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I think the minis hurt more than the paintbawwwl when you get hit with'em.

Wrexasaur wrote:As a few people have said before, they expensive because they are expensive. There really is no reason beyond this, especially when people continue to see these toys as more than bits of plastic in reality. I do not mean this as an insult, but comparing a paintball gun to a plastic toy, or even a whole army of plastic toys makes me laugh a bit.

They are expensive only in relation to your discretionary income. I have a decent job, that pays decent money, and I can afford to buy lots of minis. I also like console games, but consider the cost of the unit and games to be 'too expensive', even though I have the income.

But, value aside, miniature games are expensive, in the case of GW and PP, because you have effective monopolies. If you want to play heroic sci fi in 28mm in the Warhammer Universe, you have to buy GW models. If you want to play steampunk with jacks and infantry, you have to buy PP.

Compare that to the historicals market. If you want to play napoleonics, you can look to a large number of manufacturers of napoleonic miniatures of varying quality and price. You can find them for $1 a model, or $4 a model. You can buy them in 1/72 scale plastics. You can shop around. And that competition keeps prices down. Now there are some companies who charge GW like prices in the historical market. And people buy them because they consider them to be superior sculpts, or superior quality.

So, I would not say that "miniature games" in toto are expensive, but that certain miniature games are more expensive than others.

And I'll just continue to buy stuff till either my closet explodes, or I lose interest, regardless of cost

Wrexasaur wrote:I will put it like this then. If I want I can actually make my own plastic toys that are really no better or worse than GW products on the whole. They may cost more for me to make, but that has little to do with me and more to do with GW and their corporate status.

On the other hand if I had the skill to make paintball guns and golf-clubs to the same level as the ones that I can buy, I would be some sort of genius . The cost and time I would have to invest just to enjoy my creation vary so drastically in this comparison, I have no choice but to say you are talking out of perspective alone.

So essentially what you're saying is that the skills required to design, sculpt, create moulds, create or source an appropriate casting medium, cast good quality models, and design and create a universe and set of game rules for those miniatures to be used in conjunction with are somehow 'lesser' or less valuable skills than those required to assemble an air gun, because the end result is a toy?

Seriously?

As a few people have said before, they expensive because they are expensive. There really is no reason beyond this, especially when people continue to see these toys as more than bits of plastic in reality.

This statement makes no sense.

It's at least in part because people see them as more than just bits of plastic that they cost what they do. And people see them as such because that's what they are, at least to those poeple.

If you see them as just pieces of plastic, then you always have the option of just picking up a $2 bag of green army men instead. Same thing, after all, right?

So it looks like you have two options (as a miniatures game company):

1. Compete in the general market with a generic product (historicals and Reaper Dark Haven)
2. Brand your universe so it would be incomprehensible for anyone to play your game without your stuff.

insaniak wrote:If you see them as just pieces of plastic, then you always have the option of just picking up a $2 bag of green army men instead. Same thing, after all, right?

If people would play games of WH40k with them I would, heck if people would even just play toy soldiers for fun.

As to the rest of your post concerning the plastic soldiers (toy or not whatever, it is your thing) you seem to forget that only you can make them more than a bit of well designed plastic. Just because I like a certain toaster design doesn't change the fact that is just a toaster.

And yes the amount of skill involved in making and engineering a paintball gun or golf club is consistently more than that which is required to make plastic/metal soldiers. I could argue that there are some companies that make very nice models that do require an immense amount of skill, and even some engineering, some of the FW models would fit in this category; this also includes any very large replica of ships in particular.

Does a doctor deserve to be paid so much? As little debate as their is in this discussion, I would have a hard time saying that he should be making no more than the nurse who he employs. I suppose it comes down to technical skill, because I know for a fact that I can make plastic toys, whereas I simply could not make a high-quality paintball gun.

Handmade guitars are also part of a hobby, but they are obviously worth more in many ways than a plastic/metal soldier that is no longer than any of my fingers. Saying so is pretentious to say the least.

without outrageous expenses and all that, it wouldnt be a hobby, just another random product that everyone and their gramma has in their house...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby

Peruse that for a bit.

Hobbies are not expensive by default, there are numerous amounts of reasoning behind the pricing, some of which can be boiled down to demand more or less. Demand also requires some sort of "niche-need" for a product to remain popular for a larger group. GW has produced this effect in various ways, the main being that you are required to use their models to play in their tournaments. More than anything this creates an elite status to the plastic, and GW has actually taken this thought-pattern on themselves by saying that their plastics are officially (GW officially of course) as expensive (worth as much) as their metals... the logic behind this is dubiously hinged on their customers ability to swallow such high-end marketing jargon.

I am still trying to figure out why GW thinks this is the fact, and it seems to be the core of their business plan on a metaphorical level. As the arguments against calling plastic soldiers toys... thus is the argument that metal should cost the same as plastic.

Wrexasaur wrote:
I suppose it comes down to technical skill, because I know for a fact that I can make plastic toys, whereas I simply could not make a high-quality paintball gun.

If you can sculpt nice mini's then that's great for you.

I can't. But I have the skills and tools to build a paintball gun, nothing especially difficult about that.

How does/should this effect what price they sell for?

Hi all.
Only SOME minature games are expencive!
I can down load FREE rules , from lots of great companies, (including GW SGs.)
And buy minatures from non GW companies for a fraction of the GW price!
(Seriosly you can get METAL minature at HALF the GW plastic minatures price!)

EG Full Thrust rules , free to down load, 12 space ships on flying stands from EM4 minatures £2.50
I hardly think less than £5 for a minatures game system is extortionate, do you?

So the OP might have meant why are GW core games so expencive.
Because GW PLC price thier product at the maximum they think you will pay for it.And try to brain wash thier customers into thinking GW is the ONLY name in minature wargames.

Perhaps the lazy GW customer who wants to be spoon fed everything by GW deserves to be 'wallet raped' for not showing any intiative?

However to those poor folks who GW have mis-lead, look around and find some great alternatives to GW product.

The perry twins, (Perry Minatures) are working on some middle ages troops , ideal for WH empire replacments , only £15 for about 40 minatures!(Yes they are as good as GW minis, its the Perry Twins !)

If the Perry's can sell exelent quality plastic minatures at £3.50 for 10, why do GW think £25 for ten Goldsword is a fair price?

IF Thane Games can produce a rule book that covers ancient AND fantacy wargames and force organisation and PV allocation formula that is proven to work , and makes the game ballanced for competative play, AND comes with 14 sample army lists .(And you can use your existing WH with this rule set.)
Why does GW think it can charge twice as much for the basic rules AND charge for every seperate army book/codex?

Oh, thats right 'GW customers are price insensitive', (GW corperate managment thinks you are slowed and will pay stupid prices.)
GW has massive overheads to pay out as well, but alot are due to poor managment !
But rather than address the underlying problems , GW PLC just bump up the prices every year!

So lots of minature games are not expencive, just some of the more well known ones tend to 'maximise the vunerability of thier customers...'

'You pays your money and makes your choice..' as Barry Norman used to say.

TTFN
Lanrak.

Wrexasaur wrote:I am still trying to figure out why GW thinks this is the fact.

Because it is the fact; people are prepared to pay those prices and so that is what the models are worth. The prices are set by supply and demand and what the market will bear. That is simple capitalism.

And, ultimately, that is why they cost what they do. All of this complaining about pricing (which is what this is - you are basically saying GW should not charge so much for toy soldiers, because they are just toy soldiers, and not a paintball gun for example) fails to address this central issue.

Toy soldiers cost what they do because they have development costs - cost which, despite your refusal to recognise them, do exist. Those costs have to be covered. I know you don't like the idea of evil corporations charging money for things which you want, but this is capitalism.

Toy soldiers cost what they do because fans are prepared to pay that for them - if they were not, then development costs would have to be reduced (impacting quality).

And - as for your comment you could make toy soliders similar to GWs; I challenge that. In the words of the internet; pics, or it didn't happen. While I am certain you could cast up individual copies of something you sculpted (and perhaps have the skill to produce a master model equal to Jes Goodwin or someone else) I am exceptionally doubtful you could do so in a manner which is equal to GW.

If I call GW and say "Hey, I need one hundred boxes of Empire Knights" the mail order guy will say "Certainly, sir - Visa or Mastercard?" and I will have them pretty quickly. Probably not as quickly as I would have two boxes, but I will get them. I also have a set of rules for them, a website which I can access for free, a network of official shops where I can get advice (without spending a PENNY there - I turn up with my 100 boxes of Knights and say, "Hey can you help me assemble these?") I would suspect I would not get that sort of service from a small opperation.

And THAT is another reason for the expense; ancilliary support. I spend my money on my knights and suddenly have a huge slab of support which I can access for free. And the ancilliary elements include nice packaging and stores which aren't covered in posters of busty sluts wielding phallic swords; a place where a parent does not feel horribly uncomfortable. Granny goes to a GW store to buy models for Little Johnny - she sees nice, clean-cut, professional staff in a clean store selling brightly packaged, beautiful models. Many (and NOT all) sci-fi shops are dingy, run-down, covered in embarassing art and run by people with little or no grasp of interpersonal relationships - and many models are sold in dull packaging.

Do I care if I am buying a great model in a brown paper bag from a greasy guy eating pizza with his fingers and wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt in a store filled with Julie Bell art? Nope, I don't - but mothers do. And the simple fact of the matter is "Summon Mum" is still the most potent spell in the arsenal of a GW staffer . . . .

Orkeosaurus wrote:And what exactly are cardboard chits miniatures of? Boxes?

Usually they are counters that are punched out a perforated cardboard page. I was just pointing out that miniature wargaming is a subset of a broader spectrum of wargaming.

And last I checked, 1/72 plastic miniatures aren't expensive at all. Combine them wiith a free rules download or homebrew, and not a big expense. Hell I can use GW miniatures for my DBA/HoTT armies and get a full army with 2-3 regiment boxes. 12 guys makes 4 elements of blades, shooters, spears, etc. That's 1/3 of a 24 AP army.

Like I said, some games and manufacturers are expensive. Not all.

Fair enough.

Good god people, they aren't freaking expensive at all. Don't even get me started on comparing to other hobbies. Also it's not like GW is raking in the profits, show me another global company that is number one in its field that only makes 4 million pounds a year.

It's expensive because we pay for it and well they'll charge more as long as we contribute

my friend got pissed and left warhammer because of the costs.
he then bought an X-Box, Wii, and Iphone
i pretty much said wtf...

Its expensive cause somehow people can afford it.

IF I could sell gak at some outrageous price I would. But from what I ve seen lately everything is hell expensive.. not just GW..

Take up a hobby like running or music (once you have the instrument) theyre pretty close to free. Also have positve stigma attached.

Yes, because the instrument is such a tiny investment.

Compared to lessons, training, & coaching? Probably.

Scott-S6 wrote:

Wrexasaur wrote:
I suppose it comes down to technical skill, because I know for a fact that I can make plastic toys, whereas I simply could not make a high-quality paintball gun.

If you can sculpt nice mini's then that's great for you.

I can't. But I have the skills and tools to build a paintball gun, nothing especially difficult about that.

How does/should this effect what price they sell for?

Wait... SERIOUSLY? As in really really seriously you can build a paintball gun from scratch.

Taken this grain of salt now please .

If ANYONE wants to learn how to sculpt miniatures you can do so. This is limited by your discipline and focus on the subject.

If I want to build a paint-ball gun (from scratch, you make the molds and etc... etc...) you are nigh to screwed without connections. I am not sure how this is hard to understand. Metal, plastic, cardboard... they are all different, so try and make cardboard vs. plastic and metal from the earth at some point. Before you try to debunk this metaphor, consider the fact that I can attain any amount of plastic I want for mere fractions of the cost that the GW models represent. As long as I have the time I CAN make this. Casting metal is an entirely different story, you cannot make much more than pewter models without the proper equipment. Besides the fact that you actually CAN build your own paintall gun from scraps, any attempt to cast the intricate pieces would result in utter failure without the advanced equipment involved in such a complicated procedure. On top of this where in the hell are you going to get the paint to provide weather-proofing? Perchance do you know how to make pitch from tree resin? Would that be at all nonsensical at any rate?

I CAN and HAVE made clay from the earth... this is where I stay until someone can prove that an en masse opinion should change any values I have followed for my entire life. MY HOLE GODDAMIT

Regardless of this wargaming monopolization on laziness and constant demand of new products, there are players that are willing to invest the time and prove GW wrong on their own turf. This is no personal attack, but the fact remains that I do not particularly like GW's approach to their customers, and it is quite possible that the only reason they are around is because of their dedicated fans.

Dark Eldar players have been waiting in anticipation for a product that could have been made in less than one year BY ONE PERSON... screw the brand, if you love GW please say so, and stop comparing apples to pineapples.

I was (and in some ways I still am) a salesman in various jobs throughout my life. Your opinion has no relevance to the common techniques used to sell products beyond their actual worth. And the economists step in and try to tear an intangible argument into tangible fact. Moral values and the principles that they represent are not up for debate, they are inherent to any action someone chooses to take until they (or I in this case) have been proven wrong through trial and error. Day by day the facts are entrenched while the rain chooses to loosen all but the core of this summary.

a hobby's a hobby. the costs associated with it is comparable to what you deem it's worth in the first place.

If you're complaining about the costs of GW or PP, then no one is stopping you from buying. Play one of the many free wargames with cut-out figures.

Or heck, pay $25000 a year in golf club fees, or play golf with a tree branch. Or mini-golf. Or buy one of those $2 made in china toy golf sets.

Or rent a $200/day paintball arena, or play paintball using balloons filled with paint, in your backyard. Or have a water balloon fight.

Or take up music with a cheap $5 toy guitar.

Or run with a pair of $100 nike shoes.

What's everyone complaining about? Is it the fact that it is the masses that compels companies to charge more?

I take it this way:

1. I can choose between paying GW a premium for their fantastic models. Or I can download free rules for another wargame using cardboard cutouts.

2. I can choose to play a round of golf at $50 a session, or I can pay a club $25 grand a year to do it everyday.

3. I can choose to buy a premium club set for $3000. Or I can choose to buy knock-offs at $100 a set.

4. I can choose to follow the masses, and stick to a rigid set of customs and beliefs. Or I can choose not to.

Comparing one hobby to another is like comparing apples to oranges. Completely baseless

Years ago I made the golf comparison....and I used to get hammered for it.

Its nice to see people finally get "it".

Darknight wrote:And - as for your comment you could make toy soliders similar to GWs; I challenge that. In the words of the internet; pics, or it didn't happen. While I am certain you could cast up individual copies of something you sculpted (and perhaps have the skill to produce a master model equal to Jes Goodwin or someone else) I am exceptionally doubtful you could do so in a manner which is equal to GW.

Practice makes perfect, and your comment is based on opinion. Just because someone TELLS me that GW makes amazing sculpt does not change the fact that I am not impressed with most of their work. Some of their more experienced sculptors have... experience, and there design team seems to be well run from what I can see. What GW excels at is not sculpting, it is conceptualization. Give me 5 decades and I can make the same company, better, faster, and stronger than before; which yet again, hinges on opinion, not fact.

I could care less about mass-produced toy soldiers, I would want the original pieces before I ran around screaming about how AB-FAB I am for having it.

General Hobbs wrote:Years ago I made the golf comparison....and I used to get hammered for it.

Sorry dude. I've made the same golf analogy, and I think it's quite apt.

Hi all.
Everything is relative.
People with more disposable income spend more on whatever hobby they choose to follow.
People with less disposable income spend less on whatever hobby they choose to follow.

Some minature games ar far more expensive than others.(GW tend to be at the very expensive end of the ranges.)
The only problem I see is GW infers they are the only company out there.
So lots of gamers think if they cannot afford GWs inflated prices they can not afford to play minatures games.

THIS IS WRONG!

TTFN
Lanrak

If you want an expensive hobby, play Magic The Gathering.

Competitive decks cost upwards of £150 - £200 and you have to update them or make new ones every year.

Miniature games hobbies by comparison are far cheaper than MTG to upkeep.

I've only put 300$ into my army. I think i will only need another 100$ to finish it.

Everything's pricey these day's and not just for hobbies food too, There's a billion people starving now.

I don't have hobbies; hobbies cost money. Interests are quite free. - George Carlin

I think that the figures are so expensive because there is no competition in the market. Whereas in more common things like sports, or even video games where there is a constant bar and the games don't break 75$CAN after taxes because the companies fear that they will loose customers who will turn to the more affordable option.
Also, it is illegal for other companies to make figures for other game systems under copyrights ect. There is no second party manufacturer of 40k minis, only GW so if you want to play 40k, you have to suck it up and pay.
GW is a giant in the miniature gaming market and has better quality minis than most (not all) other companies. They know that they can charge X much money for something because fans of gaming have nowhere else to turn to. That is why there are very few people who are just kindof-sortof into their systems.
The people who play their games are willing to pay the price and the people who won't get to piss off

If GW wanted to mass produce these guys for a low low prince they probably could.. but really you'd have the "every 12 year old who's played Dawn Of War PC" problem.. They'd go into a GW store with mum or dad, see how cheap it is to buy to WH40k toys, and buy boxes and boxes. Crappy starter paint set job later you go for a game at the local club and you're looking at a 2000pt army some punk got for christmas. How is that right!? Most us guys have jobs yeah? Or are full time students? I dont know about you but filing everything down, setting everything up, working on terrain from "recycled stuff" (aka neighbours crap), getting round to painting (well) can take serious time and effort. Like the others have said, a $50 investment isn't so big when you put replay value vs other weekly habits. How much do you spend on grog that leaves far worse than it ever entered? Just some points for discussion.

Economics, supply and demand. A higher pricepoint keeps the market elite. Lower pricepoint grants access to those unworthy.
Just a quick summary. lol

Hi Kanelom.
If you are saying GW are targeting an ever decreasing demoghraphic of elitist jerks with more money than sense, then perhaps I see a flaw in thier marketing strategy....

I will continue to support the many other companies that provide great value for money wargaming products.
I am not elitist , I just want the best value for money I can get.In that respect GW dont offer me that much.

Happy Gaming
Lanrak.

I haven't purchased a GW product, aside from their washes, in almost a year now.

I can get away with that as an Ork player, because I can basically manufacture anything I need myself. I think, however, if I seriously played another army, I would have switched hobbies by now due to the overall cost.

Actually, to be fair, I'm starting to get into Warmachine, but only because a local gaming store near me went out of business and had the most ludicrous firesale on models I've ever seen; I got a massive army for about $30.

I'm just at the point where I'm done paying the cost.

Cheese Elemental wrote:To satisfy shareholders.

To generate profits.

So Jervis can pay the rent on his Black Spiky Tower of Doom (tm).

Anyone who's publicly traded is a whore to their shareholders, and that's really the end of it. Those with the money tell manufacturers what to do and because they're all focused on short term profitability instead of long term growth you see companies stagnating until people start leaving--then they start producing to beckon everyone back, and then it's back to status quo. It's a never-ending cycle and ultimately bad for everyone I believe.