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.

lord_blackfang wrote:I dunno. I think the 3.0 D&D books were quite a bit cheaper when they came out. PP did raise prices on old metals at the same time GW did last year.

As for M:TG, I started playing it at the same time as 40k and they were ~2.50€ back then. So an increase of over 50%. Admittedly, GW's prices just about doubled in the same time, but so did their quality. Even back then, if given the choice, I would gladly have paid twice the cost of the old Rhino for the MkIII. Meanwhile, Magic cards are still just pieces of card with pretty pictures...

I'm pretty sure I paid 35€ for my 3.5E PHB a few years ago, and the 4E book is going for the same right now. I seem to recall I paid in the vicinity of 3.40€ per pack for Mirrodin boosters six years ago. Then again, MTG is more expensive around here than most other places I've heard of. You are right about Privateer. My memory isn't what it used to be, these days

Also, GW raising quality doesn't make me feel one iota better for paying more for the same old models. If there's some huge economic problem with the company that facilitates such desperate price gouging, then GW is certainly keeping mum about it and claiming everything is peachy keen and awesome. So what's changing to force them to raise prices with clockwork regularity? It can't be raw materials, those have been going down lately, the same with logistics costs descending thanks to the oil price going down

If I had my druthers, I'd buy 1990 models at 1990 prices any day of the week. For something as trivial as vehicles and rank and file with lasguns, I'd have made the same choice in 1990, too. Heck, in a sense those of us who've bought certain GW plastics in the recent past have already done a similar choice by not buying the better-looking Forge World models.

GW quality is not excuse.

As a new player to 40K (played many boardgames previously but never a true mini-based wargame system like 40K)... all I've gotta say is "wow"... in times of worldwide recession and economic turmoil... you raise your prices on a luxury, disposable income type product. Good strategy.

Seriously, it's a very pricey game for what you get and if it weren't for people selling off armies on Ebay and other auction sites and buying bits and pieces here and there I certainly wouldn't be buying as much as I am.

I personally won't buy at the inflated GW site prices and raising those prices even more certainly won't entice me any further. I use their site to look at all the cool figs and then buy them as cheap as I can find them elsewhere.

The game may be good, the models may be very good and the community surrounding WH may be excellent... but the fact remains that the bigwigs at the top of GW are doing all in their power to appear as greedy and money sucking as possible to their faithful customers.

No doubt they will lose some customers as people sell their armies and drift away to more affordable games but I assume the GW perspective is that their price increases will help to cover any migrations away from the game. They know they have a strongly loyal userbase who'll play and PAY whatever it takes to keep enjoying the game. It's sad but true... most will suck it up and pay just because they love the models and the gaming community that surrounds the game itself.

My guess is that these price increase hurt more than help GW. The fact that despite price increases they still haven't managed a sustainable profit growth, shows that they're hemorrhaging potential sales. On top of that they're alienating their fan base who increasingly grow adversarial with GW. I mean there was a time where it felt like GW was doing their best to look after our gaming needs doing us a real service and not in it entirely for the money.

They've thrown their ethics out the window. The purpose of business is, first and foremost, to provide a service; the optimization of stockholder value or "making money" is secondary, when any business goes from one to the other as its main priority it ceases to have an ethical standing. That business loses any ethical distinction from a pimp or drug dealer and has about as much right to be a business.

When did a 5 dollar Battleforce Increase and a few adjustments along the lines become a 25% across the board increase?

Mahu wrote:When did a 5 dollar Battleforce Increase and a few adjustments along the lines become a 25% across the board increase?

Warseer has been talking about a 25% adjustment for several codes for a while now. Including £12 boxes going to £15.

Yes, I'd like to know that too. I just can't believe they would actually implement a 25% increase across the board. I know there are a lot of yes men and apologists working for GW, but even so...

Nothing I've been told indicates they will be doing such a drastic increase. Based on past years, and what's been given to me so far, I expect:
-battleforces to go to 95.00
-Advertised IG prices reflect the increase already
-Some metal blisters will go up a lot, move to direct, and no one will really care because no one buys them anyway. But much lamenting will occur suddenly over things like yetee and chaos trolls.
-A 3% increase on some things, and a 5% increase on others, since that's part of the 'official line', that they are giving to trade.
-A couple of things will jump way the hell up, we will never know why, and much justified ranting will occur. (Based on what's happened before, just guessing on this one.)

And a good margin of error, because sometimes what I'm told will happen, and what happens, are two ery different things.

But all the doom and gloom "25% or 35% increase across the board" is total crap. ...Or it better be, that would be a seriously bad move with the economy right now.

nexttothemoon wrote:... all I've gotta say is "wow"... in times of worldwide recession and economic turmoil... you raise your prices on a luxury, disposable income type product. Good strategy.

+1

Hordini wrote:Just because it happens every year doesn't make it not BS.

Is there any other miniatures company that raises their prices every year?

the miniature gas companies...

sigh, expected. as for the posters who mention that they occasionally lower prices, you are correct in a sense. they lower prices typically on the models that are being replaced with new sculpts or phased out completely to direct order. when the new sculpts come out, they're at the new higher price. as for the D&D books, they were very agressively priced for the release of 3rd and 3.5 editiosn ($25 each core book IIRC) since wotc wanted to make a big splash with the release of their first D&D edition since buying out WOTC and then to justify a new release only 3 years after 3rd ed.

This is within their rights to maximize their shareholder value. I likewise have the ability to maximize frazzled's value and will review any purchases accordingly.

If they raised prices only one half of on percent some of you would still whine.

But only one half of one percent as much

I guess this puts the final nail in the coffin for my ideas of a new Guard army. I guess I'll just rebase my old school Obliterators as well.

Techboss, to quote Dr.Pepper on BOLS

"Whats stopping you from buying one unit per paycheck or per month? You can still have that dream, just pace yourself."

Because its slowly becoming one unit every two paychecks, for some people. And even at a pace like what you say it'd take a 1-2 years to have reasonably sized IG army. The simple fact is too slow of a pace and you get left out of half the hobby, example escalation league.

GAMES WORKSHOP GRP( LSE: GAW.L / ISIN GB0003718474 )
Last Trade: 206.50 p
Trade Time: 9 Apr
Change: 16.50 (8.68%)
Prev Close: 190.00
Open: 200.00
Bid: 206.25
Ask: 206.75
1y Target Est: 250.00 p
Day's Range: 199.50 - 207.00
52wk Range: 166.00 - 280.00
Volume: 15,762
Avg Vol (3m): 12,686.4
Market Cap: N/A
P/E (ttm): N/A
EPS (ttm): N/A
Div & Yield: N/A (N/A)




Keep buying you grubby gits!

Well if it really is as crippling as 25% then I think it might be what gets me to stop buying direct from GW. I sometimes think I'm the only person on this forum who does that.

Hammerziet wrote:Well if it really is as crippling as 25% then I think it might be what gets me to stop buying direct from GW. I sometimes think I'm the only person on this forum who does that.

You're not the only one dude. Trust me. Plenty of us here don't buy GW stuff anymore, or buy only very rarely.


Edit - Oh snap, you meant you're the only person who buys direct from GW....

Haha...yeah, you probably are the only one!

The Warstore is your friend!

GreyFox555 wrote:Techboss, to quote Dr.Pepper on BOLS

"Whats stopping you from buying one unit per paycheck or per month? You can still have that dream, just pace yourself."

Here's my deal on the whole subject. When the cost of a "standard" size army (2500 Fantasy, 2000 40K) meets or exceeds the cost of a something of real value in my other hobbies/interests/house, then GW looses. What I mean by that is if I can buy something for my other hobbies which is less than a GW army, then I'm likely to do that over GW. Additionally, the GW product comes in an unfinished state of which I must spend my time to convert into a finished state. I can buy a finished product for one of my other interests or wants most of the time and retain some real value.

It's the perverbiable straw that broke the camels back.

It's kinda odd though, GW usually raises their prices once every five or so year because of inflation and all that gibberish, but didn't they do that all that long ago?

Uriels_Flame wrote:GAMES WORKSHOP GRP( LSE: GAW.L / ISIN GB0003718474 )
Last Trade: 206.50 p
Trade Time: 9 Apr
Change: 16.50 (8.68%)
Prev Close: 190.00
Open: 200.00
Bid: 206.25
Ask: 206.75
1y Target Est: 250.00 p
Day's Range: 199.50 - 207.00
52wk Range: 166.00 - 280.00
Volume: 15,762
Avg Vol (3m): 12,686.4
Market Cap: N/A
P/E (ttm): N/A
EPS (ttm): N/A
Div & Yield: N/A (N/A)




Keep buying you grubby gits!

Well the increase is nice, but I have to wonder at what point did you buy in? if you bought in at 150 or less, then cudos.. lol

aka_mythos wrote:GW's price increases are ridiculous. It'd be easier to swallow if they gave an explanation that made sense. With inflation bouncing between and around 3-7% each year, GW's prices at worst should be going up each year only by around that much. The fact that its consistently more means we're paying more and more for less and less. If GW were making significant strides in quality you could justify a higher price, but they aren't. So why does GW keep raising the price?

Answer, this sentiment:

Sirius42 wrote:Its true, everybody knows toy soldiers come before food and rent in a budget.

GW identified as much in their annual report, on their business. That we have such an inflexible demand for their products we sacrifice other expenses and luxuries to get our miniatures. Maybe rather than blaming GW for being capitalist and taking advantage of our "need" we should collectively admit we have a problem. The first step to breaking an addiction is to admit you have one.

Blaming GW only gets us so far, maybe its time we blame ourselves for feeding the "beast".

This is true...but has anyone actually done research on this addiction? I mean why do I crave new miniatures like a junkie craves heroin? What chemical reaction is happening in side my head, what synapse is firing that drives me to dump ridiculous amounts of cash on little plastic toys?....and its not just ANY plastic toys, I'm not buying WotC collectible pre-painted crap, I'm not buying action figures at K-mart, I'm buying premium wargaming models that are way overpriced...which I know are way overpriced...and I moan and complain at how overpriced they are...but I keep buying them...someone please tell me why!

Hammerziet wrote:Well if it really is as crippling as 25% then I think it might be what gets me to stop buying direct from GW. I sometimes think I'm the only person on this forum who does that.

It's no where near that level of an increase.

I think the 25% rumor thing is coming from the repackaged IG squad boxes. The new IG squad boxes are a prime example of price gouging IMHO. We used to get 20 models for 35 USD now we'll get 10 of the exact same models for 22 USD. It's totally absurd to raise the prices this much and not add anything new!

Do they really think we're that stupid as to not notice?

Grunt_For_Christ wrote:Do they really think we're that stupid as to not notice?

GW doesn't care if you notice.
As long as people continue to aimlessly rant on message boards about price increases all while still buying the product GW will continue to increase pricing. This happens every year yet people are still shocked by it.

Just because people still get fragged off about it, doesn't mean they're actually shocked, per se.

It's sort of like a yearly rectal exam for middle-aged and older men. Most veterans have come to expect it by now, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant when it actually happens.

Thank you for the well timed anal reasoning.

I'm not shocked at all. I work on the corporate side of things and I know exactly how company higher ups work. And I am well aware of the fact they won't care, but honestly, if faced with not being able to pay bills and buying toy soldiers we will reduce our consumption. They can only push the consumer so far and I believe they're getting to that point.

Most gamers have discretionary income and for those who do game a lot of it goes towards miniatures. I don't know anyone who hasn't been affected by the depression and they will be losing customers like me who just won't be buying anything new for a while.

I think I speak for many who are more inclined to hold off on spending, especially with price increases, until we know where we stand. Having a price increase right now is strategically the worst move you can possibly make when it comes to a non-essential product like 40k.

I dont mind admitting that some of the only bits i get direct from gw now is my paints, I want to do an imp gurard army ( ultramar pdf ) but sat down pricing leman russes up, and troops, and apc's to transport them in and the army will be well over £400 for a 2.5k point army? This price tag forces me to do 1 of three things, either look for older imp gurard models i can repaint from fellow gamers, look to other stockists, especially online ones, or collect the army over a number of years, by which time another codex will have come out and what i have bought will be obsolete again?