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There's a reason real economists don't use one good in their inflation measures. Especially energy as it spikes up and down in price rather rapidly.

Real inflation rates put the Space Marine at £1.73. So that's an extra 32% over inflation.

In Canada, a Space Marine in 1996 was $2.50. Now it's $4.50. Inflation rates put it at $3.42. That's an extra 31% OVER inflation. And that's in 10 years less than the UK numbers.

The whole point of price increases above inflation is to allow for real revenue growth over and above inflation. GW is trying to maximize their revenue in terms of units sold times price. They can't do that if they just match inflation like you falsely suggest they are.

You're misrepresenting the issue by using only petrol as your inflation measure. It may sound pithy to say "40k hasn't gone up in price any more than fuel for your car has!" but it's misleading and dishonest to pretend that's an accurate measure of the change in price of GW's stuff against inflation.

Quite right. Inflation is measured by taking many things into account. You can't just take fuel prices as the rate of inflation, especially when it is completely skewed compared to other commodites. It's one of the fastest increasing valued commodities in the world. If 'inflation' was calculated solely on fuel prices most countries would see their money rapidly being devalued because interest rates are so much lower.

It says something that to make GW prices seem fair, that ludicrous comparisons with fuel are made. The other commodity that is crazy different to inflation are the house prices, because they were soaring for years. With fuel prices there are many causes, a lot of it is speculation on remaining stocks and global events affecting world supply. Also, as expensive as fuel gets, people pay it because they need it almost as much as food itself. GW toys are not as essential in anyone's life as travelling to work so basing a pricing structure along those lines is a bit optimistic.

In the UK, inflation has been rated no more than 5% since the early 90s, by the Bank of England, and it has usually been lower. GW price increases are regularly much higher than this.

These threads always end up the same way:

Argument A.) You knew what you were getting into when you started collecting 40k, you knew it was expensive, so why complain on internet forums? You can simply choose to play another gaming system that is cheaper eg Mantic, Infinity or whatever if you aren't willing to pay the prices.
But really, when you take the frequent widespread GW discounts (usually 20%+) that are all over the internet, you start seeing that these supposedly cheaper alternative gaming systems aren't really any cheaper at all. It's also infinitely harder to find the same kind of discounts on these alternative systems.
Sure, in games like Infinity you require only a few models, which makes it cheaper. But again, it's a consumer choice - some people want big armies to model and paint and play with, so they can't seriously expect an army to cost the same as a small Infinity army. That argument is absolutely ridiculous.
Hobbies are expensive, you think 40k is expensive, try scuba diving.

Argument B.) The price rises are well over the increase in inflation, so it isn't justified. They are ripping us off. Warmachine models et al. cost half the price of GW and you can use them for certain 40k armies aslong as you aren't entering tournaments or playing in a GW store. "

Then basically, the arguments become deadlocked. People usually get banned as it gets so heated.
I actually got a 3 week ban back in June because someone didn't like me pointing out that it just comes across as a bunch of middle-class kids whining about how their toys cost too much, while most the world's population live on a 1$ a day. Truth hurts, I guess. But I will say no more as I don't really feel like getting banned again......

Is this an option C?

The rules themselves help devalue the miniatures with GW games. I bought a box of Glade Riders. If I used them for WFB, they'd make up a percent or two of my army and the best I could expect from them is a single gotcha moment if I can get them around the side or rear of a line.

Or I could take those same Glade Riders and use them with other rules. Perhaps I could play Fantasy Rules! TCE, or Rally Round the King, or Hail Caesar with a fan made fantasy addition. Perhaps Hordes of the Things (now a free PDF in the yahoogroup) Or, I could do what I actually did with them and use them as part of a wood elf themed Legion army for WM/Hordes (with dryads and tree men replacing the shark like dragon spawn miniatures).

Now they are making up a valuable part of my army and will contribute to my game experience in a more positive way. The cost per model is actually reasonable compared to other fantasy cavalry. In the case of WM/Hordes the box of miniatures made up a full unit of Raptor Cavalry and the Annyssa Ryvaal Cavalry Solo.

That's 35% of my army that will have a huge impact on the game. And GW's cavalry models look better on round bases as well.

Some of GW's models are overpriced in any comparison, but many (especially the plastics) are fairly priced per model, but then their rules actively devalue your purchase even further.

So become like most of GW's customers and don't play their rules. It's far better to be one of what Jervis described as a "craft hobbyists" who he said make up around two thirds of their customers who never actually play their rules. Most of them probably don't play any rules, but I'm sure some (like myself) re-purpose their miniatures.

Incidentally, if you need Warmachine style bases, check out EM4 miniatures.

http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/MINIAATURES_BASES.html

They will and have for years squeezed as much out of you as any other company would. My gripe is quality vs cost. The prices also have no reason to them. 5 figs in a box can cost more than 10. The moulds made, the materials the same so why the hike? They know you need those five figures to finish off or add to your army its good marketing really create a product where you MUST have certain figs or you lose games. Its Money, wonga, dosh. That's what's its all about.
Finecast cost vs quality. No matter how the GW lovers paint it that was a bad exercise in PR.
Now I dislike GW as a company and think they are a profit hungry whore who feeds on its customers as if they were trash, BUT I love the setting and most of the models.
So please stop saying if you dont like it play something else. You can, if you are a sentient being, not like GW or their practises but still love the setting, figures, fluff etc. Its a dumb thing to keep repeating.

To add to the equation, I will use some rough approximations here.
Raw abs plastic can run from 1000-4000 a ton, that's $0.50-2.00 per pound. A battleforce's contents may weigh 2 lbs? So at maximum, the raw materials for a $120 box is about $4 AT MOST.
The molds must have some durability to them, so even dividing the cost out over the the life of a single mold vs the number of mini's it creates price wise must be negligible. If you guestimate $10k per mold, and you use a low end yield metal mold (approx 10k runs per mold). That puts mold costs at $1 a sprue. That's a pretty steep cost considering that i could have a similar mold cnc'd for a $2-300 in time and materials. And replicated at the same cost. Unless GW uses mid-evil manufacturing processes then the molds are negligible in cost.
They have been in the industry for a couple decades, they have facilities, they have manufacturing capabilities. Yes there is upkeep and upgrade costs involved but the initial start up is when these facilities cost the most. Decades later, these facilities should be running on proverbial auto-pilot cost wise. Standard operating costs of any manufacturing company, miniatures aren't special.

In a time when a lot of professional employees aren't even getting COLA increases to their salaries because of a tanked economy there is no price justification to raise the cost of the mini's 2-3x the inflation rate. Looking at the above (manufacturing costs) even if grossly under estimated, it leaves a lot of product cost left in the fleshy portion of the expense pie. I doubt that a lot of GW store employees are driving around in BMW's.

GW seems to be living/working in their own little bubble where they do as they please. The popularity of GW games would seem to be getting more mainstream at this point. Tons of books, a hand full of decent PC/Console games. All which GW calls pure profit because the IP already exists, it is all just licensing fees. Yet the miniatures just keep getting shafted with these price increases. Not to mention ludicrous pricing on hobby supplies... brushes, paints, glue and so on. This isn't a company with manufacturing woes, this is a company who doesn't respect its customer base. GW will bend you over any and every chance they get and then steal your wallet to boot.

That's all very interesting but you only have to read GWs report (thus saving on specilationand guestimates) to see that their cost of production (in overheads, R&D etc) are approximately 27% of their turnover before etranious costs (retail chain and one off costs) are factored in. The up shot of that is that GW return a margin of 10-12% per annum whaich is about on par with most medium sized companies.

Molds are expensive by the way as I understand that they are milled from steel. Some have speculated that this costs in the region of £10-20k each.

notprop wrote:That's all very interesting but you only have to read GWs report (thus saving on specilationand guestimates) to see that their cost of production (in overheads, R&D etc) are approximately 27% of their turnover before etranious costs (retail chain and one off costs) are factored in. The up shot of that is that GW return a margin of 10-12% per annum whaich is about on par with most medium sized companies.

Molds are expensive by the way as I understand that they are milled from steel. Some have speculated that this costs in the region of £10-20k each.

Ahh, i have never looked up actual their financials. I was just speculating on the cost of materials based on the comparison to the post on petroleum prices. Which is a very small part of the end product cost. Unless they are getting said materials from the moon. Furthermore that comparison is moot because 20 years ago GW had all metal models, there is no price comparison to the plastic we see today.

Oh i agree, molds can be expensive, and high quality molds even more so. Though if you are going for quality then you are pushing the run count per mold up as well. Better the base material the more life you get out of, thus in the end, less cost per run. While it may not compare to a $300 mold that i can have built, the cost per model is probably going to be pretty low with GW's volume.

In the end, its not so much the cost that kills me, its the non-uniformity of army costs. Pts. per dollar. It prohibits people for starting some armies because of pure cost. Cough*IGArmor/Flier*Cough.

To completely sideline the main "GP Vrs. Its Hobbyists" argument for a second. Just having recently gotten back into 40k, I'm finding buying from online retailers & Ebay at reduced costs has really revitalized things for me. Yeah... you can complain about the cost of boxed units from GW being over priced--but when you take 30% off the MSRP, and with free shipping... suddenly the hobby gets a lot more affordable.

To touch on the "Kids/people can't afford this hobby now!" argument: Lets be brutally honest. I'm not sure how things are around the world, but living in western Canada--kids have a lot of money. The minimum wage is 11/hr, teenagers always have cell phones and laptops, XBox's, Playstations, Wii's, all the associated games. It's 25-30$ to go to a movie, 35$ for the Blu-ray if you want it after the fact. wargaming is a hobby, like anything else. And when that hobby is put in perspective with all the other stuff we buy to entertain ourselves (re: myself)... I find it hard, even for myself, to condemn their price increases.

notprop wrote:That's all very interesting but you only have to read GWs report (thus saving on specilationand guestimates) to see that their cost of production (in overheads, R&D etc) are approximately 27% of their turnover before etranious costs (retail chain and one off costs) are factored in. The up shot of that is that GW return a margin of 10-12% per annum whaich is about on par with most medium sized companies.

Molds are expensive by the way as I understand that they are milled from steel. Some have speculated that this costs in the region of £10-20k each.

That last cost should be/is dropping dramatically. CNC/CAD milling machines are so easy a caveman can use them to make precision machined parts at a fraction of the cost. All you need to be able to do is run design software.

KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:

Ailaros wrote:And even then, the idea that GW is offering the same product, but has raised the price substantially over the rate of inflation is just plain old false:

Ailaros wrote:In 1987, space marines were £0.75 apiece. The price for a litre of petrol in 1987 was £0.387. In 2012, the price of a space marine is £2.30 apiece. The price of a litre of petrol as of this month is £1.338.

The cost of a space marine has increased just about 200%, while the price of petrol has increased 245%. During that same time period that gas prices have gone up 240%, and space marines 200%, the price of gold has increased just slightly less than that (194%), while the price of a pound of bacon has nearly tripled (293%). The price of ground beef has gone up 83% in the last three years alone, much less the last 25.

Plus, even if GW increased its prices slightly over the cost of inflation, you've got to look at the quality of the product itself. 25 years ago, you basically couldn't find anybody to play the game with you, and the minis looked awful to a game where its easy to find someone to play (with better rules), and that has minis that are of much higher quality.

What we're talking about is a game that has gotten cheaper, or stayed the same (or at absolute worst, gotten slightly more expensive) compared to inflation, while also being a bigger, better, more popular game with a much higher quality product.

This is of course ignoring the fact that you only needed around 10-30 Marines in 1987's Rogue Trader. A tactical squad was 250 points before upgrades and would easily reach 300+. Now 10 or 20 Marines isn't even a legal Army.

Personally I believe that miniature wargaming and buying things from GW is a very cheap hobby, don't get me wrong. In the grand scale of things, GW stuff for your hobby is very inexpensive. As far as a game goes, however, GW stuff is fairly expensive.

This is an extremely worthy point, look at the fellows who restore cars for fun in addition to whatever they do for work, or like me collect and shoot firearms (less expensive then the cars, but damn expensive in general) the former is easily in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, and even a modest collection of the latter with regular shooting will run you a few grand. Though the argument could be made both have more value as you get a working car or a functional tool for your money.

Again, in the hobby of WARGAMING GW is stupidly expensive. This is what it should be compared to. Infinite_array said it nicely in another thread:

infinite_array wrote:Yeah, I've got to admit, my hobby of enriching uranium in my custom-built backyard underground bunker is waaaaaay more expensive than what I used to spend on GW.

People just wheel out the other "expensive hobby" example when it should be compared apples to apples. It's not sailboating, casr restoration or mining for uranium. It should be compared to Wargaming. That is all.

notprop wrote:

Molds are expensive by the way as I understand that they are milled from steel. Some have speculated that this costs in the region of £10-20k each.

Yes, although you have to convert that figure from guineas, shillings and six-pences which were in circulation when the tactical squads/Cadian sprues were first tooled!

GW plc price increases are quite simple to understand.

They are loosing customers due to the high price barriers detering new customers starting the GW hobby.
And so can not replace those leaving the hobby on finding other fun things grown ups get involved with...

So those left have to pay more to make up for the short fall of customers ... which deters more new players from starting and speed up the exodus of those finding other cheaper adult persuits.

So those left have to pay more to make up for the short fall of customers ...which deters more new players from starting and speed up the exodus of those finding other cheaper adult persuits.

Repeat ad nausium.

Last year gross margin was 76%(Meaning the cost of EVERYTHING APART from logistics and RETAIL was 24%)

So from a 76% profit before logistics and RETAIL costs , thet only managed a 13% profit after logistic (10%apx ) cost and RETAIL (53%appx)cost.

So over half the cost of GW plc products is there to prop up the chain of retail stores...
But as there is no other retail option avaiable than a large expencive chain of B&M stores because its still 1996 what can they do?

Oh wait its 16 years later and the internet is practicaly the primary retail option for GW plc prime demoghraphic...

Great post Lanrak.

I think the best thing GW can do is spin off their retail division with an IPO. Get a good stock promoter to boost it while the Hobbit movies are out. A good promoter who specializes in micro-cap IPOs can sucker-- sorry, solicit-- investors into buying out the retail division as a separate company.

Then deal with every trade account like a real trade account and concentrate on being a manufacturer rather than a hybrid monstrosity with dead weight.

Great post L, as always. I’m sure some bright spark will be along in a moment to call you a ‘hater’, and then use their powerful skills of deductive reasoning to come up with a “if you don’t like it then stop playing” rebuttal, or perhaps the classic “what’s wrong with trying to make money” defence.

Or has that happened already?

 frozenwastes wrote:

Then deal with every trade account like a real trade account and concentrate on being a manufacturer rather than a hybrid monstrosity with dead weight.

As long as GW Plc continues to act as though they are a hobby unto themselves that will never happen.

If I were a GW exec I would be baffled at the community's rage. If they increased prices in line with general inflation, they'd probably be making a loss.

Find me a business that had rising costs, falling revenues and did NOT raise prices.

Testify wrote:If I were a GW exec I would be baffled at the community's rage. If they increased prices in line with general inflation, they'd probably be making a loss.

Well the point is we can't know the specifics of costs/overheads for sure. I've always been glad of the service that GW provides to the wargaming community with it's stores, as they are great recruiting tools, but no doubt (especially here in the UK, where the high streets in most places are starting to represent something from Escape from New York) they must cost a lot of money.

But in any case I would say main reasons for the discontent, or 'rage' as you put it, are:
- The price rises have been compounded with reductions in the number of miniatures in a box, army boxes have become a worse deal, mega deals almost gone.
- An increase in the number of models needed to play the game in its basic format. Compare a 2nd edition marine 1500pt army to one in 5-6th edition for instance. The 'skirmish' option found in 40k 4th has gone, WD promotes the use of massive armies and collections so that new players coming into the game think that that is the only way to play. Releases of new rules often reduce the efficacy of models in most player's collections, while in other cases promote the mass-purchase of a unit that has recently been put into a smaller unit box (as happened with troop choices in 8th edition WFB for instance)
- Decrease in the amount of 'cheap' options. This ranges from a lack of support of the skirmish games (Mordheim, Necromunda*), to there being no board games such as Heroquest, Space Hulk/Crusade etc. The small games that drew so many of us to GW are now gone, and the entry level is far more expensive. As we were talking about in the other thread, the craft aspect of the hobby, of making your own terrain, boards, basing etc. has now been completely pushed aside to allow the promotion and sale of other plastic kits.
- The switch to a far cheaper material (in the form of resin) which coincided with a price rise. Yes, there was perhaps no link, but again it caused a net negative effect to public perception because of the timing. This has been compounded by the quality control issues with the new medium, perhaps even the weight and 'feel' of the resin itself, giving a perception to many of getting less value for money.
- The relative price of playing GW compared to other manufacturers within the industry. Almost without exception they are the most expensive, and by some margin. The perennial price rise is also unique to GW.
- GW's pricing strategy in Australia and Canada amongst other places, of using outdated conversion rates to justify prices that are sometimes in excess of 200% more than the UK/EU equivalents. Stopping the international trade of GW goods through independent retailers, and the 'RoW embargo' (living in a country with no GW/gaming stores, that was the one that got me personally! ) - Dakka is an international forum, and so sometimes some Aussies stumble into pricing conversation (after having a few tinnies no doubt ) and get belligerent about it.
- The price rises have continued to happen in a globally poor financial climate. GW lays off hundreds (perhaps thousands) of staff in the course of a year, while at the same time giving a sizeable dividend payment (I'm not talking about the ethics of doing that here, but again it created a negative perception).


So, I hope you see it's not a 'rage' issue at all, I'm trying to make an objective analysis here of why people are complaining about GW price rises, and are doing so more than any other company. It's worthy of note I think that both Vallejo and Corvus Belli, Mantic a short while ago, had a price rise and there was next to no flutter about it on the forums.

Of course the exact effect the list above will have will vary massively on people (a lot can still comfortably afford the games, or else don't care about the affect on young people coming into wargaming), but at the same time I don't think that invalidates those issues. It's also not to excuse some other company's of behaving in a like manner (I mentioned Battlefront, changing their production to the Far East while keeping their prices the same for instance, and they too had a drop in quality at the time). But, the point is that there is often a very valid reason at the heart of complaint, and especially for the more veteran gamers here (who have seen GW change from a company run by 'people just like you', into a transnational Corporate entity) it can sometimes be a difficult thing to see..

* I saw someone on Dakka, presumably a younger user, posting that he had been ripped off on eBay as he had bought some 'epic' Land Raiders, and was then shocked when they arrived in the post and they were tiny! He had thought that the term 'epic' referred to them being really good! Simultaneously one of the funniest and saddest things I have read here..

 Testify wrote:
If I were a GW exec I would be baffled at the community's rage. If they increased prices in line with general inflation, they'd probably be making a loss.

Find me a business that had rising costs, falling revenues and did NOT raise prices.

It's hard to know how much their unit sales would be had they not gone on a decade long massive yearly price hike spree.

And you're right about the inflation thing. The whole point of raising prices faster than inflation is to increase the price in real terms.

Another thing to remember is that most of GW's customers are teenagers who quit the hobby after a couple of years. So they don't experience the grind of year over year price increases like those life long gamers who stick around longer than most of their customers. If you only buy their stuff for a couple of years before getting distracted by girls or something, you probably won't care about 10%+ yearly price increases.

I'm in my mid 30s and am convinced that I have a cheaper hobby than most of my friends. I have a friend who's an avid golfer, and after dropping 1000 bucks on clubs every other year, he's then got ridiculous fees to courses. I got a friend in photography, ever seen the price of lenses? Not to mention the several friends into cars, that's just a huge money sink. Know anyone who has a Boat? Know what BOAT stands for? Bust Out Another Thousand.

So in the end the price hikes aren't something I'm cheering for, but I get it.

@mistermoon.
Justifying outlandish prices by quoting even more outlandish prices , is NOT a justification of outlanndish prices.

@testify.
If a company has rising costs and a shrinking market.(falling revenues.)
The SHORT TERM price rises to buy time and resources for a detailed investigation and restructuring is a valid option.
But GW plc has been using this 'stop gap measure' for at least 5 years too long IMO.

A company with rising costs and falling revenue has SEVERE buisness synergy or marketing issues.
Which NEED to be adressed by senior corperate managment ASAP.

They are making the stuff the wrong way , or selling the stuff the wrong way, or to the wrong type of customer.

If GW plc are making 76% profit before the logistic and retail costs.
And only 13% profit after logistic and retail costs are taken into account.

Then looking at the cost associated with logistics and retail would be a good starting point....

 Ailaros wrote:

In any case, GW is providing a product that has been getting better over time (... better rules/fluff, ...)

Hahahahahahhahaha

Look, it's Terrain Density!

 Redbeard wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

In any case, GW is providing a product that has been getting better over time (... better rules/fluff, ...)

Hahahahahahhahaha

Look, it's Terrain Density!

I don't usually comment on things like this, but...

I think if you didn't raise a fuss over that table and how it was setup, that's on you. I would never let someone get away with that crap.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

In any case, GW is providing a product that has been getting better over time (... better rules/fluff, ...)

Hahahahahahhahaha

Look, it's Terrain Density!

I don't usually comment on things like this, but...

I think if you didn't raise a fuss over that table and how it was setup, that's on you. I would never let someone get away with that crap.

As the person who 'got away' with that crap, what isn't shown is the other half of the table that had more, larger terrain pieces. The rule allows for this type of shenanigans. We screwed each other with placing terrain in a way that was detrimental to the other. GW's rules are not and have never been their strong point.

 SPARKEYG wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

In any case, GW is providing a product that has been getting better over time (... better rules/fluff, ...)

Hahahahahahhahaha

Look, it's Terrain Density!

I don't usually comment on things like this, but...

I think if you didn't raise a fuss over that table and how it was setup, that's on you. I would never let someone get away with that crap.

As the person who 'got away' with that crap, what isn't shown is the other half of the table that had more, larger terrain pieces. The rule allows for this type of shenanigans. We screwed each other with placing terrain in a way that was detrimental to the other. GW's rules are not and have never been their strong point.

The problem, simply put, is allowing you to place the terrain as you see fit.

It's why I prefer static tables.

Also, after some reflection...
I should have clarified a bit more. In a pick-up game against someone I do not know, I would not let something like that fly. In a group of friends, I'd be a bit less harsh when bringing up the subject but I'd bring it up all the same.

While the rules might allow such a thing, I personally feel that it requires a bit of common sense to ensure that the rules aren't left to rot by the sidelines while you play because you don't want to "offend" someone.

Yep. the rules are indeed worse than just following common sense.

Given that they're just an idea used to sell models to kids, I'm not surprised.

 Kanluwen wrote:


Also, after some reflection...
I should have clarified a bit more. In a pick-up game against someone I do not know, I would not let something like that fly. In a group of friends, I'd be a bit less harsh when bringing up the subject but I'd bring it up all the same.

While the rules might allow such a thing, I personally feel that it requires a bit of common sense to ensure that the rules aren't left to rot by the sidelines while you play because you don't want to "offend" someone.

Agree completely. If someone in a pick up game tried that (and wasn't joking), I'd be out of there and looking for another opponent. Similarly, if a friend did it I'd probably have to guess that they were drunk In both cases it would be obvious that such a terrain set-up would result in an utterly gak game, and the game itself would be meaningless.

Just wanted to add that I think the craft hobbyists have the right idea. If you don't bother with GW's rules whatsoever, you actually get better value from their miniatures as model kits (or you could use other rules sets).

The Finecast swordmasters of Hoeth though? They're a bad value proposition just inside of GW's offerings without even having to look anywhere else. There are so many things I could spend that money on in terms of GW's plastics that would give me far, far better value. I'd probably go with a unit of bloodletters-- way better models and you get twice as many for less money, with way more options in terms of building poses, command figures, etc.,.

it's not GW specific
look a paint prices... 2007 compared to now.
Vallejo £1.5 now £2.1
Coat d'Arms £1.4 now £2
P3 £2 now £2.50