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winterdyne wrote:

Calling it £2.75 means a Tactical Squad is just under 8.4 lunches. 10 years ago, it was what, £12 for a tac squad? A mere 5 lunches (at around £2.25)!

How long do your kids have to starve themselves for a box of marines?

A very close friend of mine built his 40k army this way, when he was in school he would go without lunch, save up his lunch money and buy minis with it (he's the kind of person that doesn't really feel the need to eat much).

I would say that despite being an interesting factoid, the figures aren't very useful, e.g. I work for above minimum wage (And although not an exuberant amount above it, it's a comfortable amount) yet after taking off 'reality outgoings (rent, food, petrol, commuting costs, etc) my monthly disposable income is probably somewhere around the £15-20 mark, and usually that will get shunted into the 'we need to buy something important' pot.

winterdyne wrote:
Actually; can we have some extra data alongside the hours at minimum wage? How about 'school lunches' - the average cost of a school lunch / typical given 'lunch money'

Here in the UK, it's pretty standard fare at the moment to pay around £2.50 - £3 per day in lunch money to your kids. This gets them a hot (school cafeteria) meal at lunch or a sandwich of some sort out and about, some sort of drink and some sort of snack for a break time. It should be pointed out that this figure has NOT actually changed that much in the last 10 years. When I was at high school (over 20 years ago (shiiiiit)) I got something like £2 a day.

Calling it £2.75 means a Tactical Squad is just under 8.4 lunches. 10 years ago, it was what, £12 for a tac squad? A mere 5 lunches (at around £2.25)!

How long do your kids have to starve themselves for a box of marines?

Not sure if this would work, because I'm pretty sure no Swedish school charges for lunch.

But we should have some more numbers. This is actually really interesting. Add in tax rates and such too.

I don't understand why this index -wouldn't- be informative. GW's stated target market is kids. Kids 40k spending is generated by two sources, one of which is the bank of mom and dad, and the other is - you guessed it. A minimum wage McJob.

I'd definitely argue that the "target" audience and its successors(college students) have very little disposable income.

High school kids often have more than just one hobby, so if they play 40k, odds are they spend a chunk of their money on video games as well, which are $60 a pop.

College students generally have part time minimum wage jobs and eat ramen 5 nights a week. And many of them have regular bills to pay like cell phones, gas, car insurance etc.

People don't generally have real disposable income until 25+. Once they are settled down and have their life more or less figured out. It is then that they look to possibly spend money on hobbies, and if they decide on one they usually go all in.

I just did my families budget now that me and the wife have stability in work and housing, and we're looking at about $500 a month in discretionary money. A chunk of that will go to savings, a chunk to entertainment, and the remainder is split between us. So at the end of my month I'll have about $100 for my hobbies. Warhammer is the only hobby of mine that requires any kind of "regular" spending. My drumset is complete, so there's no monthly costs there, my computer is up to date so that is perhaps a once a year cost. So I'm looking at $1200 a year to spend on wargaming, and I intend to.

How many 14 year olds have that same income to spend just on models, over consecutive years?

I have plenty of projects for WFB and 40k that I'd like to do, and I now have the money to do it.

But if GW wants to market to the McJobbers, then they do need to look at how much labor is required for one to buy a box of models. The higher that labor, the fewer kits they'll likely buy.

I chose the minimum wage stat for a variety of reasons, the main one being that it's generally a much easier number to find than the average wage of a country, which is often quite speculative (and more vulnerable to geographic fluctuation within that country), whereas minimum wage (if it's federally mandated) is more of a reliable constant.

That being said, I would find it very interesting to do the same thing but with the average wage, and will do so when I get the time. Once I had acquired that information, I could then apply other variables such as tax rates to get an even more accurate picture of who pays the least/most for GW product.

I would say that despite being an interesting factoid, the figures aren't very useful, e.g. I work for above minimum wage (And although not an exuberant amount above it, it's a comfortable amount) yet after taking off 'reality outgoings (rent, food, petrol, commuting costs, etc) my monthly disposable income is probably somewhere around the £15-20 mark, and usually that will get shunted into the 'we need to buy something important' pot.

I agree, there's bound to be a host of variables that aren't taken into account with these, but their purpose was to be interesting, nothing more

 Dr. Delorean wrote:

I agree, there's bound to be a host of variables that aren't taken into account with these, but their purpose was to be interesting, nothing more

Ah, ok... makes sense

Another way of doing it would be (Price of Tactical Squad)/(Price of Standard Ipod Product)

I think this might be a far more stable method than minimum wages (which are determined more around the political persuasion of the government and the country rather than an actual indication of affordability).

And, it's easy to get


Actually, the Ipod index and the Big Mac index have been talked about in the Economist (there were a couple others)... but again, they are not perfect, just interesting.

Interesting chart, though the Big Mac index is a straight price comparison in each country. A better comparison would be to compare the country's median wage relative to the cost. I know in the US, minimum wage and median salary for a state don't correlate. There are states with a lower minimum wage, but a higher median salary. Maryland's minimum wage is equal to the minimum set by the federal government, but has the highest median salary of all 50 states in the US. In comparison Washington state has the highest minimum wage of any state, but is only 12th on median salary.

 keezus wrote:
I don't understand why this index -wouldn't- be informative. GW's stated target market is kids. Kids 40k spending is generated by two sources, one of which is the bank of mom and dad, and the other is - you guessed it. A minimum wage McJob.

If you're looking at kids, it skews the figures considerably. The full minimum wage in Australia is for people 21 and over. A 15-year old starts out around about $6 an hour.

But it's still meaningless, since it doesn't take into account how many of GW's customers in each country are actually on minimum wage.

 Aerethan wrote:
So how much is a 1 bedroom Apartment in a decent part of Australia(no ghetto rates mind you)?...

...Holy crap http://www.realestate.com.au/rent/property-apartment-with-1-bedroom-in-vic/list-1?activeSort=price-asc&preferredState=vic&maxBeds=1

$120~ a week? So $480 a month.

You will pay considerably more than that for a unit that isn't out in the middle of nowhere.

I found this an interesting factoid.