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The point where it the nail hit the coffin of GW for me was when they made guardsmen 10 for £18, when I remember buying the same kit as 20 for £12.

Since then, I've bought relatively little from GW directly, a few bits mostly and direct orders.

Since then, I've started a Blood Ravens army, the first half of which was bought from Maelstrom, Wayland Games and Total Wargamer. The second half, I bought entirely off of Ebay.

So, that's a progression from GW > Webstores > Webstores-only-when-sales-are-on > Ebay, over about 2 years.

More and more often, I am just bursting out laughing when I see the prices for the latest GW kits, eg those Blood Knights, the price of dread fleet vs the size of models....

Not to mention charging for desktop backgrounds.

jgehunter wrote:

marielle wrote:
Yeah, I know.

And I also know that if you want the same quality as GW, then you will also be paying roughly the same price.

Actually many Chinese recasters have a quality similar (some arguably better) to that of GW finecast but are significantly cheaper.

I disagree with this big time, I wont trust an out of country seller. Both sold me fake copy's of forge world pieces that they claimed were still in packaging. They were obviously re-casts and bad ones at that, I kept maybe 30% of all the products... the rest sit in a bag of shame...

I cant say I distrust all out of country sellers.. but at least China and Russia are off my list.

Besides the terrible Direwolves I happen to really like the VC battalion and would rather be forcefed catfood than order from mantic.

Wargaming is not a cheap hobby, and now that you are in it I feel that complaining about the prices for the sake of complaining is pointless.

Made two purchases from a chinese recaster, Draigo and Crowe, both were better than any copy I could find on a shelf somewhere. And I sure as hell am through trying to mail order anything finecast after the horrible crypteks, overlord, and Imotekh I got.

I'll only risk buying finecast in person where I can inspect it in its package before opening, open it after purchase, and exchange/return it on the spot. With this being said, I don't know if QC is getting any better but there was a GW store grand opening near me a week ago, and I looked through a lot of their finecast stock on the shelves, and could not find any visible flaws. Picked up a dark elf assassin which turned out pretty much flawless.

Johnny-Crass wrote:Besides the terrible Direwolves I happen to really like the VC battalion and would rather be forcefed catfood than order from mantic.

Wargaming is not a cheap hobby, and now that you are in it I feel that complaining about the prices for the sake of complaining is pointless.

I guess I am just whining unproductively. I'm sort of just expressing a sense of exasperation as I've literally become aware of what I'm doing, after three years in the hobby. It's odd when I think about the competitors that are out there.

On my desk in front of me now are twenty GW skeletons and thirty Mantic, and though I'd say the GW kit certainly has a lot more options toward individuality, I just can't justify the price difference between what, when painted, looks rather similar.

Henners91 wrote:

Johnny-Crass wrote:Besides the terrible Direwolves I happen to really like the VC battalion and would rather be forcefed catfood than order from mantic.

Wargaming is not a cheap hobby, and now that you are in it I feel that complaining about the prices for the sake of complaining is pointless.

I guess I am just whining unproductively. I'm sort of just expressing a sense of exasperation as I've literally become aware of what I'm doing, after three years in the hobby. It's odd when I think about the competitors that are out there.

On my desk in front of me now are twenty GW skeletons and thirty Mantic, and though I'd say the GW kit certainly has a lot more options toward individuality, I just can't justify the price difference between what, when painted, looks rather similar.

Nah... You have just done what everyone does.... you have chased a dream and in the process forgotten what it was that provoked you to dream....

Whatever you decide, the best advice is not to use words like Fanboy.

What people don't understand is that everything is getting more expensive.

1) GW has to maintain a % of profit in a time in which it is getting more expensive to produce and distribute their product.
2) With general prices going up on pretty much everything from a can of Coke to the price of a House increasing, Wages and Salaries have gone up in correlation to rising prices.
3) With government fund shortages more taxes are put on corporations.
4) Most companies in the past 4 years have went into "hibernation" during the recession, not spending any capital to expand and cutting cost. Games Workshop has cut cost, but has continued to expand not only it's model lines, but also paints and hobby equipment.


In the past 10 years, Movies tickets have gone from $5 to $10+, a Can of coke is double the price, and gasoline has doubled. Prices everywhere are increasing, get used to it.


Half the people complain about not enough new models and army books coming out, and the other half complain that everything is to expensive. If you all want GW to continue to update their line in a reasonable fashion, then expect to pay for it.

Lovepug13 wrote:My 2p.....

At the end of the day a good flight to Australia is £1000, to fill my M1 Abrams tank is £500, a pair of jet-boot Trainers £800 even a trip to Pizza hut on the moon for buffet lunch today was £1000.

When you look at GW its prices are relevant in todays market. Also a £20,000 army can last quite a while as long as you play regularly.

Lets say you keep (said £20,000 army) for two years and play once a week.. it equates to roughly £100.92 per week. Also its worth some money at the back end of year two so you could sell it and get some money back. you cant say that with many things these days lol

I am happy to buy from black market traders and ebay.....it isnt that bad as ong as you are careful and are prepared to donate the occasional internal organ.

Lovepug, I hope you don't mind I've altered your post to how it will look on the Dakka of 2025.

Liquidice281 wrote:
In the past 10 years, Movies tickets have gone from $5 to $10+, a Can of coke is double the price, and gasoline has doubled. Prices everywhere are increasing, get used to it.

You do understand that there is a rate of increase in an inflation measure like the CPI and then there are GW's price increases at a rate well above that right? That GW is increasing their prices well beyond the rate that other things are increasing at?

I still maintain that the individual plastic models are a good value (other than goldswords & their equivalents) but that when they combine it with their rules that devalue people's purchases by making each individual model less important on the table top than it could be, the value prospect of "The Games Workshop Hobby" is pretty poor. This is connected with the often cited fact that the full game experience requires more models than it used to, so people are getting hit with a double whammy. Larger army sizes for the same 1500/2000/whatever points and prices going up higher than the rate of inflation.

The cost of the hobby as a complete package is just getting to be too much.

Liquidice281 wrote:What people don't understand is that everything is getting more expensive.

1) GW has to maintain a % of profit in a time in which it is getting more expensive to produce and distribute their product.
2) With general prices going up on pretty much everything from a can of Coke to the price of a House increasing, Wages and Salaries have gone up in correlation to rising prices.
3) With government fund shortages more taxes are put on corporations.
4) Most companies in the past 4 years have went into "hibernation" during the recession, not spending any capital to expand and cutting cost. Games Workshop has cut cost, but has continued to expand not only it's model lines, but also paints and hobby equipment.


In the past 10 years, Movies tickets have gone from $5 to $10+, a Can of coke is double the price, and gasoline has doubled. Prices everywhere are increasing, get used to it.


Half the people complain about not enough new models and army books coming out, and the other half complain that everything is to expensive. If you all want GW to continue to update their line in a reasonable fashion, then expect to pay for it.

All I know is that Privateer Press sells certain large all pewter models at roughly 35 - 50 bucks. Been doing so for many years. Then, they started to move their line to a plastic/resin instead from all pewter.

They have come out with large model plastic kits that combine, usually, three of the pewter kits into one kit, and in every case, the three in one plastic kit (which you can magnetize and have essentially three variants of a model instead of the single pewter one) the price has DROPPED. So

PP has essentially went from selling three models at roughly 45 bucks each, to selling a single model at 39 bucks which can be used as three separate models (since in the PP game, you don't normally use doubles of a large model anyway).

Other companies DO drop their prices at times. So how come the world you say affects only GW prices, yet other companies can actually LOWER their prices? I guess GW must live in a world of their own....

Also, GW is stagnating and PP is still experiencing record growth.

The number of miniatures needed to play Warmachine/Hordes is around the same as the number you needed to play 40k when GW grew from a UK only operation to an international company. During the period of their greatest year over year growth, GW was offering a game closer in model count to Warmachine/Hordes than the current 40k.

I remember armies with as low as 11 models in them, all the way up to small hordes of less than 50. It took effort to fit many more than that into a 1500 point 40k army in 2nd Ed.

Even since GW switched from that approach to one where they maximize the number of models needed and try to make a full army as large as possible, they've been stagnating. Only the LOTR boom kept them growing and when that faded away, things were really shakey for GW.

Coincidentally, unless you intentionally make a horde army, even Lord of the Rings didn't need that many miniatures to play a full game. Again, the well selling product that leads to growth is one where you don't need dozens upon dozens of miniatures for a complete full sized game.


.

I agree frozenwastes.

The number of models needed to make, say, a VC or Empire list that won't be godawful like the white dwarf sample lists is quite large. With the release of 8th ed, huge blocks of troops have become the norm, and even then you still have to fill up your points with shinies like the DW, Stank, Dragons and HPA.

40k isn't as bad....but it's still pretty bad. Vehicle spam being the current meta means that what would be a medium price army becomes quite expensive since you have to buy a 50-100 p transport for alot of your infantry. Every marine variant relies on spam Razorbacks and Rhinos which only cost around 50 points on the TT, yet cost hundreds in terms of real cash.

Compare the above to even a large Warmachine game, the number of models required is much lower, unless your doing infantry only Kaldor or something like that.

Another advantage of PP is that at tiny small scale points their games aren't hilariously unbalanced like 500-1000 p games are in 40k (low point IG or Tau anyone?). Thus you show up to the store with nothing more than three jacks and a warcaster and have plenty of opponents and games, as opposed to being a new player in a GW hobby with only 1000 points and all the vets (especially in Fantasy) only willing to play upwards of 1.5k (for good reason- the 40k/WFB systems just don't function well at low level points). I know I have about eighty or so skaven sitting around so far and I'm not even close to a field-able list, let alone one that will have a shot at winning games.

VC players complaining about how many models they need to pick up? We can use tombstones and arms as models and unit fillers.... What is the problem?

I don't actually play VC but I was using it as an example. Tbh even a "low" model count army like Warriors or Dwarves will still require a crapload of models.

I think the real explanation is found in what various current and ex-GW people have expressed over the last few years. You have Starlight on Warseer who was a former community coordinator for GW Canada telling us that GW expects their customers to quit within 18 months of their first purchase.

You have Jervis admitting that two thirds of their customers never, ever play the game. He refers to them as "craft hobbyists" and says they are GW's true core market.

So what do you do when more than half of your customers will never actually play the game and a large majority will likely quit the hobby within two years?

You market the idea of the rules. And in that idea, you make the number of models needed to play higher, so that people will purchase more models before they quit.

You can find further evidence of this type of thinking in their price increases on AoBR (and the pricing of IoB). It started out cheap at what? $55 USD? Then as GW realized that any customers they attract with such a low entry cost are likely not going to stick around long anyway, doesn't it make sense to jack the price of the starter up so you can get the most cash possible while they're still spending? So Assault on Black Reach is now $99. GW figured out they need to get more of the money early on as their customers tend to quit (to be replaced by new players recruited with the demo-sales process).

The game size GW promotes is such that the average GW customer will quit long before they ever reach it. GW wants their customers to buy because of the idea of a game they could potentially play. And if you only have 18 months or so of them buying, then you need the model count for a full game high so they keep buying while working towards the full sized army before they stop buying.

Companies like Privateer, on the other hand, assume their customers play their games from day 1. And that they don't have to quit in a couple years. They release rules anthologies each and every year with stuff for every faction to try to keep everyone's interest and see themselves as a game design company first and foremost. So they need a game that can be playable right away at lower model counts, but still scales up nicely to an accessible level. The 35 and 50 point normal sized games require far less models than the marketed full sized 40k/WFB games.

Privateer makes games to be played. GW makes games to sell models. Privateer needs low model counts so people can play them right away and hopes they'll stick around forever. GW needs high model counts to keep people buying as they strive for the idea of a full sized army before they finally quit.

PP is far from perfect. Their price per model is high compared to GW, even if the price per full sized game is much, much lower. Their rules are also geared for competitive play and lack the customization and options that story based gamers often like. My solution is to avoid getting too involved with games with miniatures where a company provides both the rules and the games as a single complete package. I like to use whatever models I want from whatever company I feel like with rules made by a third party. I like free options like Fast And Dirty and FUBAR. As well as small press options like 5150, Blasters & Bulkheads and Tomorrow's War.

evilsponge wrote:Wow love can I be you for a day I'd love to blow 100 pounds on a good night out

Well...a round of cocktails is like £25, a Meal for two £40-50........welcome to rip off Britain....a really good night involves a credit card

evilsponge wrote:Wow love can I be you for a day I'd love to blow 100 pounds on a good night out

I've woke up in the morning remembering little and been missing at least one hundred XD damn good night.


nom

I don't buy the defence that because everything else is going up, GW's prices have to go up. One word: Vallejo paints That's two words!!!

Vallejo paints are just as good as GW's, are cheaper, and give you more for your money. Why can't GW do that? Answer is they can, they choose not too.

frozenwastes wrote:I think the real explanation is found in what various current and ex-GW people have expressed over the last few years. You have Starlight on Warseer who was a former community coordinator for GW Canada telling us that GW expects their customers to quit within 18 months of their first purchase.

I've been saying that for months. They want your initial purchase, one birthday and one Christmas. That will probably take around 18 months. Stay or go after that, they don't care. They've got you to pay for the (now more expensive) starter kit, paints and brushes, and they've got two other purchases out of you. Now you can do what you want - they're onto the next batch of 20 kids.

Profits are needed. The more they put up their prices, less people buy it, the more their prices have to go up to meet the quota.

Nom

Hi All.
Everyone has thier own personal value for money limit on the things they buy.

Some one may pay in exess of £5,000 for a bottle of wine or a watch , or even a hand bag!

Games Workshop plc , has simply increased retail prices over the rate of inflation , to compensate for falling sales volumes.
This simply prices out more people at an ever increasing rate due to the exponetional nature , this course of action brings.

Games Workshop has always been focused on selling minatures.
However , at some point they decided insular marketing to children was easier than driving interest through game development.

This means GW plc is now dependant on an expencive to run chain of B&M stores that eat over 50% of thier profit.

The OP post is understandable,and not an isolated case, as GW plc have priced out over 40% of thier customer base over the last 7 years.(Based on GW plc own financial reports.)

Buy the game you want to play and the minatures you like best.

The TTMG hobby is only as expencive as you want it to be!

The GW hobby is as expencive as GW plc think they can get away with !

Lovepug13 wrote: a Meal for two £40-50........

Clearly I don't know how to treat my girlfriend; our average meal cost tends to be around £20...

But she is contented by Bella Italia and the like, but even in London this named example still cost us around the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and clearly my light-weightness makes me pretty good; I've never spent more than about £25 on a night out clubbing and that includes the pizza afterwards

Henners91 wrote:

Lovepug13 wrote: a Meal for two £40-50........

Clearly I don't know how to treat my girlfriend; our average meal cost tends to be around £20...

But she is contented by Bella Italia and the like, but even in London this named example still cost us around the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and clearly my light-weightness makes me pretty good; I've never spent more than about £25 on a night out clubbing and that includes the pizza afterwards

feth me! York is a cheap night out and I spend a good £40 easy (12 pints and a kebab) that's with no taxi either cos I live inside the walls. How much for a pint where you live?

H.B.M.C. wrote:

frozenwastes wrote:I think the real explanation is found in what various current and ex-GW people have expressed over the last few years. You have Starlight on Warseer who was a former community coordinator for GW Canada telling us that GW expects their customers to quit within 18 months of their first purchase.

I've been saying that for months. They want your initial purchase, one birthday and one Christmas. That will probably take around 18 months. Stay or go after that, they don't care. They've got you to pay for the (now more expensive) starter kit, paints and brushes, and they've got two other purchases out of you. Now you can do what you want - they're onto the next batch of 20 kids.

I think that's a good assesment as far as a Christmas and a birthday goes.

They want their customers to buy:

Starter or Battleforce

Codex/Army book

Perhaps a purchase after reading your codex when you realize what you have isn't really viable or even game legal.

A few issues of WD

Paint, glue, brushes, etc.,.

At least two or so additional purchases for X-mas & birthday presents

After that you can be churned out and replaced by a new demo-sales-process recruit.

If the average game size they're marketing is 1500, 2000 or even larger, and their typical customer quits within 2 years, what are the odds that they get a full army assembled and on the table to experience the game in any meaningful way before they quit? They don't. The rules are primarily a marketing idea. The people dedicated enough to post on internet forums about the game will be the exceptional cases that actually finish and keep playing. GW's typical customer? Probably goes through the demo-sales churn and burn process.

mattyrm wrote:

Henners91 wrote:

Lovepug13 wrote: a Meal for two £40-50........

Clearly I don't know how to treat my girlfriend; our average meal cost tends to be around £20...

But she is contented by Bella Italia and the like, but even in London this named example still cost us around the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and clearly my light-weightness makes me pretty good; I've never spent more than about £25 on a night out clubbing and that includes the pizza afterwards

feth me! York is a cheap night out and I spend a good £40 easy (12 pints and a kebab) that's with no taxi either cos I live inside the walls. How much for a pint where you live?

£1.90 down the Union for a pint of Fosters/John Smiths... If we're pre-drinking you can just get a ten pack of Fosters for a tenner from the Campus Shop, I normally only go through about four of those.

But, as said, I am a lightweight... on a night out four beers'll get me buzzed and then around three shots of vodka'll get me to where I want to be. £1.50 for a double at a club in town.

frozenwastes wrote:I think the real explanation is found in what various current and ex-GW people have expressed over the last few years. You have Starlight on Warseer who was a former community coordinator for GW Canada telling us that GW expects their customers to quit within 18 months of their first purchase.

You have Jervis admitting that two thirds of their customers never, ever play the game. He refers to them as "craft hobbyists" and says they are GW's true core market.

So what do you do when more than half of your customers will never actually play the game and a large majority will likely quit the hobby within two years?

You market the idea of the rules. And in that idea, you make the number of models needed to play higher, so that people will purchase more models before they quit.

You can find further evidence of this type of thinking in their price increases on AoBR (and the pricing of IoB). It started out cheap at what? $55 USD? Then as GW realized that any customers they attract with such a low entry cost are likely not going to stick around long anyway, doesn't it make sense to jack the price of the starter up so you can get the most cash possible while they're still spending? So Assault on Black Reach is now $99. GW figured out they need to get more of the money early on as their customers tend to quit (to be replaced by new players recruited with the demo-sales process).

The game size GW promotes is such that the average GW customer will quit long before they ever reach it. GW wants their customers to buy because of the idea of a game they could potentially play. And if you only have 18 months or so of them buying, then you need the model count for a full game high so they keep buying while working towards the full sized army before they stop buying.

Companies like Privateer, on the other hand, assume their customers play their games from day 1. And that they don't have to quit in a couple years. They release rules anthologies each and every year with stuff for every faction to try to keep everyone's interest and see themselves as a game design company first and foremost. So they need a game that can be playable right away at lower model counts, but still scales up nicely to an accessible level. The 35 and 50 point normal sized games require far less models than the marketed full sized 40k/WFB games.

Privateer makes games to be played. GW makes games to sell models. Privateer needs low model counts so people can play them right away and hopes they'll stick around forever. GW needs high model counts to keep people buying as they strive for the idea of a full sized army before they finally quit.

PP is far from perfect. Their price per model is high compared to GW, even if the price per full sized game is much, much lower. Their rules are also geared for competitive play and lack the customization and options that story based gamers often like. My solution is to avoid getting too involved with games with miniatures where a company provides both the rules and the games as a single complete package. I like to use whatever models I want from whatever company I feel like with rules made by a third party. I like free options like Fast And Dirty and FUBAR. As well as small press options like 5150, Blasters & Bulkheads and Tomorrow's War.

This is very accurate in my observations. People who collect and play for longer than 18 months are an anomaly. I know lots of people who model and don't play, or model with the good intentions of playing but never do. Hell, even now, I don't get much more than attending tourneys... Does that make me a "craft hobbyists"? I have 8 Ork trukks, I have never been able to get more than 4 of them in a list. I have about 20 flash gitz who have only ever played in one apocalypse megabattle. I have upwards of 180 grots, old plastic, gorkametals, fantasy metals, and new plastics... am I ever going to use 180 grots? I just cracked the 30 Mega nobz level with the knowledge the second GW or a 3rd party releases a cool mega armor mdoel I will get 10 more. I very well could be what they consider a "craft hobbyists".

Yeah I still play, not like I did when I was younger but at some point I was probably one of the people who survived the 18month kill-off stage and ended up becoming a statistical anomaly which is ignored or a "craft hobbyists" which GW keeps on the hook by releasing me ork models every few year or so.

The problem is, their model works, or at least seems to... which is good for me. I get what I want. I get models I want and play fun games when I want. Other people are not so lucky...

I have kinda thought an ‘open-sourced’ wargame designed for use with any models which was focused on balance and gameplay over models is an idea I would subscribe to in theory… I mean it sounds good right? The thing is, with the way I play, I would probably need a tourney event with 50 people and an all day guaranteed playing of painted models for me to justify taking the time to ‘go play’ this new game. The reason I play 40k is because I can show up, play and go home with minimal effort on my part.
Blood bowl is still the best game out there for true balance, fairness and tactical skill. And that has grown to really be model independent.

Henners91 wrote:But, as said, I am a lightweight... on a night out four beers'll get me buzzed and then around three shots of vodka'll get me to where I want to be. £1.50 for a double at a club in town.

Four beers and 3 shots makes you a lightweight? Holy crap man.

University is its own economic world though. Once you leave you'll find yourself spending £100 (in London) on a decent night out no problem, no matter how much of a lightweight you are.

The point about craft hobbyists rings true with me. I don't play the game (none of my real life friends are into such "nerdy" pursuits) so I've been content with buying things just to paint up and look pretty. But I still feel this compulsion to buy not what looks cool, but what is game legal and competitive. Why? It makes no sense! I'm never ever going to play a game but I worry that stealthsuits aren't good enough and that I may not have enough crisis suits or what have you. I have fallen well and truely within the trap that I have been encouraged to buy more than I want to field an army that will never fight. I now have a ridiculous backlog of painting because of it.

Damnit.

helium42 wrote:Made two purchases from a chinese recaster, Draigo and Crowe, both were better than any copy I could find on a shelf somewhere. And I sure as hell am through trying to mail order anything finecast after the horrible crypteks, overlord, and Imotekh I got.

I'll only risk buying finecast in person where I can inspect it in its package before opening, open it after purchase, and exchange/return it on the spot. With this being said, I don't know if QC is getting any better but there was a GW store grand opening near me a week ago, and I looked through a lot of their finecast stock on the shelves, and could not find any visible flaws. Picked up a dark elf assassin which turned out pretty much flawless.

It's people like you that ruin a good business. Buying a recast/copy is highly unethical. Also supporting china made products is one of the biggest reasons the united states is in its current state. But I guess all Americans now live in their Walmart mentality now.

biccat wrote:

Henners91 wrote:But, as said, I am a lightweight... on a night out four beers'll get me buzzed and then around three shots of vodka'll get me to where I want to be. £1.50 for a double at a club in town.

Four beers and 3 shots makes you a lightweight? Holy crap man.

Hah! He fething is a lightweight as well drinking Fosters!

I'm not a massive drinker, I just like the feeling of getting totally smashed. Its not like im a tough guy and I'm sober or anything after 10 pints.. the attendees at Warhammer world who watched me smash the Kroenbourg at 11am and then fall asleep sat bolt upright at half pat six can attest to that.

I currently like a beer in my local called OBJ from Thwaites, its 6.5% and proper nice. Its £2.90 a pint, and I take 40 quid out with me, I usually get fish and chips or a kebab on my way home and wake up with change so I reckon I'm doing about 11-13 pints, I cant remember much after about 8 though. As I said though, thats pretty cheap.. In York I walk to and from the pub, but say you have a night out in Newcastle or something and you get a taxi home? Plus entry to a club, I can do 70-80 quid easy.

As the man said, drinking is proper fething expensive and I do it at least 6-10 times a month.. so, GW stuff doesnt feel so bad. At least its still there in a years time!

Now we got on the subject.. I truly shudder to think how much we spend on boozing in a lifetime...