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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Haven't GW been doing really well in the pandemic era?

They're probably thinking to the end of the pandemic, when all of the new players stop buying.

Needs a GW prefix in the title, other games are available!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Costs are still escalating. U.K. power costs alone are up 54%.

So are here in Slovenia and we're practically self sufficient, so it's an undeniable fact that at least in our case it's pure corporate greed, just hiking prices because everyone else is.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm sure one the issues with power prices and the shipping and supply issues are resolved GW will naturally bring the prices back down to pre-pandemic levels. Right?

This isn't just pandemic related. It is difficult to see how that might happen. Inflation will level off eventually, but ultimately global supply chain logistics hit a wall five years early due to Covid, but the wall was still there.

(And Brexit and the potential for war in the Ukraine are cause a lot of economic long term economic pressures. Energy prices in the UK are never returning to their previous levels, the UK has simply underinvested for forty years and is going to suffer the consequences of that).

It is stupid hoping a business will accept a reduction in margin to avoid inflationary pressures. That's literally not what a company is supposed to do. You want to overthrow global capitalism then knock yourself right out, but there's not much point complaining about one specific company taking a pretty normal action until you succeed at it.

 The Phazer wrote:
It is stupid hoping a business will accept a reduction in margin to avoid inflationary pressures. That's literally not what a company is supposed to do. You want to overthrow global capitalism then knock yourself right out, but there's not much point complaining about one specific company taking a pretty normal action until you succeed at it.

Sure, they won't do it willingly. They'll do it if sales go down. Same as restaurants won't hire at certain hourly wages... unless they can't fill positions. Then they will.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Costs are still escalating. U.K. power costs alone are up 54%.

So are here in Slovenia and we're practically self sufficient, so it's an undeniable fact that at least in our case it's pure corporate greed, just hiking prices because everyone else is.

Self sufficiency is irrelevant economically if you can export the energy more profitably it will still drive price increases.

Heck, Kazakhstan is self sufficient and it's government basically imploded for the same reason.

I feel like one of the driving forces behind the metal increase is because stand alone metal models typically are cheaper than new plastic ones. So they want to make more money.

Not unexpected, but sad to see regardless.

Shame about scenery going up 10%, as this is already pretty damn expensive. Maybe this year I will finally get around to getting that 3D printer.

People are talking about GW prices like they have a god given right to be able to afford plastic models which are, at the end of the day, strictly a 1st world luxury item.

GW and other companies will charge what they can get away with. If you can't afford it or think its too much, dont buy it. If sales drop off, a company will need to reassess their approach.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Haven't GW been doing really well in the pandemic era?

They're probably thinking to the end of the pandemic, when all of the new players stop buying.

I haven't closely followed the last financial report, so I may be off here, but it seems to me that they had to announce increased operating costs that affected their profits after the continuous increases over the last years and a healthy price rise is their way of reassuring shareholders. I could see it being a quick fix with no regard for the long term like the end of the pandemic, shipping issues or their actual ability to keep operating at lower profit. GW has reached its peak during the pandemic and done really well for itself, and now they're trying to ride the wave for as long as they can.

Also I believe February or thereabouts has been the time for GW's price increases lately, so in part it's no more than business as usual.

 Pacific wrote:
Needs a GW prefix in the title, other games are available!

Are you sure? If you see "price increase" as a thread title on a wargaming forum and your first thought isn't GW, you're doing toy soldiers wrong.

I'm relieved to see Japan's prices aren't going up. Inflation here was actually negative last year, and has been around 0.5% since 1995. That means that every time gw prices increase the impact is greater here.
This has led Japan to be the most expensive place in the world to buy gw minis. The price increases elsewhere just narrows the gap.

Right, this does not affect me or my stipulated budget which is still the same.

Basically if I want a model and if it fits within my budget fine, if it doesn't I will not buy it. Pretty simple maths and will not increase my budget regardless of GW announcements.

Its at the end of the day their loss not mine.

This Christmas was getting difficult to find cheap pick up things for the sake of it bellow the £20ish mark and next year probably 25ish and so on and on. Buy less or not buy at all seems the most positive thing coming from this because I really dont need more plastic TBH.

The vultures are circling!

So when all the distribution returns to normal and the price of goods fall, the prices will come down right GW........right????

It's no real loss, I've already cut down on buying their stuff this year. Too much existing to pain anyway.

Resin prices going up another 10%? Not thrilled.

Just saying, these perpetual prices hikes is making it nearly impossible to justify any "impulse buys" going forward. You might think you are increasing your profits, but you are forcing people to buy less. Unless GW is thinking of establishing a sort of installment payment option for their plasticrack, this will end up making them less money, not more..

Sunno wrote:
People are talking about GW prices like they have a god given right to be able to afford plastic models which are, at the end of the day, strictly a 1st world luxury item.

GW and other companies will charge what they can get away with. If you can't afford it or think its too much, dont buy it. If sales drop off, a company will need to reassess their approach.

So what. Can't I as a customer complaint about their policies or what?

Removed - rule #1 please

See, this just proves to me that they're shooting for saturation.
Notice how Australia is excluded. Now, from my understanding in Australia 40k growth has flatlined, (unsure about the other games) they've reached the point where the customer will not pay any more without losing customers.

Similar story with china and Japan, but that's moreso because warhammer (all sorts) has always struggled there, as opposed to reaching saturation. Can't afford to begin price hikes yet.

But britain? Europe? US/canada? They've not reached it yet so they're going to keep going. Keep going until we put our foot down.

 Galas wrote:

Sunno wrote:
People are talking about GW prices like they have a god given right to be able to afford plastic models which are, at the end of the day, strictly a 1st world luxury item.

GW and other companies will charge what they can get away with. If you can't afford it or think its too much, dont buy it. If sales drop off, a company will need to reassess their approach.

So what. Can't I as a customer complaint about their policies or what?

I think you can complain, the message was simply it'll happen regardless and until they hit the point the prices aren't sustainable, it'll continue. Even if you're not happy about it and complain.

 Galas wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s…it’s almost as if there are economic forces well beyond their control.

I'm too european lefty to eat those spaguetti.

As a share holder myself, i'd rather they just keep the prices down than inflate profits with higher consumer costs though there are market forces at play.

blah evil munny grabbers, servants of the dank powers,...wait not Paint ? As you were

Some selected price rises

AoS Extremis £105 -> £110
40K Command edition £105 -> £110
Warcry Red Harvest £130 -> £135
AoS Fury of The Deep £105 -> £115
40K Eldritch Omens £125 -> £130
Necromunda Hive War £90 -> £100
Bloodbowl 2nd Season £85 -> £95
Dungeonbowl £95 -> £105
Codexes £17.50 -> £19
Codexes/Battletomes £25 -> £27.50
Codexes/Battletomes £30 -> £32.50
Other books £20 -> £22
Other books £15 -> £17
Other books £28 -> £30
Other books £35 -> £37.50
Books £40 -> £42.50
Underworlds warbands £25 -> £26
AoS/40K Start Collecting £55 -> £57.50
AoS/40K Start Collecting £60 -> £65
Combat Patrol £85 -> £90
Necromunda gang £26 -> £28
Warcry Warbands £30 -> £32.50
Zone Mortalis kits go up £5 each
Underhive sector £170 -> £190
Bloodbowl team £26 -> £31.50
Characters £18.50 -> £19
Characters £20 -> £21
Characters £22.50 - > £24
Characters £25 -> £26
Dice sets £20 -> £24

Some of the unreleased Warcry sets from this weekend go up £1 already!

Ignore me, I self-owned.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
blah evil munny grabbers, servants of the dank powers,...wait not Paint ? As you were

Cuando las barbas de tu vecino veas cortar, pon las tuyas a remojar

An english equivalent could be to see the writing on the wall.

60 USD for duplicate sprue blood bowl team? No thanks

The more interesting bit than the obvious requirement to increase prices in these times of large inflationary pressure, is the freezing of some international prices.

Tacit acknowledgment that their historic exchange rates were harming them there and they have allowed them to lower.

This was always the only way those regions would get sort of "price decreases".

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Costs are still escalating. U.K. power costs alone are up 54%.

Yaaaaaay Brexit.

This is a very high IQ take, given that the 54% figure given is a prediction of EU wide energy cost increases.

This reinforces the current, “3d printer goes Brrrrrr” sentiment for terrain. Plenty of well designed free stuff and then there’s very polished projects like Stellar Artisans.

The Ender 3 v2 is a $300 outlay and you’ll probably spend two weeks tinkering with settings and Cura for tree supports. Then it’s $22/kg of plastic divided by the weight of the piece you’re printing (usually for a big H ruin it’s ~600g, so ~$13.20). This in comparison to between $50 and $90 for various sized terrain pieces from GW that have the same (or less) ornamentation as the Stellar Artisans work ($80 to purchase 8 stl sets post kickstarter).

The minute someone makes resin printing foolproof and reasonably cheap (self leveling bed, easy to replace components, simple means to piping fumes out a window vent) this’ll go sideways.

To be honest, I am surprised that GW have waited this long to increase their prices, would have thought that they'd have jumped at the first opportunity to raise their (already inflated prices).

Zone Mortalis kits go up £5 each
Underhive sector £170 -> £190

I have no words, the Sector barely has 4 kits worth of stuff in it, so content goes up by 20, price goes up by 20, relative savings go down from an already modest 15ish %

While I personally hate every price increase that happens and already am rather inclined to say that I will not buy any additional models, I am going to point out the sad horrible truth to everyone now:


GW miniatures/publications are probably still undervalued by about 25-50%.


The reason is simple: Even if they would raise their prices today by 25%. Nothing really would change. Yes the boards would be filled with a shitstorm. People would yell and scream and whatnot. But they would still buy the miniatures. Most people simply spend a budget on their hobby. It doesn't matter what they get for that budget, they will still spend it. Some might change their hobby, but would more than 25% leave? Doubtedly. If I go through my own thought process how I really justify such a luxury purchase, then it comes down to:

time that I spend enjoying the activity times the rarity I have the chance to do this in my life devided by [moneys times time I spend with unpleasent activity because of it]

Face it, GW has a monopoly, that is rarity. The time in the hobby is: thinking and talking about my faction/models + assembling + painiting + playing games (probably the shortest amount by comparison). Unpleasent time is minimal as long as I have space and opportunity to store and work on my models.

It would take an absurd amount of money to bring this equation down to the factors I face with things like going to the cinema or eating in a restaurant with people.

That is the reason why so many people have multiple 5000+ points armies. Once you are in, this equation keeps pulling you in. And if the prices rise, then people would rather look at playing smaller games or change to killteam. The only real threshold that GW thinks about is new customer conversion. That is were such high prices would potentionally hurt them on the long run.

I know this, because I do this for a job. We catch a customer with big discounts or exclusivity and then we raise prices until we reach the point that more people drop out of our product than we can compensate with the additional margin that the ones that don't drop out generate. We are actually forced to do that, anything other would be liable against our shareholders.

The only reason I don't buy additional models is that my display is full and my pile of shame attrociously large. If I were done, the prices certainly wouldn't stop me at the moment. And I still catch myself thinking about buying a Knight, because it would look cool. Sad horrible truth.