job of that by itself right now, lol

800 kitkat bars convinced me.

I want to paint a kitkat bar so that it looks like a VTOL stick of deodorant.

The plastic sets aren't too bad for the price, considering what you get as far as customizability and extra parts. Sure, it' not like back in the day when you got 30 marines for 30 bucks, but whatchagunnado? But $15 for the upcoming grot and slaver box isn't too bad...

The metal models are another story, really.

Osbad, you cannot dismiss Darth's point as,"If you don't like it don't buy it" because the Hobby is an extremely fun an enjoyable one, but because of its cost it is hard to really get the full enjoyment out of it without breaking the bank. When Darth says "need" what he means is that you cannot just buy one box of warriors and call it day because "its too expensive". There is simply no point in playing a game if you don't have an adequate army due to price. A piece of metal that costs £5 (a necron immortal for eg) is frankly, a joke. GW are just ripping people off and its extremely unfair.

I believe that they have already priced themselves out of certain segments of the hobby (children and teens without jobs) and have made spending much more questionable for people in my area (dirt poor college kids). "Too expensive" is only a measure of sustainability, if they can sustain their business catering only to middle aged trainwrecks with a lot of discretionary spending then its not "too expensive". I certainly believe its more expensive then it should be for what it is.

Gw don't seem to understand that the market for the models they produce has a limit so they just keep upping prices to make more profits.

It happens to a lot of big companies.They get successfull and they dont know how to handle it.

I guess you cant blaim them really, theyre listed on the stock market and have investors to keep happy.

I think GW had it's heyday though back when LOTR was more in popular (even though i hated the models and still do)

A few weeks ago there were loads of people on this forum happily talking about paying $290 for the GW modular gaming table things. We'll see if the market tolerates the prince hikes.

konversionz wrote:Gw seems to understand that the market for the models they produce has a limit, but the demand is relatively inelastic to price increases, so they just keep upping prices to make more profits.

It happens to a lot of big companies.They get successfull and they continue making money by raising prices, among other things.

Fixed your post.

Squig101 wrote:Osbad, you cannot dismiss Darth's point as,"If you don't like it don't buy it" because the Hobby is an extremely fun an enjoyable one, but because of its cost it is hard to really get the full enjoyment out of it without breaking the bank. When Darth says "need" what he means is that you cannot just buy one box of warriors and call it day because "its too expensive". There is simply no point in playing a game if you don't have an adequate army due to price. A piece of metal that costs £5 (a necron immortal for eg) is frankly, a joke. GW are just ripping people off and its extremely unfair.

My point exactly.

When Darth compared the things he could have alternatively spent the money on, most of those things (eg 800 kitkats) probably are not as good as any GW minitures. Whereever they are overpriced or not

I have no idea what the OP is talking about.

I've sunk way more than that into "the GW Hobby" (tm), and I've sunk way more than that into:
- R/C cars ($300 barely covers a 1/10 "Pro" chassis alone, and you still need electronics),
- golf ($300 barely buys a decent set of clubs, and then there are range and greens fees),
- video games (OK, *now* you can get a core for <$300, but back in the day...)
- MMORPG (I've spent more on subscription costs alone)

So dude, if you're too broke, don't get in.

JohnHwangDD, you are officially slowed.

Well done!

£400, which is $800 NOT $300 is a lot of money, unless your obscenely rich, in which case you should still respect that not wanting to spend $800 on plastic and metal is a reasonable claim.

Its not about whether i can afford it or not, its about if the items are WORTH it. Hope you understood that.

P.S maybe if you read the original posting you could understand it, failing that ask your mother to help you do so.

Darth, do not make personal attacks. Criticize the post, not the poster.

First off, I don't appreciate the name-calling. I didn't call you names, so you shouldn't start with me.

Second, you said you spent $200 GBP. At current exchange rates (xe.com), that is $300 USD. Check it yourself, if you don't believe me. The days of 2:1 exchange are well gone.

Third, I was comparing starting "sunk" costs, which are comparable. You don't think I didn't spend similar amounts on other, related stuff?

Fourth, while I may not be obscenely rich, but I can afford a number of hobbies. I know what I should pay, and don't flinch to do so. That's what having a hobby budget is all about.

Fifth, if you think the value isn't there, then don't play. If you can't figure that out, then that's your problem, not mine. Obviously, I find value in GW stuff, as I've got a *lot* more of it than you do.

Finally, you *really* don't want to play "your mother" with me. I'll tell you facts and stories about yours that would make your head spin...

£200 is like 302 Double-Stacks at Wendys or 302 DOuble Cheeze Burgers at McDonalds.