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For me the rulebook obstacle is far too expensive - and the standard game size is too large for me as well.

I bought a box of Skitarii to paint up last year and that was really fun. I will eventually build a small Skitarii force, but I'll aim for it to be "2nd Edition" size (30-ish models). Even my hay day of playing 40K - 5th edition - I used to play 1250pt games at the largest.

This is one of the reasons I love AoS, the total model count is much lower.

 Korinov wrote:

Gamgee wrote:(...)

From what you're typing here, you seem to be currently walking through a period of heavy disillusion with videogaming. There's nothing wrong with that, it can happen to everyone.

There's something very important in regards to videogames though: you have to know what kind of games you really enjoy. Tastes may change over time sure, but seriously, the first step towards enjoying gaming is usually getting to know your own tastes. If you're not into a certain type of genre... it doesn't matter how good a game may be, you won't probably like it, and if you've paid good money for it you'll obviously feel scammed.

Currently, the amount of games being released is so insanely huge that for me, it's enough to compensate for some shady and worrysome practices that seem to have taken a strong grip on the industry. Of course, as well as knowing your tastes, you also need to know who you're buying from. If you heavily dislike certain companies' ways of doing things, never buy games from them. Example? Dragon Age 2 taught me (the hard way) not to buy another EA game ever again. The way they've handled their Assassin's Creed franchise also told me (from afar, never really been a fan) that it's better to stay away from Ubisoft.

As for indie games, they usually have a more modest scope than your typical AAA game, so their actual target population is smaller too. Before throwing your money at an indie game, learn about it for a while then decide if it's actually a game for you.

In the end, if you carefully choose what games to buy and when (never buy a game on release, wait until it's been patched and on discount, don't be stupid enough to pay full retail then do tester's job) you'll probably get great value from your games, and they won't feel expensive.

Tinkrr wrote:As for the gaming industry as a whole, it's not that we're seeing less good games, if anything we're probably seeing more, it's just that now pretty much everyone has the tools to release and publish a game, so we're also seeing a lot more junk. There has always been more junk than there have been good games, that's just natural though. Remember we're not the generation that had the ET game.

Agreed. It's just a matter of being a responsible customer and not buying things blindly.

Sounds like your sweeping all of the issues under the rug.

The thing is, if 40k is supposed to be a premium game and justify its price, then GW is doing a really bad job on the rules side of things. If nothing else, the FAQ issue is a major one. Companies like FFG and PP are way better at issuing FAQs and errata to keep the game balanced and it makes GW look really bad to neglect that.

Ebay is very tough to find deals. For orks at least, people seem to think random blobs of paint is "professionally painted" and charge more than retail. Occasionally a decent discount shows up that isn't Nobz of Kans. Pretty rare, though.

THERE ARE TWO S's IN GAMES WORKSHOP AND THEY ARE BOTH DOLLAR SIGNS.

Hung at at local geedupps for years, they remind me of an expensive lover that drags you heart over shards of broken glass. They want you money don't give a feth about you!

I was read to defend them to the bitter end, but with 7th ed is like calvin Ball and/ or forced apoc mad me go to the dark side.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I would highly recommend you check out Black Gobbo in the Wayback Machine.

Black Goblin D:

I remember that from when I last played, they actually wrote a thing in response to a question I submitted back then, it was about chaos terrain and they made one for each chaos god to show off...

Issue number three: "Ask the Scenery Guy: Daemon World Terrain (40k)"

That's me! Oh the good old days D:. I even remember it extra hard since I was so happy about it and talked about it at my local gaming club, which then unveiled their awesome Khorne board, to which the owner was all like "No, demon terrain, hu?" in the nicest way possible. What a great time.


Edit: They even corrected my horrible grammar and spelling at the time when they published my question, because I was a young teen and yea it was just amazing, something small like that made me buy a whole new army... Man, what happened to GW, now they don't even allow online retailers in my country to use a shopping cart feature :/.

j_p_chess wrote:
THERE ARE TWO S's IN GAMES WORKSHOP AND THEY ARE BOTH DOLLAR SIGNS.

Hung at at local geedupps for years, they remind me of an expensive lover that drags you heart over shards of broken glass. They want you money don't give a feth about you!

I was read to defend them to the bitter end, but with 7th ed is like calvin Ball and/ or forced apoc mad me go to the dark side.

I feel really sorry for you, but I would say the people at my GW were awesome.

 Tinkrr wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I would highly recommend you check out Black Gobbo in the Wayback Machine.

Black Goblin D:

I remember that from when I last played, they actually wrote a thing in response to a question I submitted back then, it was about chaos terrain and they made one for each chaos god to show off...

Issue number three: "Ask the Scenery Guy: Daemon World Terrain (40k)"

That's me! Oh the good old days D:. I even remember it extra hard since I was so happy about it and talked about it at my local gaming club, which then unveiled their awesome Khorne board, to which the owner was all like "No, demon terrain, hu?" in the nicest way possible. What a great time.


Edit: They even corrected my horrible grammar and spelling at the time when they published my question, because I was a young teen and yea it was just amazing, something small like that made me buy a whole new army... Man, what happened to GW, now they don't even allow online retailers in my country to use a shopping cart feature :/.

I didn't even know about independent retailers until a GW store manager told me about them. Fun fact; they even use to have a nickname for such people; Rogue Traders. I still have an old White Dwarf with yellowing pages that listed all the local ones.

The game was just as unbalanced back then, but little things like this use to be like a hot bowl of soup on a cold winter day. Now it's just licking icicles.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I would highly recommend you check out Black Gobbo in the Wayback Machine.

Black Goblin D:

I remember that from when I last played, they actually wrote a thing in response to a question I submitted back then, it was about chaos terrain and they made one for each chaos god to show off...

Issue number three: "Ask the Scenery Guy: Daemon World Terrain (40k)"

That's me! Oh the good old days D:. I even remember it extra hard since I was so happy about it and talked about it at my local gaming club, which then unveiled their awesome Khorne board, to which the owner was all like "No, demon terrain, hu?" in the nicest way possible. What a great time.


Edit: They even corrected my horrible grammar and spelling at the time when they published my question, because I was a young teen and yea it was just amazing, something small like that made me buy a whole new army... Man, what happened to GW, now they don't even allow online retailers in my country to use a shopping cart feature :/.

I didn't even know about independent retailers until a GW store manager told me about them. Fun fact; they even use to have a nickname for such people; Rogue Traders. I still have an old White Dwarf with yellowing pages that listed all the local ones.

The game was just as unbalanced back then, but little things like this use to be like a hot bowl of soup on a cold winter day. Now it's just licking icicles.

It was a super weird time, I remember when the store would have Eye of Terror narrative stuff, it even included BFG boarding maps. All of it was basically bring 500 points, wait in a queue and when a player go eliminated they would bring in another player. Something like 10+ players could be on a map at a time, since it was four 6x4 tables put together, whether it was assault on the Gates of Cadia, or something else. The store stuff was painted very well, with a lot of unique stuff. I think I went to three of these events...

There were other such events, such as the Halloween event, where you would bring a model with fluorescent paint for 40k, or WHFB, and just play in a zombie grinder, with each zombie being a point. For a few years they said anyone who wins one of those events gets an army of X points. I didn't win the first year I went, which was a much larger prize, but the second year I went i lost early in the 40k event because I was backstabbed by someone who went "Lawls, I am random, gonna just kill all." I went up stairs, feeling kind of down, where I ran into a player who was much older, a grey beard as you would, and started talking to him. He had lost in the Fantasy version of the event as he enjoyed it more, and said he'd let me use his model if I so wanted... I went down with his model and a rule sheet I knew nothing about, it was a War Priest of Sigmar, and I just handed it to the guy running that table, under all the black lights, as I placed my glowing model down.... I didn't know what I was doing, I just saw an ability on the sheet that hit undead hard, but only if I was in range, so as a newb the community was super inviting and I ran into packs while using my AOE ability. Soon it became clear I was very much ahead, I had a stack of chip tokens they used to denote points. I saw a player near me, someone with a melee beast. I told him I'd give him a forth of my prize if he protected me, I was scared, I was the target on that table. He'd go in with his tank, cluster the zombies, and I'd run in to drop my AOE. There was one of those "That guys" there, he was utterly obnoxious as a person, not just in the game but as a whole, and he killed me eventually,despite the best efforts of my body guard.

I went upstairs, not knowing if I'd win the event, but knowing I was close. I handed the model back to the person who let me borrow it, and said that I'd give them a fourth of my winnings just for letting me try it, if I did win, though I didn't think I would.. A the end of the day I gave away over five hundred points of Bretonnians to those players, since they player either that army or Empire and the models could be used for either. It also gave me my first fantasy army that ended up as Empire.

It was only a few months later that the store went from 90% GW product to basically any other product they could find in the genre.... Flames of War, Confrontation, Warmachine, etc. What had changed was GW started opening their own stores in the area, and trying to edge out FLGS stores, so they were forced to either die or change... Yea, it was a sad time to see a store that did so much for the game simply have to move away from it :/.

Edit: And yes I bought a Menoth Army... I won a plaque in a tournament x_X

Indeed. When they still hosted articles back then as well as interviews, design sketches and showcases, the hobby really felt more vibrant and alive. On top of that while the miniatures weren't exactly cheap, anything outside of forge world wasn't that unreasonable either. I mean 30 bucks for a metal carnifex or 12 bucks for a metal blisterpack character is kinda expensive, but not that harsh (the equivallent of both of those now would be a total of 105 bucks in Canadian).

Remember when Black Reach was only 60 bucks? Those were the good days.

Honestly, I don't remember Black Reach at all, I don't know if it was simply a product I didn't consider, or it was after my time, but yea no clue what it was.

I don't think the models are over priced, even now with how much waste there is in a kit, I mean really now a dual kit is nice, but if you pay 50$ for a Fire Warrior set and almost half of it can't be used, it's pretty wasteful. I'd rather they just make a Striker and Breacher sprue, but optimizing placement on the mold, and then sell a box with two of one sprue, as opposed to "hey, you can buy this box and toss half of it somewhere, but you have options, right?" I get it for retailers, now they can buy one kit and sell it to both the guy wanting Breachers and the one wanting Strikers, so there's safety there, but come on, I'm sure there's a better way to do that than simply charging more for a large chunk of stuff that you won't use.

It feel expensive because other miniatures cost lest in comparison. Hell the chinese make toys of higher quality and painted out of the box.

Because it IS expensive and it devalues really fast.

A few years ago I traded a MtG-card that was 100 dollar.
I traded it for cards of that value because the community decided it was worth that much!
That's difference #1: The community decides most of the value.

Now a couple of years later I played the card many times and I've put it in a sleeve.
I can now resell it at 600 USD.
Despite me sleeving it ánd playing it, the price actually increased.
I could sell my collection and I'd gain more money than I spent on it.

Now back to GW.
I need to get a Blood Angel tactical squad for 43 dollar, that's nearly three MtG-decks.
And 10 marines isn't enough: I need more packs, I need paint, a book, templates, terrain and something to play on.

When I am finally done with the hobby and try to sell my 10 marines, I will find they are either unsellable or worth only half of what I paid for them.
Not that this is a bad thing, but it's different fro MtG.

 Tinkrr wrote:
Honestly, I don't remember Black Reach at all, I don't know if it was simply a product I didn't consider, or it was after my time, but yea no clue what it was.

I don't think the models are over priced, even now with how much waste there is in a kit, I mean really now a dual kit is nice, but if you pay 50$ for a Fire Warrior set and almost half of it can't be used, it's pretty wasteful. I'd rather they just make a Striker and Breacher sprue, but optimizing placement on the mold, and then sell a box with two of one sprue, as opposed to "hey, you can buy this box and toss half of it somewhere, but you have options, right?" I get it for retailers, now they can buy one kit and sell it to both the guy wanting Breachers and the one wanting Strikers, so there's safety there, but come on, I'm sure there's a better way to do that than simply charging more for a large chunk of stuff that you won't use.

Black Reach was the starter set before Dark Vengeance. It had 1 Generic Tactical Squad, 1 generic Dreadnought (melta dread only), 1 Generic Terminator Squad (no special weapons of any kind and only PFs and SB) and 1 Captain for the Space Marines. For Orks, it had 3 plastic Deffkoptas, 20 boyz (with 3 having Big Shootas), 5 Nobz and a Warboss.

All of that for basically the price of a terminator box.

I don't know if someone mentioned this, but I feel my metal models are a lot more valuable than my plastic / resin ones just because you can feel the weight in them.

I know metal is a pain to work with, but it just feels right that they have that weight, I actually bought all my oblits used just so I could have 9 of the metal ones.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
The thing is, if 40k is supposed to be a premium game and justify its price, then GW is doing a really bad job on the rules side of things. If nothing else, the FAQ issue is a major one. Companies like FFG and PP are way better at issuing FAQs and errata to keep the game balanced and it makes GW look really bad to neglect that.

I am not saying this as a challenge to you, but it seems to me that some people are starting to use this idea of premium to justify the high prices. I.e. not GW prices are high because it's a premium game, but it's a premium game because prices are high.

What is a premium game, anyway? A leather bound rulebook is a premium book, but what makes the standard rulebook a premium item?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
what makes the standard rulebook a premium item?

I can't answer that, but I can tell you some spellchecking and quality control is needed.

If an item is premium, it generally means it was crafted with the utmost care and quality, while also having a price to justify the skill and materials that went in.

Vallejo Paints would be considered a premium item compared to dollar store paints since Vallejo has finer pigments, better consistency, and better pigment materials. All of that requires a bit more skill to make than the normal dollar store paints, especially the finer pigments.

GW Miniatures does indeed fit the "premium" bit, as the miniatures are pretty awesome and the customer service is impeccable (the plastic is indeed quite high quality compared to some of the other stuff I've worked with and their customer service never make you jump through hoops when you're missing stuff). However, the rules are where it's grossly lacking. This is probably why in recent years they declared themselves a Miniature Company, not a Game company (despite the name) because even they know that their game is sub-par for the money you pay (in that the basic necessities such as rules patching, playtesting or even proofreading isn't even present, which is the bare minimum).

A premium game would be something like magic, where they higher professional players to design and test the game. They also have things like The Future Future League (yes two futures) which play tests sets extensively in hopes of predicting the future meta of the game so that they can iron out any problems that might occur when the set is released. Basically they do everything that is possible to make sure the game works and is enjoyable. Hearthstone for example doesn't do this and while it's still a fun game it's very unbalanced, which results in decks that need to be nerfed each set almost, though Hearthstone is a rather new game compared to Magic which had similar issues early on until they revamped their R&D process completely.

Well, I've been quite into XWing lately, and I think a small-ish XWing ship is, objectively, more expensive than, say, a box of Kataphron Destroyers.

But then, the XWing ship is priced at 15-20€. I can justify buying one of those every week. 15€ won't get in the way of filling a tank, having a couple of beers, going to the movies or paying the swimming pool fees. However, keeping up with 40k was starting to feel disruptive.

In the last two years, GW has effectively removed the option to make small purchases. Like it or not, everything is priced around the 40-50€ mark. 50€ that more often than not require another 50€ to become a barely playable unit. GW prefers that you build your army in 2-3 big purchases of 200€ and more than in 30 small ones.

40k isn't more expensive than other games out there, but the way it's marketed forces you to spend unreasonable ammounts of money in one pop and that's why it ends up feeling heavier on the wallet, and why other games who trust the gamer-collector to develop an interest in their products and slowly build their collections are prospering right now while GW seems on a steady decline.

Actually, one thing that I really don't like about the current GW stuff, is that it comes with so much wasted stuff. I get that if you have a model where you can change one front armour plate and the arms on the rider (such as the chicken walkers for the Ad Mech) it makes sense to make it a dual kit, but then something like the Fire Warrior kit where the only thing keeping you from making twice the models as it includes is an extra set of torsos and legs because you get everything else, that's just excessive. I'd just rather have two smaller kits that are cheaper :/.

 Tinkrr wrote:
A premium game would be something like magic, where they higher professional players to design and test the game. They also have things like The Future Future League (yes two futures) which play tests sets extensively in hopes of predicting the future meta of the game so that they can iron out any problems that might occur when the set is released. Basically they do everything that is possible to make sure the game works and is enjoyable.

Nope, that's just a game. There's nothing premium about testing your product throughly to make sure it's fit for purpose and stands up to stress testing.

A premium product is, in the broadest terms, a product that eschews economies in production in favour of improvements in final quality, no matter how small or incremental. It all starts to get a bit ephemeral after that, because "quality" can be very personal in a product of this nature, and what one customer prizes as an improvement another will view as an unnecessary extravagance.

Take codexes as an example. Someone who prizes the object of the book itself will likely point to the current hard back, full color, properly bound format and declare it better quality (and likely worth the extra money.) A gamer will likely declare this unnecessary frippery that is making obtaining the rules more expensive and in actual fact the quality of the content of those rules has, for many, reduced.

One things for sure, a company can decide to make a premium product by investing more in production in order to justify a higher cost and differentiate itself from its competition. The market will then decide if the extra quality on offer is worth the difference in price.

What a company can't do is utilize exactly the same production methods and materials as the competition, do absolutely nothing differently to make it stand out, call their product "premium" and therefore charge more money. The market is smarter than that, and ultimately figure it out, which is at the core of the issues plaguing GW at the moment.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:
Here's my thoughts on why I think 40k feels so expensive, the simple answer being that the game isn't good enough to justify the price.

That right there sums it up to me.

Basically. In Infinity, you spend $8-12 for an infantry model, but they are all useful in the tight rules set provided by the developers. 40k models can easily become completely invalidated following a codex or edition change. There's no such thing as an 'investment' in 40k.

The purpose of hardback binding is longevity. A hardback is more resistant to shelf wear and damage from handling.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The purpose of hardback binding is longevity. A hardback is more resistant to shelf wear and damage from handling.

A shame they have arrived at a time when codex lifespans are at an all time low.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The purpose of hardback binding is longevity. A hardback is more resistant to shelf wear and damage from handling.

Which is extremely necessary when those books on average will be relevant for 2 years tops, if you're lucky.

I actually think the books should be cheaper but last less. Having armies with no updates for over a year is weird :/.

I'd basically have three releases a year if I was in charge. The first release would be a codex (faq updates in it at the least) for every army, worth 25$ or so. Then I'd have a mid-ish year update to supplements in the same manner as codices, but again only 10$ or so each, and finally end of the year secondary supplements being updated in the same way. Cut the fluff and stuff from the codices and supplements, leaving just enough to make them worthwhile. Then release an art/fluff book with the codices that can be done in different styles like Imperium news casts, or whatever with each release to give all the flavour of the game. Things like the FAQs would be free online, but the new editions would have them included, along with any new stuff/

Basically create a serious tournament scene, one that especially appeals to casual players (as in FNM) and then make the rules less required, and more as something people simply are compelled to buy because they're good and convenient.

Personally I think paying for rules is ass. Rules should always be online and free so not only can they update them, but also make them accessible to potential new players.

This is where a premium item would be good, cuz if I like the lore behind an army I would totally pay for a premium "codex" filled with modelling tips, painting guides, lore and the rules.

I think charging for rules is fine. Publishers have to make money somehow. There are plenty of free rules online. If Osprey can compete with them, and get me to pay £12 for a printed colour book with pictures, I say fair play to Osprey.

Most companies' rules are much cheaper than GW and in many cases have downloadable free trial versions. Example of rules pricing for games that have gone through a number of editions:

Price of playing Tau in 40K since 1999, not including cost of models and dataslates = £252. (Four editions, and four codexes.)

Price of playing all the armies in Wargames Research Group's De Bellis Antiquitatis since 1990, not including cost of models = £25. (Three editions, containing all the army lists.)

Mantic and Infinity do free downloadable intro rules. AoS basically is the same for GW, so maybe they have seen the light, although given the rumours that AoS has failed to set the skies alight, it's unlikely GW will do the same to 40K in a hurry.

The fact is, GW's strategy is to price high to cover the costs of running their retail chain they need to recruit new customers. If you are a veteran, there isn't much reason to visit a GW shop. They don't stock much of the range outside the basics and new releases. Yet the retail chain soaks up about half their turn-over.

As a veteran, if you continue to buy GW kits, you are paying a premium for the privilege of enabling GW to ignore your wants and recruit newbies instead.

Infinity actually has complete free rules. They leave out story fluff in the free rulebook PDF but its otherwise complete and the official army builder gives you access to every figure's rules for free.