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H.B.M.C. wrote:Yes, 'cause that's such an effective argument there Frazz. :S

I wasn't aware you graduated from the Warseer Academy of Logical Debate...

BYE

But it's perfectly logical and valid.

If you don't like the price, buy cheaper elsewhere?

Insaniak, Kilkrazy, and Neil have hit the points I would have mentioned. Convenience (specifically one-stop shopping) is big, and people are attracted to the brand name of products they already buy.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Belphegor wrote:A lap dance with tip : $50

cell phone pictures sent to your fiancee?

PRICELESS!

Well, that’s why you have to buy her one too.

What, your fiancé wouldn’t enjoy a lapdance from a hot girl? Why did you propose?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:If you don't like the price, buy cheaper elsewhere?

That's not exactly what he said Grotsnik.

BYE

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Yes, 'cause that's such an effective argument there Frazz. :S

I wasn't aware you graduated from the Warseer Academy of Logical Debate...

BYE

But it's perfectly logical and valid.

If you don't like the price, buy cheaper elsewhere?

Let me turn this around. Why does anyone like the price? The convenience argument appears to be valid for a few people but certainly not the vast majority of gamers. If your metropole is big enough to have a GW store than it sure as hell is big enough to support independent hobby/gaming stores.

I wouldn't bet on it.

Indies are notoriously few and far between in the UK!

And the convenience is a very clever business model. Price aside, ever since the Realm of Battle Board came out, GW have the entire hobby under one roof. You can literally walk in knowing nothing, and walk back out with absolutely *everything* you will ever need, including knowledge of how it plays etc. And of course, a whacking great hole in your finances.

I know this sounds almost plebbish of me, but remember, this is a British Company, and it's trends are set around those of the UK. Here, as I mentioned, we have next to no Indy stores. It's not so much GW being aggressive and driving the little man out, as GW getting in their first with the Fantasy and Sci-Fi games.

Now, as to whether or not people would like lower prices is a pretty daft question, who wouldn't? However, I like GW models. I like the games. I am familiar with their paints, and I know that I can pop in to buy a nice new brush whenever I need one. Ergo, what GW charge is the price I pay. I also tend to game a lot in my store, so it seems right to me that I support it by buying my guff there.

But to call the pricing 'obscene' is bit of a bad choice of words. High is one thing, and with their overheads and stores, it is justifiable....

I used to think that art shops were pretty expensive
but now they are cheap compared to Gw.I think as the
insane price increases continue more and more people
are going to drift from the hobby.Further down the
line I think that a majority of players may finally
balk at the yearly price hikes and move to some other
wargame.The only reason they don't have competition
at the moment is because of their lead in plastic
squads.Once some other company bring out rules
supported by big plastic based armies and hopefully
cheaper,maybe GW will see sense! Competition is badly
needed asap

H.B.M.C. wrote:Yes, 'cause that's such an effective argument there Frazz. :S

I wasn't aware you graduated from the Warseer Academy of Logical Debate...

BYE

University of Free Enterprise with a minor in suckitupgirlyboyz!


Are prices high?
-yep

What are you going to do about it?
A. whine like a girly boy
B. moderate amount going to spend
C. do something else.

B or C is productive. A is only productive if you're at work and killing time on the intrawebz before you can go home

Mannahnin wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Belphegor wrote:A lap dance with tip : $50

cell phone pictures sent to your fiancee?

PRICELESS!

Well, that’s why you have to buy her one too.

What, your fiancé wouldn’t enjoy a lapdance from a hot girl? Why did you propose?

If I had a "fiancé", probably not, because that would mean I was taking advantage of the Summer of (Gay) Marriage here in Cali, so he probably wouldn't appreciate it.

OTOH, if we went up north to the Castro district for the bachelor party, I'm sure we could get free (gay) lapdances for free, and he'd *love* it...

Tho if you're calling the fiancé a "her", I'm guessing you were implying a transgender of some sort, either a she-male or transvestite?

See how complicated living in Cali makes these sorts of things?


That's why I used fianceé, assuming a typical male-female gender role stereotyping.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And the convenience is a very clever business model. Price aside, ever since the Realm of Battle Board came out, GW have the entire hobby under one roof. You can literally walk in knowing nothing, and walk back out with absolutely *everything* you will ever need, including knowledge of how it plays etc. And of course, a whacking great hole in your finances.

This is not to be underestimated. I think we'll find little argument that the hobby is a niche market as far as markets in general go. Now GW has grown quite large and find that they need to have a large influx of new customers to sustain their current size and to allow for further growth.

On the other hand they are faced with a major problem. The hobby has a large barrier to entry. You need rules, models, paints, hobby tools, a board, terrain and an opponent. Now some people just need the models, paints and tools, but they are not the entirety of the customer base.

GW has decided to lower this barrier by carrying everything themselves. Now a potential customer can walk in, get the 'pitch' and walk out with everything in the list above and have a good idea where they can come back to find an opponent. If the shop folks had to tell a customer that they can buy the models and rules here, the paint over there and the tools in yet a third place you'd see a lot fewer new faces -- and a lot fewer new faces is even fewer old faces.

cuscus wrote:
GW has decided to lower this barrier by carrying everything themselves. Now a potential customer can walk in, get the 'pitch' and walk out with everything in the list above and have a good idea where they can come back to find an opponent. If the shop folks had to tell a customer that they can buy the models and rules here, the paint over there and the tools in yet a third place you'd see a lot fewer new faces -- and a lot fewer new faces is even fewer old faces.

There's definitely something to that. I mean you've got a guy who wandering in off the street right? And let say he buy's the starter, AoBR $60, and the Hobby Starter Set $45. Boom, $105, and he's ready the play 40K. A little pricer than a video game $60, but less expensive that Rock Band.

Belphegor wrote:

A lap dance with tip : $50


edit: typo x2

To paraphrase an old saying:

"There are no $50 lap dances. There are only $50 suckers!"

insaniak wrote:

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:Another advantage of rouge trader stores.

Yeah, GW's rouge is decidedly sub-par, and far too expensive. I get all of my make-up from independants...

While their foundation is pretty much crap, I really like the mascara.

I was taking advantage of the Summer of (Gay) Marriage here in Cali,

Didn't the Referendum on the presidential ballot put an end to that?

Ratbarf wrote:

I was taking advantage of the Summer of (Gay) Marriage here in Cali,

Didn't the Referendum on the presidential ballot put an end to that?

Yeah, Proposition 8 passed, unfortunately:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)

Osbad wrote:Now, its ludicrous that a relatively large organisation like GW will charge virtually double what a little 3-person company like Hasslefree do for a similarly sized model.

You said yourself that GW have much higher overheads, then find it surprising they charge a higher margin? (not to mention the liscencing fees on the moria goblin)

Neil wrote:

Osbad wrote:Now, its ludicrous that a relatively large organisation like GW will charge virtually double what a little 3-person company like Hasslefree do for a similarly sized model.

You said yourself that GW have much higher overheads, then find it surprising they charge a higher margin? (not to mention the liscencing fees on the moria goblin)

The consumer is not responsible for their inability to properly manage their system.

I have little reason to doubt GW won't become a UK-only business within a decade as things stand, and even then, I see them going under alongside everyone else in this niche-market because they're refusing to acknowledge the change in norms and how technology impacts that.

Mod in:

Let's stick to the basic topic.

Prop. 8 and transexualism can be discussed in the Off Topic forum.

Thank you.

Mod out.

Neil wrote:

Osbad wrote:Now, its ludicrous that a relatively large organisation like GW will charge virtually double what a little 3-person company like Hasslefree do for a similarly sized model.

You said yourself that GW have much higher overheads, then find it surprising they charge a higher margin? (not to mention the liscencing fees on the moria goblin)

If it bothers you, I would refer you to the rest of my post which explains (quite neatly I thought) as to WHY I find it difficult to accept their comparitively high pricing. In a nutshell, if being "large" does not deliver economies of scale, then there is no point being "large". In otherwords while GW have very high overheads "in total" as a proportion per figure, GW's overheads should be a lot lower than Hasslefrees. If they are not they have no right to exist - the logical conclusion would be that they should break themselves down into multiple Hasslefree-sized little companies to increase their efficiency, if it really was the case that GW's overheads per model were greater than the cost reductions per model producing millions of models per year actuall delivered.

Of course it is therefore logical to assume that GW's larger size does actually give it an economy of scale greater than the level of overheads they experience. It is not realistic to assume they do not. Hasslfree employ 3 people, including both prorietors, and buy metal in multiples of kilos. GW employ hundreds of staff and buy metals in multiples of tonnes. Therefore GW models ARE CHEAPER TO PRODUCE AND DISTRIBUTE than Hasslefees are. So much is an incontrovertible, logical deduction. Yet we find from looking at the catalogue that Hasslefree charges less per model. Ipso facto GW are greedier than Hasslefree.

As for the licence issue. The licence fee to New Line was a sunk cost and was paid off years ago. It is not paid on a "per model" basis. The licence fee is a miniscule amount anyhow when divided by the number of models produced. If it were not, LotR plastics would be more expensive than WFB ones, whereas the reality is that they are not. In any case, had I picked a metal Goblin from the WFB range or a Gretchin from 40k (which I only did not because I am less familiar with the ranges and couldn't be bothered to search through the catalogue) the issue would have been the same. GW charges a minimum of £6 per single figure (or 5.85 now) whether or not the LotR licence is involved.

P.S. I am aware that GW sells figures in packets of 3 or 4, which makes them more reasonable - but these are not "character" figures, and I was attempting to compare apples with apples. Similarly I am aaware that not all GW products are such poor value for money. The point of this post is to show that their metal character models are. Also, I am not particularly picking on GW here, as many other figure manufacturers price high for individual metals too - such as PP. GW as the largest producer though, should in theory receive the greatest level of efficiency, although other companies don't have the ridiculous excuse of paying for their store network to explain their pricing policies.

Orlanth wrote:If you are in the Uk, and therefore dont need to worry about shipping costs too much I now recommend:

http://www.giftsforgeeks.org.uk/

There are other shops almost as cheap:

http://www.miniaturesbypost.com/

Gifts for Geeks is really good, offer a 25% discount on Gamesworkshop stuff. A Relm of battle for just over £100 is making me consider it.

Osbad wrote:
If it bothers you, I would refer you to the rest of my post which explains (quite neatly I thought) as to WHY I find it difficult to accept their comparitively high pricing. In a nutshell, if being "large" does not deliver economies of scale, then there is no point being "large". In otherwords while GW have very high overheads "in total" as a proportion per figure, GW's overheads should be a lot lower than Hasslefrees. If they are not they have no right to exist - the logical conclusion would be that they should break themselves down into multiple Hasslefree-sized little companies to increase their efficiency, if it really was the case that GW's overheads per model were greater than the cost reductions per model producing millions of models per year actuall delivered.

Of course it is therefore logical to assume that GW's larger size does actually give it an economy of scale greater than the level of overheads they experience. It is not realistic to assume they do not. Hasslfree employ 3 people, including both prorietors, and buy metal in multiples of kilos. GW employ hundreds of staff and buy metals in multiples of tonnes. Therefore GW models ARE CHEAPER TO PRODUCE AND DISTRIBUTE than Hasslefees are. So much is an incontrovertible, logical deduction. Yet we find from looking at the catalogue that Hasslefree charges less per model. Ipso facto GW are greedier than Hasslefree.

Hasslefree do not provide free hobby development. I cannot walk into a Hasslefree store, play a few games, have a Hasslefree staff member give me advice on what models I should buy to get me started with my Eldar army, give me free lessons on how to paint my Eldar, come back later and not buy anything but just play some games with my Eldar.

12 years later, Hasslefree do not provide a place for me to hang out on my lunch break, and do not give me any prize support for tournaments i run.

As far as their right to sell a parity product at a premium - I'm guessing you hate iPods, too.

But really, GW have the right to charge whatever they want to. Rights really don't come into it at all. GW don't owe you anything, stop acting like they do.

As for the licence issue. The licence fee to New Line was a sunk cost and was paid off years ago. It is not paid on a "per model" basis. The licence fee is a miniscule amount anyhow when divided by the number of models produced. If it were not, LotR plastics would be more expensive than WFB ones, whereas the reality is that they are not. In any case, had I picked a metal Goblin from the WFB range or a Gretchin from 40k (which I only did not because I am less familiar with the ranges and couldn't be bothered to search through the catalogue) the issue would have been the same. GW charges a minimum of £6 per single figure (or 5.85 now) whether or not the LotR licence is involved.

To say they should stop accounting for an initital overhead (like a liscence, or a plastic mould) and lower their prices once it has been covered is fallacious at best. It would simply create unrealistic price expectations for the next release, and reduce available funding for research and development, or paying off the initial overheads on the next product.

Neil wrote:
Hasslefree do not provide free hobby development. I cannot walk into a Hasslefree store, play a few games, have a Hasslefree staff member give me advice on what models I should buy to get me started with my Eldar army, give me free lessons on how to paint my Eldar, come back later and not buy anything but just play some games with my Eldar.

12 years later, Hasslefree do not provide a place for me to hang out on my lunch break, and do not give me any prize support for tournaments i run.

My FLGS does all these things in addition to selling alternate products. I guess you guys in the Commonwealth are just monopolized by GW eh?

Neil's point still stands.

Hasslfree etc are not providing you with such things, the FLGS is.

GW has it's own network of stores, which numbers a good couple of hundred. Theres a massive overhead the other companies don't have right there!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Neil's point still stands.

Hasslfree etc are not providing you with such things, the FLGS is.

GW has it's own network of stores, which numbers a good couple of hundred. Theres a massive overhead the other companies don't have right there!

Why don't FLGS exist in Britain or the Commonwealth? Does GW have some monopoly charter from the queen? My local "city" has a population of 150,000 and possesses a FLGS (stocks all GW stuff plus everything else, has four 4x6 tables with scenery for open gaming, etc.) and two other craft/hobby stores.

No, it's more that until GW came along, the Hobby Wargamers were largely restricted to Historicals. Those shops I am informed (way before my time, so beware of unintentional inaccuracies) only *sold* the models, having nowhere for Gaming.

GW's rapid expansion pretty much revolutionised the whole Hobby, their stores springing up all over the place. Sure, some opened in competition with FLGS, but if the one in my area was anything to go by, they weren't that great.

So GW does have a kind of monopoly, but unusually, this was not achieved through aggressive marketing.

Neil wrote:Hasslefree do not provide free hobby development. I cannot walk into a Hasslefree store, play a few games, have a Hasslefree staff member give me advice on what models I should buy to get me started with my Eldar army, give me free lessons on how to paint my Eldar, come back later and not buy anything but just play some games with my Eldar.

12 years later, Hasslefree do not provide a place for me to hang out on my lunch break, and do not give me any prize support for tournaments i run.

So why should someone who buys models over the internet and plays in their basement with friends pay for "hobby support" and free lessons etc.? It's an overhead they force everyone to pay for whether or not they want it.

I'm a punter. If I want a model I want to pay for a model, not a whole load of gubbins I am not going to ever use. Which is maybe why GW's turnover has been falling for the last 3 years straight?

As far as their right to sell a parity product at a premium - I'm guessing you hate iPods, too.

Like iPods, don't think they are worth the money either. Spot on. I don't buy designer label anything unless it really does represent a level of quality improvement I consider valuable. That is simple common sense.

However, you are at liberty to piss your money up against a wall if you like, its not any of my business.

But really, GW have the right to charge whatever they want to. Rights really don't come into it at all.

I never said they didn't. Its a free world. I have the right to believe GW's prices represent poor value for money on the basis that they are effectively charging me for something I do not want. If they, or their apologists such as your good self just said "hey, these minis cost what they cost, that's life" then there would be less of an argument. But instead their high prices are instead "justified" as somehow excuseable simply because they come bundled with a load of undesirable extras in the form of "training" and such...

Put it this way. Two shops sell identical TV's. One charges double the cost of the other and jusitifies it on the basis that "we train you in how to change the channels, and we let you watch it whenever you like in our shop".... Now which one is going to sell more TV's? The one that sets an honest price or the one that charges for a load of pointless crap?

GW have a right to charge what they like. I have the right to only pay what I think something is worth. Painting and gaming lessons after nearly 30 years as a hobbyist gamer are not really at the top of my list to Santa...

I never claimed to be representative of all of GW's customers. However I would claim to be representative of many of GW's potential customers. Those many who have consistently spent less with GW and more with independent companies as the last decade or so has progressed.

GW don't owe you anything, stop acting like they do.

Did I act like they do? This is a childish ad hominem snipe though, so I'll ignore it.

To say they should stop accounting for an initital overhead (like a liscence, or a plastic mould) and lower their prices once it has been covered is fallacious at best. It would simply create unrealistic price expectations for the next release, and reduce available funding for research and development, or paying off the initial overheads on the next product.

Nope. You are misunderstanding economic pricing. The price should be set to recover marginal costs and make optimal profit over the expected lifetime of the goods. Of course this does not imply a price reduction if sales exceed expectations. I never said it should. Such a windfall should clearly be used to cover losses where sales are below expctations of other ranges. BUT. when setting price (or deciding what level of bi-ennial inflationary price hike to implement), it makes a difference that the licence is a fixed, historical, cost, that has already been paid for, or whether it is an ongoing variable costs that will continue to accrue. Clearly the latter (which the NL Licence is not) would have a much larger impact on price of the licenced models, than the former.

In some posts people argue that the high prices of GW are justified by the convenience and services offered by its stores. In other posts the stores justify high prices because they represent unproductive overhead. So in the former cases the stores are integral to revenue, but in the latter case they are a drag on revenue. Which is it?

... http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk ... doesn't give you 10% it gives a range from 1-10% ... max i could get was 4% ... yes this can be better then GW but not much unless you're spending lots ...


spend £18.50 more to receive 1% off the RRP of your order!
spend £68.50 more to receive 2% off the RRP of your order!
spend £168.50 more to receive 4% off the RRP of your order!

olympia wrote:In some posts people argue that the high prices of GW are justified by the convenience and services offered by its stores. In other posts the stores justify high prices because they represent unproductive overhead. So in the former cases the stores are integral to revenue, but in the latter case they are a drag on revenue. Which is it?

It's a bit of both.

The stores garnered GW high street presence, which was important to the growth of the company, and thus far has proven a successful business model. However, they come with the obvious price of heightened overheads etc.

GW are now at the stage where, in some respects the stores are a millstone round their necks, but at the same time are keeping the company going by doing what they do best, bringing in the new blood. Some self appointed interweb experts say they should drop the stores, but this would be corporate suicide. Their entire business model revolves around these stores...

olympia wrote:In some posts people argue that the high prices of GW are justified by the convenience and services offered by its stores. In other posts the stores justify high prices because they represent unproductive overhead. So in the former cases the stores are integral to revenue, but in the latter case they are a drag on revenue. Which is it?

Well, given that last year they only just broke even, I'd actually say it was finely balanced.

However, GW believe that keeping the stores and making their customers pay for them will give them greater long term profitability because it is bringing along the next generation etc. I personally am not convinced. I have no proof as I can't fortell the future, but I can't help feel that more competitive pricing, and concentrating on kick-ass state-of-the-art rules that were industry standard in their fields (instead of "just as good as they need to be") would do more for their long term future than a chain of shops and a state-of-the-art just-in-time distribution network. But I'm just an armchair pundit so what do I know...?

Of course it needn't be an either/or situation in the long term. In reality the introductory painting sessions and such are just "loss leaders", similar to supermarkets offering really cheap essentials such as bread and milk in order to get you to blow the rest of your budget in their store. As such there is no justification in adding a premium to the models in order to pay for it. Any premium on their models over and above other manufacturers' should be justified on model quality alone in my view. And nowadays GW are not the only "quality" model producer out there.

fitzeh wrote:

This, I think is the key point. The little jimmy's mother angle is often overlooked on the internet, because we are all older than little jimmy, and more clued up that his mum / dad.

So Jimmy goes to his friend's house to play, they place space men and jimmy comes home to middle class mummy and says "Mummy i want space men for Christmas". So mummy goes to the space men store and says to the red shirt (or blue sweatshirt these days). My jimmy wants space men, what does he need. The staffer then TRIES to sells her a box of space men, a starter paint set and some glue. After recovering from sticker shock Mommy leaves and tells little jimmy to find something else.

I truly believe that 75% of GW releases and marketing are aimed at 12-16 yr olds, with parents with decent disposable income.

Fixed for today's economice times. With the way things are GW target market is drying up.