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 Talys wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
First of all, paperback novels have not risen very quickly, unless you count novelty formats or forced reprinting a into trade format. Second, genre hardcovers were $25 back in 1997, when I used to actually buy them. Last time I checked, they are about $35 now, however I can usually get the newest Dresden Files book for $15-$18 off Amazon, which didn't exist back then. Comics in 1995 were damn near $3 an issue, what with all the hologram covers and foldout covers and the Cable issue 0/Age of Apocalypse/Death of Superman crap. If they are only $4 per issue now, that sounds great. Still, Amazon has trade paperbacks on discount, so you know...

The problem is, most things that are most desirable (sadly, almost everything I want to read) only come in hardcover first. I'm talking about your George Martin, Ken Follett, Diana Gabaldon, that kinda of stuff.

So yeah, if you want to wait past the initial craze, you can get them a lot cheaper.

Does Amazon not discount those authors? Gabaldon and Martin both have active TV series, but why is Follet an urgent read? And are you saying the Dresden Files are less desirable?

Hardcovers really are just overpriced to take advantage of people who have to read a book right now, like when we bought two copies of HP7 so my wife and I could read it at the same time...

@Bobtheinquisitor - I have to read these book right now, because otherwise my friends and family will otherwise spoil it for me. Because I read less now than in my youth, I only really read my favorites. Can't say why, I love Follett , and Tom Builder is a favorite protagonist of mine

One day after the current GoT season ended, someone spoiled a key difference between the book and show, grrrrrrr

Of course, I will buy the titles from Amazon or Costco. But I mean, they were discounted in the past, too. In a way, it's a little like GW: as the years have gone by, the discounts have gotten bigger, where I live.

Computer games have always been around the same price from what I recall, in real terms they've likely gone down. In the early/mid 90s the big games I had upon release were Doom and Space Hulk, and they were £35 and £40+. That's nearly what you'd pay today, twenty years later. Looking further back are things my dad bought that cost about that same amount in the 80s and they were very rudimentary as games go. Some games in the 80s, and somewhat into the 90s, were very variable in quality and were barely functional as games, some where total rubbish but still put on the market. Today you can expect any game to actually work and be fairly long lasting, and patches are developed for some issues. The DLC thing is a bit dubious as it feels like the full price of a game is disguised but that's mostly prevalent in mobile apps trying to make money.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I have a feeling Space Marines are actually probably one of the more stable armies as far as price rises are concerned. I don't remember too many OMGWTF moments when looking at Space Marine price rises.

... ...

Well, I dunno about that. I can tell you I had a severe OMGWTF moment on Tuesday afternoon when I saw the price of a fixed pose single infantry figure Librarian; £25 !!!11!?!?

There were some other examples non-SM that blew me away, like three Lizard Man flying dudes for over £30, three Tyranid Hive Guards for £44, etc.

However I think figures like that sell to collectors rather than to wargamers.

@Killkrazy: i have that plastic Termie Librarian in my queue right now, on commission to a gamer...
it is a beautiful mini, even better than the metal one, and certainly a better option over Finecast...
the ability to create negative space by splitting the body between front and back, with the cloak on the back half, and the tabard on the front half, is a really nice piece of design...
it adds that little bit extra dynamism that really requires the mini in hand to appreciate, though the sprue pic gives a good idea of what i mean...

of course, gamers who can afford my rates are not too worried about model costs, but i always try to get them a nice discount when i can...

Edit: i am seeing the Termie Librarian for £18, not £25...
where was he £25???
that is more than a Command Squad, and the same as a Techmarine with Servitors:(...

cheers
jah

Yeah it's just I live in a world in which £25 will buy you an entire 15mm army for DBA.

I know the Libraritor has lots of bling on him but even so...

I could be mistaken about it being a Libraritor, it might have been a Captainator, the basic point is that it was an elaborate single figure for 40K.

This was in the GW in Oxford.

OK, time for Nev does math, part two: Orks!

I’ve priced out the other side of the battle report. Things might be a little fuzzier, as I am not an ork player. But I’ve tried to reproduce the army as best I could. The army did contain 3 lobbas, which I could not find in catalogs, so will assume they were out of print/kitbashed at the time. While you can get them today, I did not included them in the modern total. 1,500 points of orks at the start of 3rd looks to be about 1,181 today (or so battlescribe and my best guess tells me)

Old cost - unit - new cost
15.50 - warboss - 20
35 - 5 nobs - 25
44.25 - 20 shoota boys (nob, 3 heavies)- 58
44.25 - 2x10 man choppa squads (one nob, 3 heavies between them)- 58
26.75 - 10 stickbommas w/3 heavy weapons - 29
29.50 - 11 grots, slaver - 16.50
75 - 3 scorchers - 81.75
69 - 3 wartracks - 81.75
46 - 2 trucks - 74.50
78 - 2 dreads - 99
----------
$463.25 - Total - $543.50

The same inflation calculator from last time tells me it would be $641.98 in modern money. So modern GW is reletively less. But there is a lot going on behind the scenes here, and that’s plastic. Some are obvious, like the nobs and grots. Huge difference between a plastic kit and buying them by the blister. The other thing is nobs and special weapons. While the old boy kit had 16 guys in it, it looks to lack nobs and big shootas/rocket launchers. Those needed to be purchased separately. The 20 man shoota mob is a plastic box of 16 boys ($23) a single nob blister ($8.50) and 3 big shootas (sold 2/blister @$8.50, so $4.25 each) These days you get most/all the whistles and bells in the basic box.

Now some if this could be taken care of with a little orkish know-whats. Use the spare barrels from the extra shootas the choppa boys aren’t using to make your own big shootas, stuff like that. But I tried to keep everything as official as possible, like it was a one-click bundle to buy the army featured in the battle report.

 Blacksails wrote:
DLC is a touchy topic because there's good stuff like the Elder Scrolls series that falls in the 'Expansion Pack' category and totally worth the money for the content. And there's the likes of Evolve.

Oblivion's Horse Armors DLC, man. Oblivion's Horse Armors

I payed $10 for the metal looba back in the day still had one still in the blister. Think the metal loobas came out in 4th edition if I'm remembering right. Now they are finecast and cost $30 but GW did increase the price of the metal loobas to $20 before they released them in finecast.

I went to GW Reading today and couldn't find the £25 Libraritor, the most expensive was £18.50 and there was one for £15 so either the £25 I saw in Oxford was a mistake or it was a different SM Charactor that they don't have in Reading.

£18.50 is still a hefty price for a single 28mm infantry model, IMO.

 Korinov wrote:

Oblivion's Horse Armors DLC, man. Oblivion's Horse Armors

=][= PURGED FROM ALL MEMORIES =][=

The rest of their DLC have been pretty damn good. Shivering Isles was dope, and bringing Solstheim back into Skyrim was excellent.

I bought every Skyrim expansion, even the dorky housebuilding one, and I'd have bought even more if they made them. I loved the game, and the expansions were both a true addition, and some of the better quests/stories available. One of my favorite playthroughs was the time I refused to even start the main quest, and instead did everything else. So no dragons, no shouts, no dragonborn... just the civil war, the various guilds, and the Dawnguard quest. Only after becoming the biggest badass possible did I finally deign to save the world. Even then, the Dragonborn story line was more satisfying in many ways than the main quest one, making me glad I'd saved it.

@Polonius - Me too!!! Skyrim was one of the most amazing games ever. Community (free) DLCs in Skyrim and Fallout are also amazing. To this day, New Vegas is still installed on my PC.

@Jah - I agree, plastic Libby is an awesome model. Until you actually look at the sprue it's hard to appreciate. There is no comparison with the finecast predecessor -- the material is a bazillion times better and unless you can bribe someone at GW to give you the first resin model out of a new mold, it's just so much easier to end up with a nice finished model.

This is actually part of the problem with observations of great Finecast output -- people are looking at studio-painted models, which were done on fresh molds. But the copy that you buy from the store is unlikely to be of that quality, and you end up with something that takes a ton of work in prep that still falls short.

@Howard Treesong - many gamers feel the purchase price should include the DLC that makes it completely playable, at least for the first 6 months of its shelf life. Also, that content written at launch should be a part of the core game. To take Azrael's example, Batman Akrham is GBP 35-40 to buy and GBP 32-40 to buy the Season pass, which is a year of expansions, some of which is immediately (or very quickly) unlocked. Almost every fan of the game will buy the Season Pass. Philosophically, the expansion is not nearly the work of the initial game, so gamers believe it should only constitute a fraction of the price.

In my opinion, I would be much happier if they sold every copy at GBP 50, and always included the season pass. Then, in a year, sell a real expansion for half the price of the game and let the expansion be judged on its content and merits. There is a free trial anyways, so it's not like you can't figure out whether you like the game before you buy it. Right now, many DLCs just feel like they belong to the main game, and are not an expansion, like extra items (Dragon Age), movies (NFS) and the models they showcase in previews (Forza).

Well Skyrim follows the usual Bethesda ARPG pattern, the main questline and most dialogs in the game are quite... uninspired, but there're always some real gems disguised as secondary questlines. I agree the Shivering Isles for Oblivion was a really nice expansion, and Dragonborn for Skyrim does provide a much more interesting plot than the main game.

In any case, back to the original "videogame dlc" point, it's hard to make comparisons because there are simply too many videogames out there, and their prices and the contents they offer in exchange of said prices vary wildly. It's also a matter of taste. To me, what they charge for a CoD game is a pure scam, but I understand some people are really into multiplayer first person shooters, and they will probably spent as many hours and have as much fun with a CoD than I will with an RPG. There're also companies who charge a lot for totally pointless DLCs, other companies that charge little, and others that simply offer them for free.

Video games are crazy cheap, in fact they're mostly cheaper now than they were 20 years ago. I remember the crazy days of buying Donkey Kong Country for the SNES for SEK 900 (~$100)... And today you have Steam providing you with so many cheap, high quality games that there really isn't any cheaper form of entertainment save piracy. DLC and F2P is the industry's way of trying to actually make money when consumers won't accept price rises.

 Mymearan wrote:
Video games are crazy cheap, in fact they're mostly cheaper now than they were 20 years ago. I remember the crazy days of buying Donkey Kong Country for the SNES for SEK 900 (~$100)... And today you have Steam providing you with so many cheap, high quality games that there really isn't any cheaper form of entertainment save piracy. DLC and F2P is the industry's way of trying to actually make money when consumers won't accept price rises.

Yeah, I honestly can't remember how good reduced price sales were in the 90's so I didn't consider that in comparison. If you complain about video game prices these days but insist on paying full retail you're a bit silly Even if you preorder games you can usually get them ~15% off, but if you are willing to wait even just 6 to 12 months you can usually get it a lot cheaper. I bought Skyrim within a few months of launch and still got it 30% off, and instead of buying the DLC separately I bought the Legendary Edition for so little that I can't even remember

Dunno about you guys but I'm playing DotA for free. FREE TO PLAY GAMES FOREVER.

Back on topic, another thing to consider is army size. The models listed previously sounds a little smaller than the average gamer's army list today.

Just throwing it out there but the last few single sprue character blisters have been $48 and $55 AUD, not to mention that there are now dual sprue plastic blisters at $50, $60 and $65.

Back when they first came out a plastic character blister was $22, and was only like 5 years ago.

Video games all depend, man.

I played lots of games that cost more than $100 for the deluxe edition and all that jazz and got 20 hours of game play before I chucked it. Sometimes other stuff is $10 in the bargain bin and you get 200 hours out of it. Plus digital distribution now means your old games are worth zero.

And then there are money sinks like Diablo 3. My brother blew something like $30,000 on that freakshow game. Like, $7,500 for a crossbow. $4,500 for a ring. LOL. Digital goods that are worth zero 6 months later. And it's not like he didn't know that would happen.

Ther's no way around it, tho. Price for each hour of entertainment is way cheaper for board games and miniature games if you actually, you know, play the game. You can get hundreds of hours out of a few hundred bucks in WMH... models, some books yadda yadda. Even if you add in the price of getting the models painted... I can't stand painting or putting together models... it's still cheap if you play it.

It only costs a lot if you load up $400 of models and books and then play once a year, heh. And then ragequit.

Before anyone says it, ya I know you can play bejwelled for 8000 hours or live on WoW for ten bucks a month.

Marlov wrote:
Ther's no way around it, tho. Price for each hour of entertainment is way cheaper for board games and miniature games if you actually, you know, play the game.

Even if you ignore those freaky games that you play for 1000's of hours, you can still make video gaming very cheap per hour of play.

Just don't buy games when they are brand new and not on sale. At the last Steam sale I bought a few hundreds of hours worth of games for around $100, and many of those are games from big name publishers that have been released in the past couple of years. Even if you don't wait for the big sales there's usually a couple of games on Steam each weekend going for a decent price.

But hobbies that are tedious are often cheaper per hour. That's not really anything new.

But anyway, this long tangent has basically just been to show that of all of the examples Talys rattled off, the only examples that genuinely have outstripped inflation is comic books and softback novels. In general, entertainment prices haven't done so.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Even if you ignore those freaky games that you play for 1000's of hours, you can still make video gaming very cheap per hour of play.

Just don't buy games when they are brand new and not on sale. At the last Steam sale I bought a few hundreds of hours worth of games for around $100, and many of those are games from big name publishers that have been released in the past couple of years. Even if you don't wait for the big sales there's usually a couple of games on Steam each weekend going for a decent price.

But hobbies that are tedious are often cheaper per hour. That's not really anything new.

But anyway, this long tangent has basically just been to show that of all of the examples Talys rattled off, the only examples that genuinely have outstripped inflation is comic books and softback novels. In general, entertainment prices haven't done so.

Sorta, but not quite bud

I gave as examples, movies, fiction, video games, and comics. To qualify it --

New bestselling novels, New videogames that have a season pass, movies while they are in the theatre, and all (major) comic books.

In cased you missed it, in 1989, a movie ticket was $4. http://www.examiner.com/article/40-years-of-movie-ticket-history

With novels, after a half year or so, the price drops substantially (though softcovers have still outstripped inflation); with video games, after a year or two, the price drops off a cliff.

There are a few things that I didn't do right away that I regretted because they got spoiled -- the Dragon Age before Inquisition (can't recall the title), not reading Dance of Dragons right away, and passing on a couple of major movies. Getting the endings spoiled sucks, if it's a title I care about, and it's really hard for it not to get spoiled, because friends and family talk about such things, and it's also in the media. I still can't believe that my sister spoiled what happened to Arya the end of GoT on TV -- as it differs from the book!

You may find the following study interesting, by the way: http://budgeting.thenest.com/much-money-average-american-spend-entertainment-year-26018.html

The average American spends $2504 on entertainment per year (2010), with those between 35 and 54 the biggest spenders, averaging $3,050 and the people 25 and younger spending an average of $1,334. The recent, overall trend is downward.

Also, consumers with less than $50,000 income spend less than $2,000, those who earned $100,000 or more spent an average of $5,500 while those with annual incomes of $150,000 or more averaged $7,032.

So basically, when you remove money as a factor, people will spend about 6 times as much on entertainment (not as an absolute; on average).

 Talys wrote:
In cased you missed it, in 1989, a movie ticket was $4. http://www.examiner.com/article/40-years-of-movie-ticket-history

And in case you missed it:
http://collider.com/movie-ticket-price-inflation-statistics/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/why-retail-console-games-have-never-been-cheaper-historically/

I can't find the link now but as far as I read, it's only softback novels that have increased in price beyond inflation. Other books were either constant with inflation or below.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
The average American spends $2504 on entertainment per year (2010), with those between 35 and 54 the biggest spenders, averaging $3,050 and the people 25 and younger spending an average of $1,334. The recent, overall trend is downward.

So people are spending less on entertainment?

Those numbers in general seem quite small to me, it does make me wonder what they define as "entertainment". If I summed up everything non-essential I do for the sake of fun, it'd be a lot more than that per year

@AllSeeingSkink - Maybe it's regional. That article has tickts at $8.16, and our tickets are $10.99 - $13.99 (some movies are 3D only)! And that isn't even IMAX.

I guess it's just the new release hardcovers that I like to read that are expensive I have no data to support my claim other than that hardcovers I buy seem to go up in price as the series progresses from book 1 to book 7, hahaha.

I think the trend is downward because of recessionary forces, not out of preference. The article also mentioned that the spending on Cable TV went up, which would support this (as it's a cheap way of getting more entertainment).

If someone makes $36,000 per year (seems average-ish?) their take home is probably $24,000 or so (maybe a bit more). That's $2,000 a month, subtract rent, food, transit, clothing, utilities, and what's left isn't a whole ton. Gifts aren't considered entertainment, nor things like small appliances, multiuse devices (like PCs), furniture, that kind of thing.

I wonder if they consider restaurants as entertainment? Perhaps not.

Also keep in mind the average will be weighted down by people who make significantly less.

And yeah, I also outspend the average

 jonolikespie wrote:
Just throwing it out there but the last few single sprue character blisters have been $48 and $55 AUD, not to mention that there are now dual sprue plastic blisters at $50, $60 and $65.

Back when they first came out a plastic character blister was $22, and was only like 5 years ago.

No point bringing it up. We don't count as worthwhile customers - GW even have their other customers thinking that now, apparently.

At the end of the day, it's irrelevant whether entertainment has inflated faster than the CPI, or whether GW has inflated faster than the CPI on average having some quite low inflation items and some high inflation ones.

What matters is how people feel about the prices.

In 2009-10 I was building my Tyranid army for 5th edition. I was buying as much stuff secondhand as I could, but GW had released some new kits--plastic Raveners, Trygon, for example--that I had to buy at the retail price. GW put the prices up on them by 20% in the annual price round in 2011. I just thought, "feth this, GW, I'm not playing your inflation game any more." I stopped buying any new models.

The next year 6th edition was released, with a rulebook priced £45 instead of £30, and codexes priced £30 instead of £15. Again I just stopped buying rulebooks. Not because I couldn't afford them, £30 is only £30 in one sense, but because I felt GW was blatantly milking me, particularly as I thought the direction of the rules (Strength D weapons, superheavies, Unbound, etc) was bad.

As I didn't have the codexes there was no point buying the new models for Tau and Tyranid. When 7th edition came out in 2013 (?) I didn't even bother to get the softback rulebook, and naturally I don't buy any books or figures.

So effectively in the space of four years GW turned me from a moderately keen HHHobbyist to someone who no longer plays their games.

Give that my experience of leaving Teh HHHobby mirrors GW's recent decline, I am tempted to conclude that GW's price increases and rules strategies have made a significant contribution to their problems, even though you can still buy five Space Wolf Devastators for not much more than you could in 1997.

On a parting note, if you had bought the Space Wolves in 1997, to keep up with the changing rules since then you would need to have spent about £250 on new rulebooks and codexes even if you never bought another model.

Naturally superfans like the GW products and don't mind the prices and I think GW are now very dependant on that market segment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I went back to Oxford GW and found a single character that costs £22, the Adeptus Technicus Arch-Mage Dominus. An infantry figure.

My theory is that prices are always the thing that finally makes a long time hobbyist stop buying.

When you're new, it's all exciting, and you buy everything. Then you start doing tournaments, building converted armies, or expanding to Apoc size, and you buy bigger. Then, you have enough to play, so your buying slows down, with most purchases meant for "some day."

One day, you realize that while you have thousands of dollars of product, you barely play, and need to buy a hundred dollars worth of rules just to play, and god knows how much in models to be even remotely competitive.

It's not that the prices are that much higher, or that suddenly the gamer can't afford them, its that there simply isn't any value there.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

As I didn't have the codexes there was no point buying the new models for Tau and Tyranid. When 7th edition came out in 2013 (?) I didn't even bother to get the softback rulebook, and naturally I don't buy any books or figures.

That's largely what happened with me. I found the books too expensive, so didn't have any reason to buy new stuff, and before I knew it I was entirely out of date and just not interested in keeping up. The only time I play in a GW store is at WHW where they seem a bit more laid back about Oldhammer.

 Polonius wrote:
My theory is that prices are always the thing that finally makes a long time hobbyist stop buying.

When you're new, it's all exciting, and you buy everything. Then you start doing tournaments, building converted armies, or expanding to Apoc size, and you buy bigger. Then, you have enough to play, so your buying slows down, with most purchases meant for "some day."

One day, you realize that while you have thousands of dollars of product, you barely play, and need to buy a hundred dollars worth of rules just to play, and god knows how much in models to be even remotely competitive.

It's not that the prices are that much higher, or that suddenly the gamer can't afford them, its that there simply isn't any value there.

For me it is that GW turned playing the game into an online RPG style level grind with money in place of time, and keeping level pegging in place of advancement.

I just want GW to make the game good, finish it and stop fiddling, then make another new game with a different setting, mechanics and models.

This is why I would welcome an AoS version of 40K.

I am not tempted to splash £85 on the soon to be out of date current rulebook and codex so I might be tempted to splash £50 on the Haruspex.

Reset all the armies so my current models would be usable again. Free rules and codexes. Cut out the crap and make the agme a lot simpler again. Then I might act on the temptation to splash £50 on a Haruspex, and even some of the other models.

 Polonius wrote:
My theory is that prices are always the thing that finally makes a long time hobbyist stop buying.

When you're new, it's all exciting, and you buy everything. Then you start doing tournaments, building converted armies, or expanding to Apoc size, and you buy bigger. Then, you have enough to play, so your buying slows down, with most purchases meant for "some day."

One day, you realize that while you have thousands of dollars of product, you barely play, and need to buy a hundred dollars worth of rules just to play, and god knows how much in models to be even remotely competitive.

It's not that the prices are that much higher, or that suddenly the gamer can't afford them, its that there simply isn't any value there.

Yeah I definitely think the value has been eroded in 40K. When I first started I had a box of 36 plastic Imperial Guard and a WD with their force org, stat profiles and background. Later I picked up a metal command squad blister pack and that was all the troops I needed. One box and a metal blister pack and I was set. Today, to get the same number of troops plus a command squad I'd have to get 5 boxes and spend a lot more money and I'd still need to buy more units to get a good playable army.

GW broke their own game and did it deliberately to try to sell more models. Now they're stuck in an oxymoronic position of wanting to charge top dollar for high end models that you need to field dozens of to play the game because they've kept the basic skirmish/RPG mindset for rules that they had in Rogue Trader but scaled up the size of battles to include superheavies and titans. It costs more to buy all the minis you need to field an army, then you have to buy all the paints and supplies, and spend weeks/months getting everything assebled and painted how you want before you can maximize your gameplay enjoyment (and that's not counting spending more money on rulebooks and codices).

The cost of rules alone to allow me to play the current edition with the models I already have takes a sizable bite out of my hobby budget. The quality of those rules and the way they change the FOC and army comp from previous editions erodes their value to me. If GW wants me to play their game they need to make it easy for me to do so instead of setting up hurdles in my path that I have to clear. I could repeat every step I took in starting the hobby back in the early 90s today and each step would cost more, require more purchases and consequently require more of my time than it did before.

Now that my kids are getting old enough to show some interest in tabletop games I can't introduce them to 40K by buying them stuff the way my parents bought me stuff when I was a kid. My kids will have to be introduced via things like Reaper Bones and Zombicide and learning to play games like KoW with my old armies. it's unfortunate that GW chose this route because now I'm divesting from 40K rather than trying to pass it on to another generation.

A SM Tac squad cost $22.99 in 2000.
A SM Tac squad costs $40 today. Same sculpts, same number of little men, added some bits and bobs to the sprue.
74% increase

A 2nd Edition SM Rhino cost $24.99 in 2000. Resculpted in 2002 to the current model, still only $24.99 (WHAT?!)
A SM Rhino costs $37.25 today.
49% increase

Those are the metrics that matter to the vast majority of players of GW games. And before someone makes the ridiculous argument that you now get some new weapons on the sprues making it worth the price increase, remember that GW used to sell bitz by the gram. A metal meltagun to add to your plastic tac squad was something like 20 cents.

 Polonius wrote:
My theory is that prices are always the thing that finally makes a long time hobbyist stop buying.

When you're new, it's all exciting, and you buy everything. Then you start doing tournaments, building converted armies, or expanding to Apoc size, and you buy bigger. Then, you have enough to play, so your buying slows down, with most purchases meant for "some day."

One day, you realize that while you have thousands of dollars of product, you barely play, and need to buy a hundred dollars worth of rules just to play, and god knows how much in models to be even remotely competitive.

It's not that the prices are that much higher, or that suddenly the gamer can't afford them, its that there simply isn't any value there.

Pretty much sums up my hobby progression over the last 15 years. It's not that I can't afford the hobby, I just shake my head and laugh at the prices, all the while saying "NOPE!"