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H.B.M.C. wrote:I'd just like to know what store the people who said 'no' shop in, as I'd like to pick up a pair of rose-tinted glasses for myself.

BYE

Baccus 6mm

https://www.baccus6mm.com/

GW products overpriced? Duh.

Games Workshop has been around for years. For about the last twenty years or so, they have been trying to find the price point- that price at which people will change their spending habits. To be honest, I don't know if they've reached it yet; we're still buying, after all.

Personally I think the toy tanks are too expensive at $50, especially when compared to model kits you can buy elsewhere. I stopped buying 40K stuff the day a single plastic model was priced at $15 (space marine commander). I grimace in irritation when I see a mounted Aragorn being sold for $22. I stamp my little feet in frustration when they ask me to pay $15 for two bases of nurglings.

On the other hand, 10 fantasy figures for $22 doesn't seem as outrageous to me. $2.20 per rank-and-file figure, when the figures are as detailed and convertable, is a price I don't mind paying. Even if some are so-so (Empire infantry), others are great (new skeletons).

And a lot of the LotR figures- the generic troops, at least- are going for $1 each. Those are less detailed, of course, but I'd be happy to pay less money for less detail in certain areas- like, oh, Night Goblins. Wait, those are already less detailed.

GW varies their pricing across their lines, with the higher prices tending to be in the more popular game system. I don't imagine we'll be seeing much of a price increase in LotR plastics for quite a long time, given that the movie frenzy is years behind us now. Gotta do something to pull in new customers, maybe lower pricing will do it.
I'd love to see a reduction in price for the Specialist games, especially WarMaster, BFG, and Epic; but at this point, those games are played only by serious enthusiasts, who are willing to pay a premium for their toys.

Now, the pricing that I find completely laughable is the GW hobby supplies- PVA glue, plastic cement, superglue etc. I imagine that it isn't cheap to have the PVA packaged into a squeeze-tube, and have the GW logo printed on it. But anyone who is willing to pay $8 for a few ounces of GW PVA, instead of going to a hardware store and paying $10 for a gallon, doesn't deserve to have money anyway.

To those folks who like to say "Warmachine ain't no cheaper! Confrontation ain't no cheaper!", I reply: GW has proved what gamers will pay. Of course every other company will follow their pricing structure as closely as possible.

I wish my hobby was cheaper, but it has not yet become too expensive.

The problem I have with their plastics is that they somehow justify charging prices over and above other model kit manufacturers. These other manufacturers make real things, they make accurate scale models which requries a lot of time, effort and research. GW just make something pretty and can do what they like. It isn't the same thing at all, but they charge more than many model companies do for their products. So asking £25 for a Leman Russ is a little over the odds.

Their smaller kits, particularly boxes of infantry work out rather expensive. Plastic moulding is good, but it's not better than metal, you still struggle with the undercut and detail you can only get with metal. Yet they charge several pounds for each plastic mini, and you're not really getting an awful lot for that. There's something far more satisfying about metal miniature too. The plastics were much better value for money when they appeared, a Skeleton regiment for £10, a ten man marine squad for £10. They've nearly doubled, the offer isn't nearly as attractive.

While I appreciate that laying out money and going into plastic moulding is initially expensive, the returns make it far more worthwhile in the long term allowing you to produce more, faster and for less. Plastic you would hope was a cheaper alternative to large army building, but any savings are not passed onto the customer, meaning you have to pay out as much as ever to get a large army, but it's now mainly the inferior plastic rather than metal as it was previously. I think they have done this simply to make their products ever more child friendly but it's to the detriment of their overall output.


What about their metal products? Well these vary. Some are better than others, but yes they are overprices, you get single 28mm figures being priced anything up to £10 simply because they are a 'character' or because they are more powerful than other minis. This instantly loads the game in favour of richer players but it is a totally arbitary pricing system not grounded in production costs.

But they do offer high quality? Well most of the time. I do get a bit concerned about this 'mould-slippage' they seem to get, I don't know why it happens or how figures with such large amount of flash or a step in them pass quality control, but it makes me check everything before buying. Their larger metal models are a concern. Their LOTR Balrog and Nazgul miniatures are particularly poor with a lot of work required in building, cutting and filling, you expect better for £40.

Their Inquisitor range is an example of this quality-cost. They are nice figures yes, but they are inferior to many similarly priced 54mm figures out there. Take Andrea miniatures for instance, their figures are very finely detailed and he fit is nearly always excellent, the same cannot be said of GW's 54mm range which need a fair bit of work and filling, disappointing when they ask around £15-20 for them.

Their range of tools are definately overpriced. They get such things from standard distributers and mark them up, the exact same drill and cutters can be found many other places for far less.

Their paperback books are the standard price of such things, they are the same as everything else in a bookshop. I've no quibble there.



There was a time when GW was far more expensive than everything else, but many companies now follow suit with similar prices making the market price more in line with GW. This is understandable from the perspective of rival companies, but it has made everything become expensive across the board. GW are a fairly ruthless company and their marketing approach is to charge whatever the market will bare.

The A-B-C-D-E-F system of pricing was cynically designed for rapid price increases without changes to packaging on shelves. I knew the moment they introduced it that the writing was on the wall, they even set C and D to be £5, if I recall correctly. A few months down the line everything from D upwards had a quid or two stuck on it. And it's been a method of pushing the cost up overnight ever since.

The Plastics are over priced sense they are already have the models

The metals are expensive (duh metal)

But thats not really an excuse.

Warmachine for Lord Commander Stker is 13.99 for a HQ character for higher point games.
For 6 sword knights it's $30

Metal is more expensive. (for Privateer its more feature creep) thank god GW isnt like that....as much.

I do miss when GW was cheap like 3 rhino's for $45 or something.

or the Tact squad an Rhino $35 ...cant remeber

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:GW's rules and models cost as much as 3-5 times more than the equivalent from alternative producers.

Really? Do you play Warmachine / Hordes? Rackham? Infinity? How about a Flames Army using Battlefront minis?

Their models and armies aren't any cheaper than the GW equivalent minis.

I don't know anyone who plays any of those except me, who plays Infinity. (At least I have the rules and I'm planning to buy some figures.)

All of those game systems are the same as GW, a one-company IP locking (in theory) models, fluff and accessories into a single game and manufacturer. You could equally buy the Infinity rules and use the Pig Iron figures, or the EM23 figures or various other SF figures all of which are cheaper than Infinity or 40K figures.

If you compare typical 40K figures with historical figures, they are 3-5 times more expensive. Or compare 40K with Pig Iron which are SF and cost £14 for 10 infantry and £7 for 4 heavy weapons.

Kilkrazy wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:GW's rules and models cost as much as 3-5 times more than the equivalent from alternative producers.

Really? Do you play Warmachine / Hordes? Rackham? Infinity? How about a Flames Army using Battlefront minis?

Their models and armies aren't any cheaper than the GW equivalent minis.

I don't know anyone who plays any of those except me, who plays Infinity. (At least I have the rules and I'm planning to buy some figures.)

All of those game systems are the same as GW, a one-company IP locking (in theory) models, fluff and accessories into a single game and manufacturer. You could equally buy the Infinity rules and use the Pig Iron figures, or the EM23 figures or various other SF figures all of which are cheaper than Infinity or 40K figures.

If you compare typical 40K figures with historical figures, they are 3-5 times more expensive. Or compare 40K with Pig Iron which are SF and cost £14 for 10 infantry and £7 for 4 heavy weapons.

Huh? At recent exchange rates of 1 GBP = 2 USD, you say Pig Iron is $28 USD for 10 models?

That's the same as what I pay the War Store for 10 Space Marines (10 SM for $28), and *twice* as much as what I pay for Imperial Guard (20 IG for $28).

If you want to make the claim that GW is more expensive comparing generic infantry, you need to compare with the 20-man boxes of plastic Cadians and Catachans. Relatively speaking, those are very well-priced.

So far, all you've done is demonstrate that GW is a better deal than non-GW.

If Pig Iron really were 1/5 the price of GW, then I could get 100 Pig Iron infantry for the same $28 USD / 14 GBP. Is that what you meant to type ("100)", but you dropped a zero ("10")?

H.B.M.C. wrote:I'd just like to know what store the people who said 'no' shop in, as I'd like to pick up a pair of rose-tinted glasses for myself.

I d like to know what product the people said 'yes' are comparing with, as from what I see, The GW Hobby isn't noticeably differently priced from any of its competitors.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:GW's rules and models cost as much as 3-5 times more than the equivalent from alternative producers.

Really? Do you play Warmachine / Hordes? Rackham? Infinity? How about a Flames Army using Battlefront minis?

Their models and armies aren't any cheaper than the GW equivalent minis.

I don't know anyone who plays any of those except me, who plays Infinity. (At least I have the rules and I'm planning to buy some figures.)

All of those game systems are the same as GW, a one-company IP locking (in theory) models, fluff and accessories into a single game and manufacturer. You could equally buy the Infinity rules and use the Pig Iron figures, or the EM23 figures or various other SF figures all of which are cheaper than Infinity or 40K figures.

If you compare typical 40K figures with historical figures, they are 3-5 times more expensive. Or compare 40K with Pig Iron which are SF and cost £14 for 10 infantry and £7 for 4 heavy weapons.

Huh? At recent exchange rates of 1 GBP = 2 USD, you say Pig Iron is $28 USD for 10 models?

That's the same as what I pay the War Store for 10 Space Marines (10 SM for $28), and *twice* as much as what I pay for Imperial Guard (20 IG for $28).

If you want to make the claim that GW is more expensive comparing generic infantry, you need to compare with the 20-man boxes of plastic Cadians and Catachans. Relatively speaking, those are very well-priced.

So far, all you've done is demonstrate that GW is a better deal than non-GW.

If Pig Iron really were 1/5 the price of GW, then I could get 100 Pig Iron infantry for the same $28 USD / 14 GBP. Is that what you meant to type ("100)", but you dropped a zero ("10")?

I didn't say Pig Iron were 1/5 the price of GW. The Pig Iron figures are metal, and slightly cheaper per individual figure than plastic GW. For example, plastic Tau Fire Warriors = £18 for 12. Most individual metal GW figures are £2-£3 each.

Compare Fire Warriors with Perry Brothers ACW which are £12 for 36 figures.

BTW you can't directly compare £10 retail price with $20 since the £10 includes VAT at 17.5%. Untaxed, the £10 would cost £8.51 which at current exchange rate ($1.97 to £1) is $16.76, add 5% sales tax = $17.60.

If you read my post near the start of the thread, you will see that I do not consider GW figures to be overpriced. I agree with fellblade that GW are trying to find a market clearing price for highly specialist items that thanks to consumer demand can be priced higher than superficially competing models from other companies.

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:Those who pay full retail are foolish!

I think you'll need to qualify that statement as YMMV.

While this is true for those who play exclusively in their own private venues, this kind of attitude is what is killing the brick and mortar stores which offer gaming areas. Square footage that independent retailers devote to gaming are areas that do not contain merchandise, and as such do not directly contribute to their bottom line - as a result, paying the difference between MSRP and 20% interweb discount when using these facilities is hardly foolish, especially if players wish to "retain" said area for gaming. Those who think that they are entitled to game in stores as a free public service, using the store's facilities while purchasing all their product online - and worse still, advocating this view to other patrons - (often on store premises!), are IMHO, narrow-minded-donkey-hats that inevitably hasten either the closure of these facilities, or the store's dropping of the product line.

Granted, paying 50%+ difference between non-US MSRP and the interweb discount is a bit harder to ignore - I usually get around this issue by buying non-GW products from the retailer once in a while - (The theory holds here as well, since it is possible to get Privateer product at discount from the Warstore as well).

keezus wrote:

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:Those who pay full retail are foolish!

I think you'll need to qualify that statement as YMMV.

While this is true for those who play exclusively in their own private venues, this kind of attitude is what is killing the brick and mortar stores which offer gaming areas. Square footage that independent retailers devote to gaming are areas that do not contain merchandise, and as such do not directly contribute to their bottom line - as a result, paying the difference between MSRP and 20% interweb discount when using these facilities is hardly foolish, especially if players wish to "retain" said area for gaming. Those who think that they are entitled to game in stores as a free public service, using the store's facilities while purchasing all their product online - and worse still, advocating this view to other patrons - (often on store premises!), are IMHO, narrow-minded-donkey-hats that inevitably hasten either the closure of these facilities, or the store's dropping of the product line.

Quoted for truth. I think it's a decision you have to make, about how much you like having a place to walk down the street and buy your games, have a game, and talk about games. I'm lucky to live about 4 blocks from a really great game store with friendly staff, and awesome selection, and a trusting owner who will let you use the game room as late as you want, you just chuck the key back through the mailslot when you're done. Keeping that in my backyard is worth paying full retail to me.

fellblade wrote:GW products overpriced? Duh. ... I wish my hobby was cheaper, but it has not yet become too expensive.

Fell blade, you really hit it, that's it exactly!

I guess I always assumed GW was an expensive hobby, what makes me irritated are the obvious overcosted items, like hobby suplies, but also terminators, $50 a box set for 5 models? Or for just 2 sprues. It's absurd.

I also thought necron destroyers and Tau suits are awfully overpriced. Maybe that's because I'm also a real modeler. Please don't see this as a flame, it's not intended as such! Of course I think GW modeling and figure painting is real modeling. I just mean... well say a real "world" modeler, real world kits, say from tamiya, hasegawawa or Ban Dai. They are like priced to GWs by kit by approximate size, but it is a quality issue. Those kits (non GW) come with colored plastic, hundreds of parts, options in some cases, rubber poly caps, rubber pieces, metal (chromed) finishing for some sprues and more for about the same price and are even imported too. I know GW models are intentionally simpler as they are essentially game pieces, not models as such, but from a modeler's perspective, they have an inferior product in many cases and the demand like prices or a premium.

Meh, I still likem! Bring me the Valks!

Pariah Press wrote: I'm earning below the poverty line and I can still afford more models than I can find time to paint. So, no, they must not be overpriced.

I don't touch their modeling supplies, though (except of green stuff).

Hmm.
To be fair, you didn't give enough details to make your statement matter.

Do you have any of the following?


Mortgage
Rent
Your own place
Electric bill
Gas Bill
Auto Note
Insurance (Auto, Home and/or Health)
Wife
Kids
College expenses (books, tuition, etc)
Credit card bills


See, I earn easily in the Middle Class bracket.
I have everything above except rent & college expenses (credit card isn't much, though).
I can't "afford" to buy directly from GW.
By that, I mean, I could do it, but the prices are so high that it would be a bad budget choice.

Without knowing your details, the "below poverty line" doesn't hold a lot of water.

A 17 year old kid making $10K a year living with Mom and Dad doesn't typically have enough bills to be concerned about that stuff (for example).

----------------------------------------------

GW models (GW EVERYTHING) are overpriced.
For those that say, "Compared to other companies, they're not," or something similar, I offer this:

Most other companies are overpriced, as well.

Just because the cost of one company's product is similar to the cost of another company's product, that doesn't automatically qualify one as fairly priced. I potentially qualifies both as overpriced.

You can't say Gasoline is fairly priced because every other retailer in the market offers similar pricing. You can only say thqt it's no more expensive than it is at "the other place."

Eric

MagickalMemories wrote:

Pariah Press wrote: I'm earning below the poverty line and I can still afford more models than I can find time to paint. So, no, they must not be overpriced.

I don't touch their modeling supplies, though (except of green stuff).

Hmm.
To be fair, you didn't give enough details to make your statement matter.

Do you have any of the following?


Mortgage
Rent
Your own place
Electric bill
Gas Bill
Auto Note
Insurance (Auto, Home and/or Health)
Wife
Kids
College expenses (books, tuition, etc)
Credit card bills


See, I earn easily in the Middle Class bracket.
I have everything above except rent & college expenses (credit card isn't much, though).
I can't "afford" to buy directly from GW.
By that, I mean, I could do it, but the prices are so high that it would be a bad budget choice.

Without knowing your details, the "below poverty line" doesn't hold a lot of water.

A 17 year old kid making $10K a year living with Mom and Dad doesn't typically have enough bills to be concerned about that stuff (for example).

EXALT.

Hobbymaterial definetly yes.
Scenery is out of range to any competitor, never bought any glue or terrain material from gw.

Those Miniatures I've got came at a workable price, but my collected armies have lots of plastics in.
Always looked at the Catalog for box-price to compare with "ready-sets" like XXXbattleforce.
Sometimes a 80€ set had up to 120€ minis and tanks,gives me another 40€ (spent for more minis).

IMHO it depends on your chosen armylist how expensive it gets. armoured?

For modelling reasons, i must agree with Augustus. GW's level of detail is in need of improvement and
a 30 part model can stay easy at basic kit,but be upgraded by army specific sprues to higher level.
I hope they redo the Leman Russ at the coming IG release.

Howard A Treesong wrote:But they do offer high quality? Well most of the time. I do get a bit concerned about this 'mould-slippage' they seem to get, I don't know why it happens or how figures with such large amount of flash or a step in them pass quality control, but it makes me check everything before buying. Their larger metal models are a concern. Their LOTR Balrog and Nazgul miniatures are particularly poor with a lot of work required in building, cutting and filling, you expect better for £40.

That's my main complaint about FW. I don't mind paying a premium if the product is quality. If you want to talk about overpriced and poor customer service, talk about FW. But even though I think it's expensive, I love both FW and GW stuff and will continue to buy it. So long as the market wil patronize the company, it's technically not over-priced.

Augustus wrote:I also thought necron destroyers and Tau suits are awfully overpriced. Maybe that's because I'm also a real modeler. Please don't see this as a flame, it's not intended as such! Of course I think GW modeling and figure painting is real modeling. I just mean... well say a real "world" modeler, real world kits, say from tamiya, hasegawawa or Ban Dai. They are like priced to GWs by kit by approximate size, but it is a quality issue. Those kits (non GW) come with colored plastic, hundreds of parts, options in some cases, rubber poly caps, rubber pieces, metal (chromed) finishing for some sprues and more for about the same price and are even imported too. I know GW models are intentionally simpler as they are essentially game pieces, not models as such, but from a modeler's perspective, they have an inferior product in many cases and the demand like prices or a premium.

Just as much as a real modeler might just green-stuff their entire army. That would be a real modeler. I started with regular models, and more pieces doesn't mean better product. And I don't see there being anything simpler about GW models. Regular models are considerably flimsier because they're not build to be played with. Because of this they can make finer details which are more fragile. GW does an excellent job of making interesting models which are durable.

MagickalMemories wrote:Just because the cost of one company's product is similar to the cost of another company's product, that doesn't automatically qualify one as fairly priced. I potentially qualifies both as overpriced.

Great point!

Hobby supplies prices are rediculous. I like the paints, so I'm stuck with those. Prices for figs? What else 'ya going to do? I like 'em, thank the gods that I worked for GW and got all I wanted with that sweet 60% employee discount. Honestly, I have not bought a box or blister since '05. I'm happy picking up old models on ebay for pennies on the dollar or trading for stuff that I want. Althought they did get me with the 25th Anniv. products; but that was a t-shirt, figure case and dice.

I was just thinking back to the Jervis Johnson Q&A - Gen Con 2005. And from a business perspective, GW aims to encourage army building & collecting as their revenue source. So it's not really a surprise that the supplied miniatures in the new box set are a great value, they're designed to get you in the door so you buy the more expensive stuff. Which make me believe they could benefit from offering a cheap starter army for every race (not just the supplied Orks and SM).

Le Grognard wrote:I worked for GW and got all I wanted with that sweet 60% employee discount.

Okay, I'm definitely turning in an application beforeI pick up my next army!

It's telling when you have forgeworld products, that you can use as elite infantry or some small vehicles, that cost as much as their GW equivalents.

I don't agree with the point about 20 cadians blah blah. There is a reason those models cost that much. You are forgetting that for the most part, GW prices in the ~.25 USD/~.12 pound per point - ~.35 USD / .18 pound per point. Like I said, they price so that each army costs relatively the same amount, regardless of how many models it is. The one thing that surprised me was the cheapness of bloodletters coming in at .18 USD/.9 pounds per point. In reality, if you compare the space marine plastics to the cadian or CSM plastics, the cadians and CSM far outweigh the space marines in the amount of detail and plastic necessary. However, if space marines were any cheaper, it would be cheaper to build a full SM army. If you do the math for just about every army, the total cost comes out about the same for each one, regardless of model count (assuming 45-50% of the army is made of plastics).

So I can't agree with the people claiming "no" when models are purposely priced so there are no "cheap armies" but only expensive ones. Otherwise, low detail, low material models like Space Marine tactical squads wouldn't cost the same as CSM or Cadians.

The OP’s question is horrible. Are we supposed to answer based on our personal circumstances, or viewed from GW’s perspective. Is it relative to other entertainment in general, or relative to other miniatures companies? Or just on some general notion of value?

Personally, by my personal circumstances, GW stuff isn’t overpriced. It takes me a couple of hours to paint a typical model and I then use it in countless games. It works out to a few dollars an hour, which is a lot less than other hobbies I’d take up instead (hookers and blow, probably). By that standard, then no, GW is not over priced.

But I know of a fair few people who look at the price of a few boxes of troops and decide to steer well clear. The buy-in is too great and I think price increases are a direct cause of GW’s poor performance in recent years. So, if you’re asking if prices are too high in terms of GW’s own profit making focus, then yes, they are.

Or are you asking relative to other hobbies? I can buy a roleplaying book for $50, and that one book will be enough for me and my mates to play for 20 years. Or I can play cricket, and spend $350 on a bat that’ll last the year, plus around $500 on other gear that’ll average about two. Or I can build model airplanes and probably have to mortgage the house. So by that standard the answer is ‘sort of’

Or relative to other miniature games? GW is about priced equally to other games, relative to quality – there’s certainly cheaper miniatures but they tend to be lower quality, and there’s certainly superior models but they to be more expensive. The GW trick is that no other game requires you to collect so many quality miniatures to play a standard game, most other games have much smaller model counts. So that by that standard, GW might be overpriced, depending on whether you look at the dollars to value from hobby or gaming perspective.

Or do you just want to say ‘$40 for three plastic sprues’ – how can they justify that? Considering that for that price you can get some pretty advanced electronics with a hell of a lot more manufacturing work than you get in a box of marines, you better believe GW is overpriced by that standard. But then, that argument ignores the reality that the majority of the costs of production are in design, marketing and retail, and so the primary costs of anything hitting the market these days are fixed - price is ultimately dependant on the quantity sold, not the quality of the product itself. And that ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you’re buying, what matters is its value to you.

Without properly defining the context of the question it can’t be properly answered.

sebster wrote:...But I know of a fair few people who look at the price of a few boxes of troops and decide to steer well clear. The buy-in is too great and I think price increases are a direct cause of GW’s poor performance in recent years. So, if you’re asking if prices are too high in terms of GW’s own profit making focus, then yes, they are.

Your entire post was good, but this was a great point. I don't bother trying to bring in new people anymore (unless they show a genuine interest in the fluff). How do you explain to somebody that just for them to get started proper (ie full rule book and 500pt army) that they'll need to spend 125$ right at the door? Let alone explain that there is the hobby side of it as well (some people just want to play and don't care about the modeling aspect).

I believe that the metal models are slightly over priced. If you have a look at the price of a land raider or monolith and look at the points they are the same, just as a squad of 10 orks and their relative price. You have to remember that a GW shop only makes it money from selling those products and they needto pay rent, staff, power, the products, display models, free bees and so on.

Squig_herder wrote:You have to remember that a GW shop only makes it money from selling those products and they needto pay rent, staff, power, the products, display models, free bees and so on.

If they aren't breaking even by raising prices to offset capital costs, then their business model is "unsustainable".

GW's huge retail overhead is the main brake on their profitability IMO.

Back in the days when they sold other games and figures as well as WHFB and WH40K, a lot of different types of customers would go in the shop to spend money.

keezus wrote:

Squig_herder wrote:You have to remember that a GW shop only makes it money from selling those products and they needto pay rent, staff, power, the products, display models, free bees and so on.

If they aren't breaking even by raising prices to offset capital costs, then their business model is "unsustainable".

I could do without the GW stores. I don't like thier staff and it's just a big company hurting the flgs. I understand the idea of battle bunkers, the two I've gone to are very cool. Want to cut cost? Shut down all the GW stores and open a battle bunker in each state.

I voted no.

New kits--very cool work being done on the new kits. Worth it.

Older Figs--You can get these on ebay. Just give yourself a couple weeks to find what you are looking for.

Modeling stuff--Yes of course the GW stuff is overpriced, but if you know that, then you don't buy it.

sebster wrote:The OP’s question is horrible. Are we supposed to answer based on our personal circumstances, or viewed from GW’s perspective. Is it relative to other entertainment in general, or relative to other miniatures companies? Or just on some general notion of value?

Personally, by my personal circumstances, GW stuff isn’t overpriced. It takes me a couple of hours to paint a typical model and I then use it in countless games. It works out to a few dollars an hour, which is a lot less than other hobbies I’d take up instead (hookers and blow, probably). By that standard, then no, GW is not over priced.

But I know of a fair few people who look at the price of a few boxes of troops and decide to steer well clear. The buy-in is too great and I think price increases are a direct cause of GW’s poor performance in recent years. So, if you’re asking if prices are too high in terms of GW’s own profit making focus, then yes, they are.

Or are you asking relative to other hobbies? I can buy a roleplaying book for $50, and that one book will be enough for me and my mates to play for 20 years. Or I can play cricket, and spend $350 on a bat that’ll last the year, plus around $500 on other gear that’ll average about two. Or I can build model airplanes and probably have to mortgage the house. So by that standard the answer is ‘sort of’

Or relative to other miniature games? GW is about priced equally to other games, relative to quality – there’s certainly cheaper miniatures but they tend to be lower quality, and there’s certainly superior models but they to be more expensive. The GW trick is that no other game requires you to collect so many quality miniatures to play a standard game, most other games have much smaller model counts. So that by that standard, GW might be overpriced, depending on whether you look at the dollars to value from hobby or gaming perspective.

Or do you just want to say ‘$40 for three plastic sprues’ – how can they justify that? Considering that for that price you can get some pretty advanced electronics with a hell of a lot more manufacturing work than you get in a box of marines, you better believe GW is overpriced by that standard. But then, that argument ignores the reality that the majority of the costs of production are in design, marketing and retail, and so the primary costs of anything hitting the market these days are fixed - price is ultimately dependant on the quantity sold, not the qualhttp://www.dakkadakka.com/core/forum_rules.jsp
open them in a new windowity of the product itself. And that ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you’re buying, what matters is its value to you.

Without properly defining the context of the question it can’t be properly answered.

How is it stupid? Economically speaking, GW prices are outrageous. If you knew anything about economics, you would know about consumer surplus and you would know that some people have no problem paying high prices. But the market clearing price is very wrong. And are you to believe that "design, marketing, and retail" costs are that high? What sort of marketing and retail do you think GW has? They have no marketing aside from in-store and hobby shop. Their "design" is simply the input of a dozen artists and sculptors. Electronics actually have HIGH design, research, and marketing costs, and still are reasonably priced because of competition. GW is simply a competitive monopoly who use their fluff and reputation to charge ridiculous prices for their goods.

shoey9797 wrote:What sort of marketing and retail do you think GW has? They have no marketing aside from in-store and hobby shop. Their "design" is simply the input of a dozen artists and sculptors. Electronics actually have HIGH design, research, and marketing costs, and still are reasonably priced because of competition. GW is simply a competitive monopoly who use their fluff and reputation to charge ridiculous prices for their goods.

Two problems;
1) GW has no marketing? Are you kidding? They're present at every major con, any gamer magazine has ads for them. And GamesDay is nothing but a huge commercial. They have an entire magazine which carries they name and product.
2) Production increase drastically reduces per unit price, true. But GW can't just make more models and hope a market exists to consume them. I work in the semiconductor field, our facility is one of many, and we ship a million chips a week. But they go into every product from phones to cars. Commodities markets fluctuate according to demand and regularly change in value. I wish GW was big enough to be a commodity producer, sacrifice some quality and vola! You have 10 figs for 10 bucks.

Personally I think it depends on what you are buying. Some of the mini's (Terminators for instance) are *really* badly overpriced, and most of the hobby stuff (flock, clippers, etc) is too. However most of their mini's aren't any more expensive than Privateer and other companies, and those that are noticeably cheaper are usually simpler models.

I found making a 2000pt Battlefleet Gothic force to be rather cheap ($100 exactly) for 8 cruisers and two grand cruisers, along with a downloadable rulebook from GW wasn't bad at all, the B5 game seemed about the same price but without the free rulebook.

jabbakahut wrote:Your entire post was good, but this was a great point. I don't bother trying to bring in new people anymore (unless they show a genuine interest in the fluff). How do you explain to somebody that just for them to get started proper (ie full rule book and 500pt army) that they'll need to spend 125$ right at the door? Let alone explain that there is the hobby side of it as well (some people just want to play and don't care about the modeling aspect).

Yeah, with a price freeze for a few years, some cool intro box sets and a fun variant game that works with low unit numbers, I think most of GW's woes could be fixed.

Although, to be honest, if you don't enjoy the hobby side I don't GW could ever provide value for money. Better of just getting DoW in that case.